The worst part about this for me is that Trump is refusing to say what sort of casualties we have, meaning military families here are waiting in the dark to find out if their loved ones are safe.
All indications are the crash of a Ukranian airliner bound from Iran to Ukraine is unrelated to recent tensions and due to mechanical failure.
Following Trump’s speech today. He opened with Iran never having nukes and stated that no Americans were harmed and we should all be grateful.
All indications are that this was according to Iranian plan, though he seems to be taking credit for it.
Now he’s talking about sanctions and telling lies about the Iran Nuclear Deal. He’s blaming Obama for the missiles last night, for giving Iran money. He still hasn’t spoken of their course of action.
Note that Trump in the middle of this propaganda just had to bring up Iran’s “untapped potential”, because it always comes down to money.
Trump states he is going to ask NATO to get more involved in peace in the Middle East, but then immediately goes on to brag about the economy, energy independence, our military, and our “big, powerful, and fast” missiles.
He said he wants peace… and now he’s leaving without taking questions or actually outlining any sort of real plan besides “asking NATO to step in.” And that’s it.
All told it was kind of underwhelming and low-energy. There wasn’t much there, but it at least wasn’t the worst case scenario we expected. The only notable thing here is his plan to ask NATO to step in (though NATO does play a more major role there now) and blaming Obama for them having these missiles (which is not at all the case).
There’s a winner from the US-Iran crisis, and it’s ISIS
Top US general says Iran tried to kill US troops as some administration officials believe they purposely missed
The top US general made clear Wednesday night that he believes Iran meant to kill US troops in the ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq, rebutting a belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran intentionally missed areas populated by Americans.
"I believe based on what I saw and what I know that they were intended to cause structural damage destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft, and to kill personnel. That’s my own personal assessment," said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when speaking to reporters on Wednesday,
Milley argued that the reason there were no casualties had "more to do with the defensive techniques that our forces used as opposed to intent."
He added, “We took sufficient defensive measures that there were no casualties to US personnel, coalition personnel, contractors or Iraqis.”
The message runs counter to what some administration officials have suggested to CNN, which is that Iran could have directed their missiles to hit areas that are populated by Americans but intentionally did not. And those officials said Iran may have chosen to send a message rather than take significant enough action to provoke a substantial US military response, a possible signal the administration was looking for rationale to calm the tensions.
Iran fired a number of missiles aimed at the bases in retaliation for the American strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week, further escalating tensions between the two countries. Officials have said there were no US casualties as a result of the attacks, though a full assessment is underway.
This Administration just can’t get its story straight. Trump’s State Department is delivering a narrative that directly contradicts his top General. The State Department is saying Iran deliberately did not target soldiers on the bases they struck. However, General Milley is saying they did target soldiers, but only failed to kill any due to the defensive measures we took.
Based on what we know so far I’d have to agree with Milley.
- There’s the photographic evidence. CNN has published “before and after” satellite photos from Planet Labs, Inc. that show three areas of the al-Asad air base. I’m assuming that CNN has trust in the source of these images – also, I’ve vetted these against the disinformation monitoring Twitter thread that @anon95374541 posted above.
In two of the areas shown, entire buildings have been severely damaged or obliterated. In the third area, a bomb has created a crater in an open area on what appears to be a road or a runway. If Iran had intended to not target soldiers, I would think that all of the damage would be similar to that shown in the third area, occurring in unpopulated areas of the base.
- There’s the fact that we had ample advance warning of the attacks as @matt posted in today’s summary:
The U.S. military had advance warning of Iran’s attack on the two American locations in Iraq . “We had intelligence reports several hours in advance that the Iranians were seeking to strike the bases,” a senior administration official said, giving military commanders time to move U.S. troops into safe, fortified positions.
So the fact that U.S. or Iraqi soldiers were not killed seems more likely to be the result of evasive measures we were able to take, rather than due to any Iranian intentions. If Iran had managed to have the element of surprise on their side, there may well have been soldiers in those buildings.
- This is just my personal opinion: I’ll take the word of our top general over Mike Pompeo’s State Department any day.
We are not privy to the means by which the personnel were given the intelligence of the impending action. However it seems that the targeting of a hanger and Runway were intended to inflict damage on military material rather than personnel.
