Iranian General Sulemain and others reported killed in Baghdad airstrike

[Calfredd]

I think killing terrorists is good and US are our allies

Do you know what "there's a time and place for everything" means? Or do you announce your divorce at your own child's birthday party in front of the other children and parents?

[PickleballAce]

Fucking USA.

They killed a hero, a freaking war hero who is perhaps the guy with the most contribution to defeating ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region.

The entire region loves this guy and Trump killed him in an illegal strike just to get elected. Fuck this shit.

Oh shit....Kangodo revered this dude? You gotta marvel at the consistently awful taste in heroes.

This is like, 100 percent confirmation that homeboy had it coming.

[Kallisto]

Because this guy was literally the biggest contributor to beating back ISIS.
The guy didn't kill "hundreds of US citizens". You fucking aided ISIS and now you're spreading lies to justify it.
The US has now not just aided ISIS with material support, it also provided military support. The US military is nothing but a terrorist organisation at this point.

This guy was a fucking war hero, and you're going to pay for this.

No the biggest ground force fighting Isis and defeating them was the Kurds. Syria and its allies did nothing to combat Isis until they took down the Russian Air liner and Putin forced assads hand. Even then it was mostly half hearted while the kurdish and allied groups did the heavy lifting in both Iraq and Syria.

[Teriz]

We bombed an Iraqi airport, and killed a high ranking Iraqi official in this attack, so this has a chance of pushing Iraq closer to Iran.

People who think the blowback from this will be confined to the Middle East are fooling themselves. Iran has tentacles all over the place. I fully expect an uptick in terrorism around the world from this event. NYC is already on high alert and is stepping up security.

[Kallisto]

Damn....Kangodo liked this dude? Talk about a scarlet letter.

He must have been a real piece of shit!

Remember kangodo mind thinks Stalin never had anyone killed and China is a paragon of goodness.

[Cizr]

Do you know what "there's a time and place for everything" means? Or do you announce your divorce at your own child's birthday party in front of the other children and parents?

Yes I do and so do guys at Pentagon seeing how they wanted to kill him before but didnt because it was not a good time.

Killing him while he is meeting with his fellow terrorists from hezbollah seems like a pretty good time and place.

[nonameelf]

Killing him while he is meeting with his fellow terrorists from hezbollah seems like a pretty good time and place.

Sure, if you want to escalate tensions with Iran and Iraq by all but declaring war on them.

[starlord]

We bombed an Iraqi airport, and killed a high ranking Iraqi official in this attack, so this has a chance of pushing Iraq closer to Iran.

People who think the blowback from this will be confined to the Middle East are fooling themselves. Iran has tentacles all over the place. I fully expect an uptick in terrorism around the world from this event. NYC is already on high alert and is stepping up security.

well, they were already getting together it seems.
probably cause they know the US wants to drop them like a New Year's Eve regret.

[Skroe]

I do think you're underestimating this a bit. 2004 showed how reluctant Americans are to vote out a sitting President in a time of war/conflict, even if he lies readily, and the war is already unpopular.

I predict this will lower the "yes to convict and remove" numbers, and boost the Donald's poll numbers. Even moderates get hot blooded and jingoistic when there's a good old fashion American military incursion. Something about shit kickin' or somesuch, without considerations for the long term implications of such an interventionist foreign policy.

It's a different situation. Bush was a reasonably popular war-President in 2004 while Kerry ran as Bush light.

Trump is a deeply unpopular President who has been unable to expand is base (and has only seen his popularity shrink) in 3 years, no matter what stunt he has pulled.

A few weeks of Americans going all jingoistic isn't anything to really worry about.

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What country armed and trained Osama Bin Laden? Which country got Saddam into power?

The US most certainly does do the same shit.

The US armed the Afghan Mujahideen, not Osama bin Laden. OBL was armed by himself, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The US was largely done arming the Afghan Mujahideen by the time OBL arrived. Sure, he may have gotten some passed around weapons, but that's a far cry from "trained and armed".

This lie you spread here - and it is a lie - is a very old one at this point. People have been conflating OBL's time in afghanistan, the US support for the Mujaihideen and the Taliban (which arose later), on purpose, since immedietly after 9/11 in order to construct an entirely frauduent narrative that 9/11 was blowback for US policies in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Because that fits the "what goes around comes around" world view of some people.

But it never happened.

The Afghan Mujahideen broke up. Some became the Taliban. Some became the Northern Alliance. Some became local warlords. A lot just went home and got old (keep in mind, 9/11 was 15 years later, and today is nearly 35 years later). It is certainly true that the founders of Al Qaeda got to know each other fighting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, but there is no evidence in any US involvement in that.

Saddam Hussein was largely put into power by Egypt. Saddam Hussein enjoyed a few years of US backing during the Iran-Iraq war largely just to offset our regional adversary in Iran. This too has been fictionalized into some lie whereby the US put him into power and supported him much more extensively than it actually did. Because what-goes-around-comes-around morality plays are easy for some folks.

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I fully support ANY action that Iran will do in response to this.

