no, i didn't know that the June 2019 US Politics thread was nasty

this fucker is really gonna keep saying "pocahontas" isn't he

he's inconsistent in some things, but not in acting like a total dickwad

https://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpg
Trump says Press Secretary Sarah Sanders is leaving WH.
https://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpg
Trump says Press Secretary Sarah Sanders is leaving WH.
https://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uu2mRZG.jpg
Trump says Press Secretary Sarah Sanders is leaving WH.

What are the odds that there is no longer any such job as White House Press Secretary once she leaves? 50/50?

I'm not going to believe that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving as White House press secretary until she denies it herself.

— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) June 13, 2019

if you mean until after the election starts in earnest, I would put it at 90/10
i would imagine trump will use WH Press Secretary as his bully pulpit for reelection as of January 2020

yeah it hardly seems necessary to replace her. no one holds press conferences or answers questions; the entire media operation is trump tweeting

there is still no director of communications, either, since bill shine left on march 8.

So, the pompeo statement

1.) how would they have enough evidence to make an assessment yet. 2.) would they *dare* try some gulf of tonkin shit in 2019–really? 3.) is it possible iran is behind the attacks and 4.) even so the haste of the assessment is suspicious, no?

oh cool we going to be at war for the next election . great timing bros

If that is what they’re doing i’m going to go throw some bricks at a certain building in my city

That cannot happen. A war with iran would be a catastrophe.

1.) how would they have enough evidence to make an assessment yet. 2.) would they *dare* try some gulf of tonkin shit in 2019–really? 3.) is it possible iran is behind the attacks and 4.) even so the haste of the assessment is suspicious, no?

― Trϵϵship, Thursday, June 13, 2019 10:38 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1) lol they don't
2) fraid so
3) it's possible.
4) yes. remember the weapons of mass destruction and its "proof"

You should have added:

5) is it possible the us is behind these attacks

It's possible.

yeah hard not at least consider the false flag scenario here

a half-assed causis belli that everyone knows is totally fake and flimsy yet just kinda gains shrugs is basically perfect for this administration

i suspect MBS

Any of the Sunni-ruled Gulf states, or Israel, really. There are lots of parties interested in an expansion of the 40+ year Saudi-Iran proxy conflict to include US intervention, and few of them are Iranian.

A war with iran would be a catastrophe.

Let's see. There's no chance that Saudi Arabia would not be involved from the get-go. Our planes take out much of Iran's oil capacity. Their missiles take out a lesser, but substantial, portion of SA oil capacity. Several thousand dead from all the bombing. There's the first 12 hours for you. After that the death/casualty list will just keep climbing. If there's an invasion there's no way it doesn't lead to the Iraq debacle x10. At the very least. No invasion just means the Iran government never falls and the war accomplishes zero change except for a million dead, more millions starving, a defiant Iran in rubble, and plenty of violent blowback for decades without end.

Yup. Checks out.

Every single rogue regime would scramble to get nukes as fast as possible. The US has already proven they won’g abide nuclear agreements. (I know they burned this bridge with the iraq war, but iran was still willing to negotiate with oba. I don’t think countries will take this risk again...)

Oba=obama obviously. #typoking

Iran wasn't just "willing to negotiate", they held up and are holding up their end of the deal, according to those monitoring them. A deal the US backed out of (because insanity)

Yeah but they negotiated with obama. They were willing to do that and to do it in good faith.

I’m on your side here, this is fucked

Of course. Iran is suffering many fold: due to sanctions, tensions in the region etc. I feel confident stating a war is the very last thing they want. I can't be so sure of the US on that matter. xp

Yeah, that's the gist, sadly

I’m not a fan of the Islamic Republic let me be clear, but I’m less a fan of war. And the US should honor its fucking agreements with other nations. A new president doesn’t mean a totally new government that can just scrap everything on a whim.

