War With Iran

20,947 Views | 222 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by BearForce2
dajo9
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The Trump Administration seems to be beating the drums for war with Iran. If you recall the process from the Iraq War, it starts small with the U.S. Administration reporting to the media about threats coming from the target country. It builds from there. The process started last week when we learned about "credible threats" coming from Iran even though this week a British General says nothing has changed. Today we learn that non-emergency personnel have been told to leave Iraq.

National Security Adviser John Bolton has wanted war with Iran for a long time. Trump will be told that this will benefit him politically amidst all the investigations into his corrupt Administration and with an election coming next year (this part may be true). This appears to potentially be the most needless, politically motivated push for war this country has ever experienced. The time to push back is now.
American Vermin
Cal Junkie
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War distracts from the Mueller report, from brown children being molested in cages along the border, and it also allows Mango Hitler to engage wartime powers. Wartime presidents are also re-elected at alarming rates so there's that. In addition, the profitable military-industrial complex wants to try out some new toys.
wifeisafurd
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This is Wag the Dog for you youngsters.

US just sent its embassy staff in Iraq home. Not good. This administaton is either bluffing once again or disturbing scary when it comes to foreign affairs
golden sloth
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I still think its posturing, and there is no war (but that is based on a hunch, so don't bet on it). That said, I know historically war has been politically beneficial to Presidents in the near term, I think war with Iran would be different.

I don't think the American public wants another war. We are still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Syria. These wars have gone on for decades with no victory in sight, and people want the government to take care of the American people not get involved abroad (America First). The American people know they were lied to for the Iraq war, and know that that war didn't help America or Iraq, it was a cluster. I don't think Americans want to lose more lives and money, so I don't see war with Iran being politically beneficial this time.
BearNIt
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Is it me or haven't I seen this move before? I think it involves Yellow Cake.
Another Bear
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Trump is likely banking on a "war bump" in polls, placating blood lust among his base and looking for his Dubya moment in flight suit and "mission accomplished" PR.

If there's anyone driving the war stuff, it's Bannon and Miller. Look at his movies...just crazy nihilist sh*t.

Agree...the American people do NOT want another war...we're still paying for two that haven't really ended. The American people want domestic issues addressed; healthcare, education, wages...not getting f*cked by the 1%.

The thing is, Trump is unstable and he takes on policy that no one wants like separating children from parents. Crossing a red line like that says they'll do nasty sh*t and don't care about humanity.

They big question might be: what does Vlad Putin want? Does he want the U.S. to go to war with Iran. Does Russia or Putin benefit?
Another Bear
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To answer the question; what does Russia get from U.S./Iran war?

Russia is the real winner in any US-Iran conflict

Quote:

The beating of the war drums between the United States and Iran is music to the Kremlin's ears. As a crisis looms between Washington and Tehran, Moscow is poised to reap the benefits as long as it can limit the damage.

Russia already is benefiting from the resumption of stringent U.S. sanctions against the sale of Iranian oil. Not only are Russian companies poised to gain additional market share as customers such as Japan, India, Korea and Italy reduce their purchases from Iran, Russia also emerges as a more reliable, dependable provider of energy to global markets. U.S. partners that reluctantly agreed to accept U.S. restrictions on Iran are thus far less incentivized to also impose penalties on Russia.

Indeed, we are seeing the latest iteration of the law of inverse sanctions results. Western allies were more inclined to go along with stricter sanctions on Russia following its 2014 intervention in Ukraine, in part because the Iranian nuclear deal offered new opportunities to obtain oil and natural gas. Now, with Iran in the sanctions crosshairs, and despite increases in U.S. production, Russia re-emerges as the supplier of last resort.
Jesus H. Christ...DO THE RUSSKIES OWN TRUMP OR WHAT?
bearister
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Bolton took a pass when he had a chance to satiate his war lust during Vietnam. He pulled the ole National Guard Draft dodge. I guess he gets his jollies being a watcher like Cheney.
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sp4149
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I take a bigger picture view.
Worldwide there is an aggressive and occasionally violent confrontation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Americans naively do not recognize the distinction. So when Sunni terrorists (aka Saudis) attack New York we blame Shiite Iran. AS long as these two religious factions clash, Israel feels safer.

