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Trumping up a war?


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Trump needs distractions, and Hillary's emails! is going to lose traction before the mid-term primaries.  Voters have notoriously short attention spans, and Hillary doesn't move the needle like she did two years ago. 

 

So what's a president beleaguered by low popularity to do? 

 

Well, everyone rallies around the flag during a time of crisis, right?  And if there's no crisis, it's time to manufacture one.  Especially since so many bad things are happening for Donald right now.

 

Enter Iran and the JCPOA, one of Obama's signature diplomatic moments.  Easy target.  So, Tuesday...

 

Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned

 

And Wednesday...


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Israeli Warplanes Hit Dozens of Iranian Targets in Syria

 

JERUSALEM — Israeli fighter jets struck dozens of Iranian targets in Syria overnight, Israeli officials said, following soon after what the Israeli military described as an unsuccessful Iranian rocket attack against its forces in the Golan Heights.

The response — which Israeli officials claimed struck a severe blow to Iran’s military capacity in the area — came amid drastically ramped up tensions in the Middle East after President Trump’s move this week to pull the United States from a multinational nuclear deal with Tehran. Israel had railed against the agreement, and Mr. Trump had campaigned on the promise of withdrawing from it, but European countries and many analysts had seen it as a crucial element holding Iran and Israel, implacable foes, from all-out conflict.

In the aftermath of the president’s decision, the rhetoric between the two sides has heightened sharply. And while Israel and Iran have been conducting a shadow war in Syria for months under the cover of the civil war there, the conflict has now burst into the open.

 

 

So, the Israelis hit Iranian targets in Syria because - allegedly - Iran suddenly, for the first time in the conflict despite being in those positions for months, decided to attack Israel. 

 

That gives Israel all the legitimacy it needs to defend itself, right?  Those dastardly Iranians and their vicious, unprovoked attack on Israel. It was just self-defense. 

 

Right?

 

But self-defense from what?

 

From that NY Times article:

 

Quote

Overnight, Iranian forces fired around 20 rockets at the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, targeting forward positions of the Israeli military, according to an Israeli military spokesman. The rockets were all either intercepted or fell short of their mark in Syrian territory, the spokesman said, but were nevertheless a significant escalation in Iran’s maneuvers in the Middle East.

 

So, to recap:

 

  • Iran has been following the tenets of the JCPOA
  • Despite this, Trump withdraws from the JCPOA, saying "it was a bad deal" and providing next to no explanation how or why, and zero explanation how to fix it
  • Within a day of Trump's withdrawal, the Iranians suddenly get it into their head to attack Israeli positions, when they've had that opportunity for months before this, but haven't
  • Israel, using the provocation of perhaps the least-effective rocket attack in modern warfare history, launches a reciprocal strike against Iranian forces

 

Sure sounds like the kind of thing that could start a war, doesn't it? 

 

A war that would only benefit Trump, defense contractors, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has domestic troubles of his own he needs distractions from.

 

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I think that it's very very possible he is trying to do this to mask his domestic issues.


But, for a long time, I have thought that Trump's ego makes him WANT to be a war time President.  He wants to antagonize someone to the point of getting the pleasure to direct our vast military in an armed conflict and come out a winner.  This fits his ego so much that it makes me sick.  He has said he likes military parades and wants to have them.  He dreams of the day he welcomes the victorious US military back from a war he started and ultimately won....with a parade with him sitting up on some high throne with the crowds worshiping his great war time leadership.

 

He has tried pushing North Korea to the point of conflict.

He is trying to push Iran to the point of conflict.

He, to a certain extent, is trying to push Mexico to the point of conflict at the border.

He has tried his best to claim victory over ISIS.

He brags about how great our military is.

He brags about how HE is building it to be the greatest military in history (like it already isn't).

 

Parade, Parade, Parade.....in his honor.

 

 

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Yep, Trump's very transparently been dying to use his toy soldiers ever since he was tweeting out strategic "advice" all throughout the Obama administration. Kind of amazing this guy always had just the right answers and Obama somehow couldn't ever come up with them.

 

I'd be hard pressed to dream up someone more ill-equipped to be Commander-in-Chief that's ever actually sniffed the position.

 

Pod Save the World has a great interview with the Washington bureau chief of the Forward, a Jewish-American magazine, about the scandals plaguing Bibi Netanyahu. He's got no less than four ongoing corruption investigations involving him & his wife. 

 

And he's a war hawk. And there's John Bolton.

 

We're not headed anywhere good on this. I hope we're not stupid enough to give him the same "You've got to be patriotic" approval bump we gave Bush when we go off to war. Perhaps we just settle on an amoral sustained bombing campaign.

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Lets face the facts - Trump is no better than a 3rd world dictator in many respects.  He rules by intimidation, strong arming, creating chaos wherever he can by overturning the status quo. If he didn't have the constitution in his way, I'm sure he'd prefer to dissolve Congress and run the govt himself out of his vast pool of experience, superior knowledge and personal 'dis-interest":sarcasm.    While it is true that nothing great gets accomplished wtout occasionally upsetting the status quo, Trump's too often upsets the status quo without apparent regard to consequences and without the cooperation/input of others affected by change.  And people got on GWB for unilateralism - Trump takes it to a whole new level - alienating our friends, emboldening China and Russia and causing chaos at home.   This isn't leadership. 

