They can't do that to us now, we don't really need their oil at the moment. In fact, they'd probably drive up the profits of our domestic oil companies. How is that for irony? They can disrupt oil shipments to China if they want to though. I doubt that they will.
The global economy is global. If Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, it would cause major economic repercussions around the world. We arent insulated from those shocks. The world is already teetering at the edge of recession because of Trump's reckless trade war with China.
I agree with @Grond0 - I think Iran will almost certainly retaliate. It'll do so by uping the pressure in funding terrorism. It may also start rattling the nuclear program even louder than before.
The headlines right now are full of things like "Pompeo says this will save thousands of American lives". It's too bad that this administration has lied so often that no one is going to take them seriously.
Blame the left for granting to the power of the President the precise kind of power that he now uses to murder Iranian war heroes, their obvious hatred of whites has little to do with this. When the past president started the policy of assassination by order of the President they said and did very little and allowed him to get away with it. Their howling over every little thing for the past 3 year shows they are more than capable of some moral outrage.
Try not to throw out your shoulder with a reach like that.
The headlines right now are full of things like "Pompeo says this will save thousands of American lives". It's too bad that this administration has lied so often that no one is going to take them seriously.
There is nothing to take seriously. Does this administration, and the US populace, actually believe killing one person is going to end the terrorist actions of a group?
After Bin Laden was killed, Ayman al-Zawahiri took his place. Al-Qaeda still exists and is still flexing it's muscle in the middle east. Killing Bin Laden didn't remove the terrorism threat. The same applies here. Qud will get a new leader and will still be state sponsored. Nothing has changed except giving Iran more reasons to attack Western states.
It's not just Iran that's calling for violent action. Other groups in the Middle East are doing the same thing; Suleimani was apparently respected even outside his home country. We're giving lots of people a new reason to attack the United States. We even pissed off the Iraqis for conducting the strike on their territory, and we're not supposed to be enemies with the Iraqis anymore.
I fail to see how this could be worth the blowback, or even the monetary cost of the drone strike itself. The man was old, out of his prime, and he was replaced within hours. There is not even a symbolic victory to be had; the man was unknown to the Western public before now, and his role was a military commander rather than a terrorist insurgent. At best we hastened a single military official's retirement by a few years, and now we have multiple foreign governments and organizations calling for blood.
I doubt the administration actually did a careful analysis of what they were trying to accomplish. My guess is that someone in the administration essentially just said Suleimani was a bad guy and that was the only question that was asked.
Iran could be a nuclear power soon; they've already toyed with the idea of fully restarting their nuclear program now that the Trump administration dropped out of the nuclear deal. This is the worst possible time to start hostilities.
It's not just Iran that's calling for violent action. Other groups in the Middle East are doing the same thing; Suleimani was apparently respected even outside his home country. We're giving lots of people a new reason to attack the United States. We even pissed off the Iraqis for conducting the strike on their territory, and we're not supposed to be enemies with the Iraqis anymore.
I fail to see how this could be worth the blowback, or even the monetary cost of the drone strike itself. The man was old, out of his prime, and he was replaced within hours. There is not even a symbolic victory to be had; the man was unknown to the Western public before now, and his role was a military commander rather than a terrorist insurgent. At best we hastened a single military official's retirement by a few years, and now we have multiple foreign governments and organizations calling for blood.
I doubt the administration actually did a careful analysis of what they were trying to accomplish. My guess is that someone in the administration essentially just said Suleimani was a bad guy and that was the only question that was asked.
Iran could be a nuclear power soon; they've already toyed with the idea of fully restarting their nuclear program now that the Trump administration dropped out of the nuclear deal. This is the worst possible time to start hostilities.
Apparently (according to media reports) Trump was shown a Powerpoint of possible options. One of them was killing Suleimani. They were surprised when he choose it. One has to ask why his military advisers included it in the first place if that is the case. There is an interview Trump did with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt in 2015 that has now surfaced. Hewitt asks him about Suleimani and, try as he might to bullshit his way out of it in the moment, it is OBVIOUS Trump has no idea who the guy is. He then mistakes the Qud for the Kurds and (the irony is almost too rich on this) then talks about how badly we've mistreated the Kurds, before being corrected. Point being, Trump clearly had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.