In a special 9-11 edition of the Journal of American History, Appleby explained that the Shiite outlook is far different from the Sunni's, a difference that is highly significant:
... for Sunni Muslims, approximately 90 percent of the Muslim world, the loss of the caliphate after World War I was devastating in light of the hitherto continuous historic presence of the caliph, the guardian of Islamic law and the Islamic state. Sunni fundamentalist leaders thereafter emerged in nations such as Egypt and India, where contact with Western political structures provided them with a model awkwardly to imitate ... as they struggled after 1924 to provide a viable alternative to the caliphate.

In 1928, four years after the abolishment of the caliphate, the Egyptian schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna founded the first Islamic fundamentalist movement in the Sunni world, the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). Al-Banna was appalled by"the wave of atheism and lewdness [that] engulfed Egypt" following World War I. The victorious Europeans had"imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices." Suddenly the very heart of the Islamic world was penetrated by European"schools and scientific and cultural institutes" that" cast doubt and heresy into the souls of its sons and taught them how to demean themselves, disparage their religion and their fatherland, divest themselves of their traditions and beliefs, and to regard as sacred anything Western."14 Most distressing to al-Banna and his followers was what they saw as the rapid moral decline of the religious establishment, including the leading sheikhs, or religious scholars, at Al-Azhar, the grand mosque and center of Islamic learning in Cairo. The clerical leaders had become compromised and corrupted by their alliance with the indigenous ruling elites who had succeeded the European colonial masters.

Osama bin Laden was a Sunni Muslim. To him the end of the reign of the caliphs in the 1920s was catastrophic, as he made clear in a videotape made after 9-11. On the tape, broadcast by Al-Jazeera on October 7, 2001, he proclaimed:"What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted. ... Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more [than] eighty years, of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated."

Juan Cole, a well-known historian of the Middle East, has pointed out on his blog, Informed Comment, that the split between Sunni and Shiites in Iraq is of relatively recent origin:
I see a lot of pundits and politicians saying that Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq have been fighting for a millennium. We need better history than that. The Shiite tribes of the south probably only converted to Shiism in the past 200 year s. And, Sunni-Shiite riots per se were rare in 20th century Iraq. Sunnis and Shiites cooperated in the 1920 rebellion against the British. If you read the newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s, you don't see anything about Sunni-Shiite riots. There were peasant/landlord struggles or communists versus Baathists. The kind of sectarian fighting we're seeing now in Iraq is new in its scale and ferocity, and it was the Americans who unleashed it.

In 2014 Professor Cole summed up the differences between Sunni and Shiite this way:
Shiites are more like traditional Catholics in venerating members of the holy family and attending at their shrines. Contemporary Salafi Sunni Islam is more like the militant brand of Protestantism of the late 1500s that denounced intermediaries between God and the individual and actually attacked and destroyed shrines to saints and other holy figures, where pleas for intercession were made.

By blindly backing the Saudis, POTUS has taken a side in this conflict. Looking to blame Shiite countries for the actions of Sunnis, attacking Shiite rebels fighting Sunni/Saudi backed governments, placing economic sanctions against Shiite countries while forgiving terrorists attacks by Saudi/Sunni terrorists (9/11), by refusing to sanction Saudi actions (after all they are good customers of POTUS). Going to war against Iran is a logical progression of this policy.

The Iraq war taught us one thing about the Military Industrial complex that Americans seen to ignore. War forces DOD to re-supply. and DOD doesn't order replacements; instead DOD orders high tech replacements at a much higher cost. When we drop a 'dumb' bomb; we reorder a 'smart' bomb at ten times the cost. Defense contractors have really hooked POTUS on this concept. When confronted with the fact that numbers of our military aircraft were unavailable for conflict (because of inadequate maintenance forces) POTUS orders higher cost replacments that require almost double the maintenance. How many commercial airlines would fly if they needed 52 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time? It's not a coincidence that the Military Industrial Defense contractors provide expensive solutions that makes the situation worse. The threat of war just makes it easier for them to milk the DOD cow.
B.A. Bearacus
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dajo9
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Wartime also offers up an opportunity for further restrictions of Congressional oversight powers
American Vermin
sp4149
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dajo9 said:

Wartime also offers up an opportunity for further restrictions of Congressional oversight powers
Isn't he already using National Emergency powers to avoid Congressional authority on immigration, tariffs, homeland security, etc...
B.A. Bearacus
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going4roses
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Does Iran possess nuclear weapons? Couldn't that be a big problem?
Is it true taking control of China's oil source (Iran) may into cripple them?
China has nuclear arms also?

