Tag Archives: Iran

International news, military news

Settle down, Donald!

Donald Trump simply must learn — even at his advanced age of 79 — to settle down when plans don’t go quite as he envisioned or as he boasted after the fact.

Trump ordered the Air Force to strike at Iran’s military complex. He sent the B-2 stealth bombers thousands of miles to the target, where they dropped about a dozen bunker-buster bombs aimed at destroying Iranian nuclear installations.

After the mission, which was completed with no U.S. casualties — thank God! — Trump announced the installations had been “obliterated.”

Wait! Not so fast, according to U.S. intelligence analysts. They tell us the sites weren’t destroyed. They suffered heavy damage and work on the weapons likely was set back several months.

Trump’s response was to dismiss the findings. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also stands by the obliterated declaration.

All of this has me scratching my noggin. Maybe the bunker busters’ lethality is overrated? Maybe the Iranians knew about their presence in our arsenal and ensured their installations would be heavily protected?

Trump is still able to claim a success. The mission went off without a hitch. The bombers and their fighter escorts all got home safely. At the very least, the Iranians know that the leader of the Great Satan is unafraid to deploy massive military might, never mind the cost politically at home and around the world.

As for the assessments on the damage done … we have plenty of intelligence eyes and ears on the ground to get to the whole truth. No need for the commander in chief to peddle overheated falsehoods about whether our bombers obliterated the Iranian nuclear capacity.

military news, national news

One and done? Hah … !

Donald J. Trump no doubt is hoping for a “one and done” bombing mission against Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

He likely won’t get it. Instead, Iran is vowing to strike back at U.S. interests and most certainly against Israel. The question for Trump then becomes: What shall this country’s follow-up entail? More air strikes? Boots on the ground?

I am suspicious of Trump’s decision to send the B-2 bombers over Iran. I join him in praising the skill and precision exhibited by the aviators who carried out the mission. They dropped about a dozen bunker buster bombs weighing about 30,000 pounds apiece. Submarines launched Tomahawk missiles at the nuclear targets once the aircraft had completed their mission.

I do not want the United States to go to war against Iran. Under no circumstances should we commit our forces to fighting an enemy dedicated to our destruction, not to mention the destruction of Israel … which began this conflict some days ago with missile and drone attacks against the Iranian nuclear sites.

The political consequences of this event are staggering. Democrats in Congress say Trump has committed an impeachable offense by acting without prior consultation with Congress, which they say is spelled out in the Constitution. They are joined by the MAGA mob that says Trump campaigned for election on the promise to end “endless wars.” Spoiler alert: Don’t wait for the MAGA morons to join an impeachment movement against Trump.

These are dangerous times, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve been through them before. I could blow this off as a one-and-done deal, except that with the current POTUS, one never — not ever! — can predict what he’ll do.

military news

The MAGA morons are right! Who knew?

Never in a zillion years would I have imagined saying what I am about to say … which is that the MAGA cabal that powered Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency are correct to object to any direct American involvement in the dispute between Israel and Iran.

This dispute inside the Republican Party is an amazing thing to witness. Trump campaigned for the presidency vowing to end our involvement in wars seemingly without end. Yet now he is pondering whether to launch air strikes against Iran with the aim of destroying the country’s capability to develop nuclear weapons.

Which is the reason why Israel hit them hard in the first place!

Some Republicans are lobbying Trump to launch the strikes. The MAGA crowd says Trump would break a key campaign promise by doing so. The MAGA goons are right! Can you believe I just said that? Neither can I.

Israel already has plenty of military capability to defend itself against Iran. It also has the know-how to strike military targets. The mission that began this exchange was years in the planning and the Israeli Defense Force decided the time is right now to hit the Iranians hard. So, it did.

Not only did the Israeli air force strike hardened targets, it managed to kill key Iranian military leaders it had identified.

Trump said he will decide within two weeks whether to launch strikes that could include huge bunker-buster bombs that only the United States can deploy.

Where does it end? How do we get out of such an engagement? And how many young American lives might we lose in this effort?

Listen to your political base, Donald Trump. They are correct!

International news, military news

Zero, to 34, now to 50 injuries in missile attack

What’s going on at the Pentagon?

The Iranians fired ballistic missiles at our forces in Iraq in response to our killing of Qassem Soulaimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Hey, this was a bad dude, a ruthless terrorist chieftain.