Believe me, I've seen countless spoiled rotten European cosplay-commies support terrorism, on internet forums, against US forces in the Middle East since 2003.

Precisely nothing has changed on your front in 17 years. You're the latest in a long line of frustrated radicals who haven't advanced once inch in decades.

Support all you like. Nobody really cares. This just happened and if Iran is wise, that'll be the end of it.

[Collegeguy]

If I'm getting the gist of this, he was a terrorist or terror coordinator. This guy gave orders to people killing Americans.

He was outside of Iran in Baghdad at the time.

I'd say he was free pickings.

[nonameelf]

If I'm getting the gist of this, he was a terrorist or terror coordinator. This guy gave orders to people killing Americans.

He was outside of Iran in Baghdad at the time.

I'd say he was free pickings.

It's the equivalent of if Iran killed Mike Pence while he was visiting say Germany and also killed a German general in the process.

[eschatological]

I'm sorry, OBL had training and ground support from the CIA. OBL's camp at Khost was CIA-funded. This has all been reported by the British, and, obviously, pushed back against by Americans. Bhutto, from Pakistan, said that OBL was initially pro-American because of the support they gave him in Afghanistan.

Even the U.S. admits they were sending money and arms to Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen, but they claimed they managed to "only" fund native Afghani Mujahadeen, which is hilariously hard to believe.


As for Saddam, it's true, it wasn't us. It was the British who built his mustard gas factories. What we did do was support him in all things Iraq-Iran, and we even gave him complicit permission to invade Kuwait until it blew back on us when the world was outraged at Saddam's actions.

But even if you don't believe the nebulous reporting of that time period, it's hard to ignore the much more clear, concrete training and funding the U.S. has done in Latin America and the Caribbean. From Papa Doc Duvalier to Pinochet, we have a long history of training death squads and petty dictators in LA, as long as they toed the line in re: U.S. interests. Often assassinating leftist, democratically elected leaders like Allende. You don't need to look much past the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, to see the kind of foreign policy we've engaged in around the world.

[Skroe]

@Kangodo, this is from the former French Ambassador to the US, UN and Israel.

This is what the other powers in the world see. Go look at my quote in your signature. Friendly reminder of how true it is.

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I'm sorry, OBL had training and ground support from the CIA. OBL's camp at Khost was CIA-funded. This has all been reported by the British, and, obviously, pushed back against by Americans. Bhutto, from Pakistan, said that OBL was initially pro-American because of the support they gave him in Afghanistan.

Even the U.S. admits they were sending money and arms to Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen, but they claimed they managed to "only" fund native Afghani Mujahadeen, which is hilariously hard to believe.

Plainly untrue.
https://www.factcheck.org/2013/02/ra...is-urban-myth/
(read the whole post but here's the kicker)

Numerous CIA officials have gone on record to deny U.S. financing or arming of bin Laden.

“It never happened,” said Milton Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, where he was responsible for the agency’s covert program in support of the Afghan resistance.

“The whole thing about us recruiting and training and paying and arming Arabs is one of those hardy perennials people love to make,” Bearden told us in a phone interview. “It’s a story too delicious to actually check. … It’s an urban myth.”

Bearden said he has often challenged those who make claims like Paul’s to produce “one single Arab that you believe was recruited, trained or otherwise supported by the U.S. government.”

“No one’s coughed up a single guy in 20 years,” Bearden said.

Early in the Afghan war against the Soviets, before he took over the post, Bearden said some officials in the CIA floated the notion of recruiting Arab legions who had come to Afghanistan. But the CIA quickly concluded it was a “really bad idea,” he said.

The so-called Afghan Arabs included some well-intentioned people, Bearden told us, but also a lot of “whack jobs,” including “an awful lot of derelicts emptied out of Saudi Arabian prisons. … It became sort of a Club Med Jihad.”

“For the most part, they were a joke, these guys,” Bearden said.

The CIA decided supporting the Arab fighters “would get out of hand,” he said. “There was no serious discussion of arming these Arab legions.”

There were “very few” Arabs who actually saw any combat in Afghanistan, Bearden said, although bin Laden got into a couple “dustups.” But that doesn’t mean their influence was not felt. Arab fundraisers were bringing in nearly $25 million a month at one point in the war, largely used for humanitarian and construction projects, Bearden said. And one of the most prominent fundraisers was bin Laden, although Bearden said that at the time bin Laden was largely unknown to U.S. intelligence.

The U.S. covertly funded the Afghan fighters through Pakistan. So how does Bearden know the Pakistanis didn’t simply give some of the money to the Arabs, including bin Laden?

“They didn’t,” Bearden said. “We had ways to check where the money was going.”

Besides, he said, the Arabs were “awash with money from the Gulf.” In other words, they didn’t need it. Bearden said the CIA made efforts to keep its support for Afghan forces “very discreet from everything else.”

“There was a policy not to do that [support the Arab fighters],” Bearden said. “The question is, ‘Did the CIA secretly support the radical Islamic Arabs in Afghanistan?’ The answer is absolutely not.”