By not indulging in illegal acts of warfare, unlike Trump, Iran takes the higher moral ground. Note that they:
a. Maybe signalled the attack prior to it being carried out (we can surmise this from the fact that the US military had prior knowledge) – thereby allowing personnel to evacuate/seek cover.
b. Knew that the US had “rented out” their air defences on those two bases so they would not be able to protect them,
c. Targeted hangers and runways at the bases rather than accommodation / administration buildings, so as to reduce the possibility of inflicting civilian casualties, while still targeting specific military installations iaw the rules of war.
By wide margin, Americans call Trump attack reckless – 52% to 34%
Americans by more than 2-1 say 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 Trump’s behavior with Iran "reckless."
…
… 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 with each other (62%).
By 52%-8%, those polled said the attack made it more likely that Iran would develop nuclear weapons.
…
The survey was completed before President Trump addressed the nation from the White House Wednesday.
…
Americans by 55%-24% believe the attack that took [Soleimani’s] life has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made. Just one 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%.
…
… the survey found a receptive landscape for Congress to act. A double-digit majority, 53%-33%, endorsed congressional action that would limit Trump’s ability to order military strikes or declare war without legislative approval. Supporters included 78% of Democrats, 26% of Republicans and 54% of independents.___________________________________________________________________________________
Has the killing of Soleimani and its immediate aftermath made the United States more safe or less safe?
SOURCE USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll of 1,005 adults taken Tuesday and Wednesday; credibility interval +/-3.5 percentage points.
Iranian Missile System Shot Down Ukraine Flight, Probably by Mistake, Sources Say
The Ukrainian flight that crashed just outside the Iranian capital of Tehran was struck by an anti-aircraft missile system, a Pentagon official, a senior U.S. intelligence official and an Iraqi intelligence official told Newsweek . None of the officials was authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737–800 en route from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airpot to Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport, stopped transmitting data Tuesday just minutes after takeoff and not long after Iran launched missiles at military bases housing U.S. and allied forces in neighboring Iraq. The aircraft is believed to have been struck by a Russia-built Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile system, known to NATO as Gauntlet, the three officials told Newsweek .
One Pentagon and one U.S. senior intelligence official told Newsweek that the Pentagon’s assessment is that the incident was accidental. Iran’s anti-aircraft systems were likely active following the country’s missile attack, which came in response to the U.S. killing last week of Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, sources said.
“Well, I have my suspicions,” President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House following Newsweek 's report. “It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and someone could have made a mistake.”
U.S. Central Command declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Newsweek . The National Security Council and the State Department have not yet responded.
Of the 176 people on board, 82 were Iranian, 63 were Canadian and 11 were Ukrainian (including nine crewmembers), along with 10 Swedish, seven Afghan and three German nationals. None survived.
The incident was first reported by Iranian semi-official media outlets, which cited the country’s Red Crescent Society as assessing that the initial cause appeared to be mechanical failure. The Ukrainian embassy in Tehran shared this view in a statement, but later retracted it, with Kyiv warning not to draw conclusions from preliminary assessments.
Images began to circulate Wednesday of what appeared to be fragments of a Tor M-1 missile said to have been found in a suburb southwest of Tehran. Ukraine Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danylov said Thursday in a statement that contact with a Tor M-1 system was among the potential causes for the plane’s destruction that his country was looking into as Ukrainian and Iranian officials met.
Other potential scenarios involved a collision with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or another flying object, technical malfunction and a terrorist attack.
The Civil Aviation Organization of Iran Chief has also invited Canada and Sweden to cooperate in the accident investigation, however, Chief Executive Ali Abedzadeh has stressed that he would not hand over the aircraft’s black box—which may provide details of the doomed flight’s final moments—to the United States.
Abedzadeh also on Thursday dismissed speculation that a missile strike took down. In a statement, he said this outcome was “scientifically impossible and such rumors make no sense at all.”
In a rare call Thursday, Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne spoke with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, to whom he “stressed the need for Canadian officials to be quickly granted access to Iran to provide consular services, help with identification of the deceased and take part in the investigation of the crash.”
Champagne said that “Canada and Canadians have many questions which will need to be answered.”
Asked whether the Canadian government is considering or leading with the possibility that an anti-aircraft missile took down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, Global Affairs spokesperson Krystyna Dodds said her office would have to get back to Newsweek on the matter.
Later Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that his officials have received “intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence” indicating “that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”
“This may well have been unintentional,” he added. “This new information reinforces the need for a thorough investigation into this matter. Canada is working with its allies to ensure that a thorough and credible investigation is conducted to determine the causes of this fatal crash.”
