Update: Iraqi court issues arrest warrant for Insurrectionist-in-Chief over killing of paramilitary leader last January

[mclumber1]

I'd blame them both.  Iran pulled the trigger, but Trump was being an asshole.

[Captain Pickle]

15 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I wasn’t aware insensitivity was exclusive to Americans, but I’m certainly not insensitive to the fact that 176 innocent lives were lost in a senseless manner. 

Sorry, that was a douchy thing to say

[Jason]

 

[sexy_shapiro]

You guys can try to rationalize all you want why @Captain Pickle shouldn’t be blaming Trump, but if he feels that way I can guarantee that a lot of grieving Canadians feel similarly.

[Captain Pickle]

20 minutes ago, sexy_shapiro said:

You guys can try to rationalize all you want why @Captain Pickle shouldn’t be blaming Trump, but if he feels that way I can guarantee that a lot of grieving Canadians feel similarly.

I’ve cooled down now. I just got overwhelmingly emotionally when I heard the confirmation about the plane that I wanted to state exactly what you’ve said. Just in an angry way

[sexy_shapiro]

Just now, Captain Pickle said:

I’ve cooled down now. I just got overwhelmingly emotionally when I heard the confirmation about the plane that I wanted to state exactly what you’ve said. Just in an angry way

I’m a very sensitive and emotional person myself so I totally get it.

 

In instances like this I wish users would just reply with “I’m sorry you’re feeling this way right now. It must be hard for you and your country reading this news amidst all of the shit that our president is continually stirring up.”

[Jason]

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

12 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I think @Captain Pickleis allowed to be frustrated and angry without a bunch of armchair punditry.  Yes Iran is at fault for stupidly allowing civilian flights while they were in state of high alert. But this incident WAS instigated by Trump and his poor understanding of the power and responsibility he wields.  There's no denying that by any measure. 

Based on the evidence we have:

- Trump did not provide the weapons that were used

- Trump did not provide the training or have "observers" on the ground with the weapons team

-  Trump did not put anti-aircraft missiles near a civilian airport, and not have sufficient procedures in place to ensure a commercial aircraft was not targeted

If there is any indication that US military aircraft were acting in a way that put civilian aircraft in danger (using them as shields, etc.), then there would be clear responsibility.

Based on everything we know to date, the shooting down of this aircraft was not a natural consequence of anything that Trump did.

 

Trump has responsibility for a lot of things, this is not one of them.

[CitizenVectron]

I would say he bears some responsibility, though only indirectly. When Presidents are briefed on these things, one of the issues they will be warned about is blowback. If we do X, they may respond with Y or Z. But you don't know what Y or Z will really be, there are always unintended consequences. But if the action you want to take is worth it, you factor that in and go ahead. Obviously Trump doesn't care about people or blowback of any kind so he wouldn't have considered stuff anyway...but instigating a heightened sense of alert in an adversary will knowingly place unforseen consequences on the board. Trump couldn't have known this was going to happen, but he should have known something could happen.
 

EDIT - Anecdotally, people I've talked to in Canada are assigning much of the blame on this to Trump, and to America in general. This event is going to hurt America's image in Canada. And while Americans to some extent can say "Trump doesn't represent all Americans, there is a distinction between the American government and its people," ... yeah, but he was still elected.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, CitizenVectron said:

I would say he bears some responsibility, though only indirectly. When Presidents are briefed on these things, one of the issues they will be warned about is blowback. If we do X, they may respond with Y or Z. But you don't know what Y or Z will really be, there are always unintended consequences. But if the action you want to take is worth it, you factor that in and go ahead. Obviously Trump doesn't care about people or blowback of any kind so he wouldn't have considered stuff anyway...but instigating a heightened sense of alert in an adversary will knowingly place unforseen consequences on the board. Trump couldn't have known this was going to happen, but he should have known something could happen.

Trump gives zero fucks about collateral damage is the point. I don't even know if he knows what that means.

 

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Based on the evidence we have:

- Trump did not provide the weapons that were used

- Trump did not provide the training or have "observers" on the ground with the weapons team

-  Trump did not put anti-aircraft missiles near a civilian airport, and not have sufficient procedures in place to ensure a commercial aircraft was not targeted

If there is any indication that US military aircraft were acting in a way that put civilian aircraft in danger (using them as shields, etc.), then there would be clear responsibility.

Based on everything we know to date, the shooting down of this aircraft was not a natural consequence of anything that Trump did.