Bearden isn’t the only CIA official on the record denying U.S. support for bin Laden.

Richard Miniter, author of the book “Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror,” wrote in a Fox News op-ed, “Dispelling the CIA-Bin Laden Myth,” that he had interviewed Bill Peikney, Bearden’s predecessor as CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1984 to 1986. Peikney also flatly denied that any funds went to bin Laden, Miniter said. Miniter wrote that Peikney added in an email: “I don’t even recall UBL [bin Laden] coming across my screen when I was there.”

It's old, bad "internet knowledge" that has never stood up to scrutiny. People keep repeating it because the morality play of the "US got what was coming to it" is fitting for some folks.

As for Saddam, it's true, it wasn't us. It was the British who built his mustard gas factories. What we did do was support him in all things Iraq-Iran, and we even gave him complicit permission to invade Kuwait until it blew back on us when the world was outraged at Saddam's actions.

This is a badly counterfiet and disproven interpretation of Ambassador April Glaspie's interactions with Saddam Hussein in 1990. Wikileaks publications of her cables describing her discussions with Saddam Hussein showed the exact opposite of what you were claiming - the US was not happy at all with Saddam building forces up on the Kuwaiti border.

But even if you don't believe the nebulous reporting of that time period, it's hard to ignore the much more clear, concrete training and funding the U.S. has done in Latin America and the Caribbean. From Papa Doc Duvalier to Pinochet, we have a long history of training death squads and petty dictators in LA, as long as they toed the line in re: U.S. interests. Often assassinating leftist, democratically elected leaders like Allende. You don't need to look much past the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, to see the kind of foreign policy we've engaged in around the world.

The US got out of that business a very long time ago whereas Iran has been doing it up to the present. Really when was the last time we actually set up a Latin American Death squad, lol? I think the most meddling we've done in Latin America since 1990 is having some half baked phone calls to get Chavez and then Maduro out of there, but that goes nowhere. A far cry from Pinochet.

And moreover, it was a small price to pay to stopping the spread of communism, which was an existential threat to the United States.

The United States has few things to regret in its conduct with regards to the Cold War. It wages a war in the shadows and won.

[Collegeguy]

It's the equivalent of if Iran killed Mike Pence while he was visiting say Germany and also killed a German general in the process.

If you kill Americans, doesn't matter what country you are from or what car you drive. We are coming for you. This is a good message for everyone else.

[nonameelf]

If you kill Americans, doesn't matter what country you are from or what car you drive. We are coming for you. This is a good message for everyone else.

Ah yes, the age old, "America is free to kill whomever they please, but if anyone dare retaliate it's an outrage."

[Brocoily52]

Why do some people think that Suleimani was a good guy? Him and his master in Iran literally are the reason the protests in Iraq are going on, our government is run by them, a lot of the protestors were killed by the militias that were backed by Iran and that dead asshole, him and Al Muhandis were criminals and i'm glad they're gone now, and so is pretty much all of Iraq, how much of a clueless idiot do you have to be to say that he shouldn't be killed and that is a hero lol (BTW the Embassy was attacked by those same militias, the protestors didn't want to cause any harm to anyone for a reason, it's a fucking protest not war)

[BronzeCondor]

Super oof, LOL!

Dear #Iran, The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. #Soleimani

TWITTER LINK

[Skroe]

If you kill Americans, doesn't matter what country you are from or what car you drive. We are coming for you. This is a good message for everyone else.

It's very past time to start drawing red lines again.

Bashar Al Assad uses chemical weapons repeatedly, and we do nothing.
Russia attacks our election and engages in chemical weapons terrorism in Europe, and we do nothing.
China island builds in international waters and attempts to drive the US out of the region, and we do nothing.
North Korea violates sanctions and breaks agreements, and we do nothing.
Iran shoots down a drone in international airspace, and we do nothing.

America has turned the other cheek far too many times in the past decade because of its skittishness with risk and consequences. I truly hope that Iran being so brazen to stage an attack on an embassy through its proxies, is the end of that. That, is too far. That is the rule that can't be broken.

It's past time to remind our adversaries around the world once against of the power that lies in the United States, which has grown in unexpected ways while we were "doing nothing".

Killing Sulemain is a good first step. We should consider more in order to draw lines, while being careful about escalation. But we also need to rebuild deterrence with China and Russia and remind them of our strength and their weakness.

[Collegeguy]

Ah yes, the age old, "America is free to kill whomever they please, but if anyone dare retaliate it's an outrage."

If anyone retaliates, we'll come for them too. Some weaksauce bargaining you want here. If a Chinese general covertly kills Americans tomorrow. Ya, we'll get him in his sleep.

[nonameelf]

If you anyone retaliates, we'll come for them too. Some weaksauce bargaining you want here. If a Chinese general covertly kills Americans tomorrow. Ya, we'll get him in his sleep.

Cool. Let's blindly rush into more decades long wars before we even finish the last one. Hell, why wait? Let's just declare war on everyone that looks at us funny.