motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 https://theweek.com/articles-amp/887283/america-guilty-everything-accuse-iran-doing?__twitter_impression=true America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Events like this bring out the absolute worst in the American foreign policy community. Many conservative writers and thinkers, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, the Hudson Institute's Michael Doran, and Commentary's Noah Rothman, openly cheered this Putin-style cold-blooded murder of a foreign statesman. Other more supposedly nonpartisan commentators uncritically parroted Trump administration assertions that Iran was planning something bad. Every top Democratic presidential candidate except Bernie Sanders was careful to foreground that Soleimani was a bad guy before condemning the assassination in their initial comments. The truth is that Soleimani was not all that different from any of about five dozen current and former American politicians and bureaucrats — if anything, he was considerably more restrained about the use of force. Yes, he was involved in a lot of bloody wars — but so was every American president since 2000, and besides half the wars he fought in were started or fueled by the United States. It's just another instance of America's gigantic hypocrisy when it comes to war. As writer Derek Davison explains, Soleimani was no ordinary general. He was more like a cross between the American vice president and the secretary of state — one of the two or three most famous and powerful people in Iran behind Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Soleimani commanded the Quds Force, a Special Forces-type operation supporting Iranian allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and many other countries. American hardliners hate him mainly for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, and for arming insurgents who fought the American occupation of Iraq. Incidentally, as recently as September 2015, Trump plainly had no idea whatsoever who Soleimani was. Indeed, as Mehdi Hasan writes at The Intercept, when Hugh Hewitt asked him about the Quds Force, he thought Hewitt had said "Kurds." So yes, Soleimani has fueled a lot of nasty conflicts and killed a lot of people, directly or indirectly, many of them American soldiers — though it's worth noting also that much of his recent effort has been dedicated to fighting ISIS (with great effectiveness, by all accounts) in a tacit uneasy alliance with U.S. forces. Yet even the worst of Soleimani's record pales in comparison with the most blood-drenched American warmongers. If Soleimani deserves condemnation for arming Iraqi insurgents, then George W. Bush and Dick Cheney deserve 10 times as much for starting the war in the first place. It was a pointless, illegal war of aggression sold on lies that obliterated Iraqi society and killed perhaps half a million people, almost all of them innocent civilians. (Our own Soleimani, General David Petraeus, was connected to the operation of Iraqi torture dungeons and paramilitary death squads during the fight against the insurgency.) If Soleimani deserves blame for helping Bashar al-Assad brutally defeat Syrian rebels, Henry Kissinger deserves 10 times as much for orchestrating the bombing slaughter of perhaps a quarter million Cambodians and paving the way for the Khmer Rouge genocide that killed 1.7 million people. If any accused war criminal at an airport is fair game, then there are a lot of people in D.C. and Northern Virginia who better start traveling by train or ship. Indeed, the Quds Force itself was originally created during the Iran-Iraq War, which was started by a heavily U.S.-backed Saddam Hussein in 1980. A million Iranians died in the grueling eight-year conflict. And the reason the Islamic Republic exists in the first place is because the United States and Britain toppled Iran's fledgling democracy in 1953 and installed a brutal dictator. It is not exactly hard to understand why Iran — like about every other country in the Middle East — keeps some brutal, hard people like Soleimani around. It's a violent, unstable neighborhood, and war is an unavoidable reality. And no country is more responsible for that fact than the United States. Chauvinist American commentators always presume America has the best intentions, and that the American military is composed of saintly warrior-poets. The reality is that the lumbering American colossus has unleashed a Thirty Years' War-level of violent chaos all around Iran for no good reason at all. We are ruled by a president who recently reversed the demotion of a guy turned in by his own fellow soldiers for war crimes — namely, gleefully murdering helpless prisoners, old men, and little girls for sport. The apparent fact that the Soleimani assassination was carried out by drone strike at a civilian airport really is the perfect capstone for the last two decades of lunatic American violence. Nothing deflates the hysterically macho chest-thumping self-image of American warmongers than the fact that for the last decade and more the signature U.S. method of killing people has been a robot plus a gamer in a box 10,000 miles away. Raining down drone missiles on a guy in plain sight at a civilian airport — built at vast expense with U.S. money, by the way — just drives the cowardice home further. Nothing gets the armchair generals more fired up than vaporizing somebody who can't defend themselves or fight back in any way. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XCR1250 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 I'll help you pack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum Contributing Member Jimmy Snacks Posted January 4, 2020 Platinum Contributing Member Share Posted January 4, 2020 Just now, XCR1250 said: I'll help you pack. You didn't even read it...shocker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spin_dry Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Of course America is. It’s obvious to anyone that can think. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcticCrusher Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jimmy Snacks said: You didn't even read it...shocker. One of my employees is currently in Iran, don't pretend to know what is going on. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said: One of my employees is currently in Iran, don't pretend to know what is going on. Lmao 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum Contributing Member Jimmy Snacks Posted January 4, 2020 Platinum Contributing Member Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said: One of my employees is currently in Iran, don't pretend to know what is going on. I'm not pretending anything....I am laughing at the expected comment telling Moto to leave the country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcticCrusher Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, motonoggin said: Lmao Oh, he's good and on his way home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcticCrusher Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, Jimmy Snacks said: I'm not pretending anything....I am laughing at the expected comment telling Moto to leave the country. Huh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said: Oh, he's good and on his way home. I'm sure you'll share his newly acquired expert opinion on the situation and it'll magically align with your own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum Contributing Member Jimmy Snacks Posted January 4, 2020 Platinum Contributing Member Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said: Huh. I think I misunderstood your post....glad your employee is safe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcticCrusher Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Just now, motonoggin said: I'm sure you'll share his newly acquired expert opinion on the situation and it'll magically align with your own. I thought you were wanting details on safe passage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcticCrusher Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 3 minutes ago, Jimmy Snacks said: I think I misunderstood your post....glad your employee is safe. No problem Jim. I think many of us are guilty of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 19 minutes ago, XCR1250 said: I'll help you pack. 6 minutes ago, Jimmy Snacks said: I think I misunderstood your post....glad your employee is safe. I think you were thinking of the early onset Alzheimer's boomer Vietnam participation trophy hat guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XCR1250 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, motonoggin said: I think you were thinking of the early onset Alzheimer's boomer Vietnam participation trophy hat guy LOL Stoner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Any body wants to help me pack, let me know. You just have to give me a bank check for my real estate, and I'll be gone...…………...somewhere, maybe Ontario, or maybe somewhere warmer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F3600 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Article summary, "yeah, but US guys are bad too". At the end of the day, no matter the post-strike lip service from our Administration, this guy was stirring up trouble for us and he got clapped. The odd part to me is why he was so casually exiting the scene of his shit stirring? Taking a car presumably to the Iraq airport? Either he was extremely confident we had no clue or his Nation considered him expendable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 minute ago, F3600 said: Article summary, "yeah, but US guys are bad too". At the end of the day, no matter the post-strike lip service from our Administration, this guy was stirring up trouble for us and he got clapped. The odd part to me is why he was so casually exiting the scene of his shit stirring? Taking a car presumably to the Iraq airport? Either he was extremely confident we had no clue or his Nation considered him expendable. Or you're just swallowing the propaganda whole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spin_dry Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 hour ago, XCR1250 said: I'll help you pack. The cool thing about America is that we don’t have to pack. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F3600 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 18 minutes ago, motonoggin said: Or you're just swallowing the propaganda whole. Or your building wild fantasy about what could happen next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 3 minutes ago, F3600 said: Or your building wild fantasy about what could happen next. Yeah, an act of war leading to an actual war is just a wild fantasy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleepr2 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Jimmy Snacks said: You didn't even read it...shocker. You are most likely not capable of reading it.....no surprise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motonoggin Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gold Member Stephen Hawking Posted January 4, 2020 Gold Member Share Posted January 4, 2020 Stop stealing mainecats opinion pieces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManOnManOral Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Polaris 550 said: Any body wants to help me pack, let me know. You just have to give me a bank check for my real estate, and I'll be gone...…………...somewhere, maybe Ontario, or maybe somewhere warmer. Ontario California, not Canada, you are not allowed in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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