 

Trump has responsibility for a lot of things, this is not one of them.

Trump initiated the action that led to this event taking place and we don't know why. He has not earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to taking his administration's word on pretty much anything so yes, he is indirectly responsible for what happened to that Ukrainian Airline for initiating this strike. It's not that hard to see that unless you dont want to. Either way, you're more than entitled to to your opinion and I have zero interest in going back and forth on something that is pretty much indisputable 

[Jason]

For someone who didn't know the phrase "quid quo pro" he sure fucking loves his quid quo pro.

 

 

[legend]

I don't think ascertaining ethical blame is worthwhile. Trump took a reckless action that predictably resulted in loss of life, and there is no indication that he's learned from it or even cares enough to consider that. He's a horrible leader and the world would be better with him removed.

 

Also, the sky is blue.

[Guest]

It is interesting that people think the initial strike was reckless when the outcome we got was pretty likely in the first place. I suppose if we just keep saying it was over and over, it will become such.

[Jason]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/on-the-day-us-forces-killed-soleimani-they-launched-another-secret-operation-targeting-a-senior-iranian-official-in-yemen/2020/01/10/60f86dbc-3245-11ea-898f-eb846b7e9feb_story.html

[Jason]

10 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It is interesting that people think the initial strike was reckless when the outcome we got was pretty likely in the first place. I suppose if we just keep saying it was over and over, it will become such.

 

Whacking the guy was a fucking war crime. 

[osxmatt]

 

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Whacking the guy was a fucking war crime. 

It isn’t, but that’s not relevant to my reply so feel free to presume for the balance of this reply that we agree it is a war crime. People aren’t saying it’s reckless because it’s a “war crime”, they were saying it was reckless because it would draw us further into conflict with Iran. Except that it more likely decreases the proxy attacks by Iran against the US. Iran has no desire to get into a full on conflict with the US, but they were happy to continue their proxy campaign against the US because our response had been so tame. Now things have changed.

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It isn’t

 

We assassinated Iran's #2 government official while he was traveling under flag of truce to the negotiating table. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

We assassinated Iran's #2 government official while he was traveling under flag of truce to the negotiating table. 

That’s certainly a version of events. But again, it’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

[mrbiggsly]

What's another version of events?

[TwinIon]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It isn’t, but that’s not relevant to my reply so feel free to presume for the balance of this reply that we agree it is a war crime. People aren’t saying it’s reckless because it’s a “war crime”, they were saying it was reckless because it would draw us further into conflict with Iran. Except that it more likely decreases the proxy attacks by Iran against the US. Iran has no desire to get into a full on conflict with the US, but they were happy to continue their proxy campaign against the US because our response had been so tame. Now things have changed.

I don't think that's been proven out at all. 

 

 

If we set aside the morality of the assassination itself, the ultimate question for the US becomes "are we safer in the world having taken this action." Based on the initial blowback, I'd argue that to not be the case at all. I don't think we've seen the end of the repercussions from this act, but from what we've seen so far, it might push us out of Iraq, or at the very least severely injure our relationship with the government there. It seems to have made Iran entirely abandon the nuclear deal, and destroyed any possibility for further diplomacy under this administration (and possibly future ones). We don't yet know if the missle attack was the full extent of direct Iranian action against US forces or if it was merely an opening salvo.

 

At the absolute least I think it's far too early to say that this has decreased proxy attacks against the US. Just because we haven't had an immediate attack doesn't indicate a real sense of ongoing security. 

 

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

That’s certainly a version of events.

 

What a truthy take. 

[legend]

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

It is interesting that people think the initial strike was reckless when the outcome we got was pretty likely in the first place. I suppose if we just keep saying it was over and over, it will become such.

 

It has already resulted in many civilian deaths, further eroded our standing on the world stage, caused further divide within our government factions. And the damage is still by no means necessarily over because of what it may mean for further inspiring terrorists and future diplomatic missions.

 

This was probably close to the best outcome given he insisted on making that choice. But the outcome we got still sucks and you also don't make decisions hoping for the best outcome anyway. 

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, legend said:

 

It has already resulted in many civilian deaths, further eroded our standing on the world stage, caused further divide within our government factions. And the damage is still by no means necessarily over because of what it may mean for further inspiring terrorists and future diplomatic missions.

 

This was probably close to the best outcome given he insisted on making that choice. But the outcome we got still sucks and you also don't make decisions hoping for the best outcome anyway. 