The other point being the NUMEROUS times Trump predicted Obama would attack Iran to boost his reelection chances. Not only did this not happen, but Obama actively sought out and ACHIEVED a way to avoid this type of conflict with Iran going forward. He did the exact OPPOSITE of what Trump predicted. Trump wasn't giving insight into what Obama would do, he was projecting what HE would do in the same position. You don't need to be Freud to figure this guy out. In any given situation, there is a tweet from 4 or 5 years ago of him accusing someone of doing exactly what he would eventually do when in office. It's like clockwork.
In any given situation, there is a tweet from 4 or 5 years ago of him accusing someone of doing exactly what he would eventually do when in office. It's like clockwork.
There really is a tweet, for almost every political topic imaginable. A lot of them are pretty good takes, actually. Then he went and did everything he said he wouldn't do in 2012-2016.
In any given situation, there is a tweet from 4 or 5 years ago of him accusing someone of doing exactly what he would eventually do when in office. It's like clockwork.
There really is a tweet, for almost every political topic imaginable. A lot of them are pretty good takes, actually. Then he went and did everything he said he wouldn't do in 2012-2016.
He was tweeting just as much then as he is now. Difference being no one was paying attention. His only real audience at the time was FOX News viewers, where he would call into the morning show. But, again, this is where he learned to talk to the Republican base. I'm still not convinced Donald Trump BELIEVES in anything at all other than power and money.
So the Trump administration can't be trusted on any facts. They lie when they say anything and coverup everything else.
They claim this Iranian general who was 62 years old had killed 600 Americans in the Iraq war which was a conflict that saw the US kill somewheres between 151,000 and a million Iraqis. So are we saying it's cool after a war to target military commanders? So it would be cool if Iran were to kill an American general who killed thousands of Iraqis? They blame this dead man, who can't really argue, about the recent embassy protests over American drone strikes. Yeah none of this adds up.
If you are going to drone strike someone over 600 deaths, why not the people responsible for 45,000 deaths annually?
Personally, I think nothing major will happen. Iran has to know they have nothing to gain unless they can get the UN on their side maybe. The US has even less to gain. Iran is on a whole different level than Kuwait or even Iraq. Their population is well over 100 million and the land mass is huge! I expect some saber rattling and maybe a few rockets launched at Israel and that's about it.
That's a Tuesday in the Middle East...
Just remember how WWI started. A Serbian student shot an Austrian Archduke.
Now, I have faith humanity has matured a bit since then, and presidents not gonna push red buttons left and right. But it's not required either, to make things uglier than they need to be. One Iranian official assassinated - one bit less of stability in the region - one bit more of oil chaos, refugees, bombers, plane hijackers, trade wars etc. Enough reason for a common man to be discomforted. That snake nest they call Middle East needs to calm down, not be poked with hot iron.
It's at least a tad bit surprising that no one has mentioned the fact that the legal smoking age in the United States has been officially changed to 21. I'll wait for some others to chime in before sharing my thoughts as I have less time at the moment.
There was a proposal by some official in Russia to increase the legal age by one year every year, so that essentially those who already smoked could continue doing so, while new generation would be prohibited to.
I wonder if people who are 18-20 right now can grandfather clause out of the ban? I also wonder how long it will take for medical professionals to find out that smoking weed is no better for your lungs than cigarettes?
I wonder if people who are 18-20 right now can grandfather clause out of the ban? I also wonder how long it will take for medical professionals to find out that smoking weed is no better for your lungs than cigarettes?
They bumped up the age? Great! If fewer people are dying to lung cancer and shelling out billions to tobacco companies who poison them with addictive drugs, that's fantastic news. One of the nice things about age limits is that they're a lot easier to enforce than nationwide bans.
Marijuana doesn't cause addiction and it's less toxic than tobacco products, to the point that it's flat-out non-toxic when it's eaten instead of smoked. I'd still restrict it to 21 or older, though, since there's a precedent for it, and preventing kids from buying otherwise legally available drugs is a lot cheaper and easier than banning them in the entire country.
Even that correction is weasel-worded - still giving the impression that there was some link. Suggesting Iran bears responsibility for 9/11 as a state sponsor of terrorism makes about as much sense as suggesting that the US is responsible for North Korea's missile program due to its role as a state sponsor of nuclear technology .
