War. War never changes. (Except when it does)

[Mongrel]

Technically it could still be staged, theoretically, since so much of this is elaborate theatre from both sides, but I'd say it's pretty long odds against that.



So, when you send weapons to an insurrection movement in another country, that's an act of war, right? Right?

*except when it "magically" isn't somehow. Rebellion void where prohibited.

[Bal]

It certainly can be, but the real situation here is, what're you going to do, Venezuela? Declare war on the US? Good luck with that.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, my comment wasn't so much "Venezuela oughtta declare war" as it was "The US gov is not giving the least of shits right now about how anything they do looks - including committing open acts of war."

'Course not that that's anything new, but this is a bit brazen considering how Guaido is increasingly looking like the Jeb Bush of Venezuelan politics.

[Brantly B.]

The generation that remembers the first Cold War is shrugging its shoulders.

[Mongrel]

The generation that remembers the first Cold War is shrugging its shoulders.

Well, that just involved straight up sending soldiers. The only thing "cold" about the cold war was the avoidance of direct conflict between the actual armies of the main participants.

Which is to say, we'd climbed down off that ledge... for a little while.

[Mongrel]

[François]

Next development: the missile lands on the ground in front of the target, a robot hand pops out of a hatch, pulls out a Glock, and shoots.

[Mongrel]

All thanks to Acme Weapons Inc.

[Thad]

At war with the truth -- U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.

I'm sorry, Thad at Twenty. You were wrong. Being completely vindicated doesn't feel good at all; it just feels completely hollow.

We didn't learn shit from Vietnam and we won't learn shit from this.

[McDohl]

It feels like the sort of people in charge of Vietnam in their 30s and 40s were running the Forever War in their 70s and 80s.

[Brantly B.]

Some people just can't adapt to life on the outside.

[Thad]

Iraq Militia Officials, Iran's Quds Force Head Killed in U.S. Drone Strike

Two senior Iraqi militia officials and the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force has been killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in what appeared to be the latest escalation following a week of unrest and bloodshed across the country.

Mohammed Redha al-Jabri, head of protocol of Iraq's state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces, was killed Thursday "along with three guests accompanying him," the Popular Mobilization Forces, also known as Al-Hashed Al-Shaabi, told Newsweek. The group initially denied rumors that Popular Mobilization Forces deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed or injured, saying he was "well and currently in his residence in Baghdad."

A senior Pentagon official then confirmed to Newsweek that Muhandis was indeed killed, along with Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, pending DNA results that had a "high probability" of identifying the two men as the targets.

Shortly after, the Popular Mobilization Forces confirmed to Newsweek "the martyrdom of deputy head of Al-Hashed, Haj Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in an American strike that targeted their vehicles on the road of Baghdad International Airport."

This is very, very bad. Like, somebody just killed the guy who was in line to become the next Supreme Leader, and it looks like that somebody was Trump, and it happened on Iraqi soil, bad.

[Büge]

[Blossom]

[Mongrel]

For fuck's sakes, IT'S ONLY THE THIRD OF JANUARY.

[Grath]

[Mongrel]

Oh and there was this bit too:



Kissinger and Nixon sinking peace with North Vietnam might be a bigger story, but this is right up there on that level.

EDIT: Of course Kissinger was involved in this one too!

[Thad]

Yeah, I'm extremely worried about that.

OTOH, we're in a much different place now than we were in 2003. Democrats (both in office and among the electorate) seem a lot less likely to go along with the Trump narrative than they were to go along with the Bush narrative. And whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, it's going to be someone who can confront Trump more forcefully than Kerry confronted Bush.

I don't pretend to know what's going on in Trump's head, but I suspect he had no fucking idea what the repercussions of this decision would be. For all his tough talk, he's been pretty gun-shy about military actions that are likely to drag us into another war. He's obsessed with his legacy and he saw what Iraq did to Bush's.

I suspect somebody told him that there was a high-value target, some guy he'd never heard of, and he said "do it" without understanding the ramifications.

Which doesn't mean that he didn't just start a war, or that he won't lean into it now if he has. I really think anything is possible -- from blaming it all on the Iraqis and pulling all our troops out, to straight up dropping nukes. This is an unstable man in an unstable situation in an unstable region. He might do anything.

[Brantly B.]

Can absolutely confirm that the loyal base thinks this was a surgically precise, in-and-out quick military action. To be fair, the story up and down the chain is that they just hit some mid-level rogue official and all it adds up to politically is a slap on the wrist.

[Thad]

Realistically, we're probably not looking at all-out war so much as a series of attacks on US interests. Iran's likelier to keep hitting our embassies than attempt any terror attacks on US soil.

But there are a lot of variables, and Trump's instability is a big one. It's also not clear how the Iraqi government is going to react; the Shia certainly ain't happy.