The missiles landed on our base. The Pentagon and Donald Trump said immediately there were zero U.S. casualties.

Wait! Then the number rose suddenly to 34 service personnel. The brass said they suffered traumatic brain injury when the missiles blew up.

Now we hear the number has reached 50 military personnel.

Is this how it goes now? The public gets information handed out in dribs and drabs.

We all are grateful that none of the injuries is life-threatening. Most of the personnel who were injured have returned to duty.

This sloppy information release seems all too common in an administration that simply cannot seem to get its story straight the first time.

The men and women who serve us — as well as their families who pray for their safety while they stand in harm’s way — need to know the whole truth all the time.

national news

POTUS steps into the Twitter sewer … once again!

You know, as weird as Donald Trump’s retweet of an image involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was, it seems to almost pale in comparison to the White House press flack’s lame defense of what Trump actually did.

Trump retweeted a doctored picture of Pelosi wearing a Muslim hijab and Schumer wearing a turban. They’re standing in front of an image depicting the Iranian flag. It is captioned “Democrats 2020.”

Trump sought to make some sort of statement about Democrats’ criticism of the air strike that killed Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani, suggesting that Democrats are soft on those who inflict terrorism on the rest of the world.

Well, of course that is a preposterous claim. Democrats, moreover, haven’t been “mourning” Soleimani’s death.

But then came White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham to defend Trump’s hideous behavior. According to CBS.com: “I think the president is making clear that Democrats have been parroting Iranian talking points, and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill Americans … I think the president was making the point that Democrats seem to hate him so much that they’re willing to be on the side of countries and leadership of countries who want to kill Americans.”

Uh, no, Ms. Grisham. Democrats aren’t “on the side of countries” that want to “kill Americans.” They are questioning the intelligence and whether the White House gave enough thought to the consequences of such a significant act.

How about stopping the demagoguery, Ms. Grisham? As for the president, how about … oh, never mind. I’m wasting my time.

national news

An apology comes forth — and it’s a real one to boot!

How about this?

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins popped off on a cable news show this week that Democrats are “in love” with terrorists and are “mourning” the death of Iran’s leading terrorist, Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an air strike ordered by Donald Trump.

Democrats became outraged. They lambasted the Georgia Republican for his heartless comments.

Then he apologized. It was the real thing. Collins wrote on Twitter: “Let me be clear: I do not believe Democrats are in love with terrorists and I apologize for what I said earlier this week.”

I am speaking only for myself, but I accept Rep. Collins’s apology. I wish he hadn’t made that hideous statement in the first place. The apology doesn’t expunge the public domain of what he said.

However, his apology sounds to me like the real thing. I’m glad he had the guts to say he was wrong to say such a thing.

national news

Settle down with the ‘soft on terror’ hyperbole

Preet Bharara has sought to take down a Georgia Republican member of Congress, who has fired off some of the most demagogic rhetoric many of us have heard perhaps since 9/11.

Rep. Doug Collins told Fox News that critics of Donald Trump’s ordering the killing of Qassem Soleimani are “mourning” the death of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader and that they are “in love with terrorists.”

Bharara, a former Southern District of New York federal prosecutor, has called out Collins’s shameful rhetoric. You can read his essay here.

Collins’s idiotic hysteria takes the discussion of Soleimani’s death to an absurd and utterly ridiculous level.

I’ve been listening to and reading the news incessantly in the days since the air strike that killed the Iranian military leader. I have countless critics of the mission express support for the death of the murderer; their criticism calls into question whether the president has planned for the consequence of such a daring mission.

As Bharara said, dissent, debate and discussion of public policy is quintessentially American. Rep. Collins’s reaction to this event is quintessentially idiotic.

national news

It’s the constant lying that gets in the way

Donald Trump has done what I once thought was the seemingly impossible. He has turned me into a hard-core cynic. How? It’s the lying, man! It is constant. It is gratuitous. It is never-ending.

I cannot believe a single pronouncement that comes from the mouth of the president of the United States of America. I am not proud of this revelation. You see, I’ve resisted the label of cynic. I have batted it away. Even as I worked in daily journalism for all those years I usually sought to believe the best in people, who generally had to do something that would destroy by faith in their basic goodness.

Then along came Donald Trump from the world of reality TV celebrityhood, real estate dealmaking and a glitzy lifestyle about which he was so very proud to boast.

