The US Started It (Part 2)
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus Germany) together with the European Union.
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On 8 May 2018 Trump announced United States withdrawal from JCPOA.
Obama did it so Trump had to undo it. No matter what it is or whether it is actually good or bad, the Trumpers and Trumpettes demand their ‘god’ smite the works of the evil Kenyan, Muslim demon who was twice democratically elected (both popular vote and electoral college without foreign assistance).
December 27 – US contractor killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base. The attack was blamed on the Kataib Hezbollah militia.
December 29 – Kataib Hezbollah camps in Iraq and Syria were hit by US airstrikes in retaliation for the death of the contractor.
December 31 – the US Embassy in Baghdad was attacked by a mob in retaliation for the airstrikes.
January 3 – US assassinates Qasem Soleimani Major General commander of the Quds Force and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi who commanded the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah group, in retaliation for the embassy attack and Republican fear of another ‘Benghazi’.
Trump vows to hit 52 Iranian targets if Iran retaliates
Iran’s foreign minister says U.S. targeting of cultural sites would be ‘a war crime’ and Khamenei’s adviser Iran’s response to US will be military. Iran rolls back nuclear deal commitments.
Iraqi MPs back call to expel US troops which leads to a NATO suspension of Canadian-led Iraq training mission after Soleimani killing. Naturally the Trump administration only informed drunks at Mar-a-Lago and the Russians of their intentions, not Congress and US allies.
Trump threatens Iraq with sanctions if US troops are expelled.
This is to the point that Rand Paul sounds sane – paraphrase: you would have to be brain dead to believe that killing Soleimani would make Americans safer or bring the Iranians to the negotiating table.
Soleimani was not a nice guy. He was the equivalent of the Director of the CIA and Commander of Special Operations for Iran. Nice guy is not what you look for in those jobs. He was, however, an aid to US efforts to combat al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. He was a Shi’ia warrior who could unite various Shi’ia factions throughout the Middle East and would get along with anyone who was fighting his enemies. Not that anyone in this US government understands but our real problems have been caused by Sunni Muslims, not Shi’ia.
An “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” attitude always results in a lot of blind people feeling for their dentures.
6 comments
I beg your pardon: Trump started it and his nihilistic base support group is loving it.
His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is the proximate cause, but that is just the latest of US screw ups going back to World War II. There were no attacks on US forces by Iran and its allies while the deal was in force, but Trump’s withdrawal “let the dogs out’.
I am baffled as to what’s happening now. Missile strikes that either killed nobody or killed dozens, a jet airliner possibly having a fatal engine explosion or possibly shot down, a mythical threat to blow up our embassy that President #SniffyMcAdderall put out in order to justify killing “a bad, bad man” (if they wanted to blow up our embassy, they would have done it while our embassy was occupied by Iran-backed demonstrators, sheesh)…. the Fog of War is big right now. And “U.S. officials” aren’t making it any clearer. These are the same turds who said that Iraq was brimming, brimming I say, with weapons of mass destruction that, uhm, never existed. Sheesh.
I’ll be posting in a bit about the missile attacks on Ain al Assad and Irbil, but they were essentially the official government of Iran response to the assassination of Soleimani showing that Iran had to capability to hit the targets it wished to hit. Iran warned Iraq, who warned everyone on the bases to stay out of harm’s way. I seriously doubt the responses of the Quds Force or the Kataib Hezbollah will be as bloodless. As for the possibility of Iran shooting down the Ukrainian airliner, shit happens under stress, but “shrapnel” damage can be caused by the turbine blades in a failing engine. On take off aircraft have a maximum fuel load so fires are always a possibility when things go wrong.
Soleimani wasn’t going to lead the attack on the embassy so if there was such an attack planned, it will happen. If we had taken out Bin Laden on August 6th, September 11th would have still happened.
When the US is led by a guy who has lied over 15,000 times in three years, the Fog of War hasn’t got a chance of being noticed in the ocean of bullshit.
Yeah, figuring out what’s fact and what’s flying monkey poop is a major problem right now. The flying monkeys are flinging fast and furious and you need not a shovel, but a whole brigade of shovelers to find the granules of truth underneath all that flying monkey poop spewing forth like a rain of, well, flying money poop.
I took a day off and spent it with my cats. Introducing a new cat to the family is always a bit stressful, but T’Challa is pretty much the best cat in the whole wide world so that’s made it way easier than it should have been. He even spent a couple of minutes grooming Chuck this evening, only five days since I brought him home! Maybe tomorrow things will become a bit clearer. Though I’m fitting my glasses for windshield wipers. That’s the only way I’ll be able to see a darn thing with all the flying monkey poop spewing everywhere.
You need full storm gear to deal with what’s going on. My Congresscritter, Matt “DUI” Gaetz is in trouble with the Trumpsters after voting for the War Powers Act resolution in the House. Gaetz wants to get reelected and the Florida 1st District has more veterans than any other district in Congress. Vets aren’t happy to see 5,000 troops shipped to the Middle East because Trump ignored reality on the assassination of an Iranian and an Iraqi general. The Trumpsters are calling Gaetz a RINO.
You are right to stay home with your new cat. Sometimes you get lucky. It took months for Koshka, my first cat, to accept Dot and Sox. Sox really had his feelings hurt over the rejection. T’challa is a handsome lad – the name suits him.