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No, who cares about people. Trump will just seize the oil fields as the important part of the country.

orathaic wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2020 12:43 pm

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51003159

Latest bullying by the US/Trump. "oh no, this free and democratic society we created is now acting freely and voted for our troops to leave... Let's punish them."

I can't blame the vote when they were under threat by Hezbollah and everyone who would have voted against it chose to boycott the vote, nearly denying quorum.

Iran fires back:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-fires-m ... 58265.html

Some speculation that Iran will go after soft targets that will really hurt Trump, the ones that he owns or has his name on them.

No reports of US troops injured or killed? Is this a good sign or a bad one?

orathaic wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 08, 2020 1:39 am

No reports of US troops injured or killed? Is this a good sign or a bad one?

Obviously it's a good sign. How good it is depends on a variety of factors. Iran reputedly has extremely good missile systems (not like Iraq randomly lobbing scuds in the general direction of the enemy) so the very light casualty list indicates an intentional miss, or a deliberate firing of blanks, or that their reputation for missiles is far higher than it should be. If any of those are true it is a great sign.

Or using less explosive missiles to save the better ones for after anti-missile defenses have been tested. Iran now knows it won't be facing an Iron Dome system or other that Israel uses. A lot cheaper than the cruise missiles that Trump used in Syria that barely damaged the air force base.

US has been minimizing casualty reports, so either few or Trump doesn't want to make them seem successful. If few then you would want to emphasize it.

Followup

It appears that Iran deliberately chose to minimize casualties by doing it at night when most soldiers would be in known places. No word on what was in the specific buildings that were destroyed.

But Ora, that airbase cost billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars to build. America will leave as soon as Iraq pays for the Mexican wall.

Randomizer wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 08, 2020 6:57 pm

Followup

It appears that Iran deliberately chose to minimize casualties by doing it at night when most soldiers would be in known places. No word on what was in the specific buildings that were destroyed.

That's right, Iran purposely dealt economical damage than a wide death poll. I believe Iran goverment wants to show up to its own people, which were protesting.

Assuming for a moment that the unsubstantiated claims of western leaders is correct, and the Iranian missile defence system shot down the Ukrainian flight (possible by accident?); what then are the chances that the 'accident' was caused by a cyber attack from the US?

If that was the case you would see Iran denying it, because they don't want the public to know their systems are vulnerable (even if it was user error and not a cyber attack, they still wouldn't want ppl to know).

Are you suggesting that the Americans deliberately shot down a plane full of Canadians, or that they just fuzzed up the targeting systems when they were expecting the Iranians to attack US targets, and it had an unfortunate consequence?

As close as it was to when they launched missiles into Iraq, I would say the most likely situation is some poor soul thought the US was retaliating and freaked out and acted prematurely. Nobody benefits from doing this deliberately. I don't think Iran would deny a cyber attack, I don't think anyone has enough pride to take that course of action, and it would be decently easy and quick to find out a cyber attack was involved. This is an all around and terrible tragedy, and I don't think anyone wanted or intended anything like this to happen.

I thought it was rather obvious that the surface to air missile that bought down the Ukrainian Boeing aircraft was launched from within Iran, and now the Iranians are admitting it. Their lies were just not plausible, rather like Putin's bullshit about having nothing to do with shooting down that Malaysian commercial aircraft.. Not that the good old USA would make a cock up like that.. oh, that US Navy warship Vincennes (?) mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft a few years ago... So what is the score now ? USA, Russia and Iran. one cock up each and at least 700 civilians killed.

Still, I am a little surprised (and pleased) to hear them admit it. The investigated and found it was human error.

Though I've already seen people blaming Trump, Iranian military don't usual make these mistakes when they are not worrying about incoming US strikes.

Tragic loss of life, which could have been avoided.

I think more directly it’s the fault of Iran choosing not to shut down the airports. They gave forward notice of the missile strike, so it’s clear they were thinking about the consequences. And obviously some in the military felt a retaliation attack from the US was possible. The government should have temporarily kept civilian aircraft grounded. The brief attempt to cover it up afterwards makes it a bit worse in my eyes, though it is good to see they are now being honest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51081833

Glad to see these protesters continue to have more in common with anti-war protesters in Europe and the EU than either do with their rulers.

orathaic wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:28 am

Glad to see these protesters continue to have more in common with anti-war protesters in Europe and the EU than either do with their rulers.

In the sense that prisoners, and holiday makers on the beach, and pretty much everyone will have more in common with each other than national rulers, I probably agree... But I fail to see any obvious parallels between these people and the European anti war lot.

Must admit I typed the, should have read Europe and US.

They have at least one thing in common, neither want Western tax payers money to pay for bombing Iranian citizens.

orathaic wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:14 pm

They have at least one thing in common, neither want Western tax payers money to pay for bombing Iranian citizens.

I suppose that is technically true, but it doesn't necessarily say anything meaningful about the intent of the protesters in Iran. If there's a significant similarity between American and Iranian protesters, it's that both feel their leaders have committed murder and need to be held accountable.

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-sh ... 59343.html

When you don't use your brain, head injuries aren't serious. Trump the new Quayle.