Trump lied when he proclaimed himself to be a self-made zillionaire. It has been demonstrably proven now that he isn’t a self-made anything. He ran for president … and then won!

He has been lying to us daily ever since he took the oath of office.

Here is now faced with the most serious crisis of his tenure as president. I want to believe him when he said he ordered the air strike against the Iranian terrorist/general because of “imminent attack” threats against the United States.

However, I cannot believe him. I cannot accept anything he says about, well, anything.

I have lost count of the lies he has told. The Washington Post has been keeping a running tab on the lies; the paper’s count has exceeded 15,000 whoppers since his inauguration. His lying is accelerating. He is telling more lies daily now than at any time since he became president.

How in name of truth-telling can Americans of any stripe — even those who count themselves as Trump supporters — believe a word that comes from this guy? They can’t. Yet many of them still do. Are they liars, too? I won’t buy into that notion. I only am left to presume that they have been snookered by this guy, who spent his entire adult life searching only to enrich himself. There isn’t a single moment of public service in his pre-political background.

My cynicism is raging at this moment as I watch the president of the United States continue to lie his way through this crisis, through the impeachment file by the House of Representatives and as the Senate prepares to put this individual on trial.

I truly don’t like feeling this way. Donald Trump won’t allow my cynicism to go away.

International news

Where’s the ‘intelligence’ at the briefing?

When a leading Republican supporter of Donald J. Trump comes out of an intelligence briefing and calls it the “worst” one he’s heard in his time as a U.S. senator, then it looks as though the president has some trouble on his hands.

Mike Lee of Utah came out of the briefing today to blast the briefers. He called the event “sophomoric,” and was highly critical of the national security team’s instruction to avoid any debate about what they learned behind closed doors.

Lee didn’t like what he heard. What’s more, he said so out loud.

The briefing came from some Trump administration heavyweights, including CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper; a third briefer was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who I should add has emerged as a high-profile disappointment as the nation’s top diplomat.

At issue was the justification for killing Iranian Revolutionary Guard chieftain Qassem Solemaini. The president said Iran was planning an “imminent attack” on U.S. interests and that the air strike in Baghdad was meant as a “defensive” measure. He didn’t provide any evidence of such an “imminent” attack. Senators came out of today’s briefing saying the national security team didn’t provide anything new, either.

Iran responded with the missile attack against two U.S. bases in Iraq. The missiles didn’t inflict any casualties. Iran backed down. Trump said the United States would not pursue any further military action. “All is well,” the president said via Twitter. Well, it isn’t all well.

What is stunning to me was the anger expressed by Sen. Lee, who until now has stood foursquare behind the president. He said the briefers’ admonition was “insulting.”

This is the troubling aspect of the hit against Solemaini. The strike itself needed to happen. What also needed to occur was the development of a cogent after-action strategy by the Trump administration.

It appears that there is nothing of the sort available for public review.

International news

Trump scores direct hit on a military target, then bungles the aftermath

It is worthwhile to compartmentalize Donald Trump’s two-pronged approach to dealing with Iran.

On the one hand, the president’s decision to kill Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanding general Qassem Solemaini took courage. I applaud the death of this killer, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of U.S. service personnel.

On the other hand, Iran has responded with two strikes against U.S. military targets in Iraq. No one seems to know the extent — if any –of American casualties. The Iranians took immediate responsibility for the missile launches.

The president has said he struck at Solemaini because of “imminent” attacks on U.S. targets. He said he intended to prevent a war. The effect might be the start of one.

We now up to our collective necks in an international crisis that well might evolve into all-out war with Iran. Just think that the president campaigned for the office on a pledge to pull us out of “endless, needless” war in the Middle East.

What now? What is the consequence of this attack on the Iranian military leader? Are we headed toward another war from which we cannot extricate ourselves? Are we engaged in any serious diplomatic initiatives to try to fend off the bloodshed that might be the inevitable result?

I have to ask, too, about Donald Trump’s credibility. I happen to disbelieve practically anything he says about … anything! 

Imminent attack? What in the world is the president talking about?

We are witnessing a fearsome set of events. Iran has done what it said it would do after the killing of Qassem Solemaini. Are we now going to do what Donald Trump has threatened to do, which is hit Iran harder than they’ve ever been hit?

Does the president of the United States have a plan? I am glad the Iranian general is dead. I am worried now — along with the rest of the world — about the consequence that might result.