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A Narrative Collapses as Trump Tweets: ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter’

Lutherf said:
Right. Trump only waited until one American had been killed. He really should have waited until 100 Americans had been killed...or maybe 1000...or maybe it really doesn't matter how many Americans were killed because he's Trump and nothing he does is justifiable.
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This is a problem that should have been dealt with years ago. But former leaders chose to deal with it by throwing cash at it. The liberal way. So Trump inherited the problem. The next president won't.
 
j brown's body said:
He was actually no threat to this country.
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Tell that to the families of the 600 American soldiers who died because of him. Or, more recently, his being behind the attack on our embassy and the killing of the American contractor.
 
Captain Adverse said:
I agree with Trump. The demand to show some justification of a specific "imminent threat" before eliminating a known purveyor of terrorism is ridiculous. That would be like claiming Osama Bin Laden should not have been killed because at the moment of his attempted "capture" he was not an "imminent threat."

Soleimani was a planner and purveyor of terrorism, and as such he was always an imminent threat. Does anyone think he had stopped after his last effort which resulted in an attack on our Iraqi embassy? Planning terrorist attacks was his JOB. And he was good at it.

So please, cry me no rivers because IMO Trump did the right thing when he took the opportunity to cut one more head off the Hydra of international terrorism.
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Soleimani was a bigger threat than Bin Laden because he was supported by a whole country. The left seems to always look for the negative and almost never acknowledges the positive. I don't associate with people who only see the glass as half empty. This negativeness is a disease and it's spread needs to be stopped.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Did President Obama Order More Than 500 Drone Strikes?

He did not.
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Did you bother reading your link? It even says:

The drone program under Obama and the strike that killed Soleimani are not apt comparisons. The U.S. has been carrying out drone warfare in the region since the administration of George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor. Although such warfare has always been controversial, the fallout over the killing of Soleimani is the result of his status in the Iranian government.
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Also from the same link:

In March 2018, Trump revoked an Obama executive order requiring an annual disclosure of civilian deaths resulting from drone strikes. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism also reported that the number of drone strikes ratcheted up during Trump’s first year in office, doubling in Somalia and tripling in Yemen.
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Again, Obama's drone program and Trump striking at the second most powerful Iranian General are TWO separate things. Trump could have started a war.
 
Fletch said:
I dont recall anyone on the right disagreeing with it.
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So if I pull up quotes from righties on this board will you agree to leave this board forever?

The fact is there were righties that disagreed with it and they feared it would start WW3 with Russia.
 
MTAtech said:
[h=1]A Narrative Collapses as Trump Tweets: ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter’[/h]WASHINGTON — In the 10 days since it carried out the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Trump administration has been struggling to draft an after-the-fact narrative to justify it. On Monday, President Trump put an end to that hash of explanations. “It doesn’t really matter,” he tweeted, “because of his horrible past.”

Until that message on Twitter, the administration had insisted in various ways that General Suleimani, Iran’s most important military official, was planning myriad “imminent” attacks. The unraveling of the explanations accelerated over the weekend after Mr. Trump said four embassies were under immediate threat, a charge that his own administration could not back.
...
“Trump has finally admitted the true motivation for the killing of Suleimani who had American blood on his hands: retaliation,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who is sponsoring legislation to prevent the administration from spending federal funds on unauthorized military action in Iran.

I think it does matter, that the president lied about Suleimani being an imminent threat. What he's admitting is that there was no valid rationale for ordering a strike against Suleimani, that killed others too, without even notifying Congress.
What he's admitting is that his actions were indeed reckless and that the only legal authority to take action, that Suleimani was an imminent threat, was lacking.




I think it does matter that the American people can't trust a word their president says.
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Ya know, these threads are stupid. Are you also arguing that Osama Bin Laden shouldn't have been killed because he was sitting peaceably at home with his relatives in Pakistan? Mebe you're arguing that a raid on OBL and his family might've started a war with Pakistan (it may have).
That those Nazis hung at Nuremberg shouldn't have been killed because they were bound and guarded?

When does a known American killer not become an imminent threat to Americans?

There is evidence that Soleimani had been involved In the killing of Americans in the past. There is evidence that Soleimani was planning killings of Americans in the future and evidence of Soleimani planning disruptions of embassies around the world in the future.
 
Praxas said:
So if I pull up quotes from righties on this board will you agree to leave this board forever?