It'll be rather interesting from the standpoint of how survivable modern naval surface ships are to sea-skimming and ballistic missiles (like the Iranian Khalij Fars and Hormuz-1 and -2). We haven't seen near-peer naval conflict since the Falklands war, and then the missiles had the upper hand. After Iran downed and and safely landed a RQ-170 drone in 2011, I don't doubt their technical potential.

I will not be interested in that

What strikes me (npi) is that these missiles/torpedoes are effective at setting a ship on fire, but don't sink them. They're like little pin pricks. If whoever is behind this wanted to sink ships, they could've just as easily.

Above water-line limpets. What we've seen so far is just for show.

Not if it was just some terrorists xp

Do we know a nation is behind this?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8-qu7cXYAEX-ue.jpg

just want to make sure i have the WWIII flow chart correct here.

- US says Iran did it, and retaliates (air strikes, even more sanctions, new 'Death to Iran' counter-programming on NRAtv)
- Iran retaliates
- Saudi Arabia and Israel side with US
- Syria sides with Iran(?)
- Russia and Turkey...?

in this incredibly tense and complicated situation, it is vital that we all start from a shared set of facts. the president of the united states has weighed in:

In an interview broadcast on Friday by “Fox & Friends,” President Trump directly accused Tehran, saying, “Iran did do it.”

“You saw the boat,” he said. “It has Iran written all over it.” Mr. Trump added: “They didn’t want the evidence left behind. They don’t know that we have things that we can detect in the dark that work very well. We have that. It was them that did it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/japanese-oil-tanker-owner-says-us-is-wrong-about-gulf-attack

yes, but can the japanese oil tanker owner detect things in the dark?

good morning!

i ask you all - can you detect things in the dark??

maybe at some point in your timeline a united states secretary of defense will be appointed (with trump changing the title to 'secretary of offense' no doubt)

Flashlights, do you have them?

Shocker

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/06/14/politics/kellyanne-conway-trump-hatch-act/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

The most compelling evidence to support Mr. Pompeo’s claim was video footage released Thursday night by the United States Central Command. A military spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban, said the video showed an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps patrol boat pulling up alongside the Kokuka Courageous, one of the stricken ships, several hours after the initial explosion, and removing an unexploded limpet mine in broad daylight.

Also on Thursday night, the United States military released two photographs of the ship’s hull, showing damage and what it said was likely the unexploded mine.

obv i'm very skeptical of anything coming from the trump administration's claims. but people coming out saying 'false flag' (without evidence) are just as silly as those who immediately blamed iran (without evidence).

A war with iran would be a catastrophe.

Let's see. There's no chance that Saudi Arabia would not be involved from the get-go. Our planes take out much of Iran's oil capacity. Their missiles take out a lesser, but substantial, portion of SA oil capacity. Several thousand dead from all the bombing. There's the first 12 hours for you. After that the death/casualty list will just keep climbing. If there's an invasion there's no way it doesn't lead to the Iraq debacle x10. At the very least. No invasion just means the Iran government never falls and the war accomplishes zero change except for a million dead, more millions starving, a defiant Iran in rubble, and plenty of violent blowback for decades without end.

Yup. Checks out.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, June 13, 2019 9:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just gonna leave this here

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq

"Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor."

It would start a global conflict

Iran is three times the size of iraq and a major regional power

this is the diplomatic moment that jared kushner was born to face

It’s not even something to consider as a possibility. What the hell is wrong with john bolton?

obv i'm very skeptical of anything coming from the trump administration's claims. but people coming out saying 'false flag' (without evidence) are just as silly as those who immediately blamed iran (without evidence).

the reason people think this is because it doesn't make a lot of sense for Iran to just randomly do this right now.

We can’t even provide food and medicine to our own people. We also cannot seem to process the refugees coming into our own southern border—the system is apparently “overtaxed.” The concept of a war with a country of 80 million is so wtf

I agree carne asada. It makes zero sense, especially given abe’s presence in iran yesterday. The islamic republic sucks in many ways but they’re usually not irrational actors in this sense. But who knows—even if they did it i want a diplomatic solution