The Iranian missile strike against Iraqi military positions held by U.S. troops was the latest in a violent series of events involving the two powers. Washington has blamed rocket attacks targeting U.S. personnel on Iraqi militias backed by Tehran and responded with deadly border strikes against these fighters, leading to violent protests at the U.S. embassy, an event followed shortly after by Soleimani’s assassination.
The two foes have feuded for four decades but rarely confronted one another directly. The U.S. and Iran’s dispute dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that outed a West-backed monarchy and saw diplomats taken hostage at Washington’s embassy in Tehran for over 14 months.
Their mutual hostility only worsened as the U.S. backed Iraq’s invasion of Iran the following year, a deadly eight-year bout accompanied by so-called “tanker wars” in the Persian Gulf. Shortly before the end of the conflict, a U.S. Navy warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane, Iran Air Flight 655, in 1988, killing all 290 onboard in a missile strike also deemed accidental.
The Persian Gulf is crucial for the global flow of oil. Unrest has now returned to the critical region and its waterways in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw from a 2015 nuclear deal that granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear activities. The president opted for de-escalation after the recent Iranian missile attack, expanding sanctions but also calling on the Islamic Republic to give up support for militant groups and to stop seeking a nuclear weapon—something Tehran has always denied wanting.
Trudeau says Canada has intelligence Iran shot down Ukrainian airliner
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that Canadian officials have intelligence from their own sources and Canada’s allies that shows a Ukrainian airliner was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile. “This may have been unintentional,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottowa.
Trudeau has called for a thorough investigation into what caused the crash.
“The intelligence and evidence suggests that it’s a surface to air strike,” Trudeau added, though he would not provide additional details.
The US increasingly believes that Iran mistakenly shot down the 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.
A US official familiar with the intelligence said the plane was shot down by two Russian made SA-15 surface to air missiles. The US saw Iranian radar signals lock onto the jetliner, before it was shot down.
The morning after the incident, US analysts discovered the data but took another day to verify, the official said.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he suspected the crash was not due to mechanical issues, indicating that “somebody could have made a mistake on the other side.”
Asked during a White House event what he thought happened to the plane, Trump said, “Well, I have my suspicions.”
European security officials told CNN they believe reports suggesting that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile in error are credible.
The timing of the crash has fueled speculation about its cause, coming just hours after Iran fired missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops in retaliation for the killing of its top general, also in Iraq. The exchange of attacks between Tehran and Washington on Iraqi soil was a dramatic escalation of tensions between the adversaries, and is raising fears of another proxy war in the Middle East.
The head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority is questioning the US allegation.
Speaking to CNN, Ali Abedzadeh said, “if a rocket or missile hits a plane, it will free fall.”
Abedzadeh asked, “How can a plane be hit by rocket or missile” and then the pilot “try to turn back to the airport?”
He also told CNN the plane’s black boxes are damaged and Iran may need help decoding them.
“Generally speaking, Iran has the potential and know-how to decode the black box. Everybody knows that,” Abedzadeh said.
However, he also added that, “the black box of this very Ukrainian Boeing 737 is damaged. Ukrainian Aviation experts arrived here in Tehran today. We had a session with them. From tomorrow they will start decoding the data.”
“If the available equipment is not enough to get the content” Iran will outsource the boxes to “the experts from France or Canada,” Abedzadeh said.
Newsweek was first to report US and Iraqi sources believe Iran shot down the plane by mistake.
“I don’t want to say that because other people have their suspicions,” Trump said, but added, “Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side … not our system. It has nothing to do with us.”
“It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood. They could’ve made a mistake. Some people say it was mechanical. I personally don’t think that’s even a question.”
Asked if he thought it was downed by accident, Trump said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know … that’s up to them. At some point they’ll release the black box.”
“Ideally they’d give it to Boeing,” he said, but said giving it to France or “some other country” would be fine, too.
“Something very terrible happened, very devastating,” he concluded.
The Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 came down just minutes after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday local time, killing all 176 people on board, including dozens of Iranians and Canadians. The Boeing 737-800 was headed for Kiev, where 138 passengers were expected to take a connecting flight to Canada. Ukrainians, Swedes, Afghans, Germans and British nationals were also aboard.
One possibility being considered is that an Iranian missile unit saw something on their radar, thought they were under attack and fired.
“If it is true that an Iranian missile brought down a civilian airliner, it points to exactly the sort of miscalculation and recklessness that attends the cycle of escalation and violence we’ve been seeing in the region. The innocent people killed in this tragedy would then, sadly, not be the only victims. Iran must fully cooperate with investigators and be willing to account for their actions,” CNN national security analyst retired Adm. John Kirby said.