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11 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Lets face the facts - Trump is no better than a 3rd world dictator in many respects.  He rules by intimidation, strong arming, creating chaos wherever he can by overturning the status quo. If he didn't have the constitution in his way, I'm sure he'd prefer to dissolve Congress and run the govt himself out of his vast pool of experience, superior knowledge and personal 'dis-interest":sarcasm.    While it is true that nothing great gets accomplished wtout occasionally upsetting the status quo, Trump's too often upsets the status quo without apparent regard to consequences and without the cooperation/input of others affected by change.  And people got on GWB for unilateralism - Trump takes it to a whole new level - alienating our friends, emboldening China and Russia and causing chaos at home.   This isn't leadership. 

 

This is a huge part of my fears here.  He has alienated just about the entire world.  Believe it or not, there are times when we need allies from around the world.  I fear that right now, we have very few....if any.

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12 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

This is a huge part of my fears here.  He has alienated just about the entire world.  Believe it or not, there are times when we need allies from around the world.  I fear that right now, we have very few....if any.

Anyone who wants to alienate our border neighbors - Mexico and Canada by tearing up NAFTA, cannot be trusted.  Our allies see him doing this, backing out of the Paris Accord, TPP, NAFTA, & the Iran Deal should be very concern about any agreement - security, financial, trade that they have wt the USA.  Think back in history - the former USSR tried to isolate the USA with covert wars around the global and in our backyard in Latin America and Cuba. Their whole goal was to counter our interests globally and to reduce our influence and the influence of democracy. They tried to drive a wedge between us and our European allies with the 'peace movement - anti nuke propoganda' and by selling natural gas to and making European countries dependent on Soviet energy.   In the end, we won and democracy won.  However, Trump is playing into Putin's hands (or did Putin give Trump the hand to play??) as we isolate ourselves more and more and diminish our leadership around the world through these ill advised, off the cuff, unilateral decisions of this admin.  Trump's stated goal in the campaign was to make the USA respected again.  He thinks respect is earned via bullying - it is all he's known either in business or personally.  Thus on the world stage he is now considered the bully and not a trusted partner.  What a shame.  :facepalm:

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37 minutes ago, Clifford Franklin said:

People who specialize in diplomacy & foreign policy assert that Trump is doing damage to our standing in the world that will last decades. 

 

While being under suspicion of colluding with our enemy, Russia.  And all the things he's doing diminish America's standing on the world stage, alienate our allies, reduce our trade footprint, and in general damage America's interests.  It creates a vacuum where American influence used to be.  Into that vacuum steps... who? 

 

38AP3B1.jpg

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  • 1 year later...

Hey, hi. Remember this thread?

 

This is from a month ago:

 

 

Quote

 

Questions swirl over 'sabotage attack'

The MV Andrea Victory had arrived at noon on Saturday, its crew resting following a two-week sail from South Africa. They were waiting to fill up its near-30,000-ton tank when what appears to be an explosion ripped open its side.
 
Early in their investigation Emirati officials suggested the hole could have caused by a rocket or missile. Since then, with US help, they have concluded it may have been a caused by mine or improvised explosive device attached to the side of the ship.
 
Precisely who carried out the attack however is still under investigation.
 
So far, the US appears to be eyeing Iran as a possible culprit -- though no evidence of its involvement has been presented.
Iran has denounced the incident and denies any involvement. However, their international credibility is in tatters, and they tick too many bad boy boxes. They have both the capability, and intent, according to US intelligence, as well as decades of form undermining US regional interests.
 
People around here fear we are all getting spun, that the US wants confrontation with Iran by any means and local people could be collateral in a conflict.

 

 

 

Well, nothing much seemed to come from that story.

 

So today, this happens.

 

 

 

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In Gulf of Oman, Tankers Are Struck Again, Raising Fears of Wider Conflict

Apparent attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday forced their crews to abandon ship and left one vessel ablaze, a month after four tankers were damaged in the same area. The United States blamed Iran, escalating tensions in a vital passageway for much of the world’s petroleum.

 

Hours after the two vessels were struck, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Washington that intelligence reviewed by American officials showed that Iran was responsible. Mr. Pompeo did not present any evidence of Iran’s involvement.

 

Despite Mr. Pompeo’s assertion, it was not immediately clear how the most recent incidents unfolded or who was involved, just as the circumstances of last month’s attacks remain murky. The two ships that were struck on Thursday appeared to have been more seriously damaged than those hit in May.

 

Iranian officials have denied any involvement in attacks on tankers. But in late May, John R. Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, said that Iran was “almost certainly” responsible for the earlier attacks, and Mr. Pompeo agreed, saying that they were “efforts by the Iranians to raise the price of crude oil.”

 

 

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The region in question:

 

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