The killing of QS resulted in no civilian deaths. The plane being shot down is a discrete event from any US action. The Iranians weren’t engaged in an effort to shoot down US aircraft or missiles and missed, they just made an operator error. The US wasn’t doing anything at the time.
 

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

I don't think that's been proven out at all. 

 

 

If we set aside the morality of the assassination itself, the ultimate question for the US becomes "are we safer in the world having taken this action." Based on the initial blowback, I'd argue that to not be the case at all. I don't think we've seen the end of the repercussions from this act, but from what we've seen so far, it might push us out of Iraq, or at the very least severely injure our relationship with the government there. It seems to have made Iran entirely abandon the nuclear deal, and destroyed any possibility for further diplomacy under this administration (and possibly future ones). We don't yet know if the missle attack was the full extent of direct Iranian action against US forces or if it was merely an opening salvo.

 

At the absolute least I think it's far too early to say that this has decreased proxy attacks against the US. Just because we haven't had an immediate attack doesn't indicate a real sense of ongoing security. 

 

 

We are making guesses about which way things will go. I think the fact that basically everybody was wrong about what Iran was going to do, which amounted to them asking politely for the US not to hurt them, lends a lot of weight to the notion that Iran will be backing down from some of their actions.
 

The top guy responsible for the design and coordination of Iran’s proxy attacks is also gone. It will take some time for the next man up to reestablish whatever it is that Iran will do moving forward. Given the rumblings that folks in Iran didn’t like how much power QS was wielding makes me think their could also be some longer lasting turmoil in the relevant parts of the Iranian regime.

[legend]

1 minute ago, sblfilms said:

The killing of QS resulted in no civilian deaths. The plane being shot down is a discrete event from any US action. The Iranians weren’t engaged in an effort to shoot down US aircraft or missiles and missed, they just made an operator error. The US wasn’t doing anything at the time.

 

Hard for me to imagine it's completely independent, but without doing further reading on it myself, I'll be happy to cede that from the list and let the rest remain.

[CayceG]

15 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The killing of QS resulted in no civilian deaths. The plane being shot down is a discrete event from any US action. The Iranians weren’t engaged in an effort to shoot down US aircraft or missiles and missed, they just made an operator error. The US wasn’t doing anything at the time.

 

 

Iran was ready for US retaliation. They launched a rocket strike that was specifically targeted. They expected SOME casualties. Therefore, they expected retaliation. That retaliation would likely come in the form of cruise missile strikes (as almost all of our long range strikes are). The Tor-M1 is designed specifically to shoot down our cruise missiles. Given the situation, Iran prepared for retaliation by dispersing their SAMs and putting them on alert for cruise missiles inbound. 

 

A Boeing 737 taking off and a Tomahawk cruise missile closing in on a target travel at approximately the same speed. 

 

 

The killing of QS resulted in the deaths of everyone on that airplane. 

[SaysWho?]

Americans say Soleimani's killing made US less safe, Trump 'reckless' on Iran

 

Quote

Americans by more than 2-1 said the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani has made the United States less safe, a nationwide USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, amid broad concerns about the potential consequences ahead.

 

A majority of those surveyed, by 52%-34%, called President Donald Trump's behavior with Iran "reckless."

 

Americans were divided on the wisdom of the drone strike at the Baghdad airport last week that killed Soleimani and others: 42% supported it, 33% opposed it; 25% said they didn't know what to think. Republicans were much more supportive than Democrats; independents were almost evenly split.

 

But there was overwhelming agreement – in each case by more than 6-1 – that the attack made it more likely Iran would strike American interests in the Middle East (69%), that there would be terrorist attacks on the American homeland (63%), and that the United States and Iran would go to war (62%).

By 52%-8%, those polled said the attack made it more likely that Iran would develop nuclear weapons.

 

 

Quote

That said, Americans by 55%-24% said they believe the attack that took his life has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made. Just 1 in 10 said it had made the U.S. "much more safe;" three times as many said it had made the nation "much less safe."

 

Nearly a third of Republicans, who typically support the president, said it had made the nation less safe.

 

Some saw a domestic political motive behind the attack. By 47%-39%, those surveyed said Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani in an attempt to divert the focus from his impeachment. There was little support for the idea of delaying the Senate impeachment trial until the crisis with Iran was resolved; that was opposed by 55%-26%.

