General Qassem Soleimani - no more

Don’t want nuthin’, don’t start nuthin’ Kudos to President Trump.

We have embassies on the borders of iran because, libtard, we need to be the world police, libtard, and we can have a strong economy from the military industrial complex, and you're a libtard if you hate the military industrial complex. We use the world police motive as an excuse while we go to pointless wars with other countries and make the military industrial complex money. What's more, we have those embassies in stupid places so if the people who don't like us attack it, we can go to even more pointless wars, while giving us the delusion that we're patriots. Also, if you dare criticize my patriotism, you're a libtard who should be drafted and sent to Iran to give my alpha ego a boost.

Until humanity worldwide wakes up, evolves beyond the ego, and stops acting out its deeply rooted insecurities, I am glad US is the one policing the world. As f**ked up as this whole setup is, if we were to take a step back and surrender that role, someone else will immediately come in to fill that space and throw their weight around at our expense. I do not want to live under Chinese social score, 24/7 tracking and surveillance.

If I recall correctly, there's a university in the US already enacting "social scoring", which means that particular disease has already infected America.

Considering how marxist most universities are, and the commies they produce, somehow I'm not surprised they have chose to go in that direction. Sad.

Okay, here's the article I was thinking of. It's actually in quite a lot of schools now, and it's not just a "social credit" thing, it has a very ominous "big brother is watching" vibe to it.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/27/surveillance-universities-attendance-smartphones/

"he prefers the term “monitored” instead of “tracked,” because the former supposedly carries a negative connotation. “It’s about building that relationship,” so students “know you care about them,”" HAHAHAHAHAHA Unbelievable!

Tyranny has been introduced to these mass engineered idiots, while they were too busy being outraged and protesting everything and anything, except that which it mattered the most. Their freedom.

I noticed that particular sentence when I read it too. He /prefers/ "monitored" because it carries a negative connotation? Freudian slip, d'ya think, accidentally admitting to nefarious motives?

I took it as if he was correcting the reporter who used the 'wrong' language when asking questions... but yeah, making their motives clear. I'm glad that was included in the article.

basically, if we don't have embassies surrounding iran acting as excuses to go to war if one of them is attacked, china will suddenly dominate the earth? that's a bit paranoid

You're mixing and confusing two separate issues.

Oh please, you people WANT the US to act as World Police, when it suits /your/ agendas.

i don't have any agendas that involve the us world police. name one when i would.

I didn't say you specifically, I said "you people". Your side has complained about Trump not helping to protect the borders of certain countries (never mind the utterly ironic hypocrisy about border security there), and about pulling troops out of Syria while they still "needed help", things like that.

Your side needs to either pick a narrative lane or just finally admit how dishonest you are.

"I said "you people". Your side has complained about Trump not helping to protect the borders of certain countries (never mind the utterly ironic hypocrisy about border security there), and about pulling troops out of Syria while they still "needed help", things like that."

my side did. not me. don't associate me with the party.

Fair enough, but on the other hand, if you primarily associate /yourself/ with a certain side, you have to be prepared to be associated with all their narratives, until you can state otherwise, same as I do.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/01/02/soleimani-trump-iran-iraq-093102

3l2et6.jpg (click to show)

I don’t like Iran, at all, but an escalation like this should have been debated. If we end up at war over this, it will be against the public’s will.

Trump will not escalate this. At least not if his future behavior is consistent with his past behavior.

To date, I think his military responses have been proportional. Would you agree or disagree?

Trump really hasn't been too belligerent, honestly. Until now.

This strike would only be "proportional" if Iran had just offed our Secretary of Defense or CIA chief. That's how high this Soleimani guy was.

It's one thing to drone-strike a high-ranking leader of a terrorist group, even a state-like terrorist group like ISIS -- but Iran is a real state. With real air, land, and sea capabilities defending it, and allied factions supporting it across the Middle East. As well as aspirations for nuclear weapons which it could fulfill if it wanted to (and you bet it's doing just that now).

The portion of Trump's response that focused on protecting the American Embassy was proportionate and justifiable in the name of a national security emergency, and I have no problems with that. But the Soleimani assassination was something else entirely. The ball's in Iran's court now and no one knows what comes next.

Well, he may not be on paper, but he sure is receiving credit for it. Just have a look at what your Politico article omitted when quoting Javad Zarif.

Irans leaders have been barking for far too long. They continued nuclear research and enrichment of uranium regardless of how much money they received or treaties they've signed. They needed a good bitch smack and got one.

So how many more Americans would have had to die at his hands, for you to consider taking him out to be proportional?

You probably didn't know that Soleimani had been designated as a terrorist by the US government, so in reality, he was treated exactly the same as any other high value terrorist target.

Your point regarding the difference between terrorist groups like ISIS and nation states like Iran is interesting, but imo is completely outdated. Even before 9/11, but definitely since, it weakens the US to consider only nation states to be credible threats to our national security.

If you really think the "executive agreement" that president Obama entered into (notice I didn't say treaty, because it was not a treaty) would have slowed Iran's nuclear program down for even an instant, I think you're naive at best. Plus, it gave back all the funds that had been frozen for years. While it wasn't giving away taxpayer money to Iran, the net effect was the same as giving them money, imo.

I am glad to see that you agree Trump's actions at the embassy were legitimate. It just goes to show that even people who generally disagree, can on rare occasions find some common ground.

There's this strange thing that happens to countries without nukes, they tend to get invaded outside of the west.

How do you know it wasn't debated?

Or do you think such debates should be held openly and publicly, announcing to the potential target that they're a potential target?

If we haven't gone to war over all the has happened over the last 50 years, I doubt war is imminent now. I could be wrong, though. If I were right more often, I'd be rich.

Yep, what exactly is the proof Iran's involved? How would Trump react if Iran struck one of his top generals?

The storming of the Baghdad Embassy is not Really what a sophisticated military operation looks like. I’m sure the protesters were sympathetic to Iran but probably not directly ordered by them.

He’s a terrorist - that’s his job. And he uses people, sacrificed people, to make our defense look bad.

You're right that it isn't an organized military offensive. I also think that such methods aren't used much today, because that would force a war rather than destabilization. These days everyone seems to use proxies. It's Viet Nam on a smaller scale.