Are they trying to start a world wide War?


On civil preparedness front did trump take trillions from the military budget for construction of the wall
sp4149
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concordtom said:

Hmmm. A lot of good thoughts here.
Maybe Trump will initiate conflict vs Iran, and in their punch back they will assassinate Trump and his inner horde of evil liars, but in the end the US military and the Iranian people suffer very little.

You don't understand how our military fights. Starting with the Indian wars, you don't win by destroying the warriors, you win by destroying their homes, aka family and infrastructure.

If we go to war with Iran, we will target utilities as well as military bases, mistakenly bomb hospitals and mosques instead of intelligence offices, separate non-combatants from food, water, and medical aid. And ten years after the battles end, the country will still not have replaced the destroyed power plants, water treatment plants, hospitals and food distribution system.
Anarchistbear
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I think it's less likely.

The people are sick of war and there is no 9/11 event to hide behind

Neither the media nor the Democrats will cravenly fall in line like Iraq. Iran is one place where there isn't a bipartisan agreement.

Trump's approval ratings are pretty good for him. Mueller is over with little damage. He doesn't need a war to rally troops.

Of course Trump never takes the right hand road and is under pressure from the axis of evil - Bolton, the Israelis and the Saudis
BearForce2
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Ask the Dems to spy on the Iranians, they're good at spying, leaking info, and then lying about it.
B.A. Bearacus
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BearForce2 said:

Ask the Dems to spy on the Iranians, they're good at spying, leaking info, and then lying about it.
BF2 handle coming out strong after just one month of active duty on BI! What is your football fan handle on this site?

Related:

BearForce2
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Another Bear alter ego. But no worries here, I'm not one of those white supremacists who live among the trees in Oakland, waiting to come down to join the masses and pounce on the unsuspecting whenever I'm emboldened by POTUS.

bearister
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BearForce2 said:

Ask the Dems to spy on the Iranians, they're good at spying, leaking info, and then lying about it.


Yeah, and the Deep State was very effective in keeping the failed game show host from being elected POTUS and getting his Ken doll mittens on the nuclear codes.
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Another Bear
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From 2012...Twitter never dies.
B.A. Bearacus
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BearForce2 said:

Another Bear alter ego. But no worries here, I'm not one of those white supremacists who live among the trees in Oakland, waiting to come down to join the masses and pounce on the unsuspecting whenever I'm emboldened by POTUS.
It's nice to get to know more about this BF2 persona. I've filled out what I can below, but perhaps you can provide more information as it's nice to have an alter ego have some depth and backstory and one personality.

Party: GOP
Age: Old
Gender: Male
White: Yes
Voted for Trump: Yes
Will vote for Trump again: Yes... OR may choose none of the choices even though there's a slightly more effective action that would prevent him from winning.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: ?
Favorite musical genre: Country
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: Yes
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?

Another Bear
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Troll Force 2 has arrived! Gotta love the "I'm not a white supremacist" disclaimer! Did y'all forget your "I'm not a tin foil hat wearing RWNJ disclaimer" as well?

Another Bear
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BearForce2
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B.A. Bearacus said:

BearForce2 said:

Another Bear alter ego. But no worries here, I'm not one of those white supremacists who live among the trees in Oakland, waiting to come down to join the masses and pounce on the unsuspecting whenever I'm emboldened by POTUS.
It's nice to get to know more about this BF2 persona. I've filled out what I can below, but perhaps you can provide more information as it's nice to have an alter ego have some depth and backstory and one personality.

Party: GOP
Age: Old
Gender: Male
White: Yes
Voted for Trump: Yes
Will for for Trump again: Yes... OR may choose none of the choices even though there's a slightly more effective action that would prevent him from winning.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: ?
Favorite musical genre: Country
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: Yes
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?


