(Above: ‘I hope the POTUS didn’t tell them we’re coming!’)
What would be stupider than starting a war with the Mid-East’s largest and most militarily capable U.S. adversary over what was essentially an Amazon delivery gone astray?
How about ordering U.S. planes in the air against one of the most sophisticated air defenses in the region while warning said adversaries they were coming?
“DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian officials told Reuters on Friday that Tehran had received a message from U.S. President Donald Trump through Oman overnight warning that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent.
“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues … he gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei to decide about this issue,” one of the officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the attack was called off…
All right. Goddammit. One thought before I take off for the day:
It's a drone. A robot. Computer chips and tin. That's it. No lives were lost or even threatened. The Navy breaks more expensive shit everyday by accident.
It's a fucking toaster, not a reason to go to war.
— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) June 20, 2019
…but ultimately I am left to wonder if the Joint Chiefs were forced to make this decision because the C-in-C ran his mouth to the intended target?
Or was it because Putin told Trump what not to do?
Either way this is no way to run an Air Force.
Please follow me on Twitter @durrati
Maybe he thinks he can talk tough and ‘bluff’ them into talks, or more to the point, tell them what HE wants them to do.
OMG, will this non-stop stupidity never end? tRump creates this situation in the first place by dropping out of the agreements we’d set up with Iran and allies, begins harassing Iran with more and more sanctions, shooting off his oversized yap the whole time, gets someone to mess with ships in the Straits, then runs spy planes through the area for weeks before Iran gets PO’ed and shoots one down that got too close. It’s all been a transparent march to dangerous war activities, probably directed by chickenhawks Bolton and Pompeo. The real chicken, tRump, despite his threats and BS, is afraid of the reality of action, which is the only good thing going on here. The rest of it is a giant sh**show, a freak show, a dark comedy of constant errors, a nightmare that I can’t wait to wake up from. Maybe the shock of sending in the planes and then calling them back may wake people up to the reality that this country is being mis-led by morans. This is no way to run the country.
Wonder when the CIA will step in and do what the general two weeks ago on the Bill Maher indicated is one of the different scenarios being considered (he actually winked when Maher mentioned it). Did anyone else notice it?
My personal guess? The CIA will do Trump zero favors based on past insults to them and the rest of the alphabet soup agencies.
You know…that actually demonstrates that Trump has a better grasp of the value of life than I gave him credit for…but just strictly the PR value.
It’s not completely unusual to tell an adversary that a strike is coming. In this case, the proportional response would be the destruction of property with an objective to avoid the loss of Iranian lives. So telling them that a target is about to be bombed is a way to allow time to evacuate a target.
That strategy sounds more from the Bolton playbook than the Trump coloring book. But one problem with that is that Iran is unpredictable… there’s no assurance that they wouldn’t view an air strike as disproportional even if it only hit property, and it’s also possible they’d allow some civilians to be killed as a strategic maneuver.
Escalation can never work with Iran, so as much as he’s incompetent and probably acting in his own self interests, Trump was right to stand down.
“Trump was right…” Gods, it must hurt to actually say that out loud and mean it.
Even a stupid clock is right twice a day…
I suppose, Rory. Even so, sounds like Mr. Tangerine Man is trying to walk back his walk back at the moment, as per usual.
Typical Repug SOP: “When the polls are down, fire the pollsters and start a new phony war!”
While that’s true on the second front (don’t agree on the first; they’re internal polls for a reason), the way we saw Trump handle it was anything but typical.