2020 Political Thread (3 Viewers)

[Evan]

This jives with what I was saying earlier. Save face, show you could have taken American lives, and then say you're done if we are.

Question is, can those promises be trusted? I don't think they can. Secondly, would Trump agree to de-conflict after the Iranians used ballistic missiles?

 

[Kory]

What kind of message would it send if a key Americans base is attacked and we do nothing? Genuinely curious if we don't retaliate, would this give momentum to the adversary?

 

[Kory]

 

[gangstonc]

We have no Director of National Intelligence, no Deputy Director, no Homeland Security Secretary, no Dep Sec, no head of CBP or ICE, no State Dept Under SecRetaryof Arms Control, no Asst Sec for Europe, and no Navy Sec.

Not the way to go into a military crisis and build allies.

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

I may end up being wrong, but I think it is possible Iran may have targeted parts of the bases away from housing/mess/admin areas hoping to avoid American casualties but demonstrating they could have inflicted casualties.

I don't think we will see any American deaths or serious injuries from the current attack. If we did, then we all know all bets are off. But, I think it there were American injuries or deaths we'd have already heard about it.

I think you are correct. Could have been a face saving effort. Time will tell.

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

This is why you don’t let your unqualified kids handle Middle East peace.

This is why you don’t let your unqualified kids handle Middle East peace.

I would be careful relying on anything the Washington Post reports. Actually Trump has done the exact opposite. He has formed an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others with Israel against Iran. That’s a good thing.

 

[WesL]

I would be careful relying on anything the Washington Post reports. Actually Trump has done the exact opposite. He has formed an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others with Israel against Iran. That’s a good thing.

Saudi Arabia is a joke. Why are we guarding their oil facilities with our troops? Jordan and Israel are good allies but seriously that would not be a big enough force to incapacitate the Iranians.

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

Lots of reports coming out detailing US casualties. Seems like a lot of it doesn’t agree. Let’s be sure to be careful what we repost.

I hope this doesn’t escalate any more.

This is exactly why we have typically used covert ops for this type of stuff.

what are your sources for this?

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

I actually agree with you

Saudi Arabia is a joke. Why are we guarding their oil facilities with our troops? Jordan and Israel are good allies but seriously that would not be a big enough force to incapacitate the Iranians.

I actually agree with you. Saudi has purchased enough U.S. military hardware that they should be able to take care of themselves.

 

[gangstonc]

I would be careful relying on anything the Washington Post reports. Actually Trump has done the exact opposite. He has formed an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others with Israel against Iran. That’s a good thing.

Trump did not form those alliances. Jordan has been an ally since 1996 and friends for much longer. We have been friends with SA for a similarly long time.

As far as the false reports, mostly Twitter. People (like myself), like to post things here from twitter because of the brevity (it is the soul of wit after all), but a lot of time the reports on Twitter are speculative.

 

[KoD]

I would be careful relying on anything the Washington Post reports.

Yes, even a fairly reliable news organization should be viewed skeptically. That should apply to any source of any information.

Actually Trump has done the exact opposite. He has formed an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others with Israel against Iran. That’s a good thing.

Trump formed those alliances? Does he also have a DeLorean with a flux capacitor?
I was under the impression that those alliances were around before 2017.

 

[gangstonc]

All is well! We don’t know if anybody died or not, but it’s fine! What an imbecile.

 

[Evan]

What kind of message would it send if a key Americans base is attacked and we do nothing? Genuinely curious if we don't retaliate, would this give momentum to the adversary?

Certainly not excusing it, but Iran's proxies have been attacking our bases for over 15 years now. We made our point with Soleimani. They made theirs by showing they "could" have inflicted casualties had they intended to. For all we know we had Intel this was their plan and that's why we didn't try to intercept their missiles. It's probably still too early to tell so I'm just WAGing.

If we hold up here after this attack, it allows Trump to show the world and his domestic anti-war opponents that he's reasonable and truly doesn't want a war. It's an opportunity to just issue a statement and say that future attacks by Iran and their proxies will not be tolerated even if American forces don't sustain casualties. You lay out very clearly that if Iran does undertake anymore attacks or revenge, including terror attacks, proxy attacks, cyber, eytc that you will retaliate with overwhelming force.

You say we're are giving Iran a chance to show they're serious about descalation and come back to the negotiating table.

I really don't know that our readiness and force levels are currently at a high enough level to really get into a legitimate war with Iran right now. We'd need a WHOLE lot more time to build up men, material, and equipment.

Even though we have air superiority and superior technology, Iran has come a long way in the past 5-10 years. If they suddenly mobilized to hit all of our Middle East infrastructure and personnel, we'd take heavy losses and we'd need time to mount a response. There's no doubt that at this exact moment Iran has an overall advantage militarily over us because we have so few troops and resources in the area.

Even if you want to retaliate I think you take time to first build up your forces so that you can more easily deter any Iranian retaliation after your own. Right now we don't have the pieces in place to do that. I'm sure DoD and the Joint Chiefs have impressed this upon Trump and even he should understand it.

 

[gangstonc]

Certainly not excusing it, but Iran's proxies have been attacking our bases for over 15 years now. We made our point with Soleimani. They made theirs by showing they "could" have inflicted casualties had they intended to. For all we know we had Intel this was their plan and that's why we didn't try to intercept their missiles. It's probably still too early to tell so I'm just WAGing.

If we hold up here after this attack, it allows Trump to show the world and his domestic anti-war opponents that he's reasonable and truly doesn't want a war. It's an opportunity to just issue a statement and say that future attacks by Iran and their proxies will not be tolerated even if American forces don't sustain casualties. You lay out very clearly that if Iran does undertake anymore attacks or revenge, including terror attacks, proxy attacks, cyber, eytc that you will retaliate with overwhelming force.

You say we're are giving Iran a chance to show they're serious about descalation and come back to the negotiating table.

I really don't know that our readiness and force levels are currently at a high enough level to really get into a legitimate war with Iran right now. We'd need a WHOLE lot more time to build up men, material, and equipment.

Even though we have air superiority and superior technology, Iran has come a long way in the past 5-10 years. If they suddenly mobilized to hit all of our Middle East infrastructure and personnel, we'd take heavy losses and we'd need time to mount a response. There's no doubt that at this exact moment Iran has an overall advantage militarily over us because we have so few troops and resources in the area.

Even if you want to retaliate I think you take time to first build up your forces so that you can more easily deter any Iranian retaliation after your own. Right now we don't have the pieces in place to do that. I'm sure DoD and the Joint Chiefs have impressed this upon Trump and even he should understand it.

I really hope you are right. It wouldn’t match what Trump has said recently, but we all know his words are meaningless.

 

[Evan]

All is well! We don’t know if anybody died or not, but it’s fine! What an imbecile.

I don't have a problem with it. He's likely playing off the attack as no big deal to either descalate things or because he's about to go full nutter with his response and wants to catch the Iranians off-balance. I feel good about it being the former rather than the latter. He's probably just soothing his own ego.

 

[gangstonc]

I don't have a problem with it. He's likely playing off the attack as no big deal to either descalate things or because he's about to go full nutter with his response and wants to catch the Iranians off-balance. I feel good about it being the former rather than the latter. He's probably just soothing his own ego.

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

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

If we have no casualties I hope we are very careful and deliberate in our response instead of immediately escalating things.

I believe we will be.

 

[KoD]

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.

 

[gangstonc]

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.

In the tweet he says the casualty assessment is ongoing, but I hope you are right.

 

[Patrick O'Connor]

I’m afraid we have lost troops, exactly what this was supposed to avoid.

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.