US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

gah yes sorry, just thinking out loud (badly)

I retract my skepticism, this is a bad precedent

At least his friends Putin and the Saudis stick to killing their own citizens abroad.

which is also what Obama did

Obama didn't drone strike any US citizens on US soil afaik

I think the bumbling assassins Putin sent after Skripal killed two British citizens instead

One unfortunate woman. It should be pointed out that the UK has killed a few of its own citizens in Syria - or got the Americans to do it for them.

Surely the only difference is that Trump is the only one to have been so crass and public about it?

No, going after a general is pretty different. As is going after a journalist like the Sauds did. Actually, most assassinations are different from one another.

^^^otm

conflating all these things is stupid

Oh sorry - I meant the US & members of foreign governments, cos the idea this guy was a precedent is hilarious.

US has typically been more clandestine/covert about it

Well yeah but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation, like Trump is a disgrace but it’s just screaming the quiet part loud. It’s not something completely out of the blue.

Performing a military strike to assassinate the general of a nation-state is new afaik. If that's not an act of war, I really don't know what is. Prez should not have sole authority to order that.

William Blum, the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, points to a litany of American sins from invasions, bombings, overthrowing of governments, assassinations to torture and death squads. “It’s not a pretty picture” is his blunt conclusion.

The CIA was deemed to have run so amok in the 1960s and 70s that in 1975 the Church committee investigated a numerous attempted assassinations on foreign leaders including Lumumba, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem and, of course, Castro. In the fallout, Gerald Ford banned US involvement in foreign political assassinations.

The ban didn’t last long. Since 1976 the US has continued to be engaged in, or accused of, efforts to eradicate foreign leaders.

Ronald Reagan launched bombing raids in 1986 targeting Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. As recently as two years ago North Korea alleged that the CIA tried to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong-un.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/04/us-political-assassinations-history-iran-suleimani

https://i.imgur.com/Y8hfJ8y.jpg

The target is unusual, but the overall context and specific actions are not new. Presidents have had and used the authority to unilaterally engage in military shenanigans for over 50 years, including violating the sovereignty of foreign governments, making targeted strikes, deploying troops etc.

xp

Trump is a disgrace but it’s just screaming the quiet part loud

^^^this

good call on Gaddafi, if that isn't an assassination attempt w/o formal declaration then idk what is

also agree w/ "screaming the quiet part loud"

eisenhower ordered the cia to take out lumumba, tho of course it wasn't made public at the time

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/eisenhower-ordered-congo-killing-711217.html

2 rockets hit Baghdad's Green Zone. One near US embassy. No casualties or injuries reported yet but this likely means we're not in the clear yet.

Yup.

Re the “quiet part”: see e.g., General René Schneider of Chile, killed October 1970. He was understood to be the principal obstacle to an eventual military coup against the new Allende government, and the trail leads back to Nixon/Kissinger/CIA.

xxp

Katyushas. Some militia hothead, of the sort that Soleimani had a history of talking down.

This past Friday, I encountered some Iraqi militia propaganda, with video taken through a telescope or rifle scope of US Marines peering from behind their hesco barriers at the embassy. We're not out of the woods, and Iran needn't have anything to do with it.

Goes without saying, that if we had functioning international law, Kissinger would have spent the last 3-4 decades behind bars.

BBC WS are currently spreading conspiracy theory nonsense themselves about the plane crash with some self-styled air crash investigation expert saying the accident is suspect. Sounds like bollox to me.

In eyewitness video of the crash, there appear to be engine flames and glowing "parts" falling off the jet as it spirals down.

Would I be surprised if a Tehran air-defense unit got jumpy? Not terribly. These are emotional times in Tehran.

Sanpaku is your implication that planes that are suffering catastrophic malfunction of their own accord wouldn’t fall apart

This winky jet fuel can’t melt steel jet bs is beneath even you surely

Here's the footage. As someone who has a morbid fascination with airplane crash footage, I don't recall many appearing to be aflame during their descent since the 2000 Concorde crash.

#Breaking First footage of the Ukrainian airplane while on fire falling near #Tehran pic.twitter.com/kGxnBb7f1q

— Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) January 8, 2020

What are some things you don’t have a morbid fascination with

Slaughterhouses, professional sports, Broadway musicals, poetry nights, its a long list.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/plane-crash-us-officials-confident-iran-shot-down-passenger-jet-bound-for-ukraine-today-2020-01-09-live-stream-updates/

please no...

The Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday was accidentally shot down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile, western security officials believe.

jesus

whoa.

what could this mean? that iran accidentally shot down a plane, thinking it was a missile? (many flights that were scheduled to fly over iran were canceled that day, to avoid that same risk)

if I may play Mordy here, that strikes me as a non-possibility, although idk how missile defence works tbh

would seem like a hell of a boner to shoot a plane that had just taken off from your own airport, but yeah, can't say i know any better.

ouch that feels like a zing xp

no malice intended :)

fwiw yeah it's very hard for me to imagine iran accidentally shot down a commercial airplane taking off from its own airport but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

seems very weird to me too, for sure. but why else? the plane was mostly full of iranian and canadian passengers?

could damage iran's newly won reputation as the sane/prudent ones within the international community

this looks a lot like the ship exploded in hormuz in 2019
Iran never admitted

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-crash-investigation/h_cd561a085804f89f48ee4c2ffc264f93

fwiw

"The US increasingly believes that Iran mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner, according to multiple US officials. The working theory is based on continuing analysis of data from satellites, radar and electronic data collected routinely by US military and intelligence.

The flight was downed following Iranian strikes on US forces in Iraq.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head, Ali Abedzadeh, said it would not hand the flight data recorders to Boeing or the United States after they were found on Wednesday."

seems like the kinda truly stupid thing we've come to expect countries to do in this dumb century

i can't even process how a thing like that might happen

fog of war? they had just sent some missiles toward US Air Bases, and much of the world was worried about escalating to WWIII and considering stocking up on gasoline. i'm sure they were assuming that missiles might come flying back toward them. yes, it all is very stupid but i think that kind of shit just _happens_ in war (even cold ones)

it's SO stupid, i hate governments and militaries

Yeah, I don't have too much difficulty believing Iran accidentally shot down a passenger plane with Iranians on board. I mean, if it was indeed brought down by a missile, it seems the most likely explanation by far.

I mean, possibly all it takes is one guy making a dumb decision

whyyyyyyyy were any planes at all allowed to take off from the airport at that time?

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head, Ali Abedzadeh, said it would not hand the flight data recorders to Boeing or the United States after they were found on Wednesday."

whoops, that seems to be incorrect. from nyt, just now:

The comments from the officials came after the Iranians, through the International Civil Aviation Organization, invited the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States to assist in the investigation despite previous reports that the Americans would not be involved, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.