The New York Times is doing this AS WE SPEAK. Here is a thread by their reporter on the region clearly indicating that the Administration reasoning is flimsy at best. The question most intelligent people are asking is, why in the hell is she having to tweet it out in 17 parts rather than the Times publishing it as an official article??:
Don't look to hard-working people like this reporter as the problem. Look at the Editors. There is NO question the NYT mid-wifed the 2003 Iraq War by way of Judy Miller being Dick Cheney's stenographer.
The New York Times is doing this AS WE SPEAK. Here is a thread by their reporter on the region clearly indicating that the Administration reasoning is flimsy at best. The question most intelligent people are asking is, why in the hell is she having to tweet it out in 17 parts rather than the Times publishing it as an official article??:
Don't look to hard-working people like this reporter as the problem. Look at the Editors. There is NO question the NYT mid-wifed the 2003 Iraq War by way of Judy Miller being Dick Cheney's stenographer.
Or maybe because the green zone was just attacked with rock fire, therefore, the "razor-thin imminent attack" didn't hold true.
Or maybe because the green zone was just attacked with rock fire, therefore, the "razor-thin imminent attack" didn't hold true.
A - I'm made to understand that attacks on the green zone are fairly common.
B - Context suggest the reporter is referring to the justification for the assassination of Suleimani being that he was about to embark upon a huge series of attacks against Americans in the middle east, with causalities numbering in the "thousands". This is what she suggests is razor thin.
Reading her thread, it's clear this is what she's referring to.
There shouldn't be a "Green Zone". It should never have existed. It's very nature is illegal.
Trump has now said he has designated 52 targets in Iran for strikes if Iran retaliates (literally because of the number of hostages in 1980, god this is so dumb). So we now have a near-guarantee of constant escalation until the rope finally breaks. There is now no getting out of this cycle. It's inevitable.
What's the point of even voting. For over 10 years now we've been promised a winding down and eventual removal of our presence in the mid East and every time around we get more and more of it.
Tobacco isn't exactly addictive by itself either, it's the habit of having a smoke that is difficult to get rid of.
The nicotinic receptors in your brain would strongly disagree with you.
I quit smoking 15 yrs ago and the hardest thing, after multiple attempts, was to kick the physical part of the habit. Smoking in the car, after a meal, with a coffee, after sex and while drinking alcohol. Tried the patch and nicorette but they would just give me panic attacks, overload of nicotine.
The final time I attempted to quit a professor of mine told me to use 'association displeasure' as he called it. Everytime I had a craving I was to take a mouth full of Original Listerine ( tastes like ass with a mix of hot garbage ) and swish it around for a while. Kinda like electric shock therapy. It worked, combined with willpower.
It's worth noting that Trump has said the 52 sites are of "cultural importance" to Iranians. This is so, so reckless. Imagine if say, a bunch of Cubans parachuted into Philadelphia and bombed the area around the Liberty Bell, or if some North Koreans did the same by blowing up the Space Needle in Seattle. How do you imagine America would respond?? Because that is what Trump is outright screaming to every citizen of Iran. Put yourself in someone else's shoes. They now rightly view themselves in mortal danger.
Tobacco isn't exactly addictive by itself either, it's the habit of having a smoke that is difficult to get rid of.
The nicotinic receptors in your brain would strongly disagree with you.
I quit smoking 15 yrs ago and the hardest thing, after multiple attempts, was to kick the physical part of the habit. Smoking in the car, after a meal, with a coffee, after sex and while drinking alcohol. Tried the patch and nicorette but they would just give me panic attacks, overload of nicotine.
The final time I attempted to quit a professor of mine told me to use 'association displeasure' as he called it. Everytime I had a craving I was to take a mouth full of Original Listerine ( tastes like ass with a mix of hot garbage ) and swish it around for a while. Kinda like electric shock therapy. It worked, combined with willpower.
I quit about 10 years ago. The cravings were crazy. Like you're sitting there and you can literally think of nothing else. Your mind wanders and no matter what the conclusion winds up with some variation on "yeah I'll just go smoke a cigarette and then _______". I also noticed I'd get irritated at the slightest thing and the solution to calm down was just to go smoke a cigarette. For me, it was definitely a chemical addiction. The physical part got replaced with sticking food in my mouth a bit and gained weight. Still, it's better to gain weight than be addicted to nicotine and have all your clothes and car and everywhere you go stink like smoke.