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, CayceG said:

 

 

Iran was ready for US retaliation. They launched a rocket strike that was specifically targeted. They expected SOME casualties. Therefore, they expected retaliation. That retaliation would likely come in the form of cruise missile strikes (as almost all of our long range strikes are). The Tor-M1 is designed specifically to shoot down our cruise missiles. Given the situation, Iran prepared for retaliation by dispersing their SAMs and putting them on alert for cruise missiles inbound. 

 

A Boeing 737 taking off and a Tomahawk cruise missile closing in on a target travel at approximately the same speed. 

 

 

The killing of QS resulted in the deaths of everyone on that airplane. 

Hogwash. You ground planes if you think retaliatory attacks are coming in that you’ll need to shoot down. They. There is also evidence that Iran told the US through back channels what was coming, which allowed the people on the bases to get to safety well before the missiles hit. There was no fear on Iran’s part that attacks on Tehran were likely. Some dopey SAM operator screwed up, it’s really that simple.

 

The clarity on this will continue to increase with time  

[CayceG]

1 minute ago, sblfilms said:

Hogwash. You ground planes if you think retaliatory attacks are coming in that you’ll need to shoot down. They. There is also evidence that Iran told the US through back channels what was coming, which allowed the people on the bases to get to safety well before the missiles hit. There was no fear on Iran’s part that attacks on Tehran were likely. Some dopey SAM operator screwed up, it’s really that simple.

 

The clarity on this will continue to increase with time  

 

The two entities don't talk to one another at that stage. The civilian airline industry may not have even known the Iranians launched an attack and they certainly might not have expected the air defenses to be active, let alone known there was one in the area.

 

Meanwhile, the Iranian air defense command probably isn't communicating what they're doing to a civilian authority. 

 

This happened maybe half an hour after the Iranian rocket attack? That's not a ton of time. 

Iran told the US and Iraq it was coming through a message to the Iraqi command center that the US inhabited. That was AS the rockets were launched. They only had minutes. 

 

 

Iran assumed--correctly--that the US might respond. We've been beating that drum for months/years. Iran was ready for some form of retaliation. They knew we had forces in the area. B-52s and Destroyers in the Indian Ocean are both capable of firing cruise missiles. Iran would have assumed their launch sites would be the targets. 

Speaking of, the Tor-M1 may have an automatic response that allows it to detect, identify, and engage incoming threats (read: American cruise missiles). That's a smarter design for when you expect to defend against a cruise missile attack. Whether an operator queued the SAMs to fire on the airliner, or an operator turned the Tor-M1 on automatic, yes, some dopey SAM operator did screw up. But the circumstances that lead up to the screw up directly contributed to it occurring. 

 

This is a horrific accident--one that would not have occurred had Trump not assassinated Soleimani. 

 

 

If the deployed SAM operator doesn't turn his launcher on, the plane isn't shot down. 

If Iran doesn't expect retaliation for their strike, they don't deploy SAMs. 

If the US doesn't preposition retaliatory assets, Iran doesn't believe that retaliation is likely. 

If Iran doesn't launch a missile strike, the assumption that the US retaliates isn't there. 

If Trump doesn't assassinate Soleimani, Iran doesn't launch a missile strike

 

This is a chain of events that directly flows back to the decision to assassinate an Iranian military commander. There's a lot of hands in it along the way, but the entire circumstance is WHY it happened. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, CayceG said:

This happened maybe half an hour after the Iranian rocket attack? That's not a ton of time. 

Iran told the US and Iraq it was coming through a message to the Iraqi command center that the US inhabited. That was AS the rockets were launched. They only had minutes. 

This may be why you’re getting off track here. The missile attacks happened between 2:00 and 3:00am, while the plan was shot down at 6:15am in Tehran. It wasn’t just minutes.

[Jason]

Donald Trump gets impeached—63 Canadians die

[CayceG]

Just now, sblfilms said:

This may be why you’re getting off track here. The missile attacks happened between 2:00 and 3:00am, while the plan was shot down at 6:15am in Tehran. It wasn’t just minutes.

 

I probably am. That's certainly a wider span of time. 

 

But it still remains that Iran expected retaliation to their strike. 

 

Still, if we say by 3:00 they knew their rockets had hit their targets, let's do some math. 

Retaliation would likely come from cruise missiles, as I stated before. The US Navy and US Air Force would be the ones tasked with that mission. Since the Navy had moved its assets out of the Persian Gulf, they'd be striking from the Gulf of Oman, or farther out in the Indian Ocean. The USAF would have to scramble a B-52 from Diego Garcia (2,000 miles from the Gulf of Oman), so the quickest response would be from a Navy destroyer. 

