The US Hamster Wheel

[Slasher]

So you're agreeing with the CNN gothic skeleton that Trump should've just gone ahead and bombed the sh!t out of the ragheads over the downing of a radio-controlled aeroplane just to prove he's stable and doesn't do what you call 'flip-flops'? C'mon man...

[BenThere]

If a hostile power sent a military aircraft within 20 miles of the US coast, or of Israel, do you think it wouldn't be shot down?

We don't know, it's never been tried.

As for the flip-flop reading anti-trumpets are so eager to apply, I counter that the president weighed the cost in Iranian human life to respond militarily to Iranian aggression and made the call to stop the operation. Of course, his detractors ignored that reasoned decision, but President Trump knows he has Iran in an inescapable box. It's economy is collapsing and one day the current Iran regime will implode. Should the current regime attempt to persist in its spread of misery and aggression it can always be taken out on President Trump's whim. If I were making the call I would have taken out Kharq island, cutting off Iran's oil export industry, the lifeblood of the regime.

[BenThere]

learned that one the hard way

No, learning the hard way is the slow process of recognizing that Islam is the scourge of civilization and setting about to defeat it.

[Boac]

A delightful riposte to his 'Cocked and Loaded' (he can't even get that right...) tweet has appeared

“I cocked and loaded as much covfefe and hamberders as I could find, and looked for the smocking sights.”

Sums up this Presidency so far. Only thing missing is Melanie.

[Boac]

I counter that the president weighed the cost in Iranian human life to respond militarily to Iranian aggression and made the call to stop the operation.

- how do you square losing your nerve over 150 Iranian casualties with 'obliterating' the country - and is that a veiled nuclear threat?

[AtomKraft]

This is definitely the latest use of US nuclear weapons.

They are used in the same way that a man holding a loaded gun to a persons head, gets what he wants without firing.

Make no mistake, the US is using its nuclear arsenal, as it has done many times before.

It's a thinly veiled threat.

[Boac]

Little wonder Iran would like to play too.

[Woody]

Maybe they’ve borrowed some Russian hackers

The US launched a cyber-attack on Iranian weapons systems on Thursday as President Trump pulled out of air strikes on the country, US reports say.
The cyber-attack disabled computer systems controlling rocket and missile launchers, the Washington Post said.
It was in retaliation for the shooting down of a US drone as well as attacks on oil tankers that the US has blamed Iran for, the New York Times said.
There is no independent confirmation of damage to Iranian systems.
The US has also imposed sanctions President Trump described as "major".
He said the sanctions were needed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and economic pressure would be maintained unless Tehran changed course.

[Boac]

It must have come as a big shock to the militarily very experienced US C-in-C that dropping bombs and missiles might hurt some people. Still, better to find out before the act than after.

What a buffoon.

[John Hill]

Now he just has to learn the effects of swingeing economic sanctions.

Example

In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Madeleine Albright appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes with reporter Lesly Stahl, who said, “We have heard that a half a million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And – you know, is the price worth it?” Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”

[Boac]

Leaked Documents Prove Trump's Cabinet Is as Big of a Clusterf*ck as We All Knew It Was

- Esquire

Don't forget it is the FED's fault too, not Chump's sanctions. tariffs, swithering on military stuff and the good guys and the bad guys, crap Twatting, appalling judgement on staff etc etc. He really is just like a kid - "It weren't me mum, he done it"

a six-foot-three child in the White House

Be proud.

[BenThere]

Given all that, Boac, aren't you amazed at his success?

[Boac]

Well, I'm certainly 'amazed'................

[Bob]

Speaking only for myself.
After conversing with some of the people who secured Trump's success, I'm not amazed at all.

Go USA

[Undried Plum]

So you're agreeing with the CNN gothic skeleton that Trump should've just gone ahead and bombed the sh!t out of the ragheads over the downing of a radio-controlled aeroplane just to prove he's stable and doesn't do what you call 'flip-flops'? C'mon man...

No. Quite the opposite.

I'm saying that what is need is a mentally stable person who will not bomb Iran.

The Shia flavour of Islam is very strong on the Jude-biblical thing of 'an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth'. They will retaliate in kind and we will not like it. Americans being Americans, they will then bomb Iran some more because bombing didn't work. And so you get yet another war which America will neither win nor lose.

Remember The American War in Vietnam? 6,000,000 tons of bombs and the bastards still didn't vanquish the Vietnamese people.

[John Hill]

Not only the tooth for a tooth but they are probably strong on the various angles of forgiveness.

[Undried Plum]

The Iranians know that American malice to their democracy massively predates Chump. Iran is one of the few survivor countries of the hit-list of malice.

So does General Wesley Clark:

[BenThere]

Even though Gen. Clark came to the forefront of the Pentagon, and emerged from active duty as a moderately left-wing Democrat. He ran the Kosovo War admirably and had a remarkable career which included being the top graduate of his West Point class, and being decorated for valor in Viet Nam. Given that, it's hard for me to be critical, though how he came to be a Democrat puzzles me.

Today, though, Iran is the primary fomenter of violence in the world, has committed attacks on the oil tankers of other sovereign nations, declared dedication to the destruction of Israel and the US. So President Trump uses what power he has to offer up some resistance. How is that out of line, Wesley?

[Undried Plum]

Even though Gen. Clark came to the forefront of the Pentagon, and emerged from active duty as a moderately left-wing Democrat. He ran the Kosovo War admirably and had a remarkable career which included being the top graduate of his West Point class, and being decorated for valor in Viet Nam. Given that, it's hard for me to be critical, though how he came to be a Democrat puzzles me.

Iran is the primary fomenter of violence in the world

You gotta be kiddin'! Count the number of countries that the US has bombed and attacked in the past half century. Look at the number of terrorist (call 'em "freedom-fighters" if you must) organisations organised and trained and funded and exploited by the US.

Has Iran bombed the US? No. It is the US that has been waging war against the Iranian people ever since they tossed the hated puppet Pahlavi out on his ear and restored democracy to the country. Not the other way around.

As for attacking tankers this year, I have yet to see any credible evidence that it was Iran wot dunnit. In the case of the recent ones a couple of weeks ago, it is vanishingly improbable that Iran bombed those ships.

[BenThere]

Has Iran bombed the US?

No, Iran doesn't have the reach yet to do that. But it has waged war on the US. Frankly, given the takeover and holding of US hostages in 1979, and the ongoing support of Hisbollah and Hamas, makes today's Iran regime a cockroach that need to be squished.