Tobacco isn't exactly addictive by itself either, it's the habit of having a smoke that is difficult to get rid of.
The nicotinic receptors in your brain would strongly disagree with you.
I quit smoking 15 yrs ago and the hardest thing, after multiple attempts, was to kick the physical part of the habit. Smoking in the car, after a meal, with a coffee, after sex and while drinking alcohol. Tried the patch and nicorette but they would just give me panic attacks, overload of nicotine.
The final time I attempted to quit a professor of mine told me to use 'association displeasure' as he called it. Everytime I had a craving I was to take a mouth full of Original Listerine ( tastes like ass with a mix of hot garbage ) and swish it around for a while. Kinda like electric shock therapy. It worked, combined with willpower.
I quit about 10 years ago. The cravings were crazy. Like you're sitting there and you can literally think of nothing else. Your mind wanders and no matter what the conclusion winds up with some variation on "yeah I'll just go smoke a cigarette and then _______". I also noticed I'd get irritated at the slightest thing and the solution to calm down was just to go smoke a cigarette. For me, it was definitely a chemical addiction. The physical part got replaced with sticking food in my mouth a bit and gained weight. Still, it's better to gain weight than be addicted to nicotine and have all your clothes and car and everywhere you go stink like smoke.
It is a filthy habit that I am very happy we both kicked.
Comments
The global economy is global. If Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, it would cause major economic repercussions around the world. We arent insulated from those shocks. The world is already teetering at the edge of recession because of Trump's reckless trade war with China.
I agree with @Grond0 - I think Iran will almost certainly retaliate. It'll do so by uping the pressure in funding terrorism. It may also start rattling the nuclear program even louder than before.
The headlines right now are full of things like "Pompeo says this will save thousands of American lives". It's too bad that this administration has lied so often that no one is going to take them seriously.
Try not to throw out your shoulder with a reach like that.
There is nothing to take seriously. Does this administration, and the US populace, actually believe killing one person is going to end the terrorist actions of a group?
After Bin Laden was killed, Ayman al-Zawahiri took his place. Al-Qaeda still exists and is still flexing it's muscle in the middle east. Killing Bin Laden didn't remove the terrorism threat. The same applies here. Qud will get a new leader and will still be state sponsored. Nothing has changed except giving Iran more reasons to attack Western states.
I fail to see how this could be worth the blowback, or even the monetary cost of the drone strike itself. The man was old, out of his prime, and he was replaced within hours. There is not even a symbolic victory to be had; the man was unknown to the Western public before now, and his role was a military commander rather than a terrorist insurgent. At best we hastened a single military official's retirement by a few years, and now we have multiple foreign governments and organizations calling for blood.
I doubt the administration actually did a careful analysis of what they were trying to accomplish. My guess is that someone in the administration essentially just said Suleimani was a bad guy and that was the only question that was asked.
Iran could be a nuclear power soon; they've already toyed with the idea of fully restarting their nuclear program now that the Trump administration dropped out of the nuclear deal. This is the worst possible time to start hostilities.
Looks like the Media has you all in a tizzy. They play their part well but bravo and encore to the stars of the show.... The Serfs ( applause ).
Don't worry slaves, you will all be able to go about your lives tomorrow just like you have today.
I garun-fucking-tee it. Starbucks must go on!
Apparently (according to media reports) Trump was shown a Powerpoint of possible options. One of them was killing Suleimani. They were surprised when he choose it. One has to ask why his military advisers included it in the first place if that is the case. There is an interview Trump did with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt in 2015 that has now surfaced. Hewitt asks him about Suleimani and, try as he might to bullshit his way out of it in the moment, it is OBVIOUS Trump has no idea who the guy is. He then mistakes the Qud for the Kurds and (the irony is almost too rich on this) then talks about how badly we've mistreated the Kurds, before being corrected. Point being, Trump clearly had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.