 

That's about 1,000 miles from Tehran proper, which is the approximate maximum range of a Tomahawk. The speed a Tomahawk flies is about 500 mph, meaning that from a launch point in the Gulf of Oman, it would take approximately 2 hours for the missiles to hit their targets in Tehran. 

 

Iran would assume the US could respond immediately after confirming the strike came from Iran, plus some time to send orders, make sure all the targeting information was in, and work to actually fire off our own missiles. It would probably be within another hour that they'd expect a strike. 

 

 

So starting at 3:00am, Iran would expect a strike SOMEWHERE in the country. We have proof of this because there were reports of Iranian Air Force activity through Iranian airspace starting after the strikes. They were on the lookout. 

^ That tweet hit sometime around 4:42am in Tehran. 

 

Give it another 30 minutes and Iran might expect that the US had given some retaliatory orders (thus, why the IRIAF planes were in the air when they were). 

Add 2 hours or so flight time for missiles to cross the country and you get 6 am. 

 

 

The thing is, the Iranians didn't have proof we had responded with missile strikes. They were just ready for it. They expected it, but they didn't know when or if it was coming. So they don't shut down the airspace--because they don't really have an incoming danger yet. 

 

But the Iranian SAM operator knows to expect it. 

The Iranian SAM operator knows that his piece of equipment is going to be in the crosshairs of a US strike. Our arsenal is terrifying to be on the receiving end of. Think about it--you're out there in your SAM, knowing shit just went hot and you got the order to be on alert. So you know you are going to eat a cruise missile or a JDAM or whatever. 

Maybe your SAM is in 'observe' mode and isn't going to engage until you flip the switch. Then you hear a jet. Or you see a radar blip coming for you. 

 

Knowing what's in your head as a SAM operator under those circumstances... it'd be hard not to flip the switch and engage. Because you aren't thinking that there's civilian aircraft. You're thinking that there's American missiles out there looking for you. 

 

OR

 

Your SAM has a system (I don't know if this is true or not) that differentiates commercial air traffic from military--using the ADS-B transmitter. This is the same transmitter that open source plane tracking uses. 

The ADS-B on this plane went out prior to when it was struck by the SAM. 

Maybe you, the SAM operator see a commercial aircraft on your radar that shows up as a commercial aircraft. But then it suddenly doesn't. The identifier is gone, but there's still a radar blip there. 

 

Knowing what's in your head as a SAM operator, and knowing the history the US has with shooting down Iranian airliners, maybe you think that a US plane just shot down an airliner. And so you flip the switch and engage the blip. 

 

 

 

There's a lot of ways this goes down in terms of who pulls the trigger. But WHY they pull the trigger is every bit as important. 

 

 

 

[elbobo]

1 hour ago, CayceG said:

 

 

Iran was ready for US retaliation. They launched a rocket strike that was specifically targeted. They expected SOME casualties. Therefore, they expected retaliation. That retaliation would likely come in the form of cruise missile strikes (as almost all of our long range strikes are). The Tor-M1 is designed specifically to shoot down our cruise missiles. Given the situation, Iran prepared for retaliation by dispersing their SAMs and putting them on alert for cruise missiles inbound. 

 

A Boeing 737 taking off and a Tomahawk cruise missile closing in on a target travel at approximately the same speed. 

 

 

The killing of QS resulted in the deaths of everyone on that airplane. 

 

a plane taking off from Tehran's airport and climbing to altitude and cruise missile coming in from outside the county are going to have very different flight profiles along with vastly different radar cross sections.

[CayceG]

1 minute ago, elbobo said:

 

a plane taking off from Tehran's airport and climbing to altitude and cruise missile coming in from outside the county are going to have very different flight profiles along with vastly different radar cross sections.

 

A Tor-M1 isn't going to give you an approximate size. It's just going to be a strong blip because the physical size returns a good signal on the radar receiver. The Tor is intended to look for cruise missiles, so it's tuned to see smaller physical objects. It doesn't differentiate. 

 

I don't personally know if the Tor's surveillance radar shows a definitive altitude. I would imagine it does.

 

But a plane accelerating to its cruising altitude is probably going to be going a similar speed to a cruise missile that's on the end of its range and coming down to its terminal phase towards a target. I don't think a SAM operator is really going to be looking for that. 

 

 

 

[Guest]

@CayceGdespite disagreeing, I appreciate you taking time to respond