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2020 Political Thread

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KoD

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In the tweet he says the casualty assessment is ongoing, but I hope you are right.
It does appear like there may be Iraqi casualties, but I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't really care about them all that much. All is well!
Personally I would find it highly insulting if any loss of life occurred, then to tweet what he did, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out only Iraqis were injured or killed at this early point.
 

Evan

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I’m in no way fine with our troops potentially dead and their commander saying “all is well.”

The attacks happened 4 hours ago. We would have already determined if there are any injuries to US personnel. BDAs take longer. Strategically, however, if the goal is to deescalate, then you don't come out of the gate crowing about zero casualties and saying the damage was so minor your BDA only took an hour to complete.

Our troops are not potentially dead. There's zero doubt we've been formulating very aggressive and tight protocols to quickly do casualty and damage assessments and get the data back to DoD. They've probably been refining and practicing since the Soleimani strike. Plus, we have very good radar in the area. For whatever reason (whether strategic or symbolic), Iran chose to hit a base about as far away from their own territory back home as they can in Iraq. That gave plenty of time for our personnel to shelter.

I'm telling you, the military, especially in this type of situation, doesn't take hours to report casualties. It isn't ongoing combat. It was a fairly quick event. You fully know I'm not at all a Trump fan, but he's obviously been made aware we have no casualties. DoD would've known definitively about any casualties within an hour or so. I think they intentionally slow-walked the release of casualty info to give themselves more time to formulate a response (and to have more potential options) and to make the Iranian strike look more significant than it was. It's a DoD driven strategy I guarantee you.
 

gangstonc

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What is your source that we have lost troops? We may have but the outlets I have observed are saying so far, no U. S. Casualties.

I think it’s pretty plain I said I was afraid we had lost troops. Not that we had actually lost any. There is a difference between fearing something and it actually happening.
 

gangstonc

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The attacks happened 4 hours ago. We would have already determined if there are any injuries to US personnel. BDAs take longer. Strategically, however, if the goal is to deescalate, then you don't come out of the gate crowing about zero casualties and saying the damage was so minor your BDA only took an hour to complete.

Our troops are not potentially dead. There's zero doubt we've been formulating very aggressive and tight protocols to quickly do casualty and damage assessments and get the data back to DoD. They've probably been refining and practicing since the Soleimani strike. Plus, we have very good radar in the area. For whatever reason (whether strategic or symbolic), Iran chose to hit a base about as far away from their own territory back home as they can in Iraq. That gave plenty of time for our personnel to shelter.

I'm telling you, the military, especially in this type of situation, doesn't take hours to report casualties. It isn't ongoing combat. It was a fairly quick event. You fully know I'm not at all a Trump fan, but he's obviously been made aware we have no casualties. DoD would've known definitively about any casualties within an hour or so. I think they intentionally slow-walked the release of casualty info to give themselves more time to formulate a response (and to have more potential options) and to make the Iranian strike look more significant than it was. It's a DoD driven strategy I guarantee you.
I believe you.
 
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It does appear like there may be Iraqi casualties, but I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't really care about them all that much. All is well!
Personally I would find it highly insulting if any loss of life occurred, then to tweet what he did, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out only Iraqis were injured or killed at this early point.

For you to assume Trump does not care about Iraqi casualties is pretty gross. Trump was trying to deescalate tensions. Again, what was your source regarding American casualties? CNN or MSNBC?
 

Evan

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It does appear like there may be Iraqi casualties, but I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't really care about them all that much. All is well!
Personally I would find it highly insulting if any loss of life occurred, then to tweet what he did, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out only Iraqis were injured or killed at this early point.

Casualties can be just injuries. I won't consider it insulting if it ends up causing the temperature to get turned down on this whole crisis and the situation deescalates.

I'm not defending Trump, but he's likely pumping sunshine for a reason. Either it's a decoy as part of a prelude to a US retaliation, or it's to frame this in a way so he can "choose" not to retaliate and not look weak. At the same time, we slow-played that Iran largely did nothing so that they don't feel impotent and humiliated.

I wouldn't usually give Trump this much credit nor give him the benefit of the doubt, but he was with Esper, Pence, Pompeo, and Milley before the tweet. Odd as it may seem, Trump has done a fairly good job being suitably coy when it comes to military strategy in a number of instances. He often blows all that up by tweeting dumb stuff like the attacks on cultural sites or other bluster. But he's somewhat decent at not tipping his hand and is often able to keep our enemies off-balance due to his mercurial nature.

I'm not suggesting all of it is calculated or for show. This is Trump we're talking about. He's also rather crazy, a full blown narcissist, and often petulant. But, on occasion, he's done well playing the part DoD wanted him to. Not always. Just sometimes. Had Milley, Esper, and Pompeo not all just been there I might conclude otherwise.
 