Investigation underway
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.
One of the officials said the US is working closely with the Canadians on the intelligence. US officials have also shared officials with UK officials, according to sources familiar.
Ukrainian officials on Thursday were considering terrorism, a missile strike and catastrophic engine failure as potential causes for the crash, as aviation authorities in Tehran said the jetliner was on fire before it came down.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense council chief, Oleksiy Danilov, said a meeting was taking place with Iranian authorities, where various causes behind the crash were “being studied,” including a theory that the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile, according to a statement on Facebook.
Conflicting claims about potential causes for the disaster began hours after the crash, when Iranian state media blamed technical issues and Ukraine ruled out rocket attacks. Within hours on Wednesday, officials in both countries had walked back those initial statements.
An initial report by the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization on the crash cites witnesses as saying the airliner was on fire while in the air and changed directions after a problem, turning back toward the airport. People on other aircraft at higher altitudes also saw the flames, Iranian officials say. Images of the wreckage show the plane torn to piece, its parts charred and strewn across a field.
This. This exactly. The Trump regime justification is “he was a bad man.”
That is a remarkably dangerous precedent.
Jared Kushner rushes to talk down Mike Lee after Republican says he’ll support check on Trump’s war powers
Standout excerpt:
“As I recall, one of my colleagues asked a hypothetical involving the Supreme Leader of Iran: If at that point, the United States government decided that it wanted to undertake a strike against him personally, recognizing that he would be a threat to the United States, would that require authorization for the use of military force?” Lee recalled questioning the briefers. But they weren’t willing to answer.
“The fact that there was nothing but a refusal to answer that question was perhaps the most deeply upsetting thing to me in that meeting,” Lee said.
Apparently Jared’s visit to Senator Mike Lee had its desired effect, as he is now blaming the briefers and kissing Trump’s ample a$$.
Here is Trump advocating for a move that would strip powers from congress and move him that much closer to being the dictator he’s always wanted to be.
Defense Sec. Mark Esper said the danger was past, but he knew that many Iran-backed militias were prone to claiming their own vengeance.
They knew. They caused this.
4 Iraqi soldiers injured after 8 rockets hit Iraqi air base; no U.S. injuries reported
A post for the “Iran Iran So Far Away” thread, which needs refreshing. The immigration one does also, with the new ban coming.
More evidence this was all a retaliatory strike and not a preemptive move:
I have one for the Iran Iran thread:
U.S. threatened auto tariffs if allies didn’t accuse Iran of breaking nuclear deal
And so they did, though they might have anyway
When did it become acceptable to kill a top leader of a country we aren’t even at war with?
11 U.S. Troops Injured in Iran’s Retaliatory Strike on January 8: Report
Though President Trump and the Pentagon initially stated that there were no casualties in the Iranian strike on U.S. forces in Iraq on January 8, The Atlantic ’s Defense One reports that 11 American troops were wounded in the retaliatory missile attack. According to military and Defense officials who spoke with the site, the soldiers were medically evacuated this week to military hospitals in Kuwait and Germany to be treated for traumatic brain injury and for continued monitoring.
“Out of an abundance of caution, some service members were transported from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, others were sent to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, for follow-on screening,” Colonel. Myles Caggins, a Combined Joint Task Force spokesman, said on Thursday. An unidentified senior Defense official added that the transported service members “were still experiencing some symptoms of concussion” over a week after the strike — still well within the time-frame of post-concussion syndrome.
Shortly after the strike on two bases in Iraq, which served as retaliation for Trump’s extrajudicial order to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, the New York Times reported that service members at the two bases hit were warned in advance that missiles were en route, allowing them to fall back to concrete shelters. Still, one member of an Army drone team told NPR that he was knocked to the ground by the blast.
In part because of the no-casualty count, President Trump effectively declared victory after Iran’s volley of strikes, allowing for the swift de-escalation of the conflict. Hopefully for all parties involved — but especially for Iraqis expected to bear the brunt of a U.S.-Iranian proxy war — the injury report will not change the president’s opinion. Meanwhile, military operations in the region are returning to their normal, forever-war state: On Wednesday, the U.S. military resumed joint operations with Iraq, less than two weeks after the government in Baghdad voted to expel all U.S. forces from the country.
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It’s a really weird thing to up and delete, though. It looks rather suspicious, him doing that.
I have an article on this airstrike above also. It really seems highly likely it was the Trump regime; given the target.