The fact is there were righties that disagreed with it and they feared it would start WW3 with Russia.
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The WW3 with Russia, Ive never heard anyone say that ever. I dont know where you are getting your 'facts' but arent from here. The only point of contention that I recall is the objection to the media fawning over Obama for having him taken out.
 
Praxas said:
Did you bother reading your link? It even says:



Also from the same link:



Again, Obama's drone program and Trump striking at the second most powerful Iranian General are TWO separate things. Trump could have started a war.
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The discussion has been about whether or not there was an imminent threat, not about Soleimani's status in the Iranian government.

To that end, the comparison with Obama and his kill lists is apt.
 
Lutherf said:
Right. Trump only waited until one American had been killed. He really should have waited until 100 Americans had been killed...or maybe 1000...or maybe it really doesn't matter how many Americans were killed because he's Trump and nothing he does is justifiable.
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Then why lie about it? Why not just come out and "because he was a bad guy, it was retaliation"?

Why all the BS about imminent threats and embassies?

I'll tell you why. Because Trump does nothing without maximizing his personal benefit. Forestalling an imminent threat sounds better than retaliation. It makes some think Trump is some sort of military genius. He saved dozens ... no, hundreds of ... no, THOUSANDS OF LIVES! No, MILLIONS OF LIVES! Yeah, that's the ticket! Trump prevented World War III by taking out this one guy right when he did. He is the greatest president in the history of our country!

It's the same thing with Ukraine. The money was authorized, it was on it's way when Trump said "Wait a minute! What does Ukraine have that I could use? Put a hold on that money for a bit ... let's think this through."
 
MTAtech said:
What you are agreeing with is that a president can use deadly force against someone not an imminent threat to the United States, which is the legal requirement for not consulting Congress. Thus, your contention is that the president doesn't have to follow the law.

Whenever these issues come up now, I ask the question: Would you be making this same argument to justify Obama taking a similar action?
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so obama didn't follow the law neither did any other president for their selective targeting of threats.
your criteria is a ridiculous standard.

Yes i would 100% approve of obama taking out a terrorist.
the bigger question is why are you defending a terrorist?

The guy had already attacked a US embassy. He has killed hundreds of people including american.
your trump hate is so bad that you would rather see a terrorist alive than give trump credit for taking him out
a guy that has killed numerous innocent people americans and american troops.

it is a sad day when you let your hate be this bad.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Dude, they weren't going to approve. Your hypothetical assumes they would have. Its drawing a poor conclusion.
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They would have leaked it. that is the biggest problem.
 
Stealers Wheel said:
Then why lie about it? Why not just come out and "because he was a bad guy, it was retaliation"?

Why all the BS about imminent threats and embassies?

I'll tell you why. Because Trump does nothing without maximizing his personal benefit. Forestalling an imminent threat sounds better than retaliation. It makes some think Trump is some sort of military genius. He saved dozens ... no, hundreds of ... no, THOUSANDS OF LIVES! No, MILLIONS OF LIVES! Yeah, that's the ticket! Trump prevented World War III by taking out this one guy right when he did. He is the greatest president in the history of our country!

It's the same thing with Ukraine. The money was authorized, it was on it's way when Trump said "Wait a minute! What does Ukraine have that I could use? Put a hold on that money for a bit ... let's think this through."
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the fact he attacked an embassy already makes him an immediate threat.
 
MTAtech said:
Yeah, because Soleimani can never be replaced with anyone else who would target Americans.
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Yeah. Why bother confronting evil, because we know it will always exist. That we had a source inside the Quds militia that detailed the smuggling of advanced rocketry from Iran specifically done to target embassies in and American forces in the region - all Soleimani conceived and directed - is no reason to take the guy out? Because somebody else may take over his role who's just as effective and sinister? You're just offering excuses to do nothing. Do the lives of our troops and diplomats mean so little to You?

Either we confront evil or we succumb to it. Fear of ever more evil is not an excuse not to act. There was ample intelligence to justify Trump's decision to eliminate Soleimani.
 
Stealers Wheel said:
Then why lie about it? Why not just come out and "because he was a bad guy, it was retaliation"?

Why all the BS about imminent threats and embassies?

I'll tell you why. Because Trump does nothing without maximizing his personal benefit. Forestalling an imminent threat sounds better than retaliation. It makes some think Trump is some sort of military genius. He saved dozens ... no, hundreds of ... no, THOUSANDS OF LIVES! No, MILLIONS OF LIVES! Yeah, that's the ticket! Trump prevented World War III by taking out this one guy right when he did. He is the greatest president in the history of our country!