Evan

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For you to assume Trump does not care about Iraqi casualties is pretty gross. Trump was trying to deescalate tensions. Again, what was your source regarding American casualties? CNN or MSNBC?

Trump has repeatedly made it clear he considers non-American lives to be worth a mere fraction of that of an American one. With how he's gratuitously embraced attacking civilians, bombing the non-involved family of terrorists, and has aggressively embraced and pardoned actual war criminals, it doesn't really take a leap of faith to get there. Add in all the other times Trump has mocked and ridiculed people, and his consistent debasement and stereotyping of non-Americans, and I think it is absolutely a fair conclusion to make.

For the record, I don't think Trump cares about much of anything other than himself. You can't seriously think he's ever even shown even an ounce of empathy in these types of situations.
 
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All I can say is you ha
Trump has repeatedly made it clear he considers non-American lives to be worth a mere fraction of that of an American one. With how he's gratuitously embraced attacking civilians, bombing the non-involved family of terrorists, and has aggressively embraced and pardoned actual war criminals, it doesn't really take a leap of faith to get there. Add in all the other times Trump has mocked and ridiculed people, and his consistent debasement and stereotyping of non-Americans, and I think it is absolutely a fair conclusion to make.

For the record, I don't think Trump cares about much of anything other than himself. You can't seriously think he's ever even shown even an ounce of empathy in these types of situations.

All I can say is you have not watched Trump enough in certain situations. He’s quite compassionate. Ask Alice Johnson.

I’m serious. There are many instances where Trump has been humble, compassionate and understanding. You need to look more closely.
 

Evan

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All I can say is you ha


All I can say is you have not watched Trump enough in certain situations. He’s quite compassionate. Ask Alice Johnson.

He pardoned her to politically benefit himself because he thought Kanye and Kim Kardashian were going to help him gain more minority support. Trump has been almost completely passive on criminal justice reform outside of a few obviously political pardons.
 

KoD

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Again, what was your source regarding American casualties? CNN or MSNBC?
Again?
My source regarding American casualties was Trump's tweet as I alluded to in this post:
I don't think Trump would say "All is well!" if there were any US casualties. I'm sure he's been briefed that all US personnel are accounted for, otherwise he wouldn't "mission accomplished" this event.
 
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Oh my goodnes
He pardoned her to politically benefit himself because he thought Kanye and Kim Kardashian were going to help him gain more minority support. Trump has been almost completely passive on criminal justice reform outside of a few obviously political pardons.

Oh my goodness. Your level of hate is pretty high. How do you know he did it for political benefit. Show me the correspondence confirming this.
 

Evan

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Oh my goodnes


Oh my goodness. Your level of hate is pretty high. How do you know he did it for political benefit. Show me the correspondence confirming this.

The same way I know water is wet and that the sun rises in the morning. Experience.

If you want to pretend Trump is altruistic and cares about others then have at it. But there's voluminous evidence that Trump never does anything for anyone unless he gets something in return. That even includes charity.
 
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The same way I know water is wet and that the sun rises in the morning. Experience.

If you want to pretend Trump is altruistic and cares about others then have at it. But there's voluminous evidence that Trump never does anything for anyone unless he gets something in return. That even includes charity.

There is also voluminous evidence where Trump
has been charitable to families or individuals in need. I’m not being altruistic at all. I am not jaded by hate or bias as you seem to be. I’ll pray for you. Especially when I’m in Ireland.
 

ghost

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If you want to pretend Trump is altruistic and cares about others then have at it. But there's voluminous evidence that Trump never does anything for anyone unless he gets something in return. That even includes charity.
So true... look at the way he's treated his family and run his businesses... he's trying to run the country the same way.
 

Evan

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I want to be clear. I don't think Iran's face-saving gesture is anything other than something they'll use to their own benefit. A conventional conflict is lose-lose for them. This strike allowed them to vent domestic pressure and save face internationally. But this isn't Iran's real response. If it had been, they'd have killed our people.

Iran is going to take advantage of any lull (if Trump also decides to deescalate) to plan their real retaliation which will likely be an attack that maintains their plausible deniability. Similarly, the US can benefit from having more time to build up our forces. We're at a serious numbers/material disadvantage right now in the Middle East. We need time to build the machine back up.

Unfortunately, I don't think this conflict is going to go cold very easily. The Soleimani strike changed everything. Very significant chance Trump is never even forced to deal with the consequences of his decision as President.
 
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So true... look at the way he's treated his family and run his businesses... he's trying to run the country the same way.
So tell me how he has mistreated his family. If I’m not mistaken they love him. They all speak highly of him. And his business is successful! Give me a clue!
 
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