The other point being the NUMEROUS times Trump predicted Obama would attack Iran to boost his reelection chances. Not only did this not happen, but Obama actively sought out and ACHIEVED a way to avoid this type of conflict with Iran going forward. He did the exact OPPOSITE of what Trump predicted. Trump wasn't giving insight into what Obama would do, he was projecting what HE would do in the same position. You don't need to be Freud to figure this guy out. In any given situation, there is a tweet from 4 or 5 years ago of him accusing someone of doing exactly what he would eventually do when in office. It's like clockwork.
There really is a tweet, for almost every political topic imaginable. A lot of them are pretty good takes, actually. Then he went and did everything he said he wouldn't do in 2012-2016.
He was tweeting just as much then as he is now. Difference being no one was paying attention. His only real audience at the time was FOX News viewers, where he would call into the morning show. But, again, this is where he learned to talk to the Republican base. I'm still not convinced Donald Trump BELIEVES in anything at all other than power and money.
They claim this Iranian general who was 62 years old had killed 600 Americans in the Iraq war which was a conflict that saw the US kill somewheres between 151,000 and a million Iraqis. So are we saying it's cool after a war to target military commanders? So it would be cool if Iran were to kill an American general who killed thousands of Iraqis? They blame this dead man, who can't really argue, about the recent embassy protests over American drone strikes. Yeah none of this adds up.
If you are going to drone strike someone over 600 deaths, why not the people responsible for
45,000 deaths annually?
Now, I have faith humanity has matured a bit since then, and presidents not gonna push red buttons left and right. But it's not required either, to make things uglier than they need to be. One Iranian official assassinated - one bit less of stability in the region - one bit more of oil chaos, refugees, bombers, plane hijackers, trade wars etc. Enough reason for a common man to be discomforted. That snake nest they call Middle East needs to calm down, not be poked with hot iron.
They are grandfathered out as far as I'm aware.
Marijuana doesn't cause addiction and it's less toxic than tobacco products, to the point that it's flat-out non-toxic when it's eaten instead of smoked. I'd still restrict it to 21 or older, though, since there's a precedent for it, and preventing kids from buying otherwise legally available drugs is a lot cheaper and easier than banning them in the entire country.
Ah the NYTimes, the biggest prostitute in the game.
Don't look to hard-working people like this reporter as the problem. Look at the Editors. There is NO question the NYT mid-wifed the 2003 Iraq War by way of Judy Miller being Dick Cheney's stenographer.
The nicotinic receptors in your brain would strongly disagree with you.
Or maybe because the green zone was just attacked with rock fire, therefore, the "razor-thin imminent attack" didn't hold true.
Thank you.
This. Full stop. Nicotine is addictive. The habit is addictive as well, but there is a chemical addiction in smoking.
A - I'm made to understand that attacks on the green zone are fairly common.
B - Context suggest the reporter is referring to the justification for the assassination of Suleimani being that he was about to embark upon a huge series of attacks against Americans in the middle east, with causalities numbering in the "thousands". This is what she suggests is razor thin.
Reading her thread, it's clear this is what she's referring to.
Trump has now said he has designated 52 targets in Iran for strikes if Iran retaliates (literally because of the number of hostages in 1980, god this is so dumb). So we now have a near-guarantee of constant escalation until the rope finally breaks. There is now no getting out of this cycle. It's inevitable.
Democracy doesn't exist in this country.
I quit smoking 15 yrs ago and the hardest thing, after multiple attempts, was to kick the physical part of the habit. Smoking in the car, after a meal, with a coffee, after sex and while drinking alcohol. Tried the patch and nicorette but they would just give me panic attacks, overload of nicotine.
The final time I attempted to quit a professor of mine told me to use 'association displeasure' as he called it. Everytime I had a craving I was to take a mouth full of Original Listerine ( tastes like ass with a mix of hot garbage ) and swish it around for a while. Kinda like electric shock therapy. It worked, combined with willpower.
I quit about 10 years ago. The cravings were crazy. Like you're sitting there and you can literally think of nothing else. Your mind wanders and no matter what the conclusion winds up with some variation on "yeah I'll just go smoke a cigarette and then _______". I also noticed I'd get irritated at the slightest thing and the solution to calm down was just to go smoke a cigarette. For me, it was definitely a chemical addiction. The physical part got replaced with sticking food in my mouth a bit and gained weight. Still, it's better to gain weight than be addicted to nicotine and have all your clothes and car and everywhere you go stink like smoke.
It is a filthy habit that I am very happy we both kicked.