It's the same thing with Ukraine. The money was authorized, it was on it's way when Trump said "Wait a minute! What does Ukraine have that I could use? Put a hold on that money for a bit ... let's think this through."
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The "imminent threat" narrative was manufactured by Pelosi. It was her contention that Trump needed congressional approval to take out Soleimani or he was in violation of the War Powers Act. That's a crap argument as the guy had been an omnipresent threat for DECADES. He was ALWAYS a threat, had just worked with a group that killed an American and was currently working with that same group to assault the US embassy in Baghdad. If Trump had done nothing there was a very real likelihood that the embassy attack would get worse and that American lives would be forfeit. The threat Soleimani posed was very real and very imminent.
 
humbolt said:
So it's safe to assume that the political left and the OP would prefer Soleimani remain among us. The architect of Iranian expansion, purveyor of death and mutilation, the man behind the recent attack on our embassy in Baghdad, should remain alive to continue his hellish work? Great. That position completely obliterates the notion that the political left places country above politics. Good job.
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is every right winger a complete ****ing moron? Anybody capable of actually posting rational, intelligent arguments? No, all you get is completely made up positions of liberals, deflections, projections. God damn, deplorables indeed
Praxas said:
I didn't agree with Obama's actions. However, he at least TRIED to go to congress to get it approved did he not? Did Trump go to congress? No.

Also you righties disagreed with Obama so why are you now approving of Trump doing something you didn't approve of Obama doing?
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Because righties are complete morons and hacks, that's why. They don't have a shred of honesty or decency. Complete scumbags, as proven with every idiotic, trolling piece of crap post they make
 
ludin said:
the fact he attacked an embassy already makes him an immediate threat.
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You'd use the same excuse for dropping a nuke on Tehran.

Protestors went inside the compound. They didn't even go in the buildings. And you think that's justification for killing someone that's more senior than Mike Pence in the Iranian government, who has one of the largest militaries in the world.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
is every right winger a complete ****ing moron? Anybody capable of actually posting rational, intelligent arguments? No, all you get is completely made up positions of liberals, deflections, projections. God damn, deplorables indeed

Because righties are complete morons and hacks, that's why. They don't have a shred of honesty or decency. Complete scumbags, as proven with every idiotic, trolling piece of crap post they make
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Perfect example of partisan hyperbole run amok.
 
MTAtech said:
What you are agreeing with is that a president can use deadly force against someone not an imminent threat to the United States, which is the legal requirement for not consulting Congress. Thus, your contention is that the president doesn't have to follow the law.

Whenever these issues come up now, I ask the question: Would you be making this same argument to justify Obama taking a similar action?
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To suggest that the general was not a threat to the USA is an absurdity.
It cannot be substantiated

If you want to argue that military/terrorism threats to the USA (which is what the general represents) must be met with law enforcement rather than the military, I guess such an argument could be made. But it would seem such a weak argument (ought we really respond to his terrorism with a criminal complaint in district court?), and an approach that the country has tried before.
And which didn't seem to to work.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
is every right winger a complete ****ing moron? Anybody capable of actually posting rational, intelligent arguments? No, all you get is completely made up positions of liberals, deflections, projections. God damn, deplorables indeed

Because righties are complete morons and hacks, that's why. They don't have a shred of honesty or decency. Complete scumbags, as proven with every idiotic, trolling piece of crap post they make
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When you have a rebuttal, post it. :roll:
 
Stealers Wheel said:
Then why lie about it? Why not just come out and "because he was a bad guy, it was retaliation"?

Why all the BS about imminent threats and embassies?

I'll tell you why. Because Trump does nothing without maximizing his personal benefit. Forestalling an imminent threat sounds better than retaliation. It makes some think Trump is some sort of military genius. He saved dozens ... no, hundreds of ... no, THOUSANDS OF LIVES! No, MILLIONS OF LIVES! Yeah, that's the ticket! Trump prevented World War III by taking out this one guy right when he did. He is the greatest president in the history of our country!

It's the same thing with Ukraine. The money was authorized, it was on it's way when Trump said "Wait a minute! What does Ukraine have that I could use? Put a hold on that money for a bit ... let's think this through."
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Why do you dwell on the statements about imminent threats and embassies? Why don't you admit Soleimani was a bad guy?
 
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