Party: Conservative so GOP
Age: 35-49
Gender: Male
White: No
Voted for Trump: No
Will for for Trump again: Let's see what the other side comes up with, if Biden/Sanders/Kamala, then will vote Trump
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: Thomas Sowell, MLK Jr., Colin Powell, Candace Owens, Larry Elder
Favorite musical genre: Country, Pop, Hip-Hop, Rock, Classical, Jazz, what difference does it make?
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: A better question is, do you think people are basically good or bad?
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?
Unit2Sucks
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dajo9 said:



National Security Adviser John Bolton has wanted war with Iran for a long time.
I just want to chime in to say that there's no way Trump could have known this when he appointed Bolton. No one told him. Just like with Michael Flynn, it was not widely known when Trump appointed him and the democrats are to blame. Never liked his mustache either. Not from central casting!
bearister
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tRump fearlessly leading his men on a pre dawn panty raid of a local women's high school while serving with distinction at the New York Military Academy:

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joe amos yaks
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Bolton is long on hair and short on brains.
"Those who say don't know, and those who know don't say." - LT
Another Bear
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John Bolton's Vietnam experience from wikipedia. Give him credits for enlisting in the National Guard...but take it all back tenfold for being a chickenhawk with a hard-on for war. This personal context is rather disturbing considering he rationalized he didn't want to die, yet he has no problem sending others to die. Is that from the GOP's "How to be a Chickenhawk" manual? Seriously fccked up and hypocritical/


Quote:

Bolton was a supporter of the Vietnam War, but purposely avoided military service in Vietnam. During the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers were assigned by birth date.) As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to avoid service in the Vietnam War, although 42 Army Reserve units were called up with 35 of them deployed to Vietnam shortly after the Tet offensive in 196869. Before graduating from Yale in 1970, Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than wait to find out if his draft number would be called. (The highest number called to military service was 195.) He saw active duty for 18 weeks of training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, from July to November 1970. After serving in the National Guard for four years, he served in the United States Army Reserve until the end of his enlistment two years later.

He wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book: "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In a 2007 interview, Bolton explained his comment in the reunion book saying his decision to avoid service in Vietnam was because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."
B.A. Bearacus
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BearForce2 said:

Party: Conservative so GOP
Age: 35-49
Gender: Male
White: No
Voted for Trump: No
Will for for Trump again: Let's see what the other side comes up with, if Biden/Sanders/Kamala, then will vote Trump
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: Thomas Sowell, MLK Jr., Colin Powell, Candace Owens, Larry Elder
Favorite musical genre: Country, Pop, Hip-Hop, Rock, Classical, Jazz, what difference does it make?
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: A better question is, do you think people are basically good or bad?
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?

Prove that this is legit by starring your own post from your other account and reply agreeing with your BF2 post. This is how to cook with gas.
going4roses
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African Americans list ...oh my
B.A. Bearacus
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Lobotomized Republicans not realizing that the POTUS is NOT fuucking ok.

GBear4Life
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B.A. Bearacus said:


It's nice to get to know more about this BF2 persona. I've filled out what I can below, but perhaps you can provide more information as it's nice to have an alter ego have some depth and backstory and one personality.

Party: GOP
Age: Old
Gender: Male
White: Yes
Voted for Trump: Yes
Will vote for Trump again: Yes... OR may choose none of the choices even though there's a slightly more effective action that would prevent him from winning.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: ?
Favorite musical genre: Country
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: Yes
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?
^^^Remember when the Left wasn't identitarian and unabashed bigots?????
AunBear89
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Remember when Republicans used to put country before party? Remember when Republicans were the "Law and Order" party? Remember when Republicans weren't flaming hypocrites?
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- (maybe) Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain
golden sloth
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GBear4Life said:

B.A. Bearacus said:


It's nice to get to know more about this BF2 persona. I've filled out what I can below, but perhaps you can provide more information as it's nice to have an alter ego have some depth and backstory and one personality.

Party: GOP
Age: Old
Gender: Male
White: Yes
Voted for Trump: Yes
Will vote for Trump again: Yes... OR may choose none of the choices even though there's a slightly more effective action that would prevent him from winning.
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Can name five African Americans (or one) that they admire: ?
Favorite musical genre: Country
Considers themselves to be a kind, likable person in real life: Yes
Is strong enough to lift cars off of people in emergencies: ?
^^^Remember when the Left wasn't identitarian and unabashed bigots?????
Remember when the Left and Right weren't one homogeneous group that all think a like and yell in chorus. Oh wait, that's now! Perhaps we shouldn't make claims that because one person apart of a group says something, that everyone in that group believes the same thing.
 
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