Re: Iraqi TV Reports Strike Kills Powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander immediately
Braindrain:
In one week the military of the United States attacked three sovereign states without any legitimate reason. You are legally at war with none of these three states. In case you haven't figured it out yet, in this region at this time, you are the baddies. You are the aggressor state, attacking any and all you choose to with seeming impunity. You are also the domestic enemies of the American people as you continue to squander their lives by the thousands and their treasure (tax revenue) by the trillions in a continuing series of wars of adventure which your people don't need or want. With all due respect (and that's a pretty low threshold IMO), your own militarists are a far greater threat to the real interests of your own citizens and your republic than any of these three states which you have unilaterally attacked since 2003. In my opinion it is the domestic enemies who should be arrested, charged, tried and, if convicted, locked up for decades in places like Guantanemo Bay. …
Honestly, your tirades of subjective and pejorative characterizations (also known as a rant of hot air) don't offer much of substance to reply to. However, there are a few items in need of examination.
First, one does not 'attack a sovereign state' just because one retaliates against other another foreign force also in the same third party country - not anymore than the precipitating Qud militia attack on US forces were an an 'attack on a sovereign state'. So let's not be silly, shall we?
Second, one might question whether the retaliation should have been more proportional to the provocation, but strikes at operational commanders in zones of conflict are customary in military conflicts, at least since the end of the 18th century. Those who died were not just 'visitors', they were the top commanders of the hostile forces that (not for the first time) targeted Americans and American soldiers in an attack. As such when they initiate war against American units, and are commanding those units in the field of battle, they a subject to a counter-attack and command decapitation.
Third, were it Abrams or Westmoreland in Vietnam, Schzwartkopf in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Patton in France, etc killing them would have been justly conducted under the rules of military conflict.
Four, there is no problem with expulsion. If Iraq demands US forces leave Iraq, they will do so. If the Afghanistan government demands the same, the US forces will also do so. The same applies to every country in the middle east EXCEPT the one country that is embroiled in a civil war with many foreign proxies - Syria, of which no one will leave.
Five, the pompous call to "drive" US and other European forces from the mid-east is curious. Do you honestly think that the "forever-wars" would end because the west stopped battling the crazies on their home turf? How historically ignorant would it be to ignore the fact that this area of the world (as with many others) are congenitally violent, anti-democratic, religiously jihadist, and at each others throats without a single western boot on the ground? Indeed, it was the collapse of Western influence that precipitated the Iraq-Iran war, the Persian Gulf war, etc. - just as the ascendency of Soviet influence precepted the Afghan war. As we write, there are civil wars happily engaged with or without outsider support.
Last, I will add that it may be strategically unwise to have decapitated the puppet masters in Iraq, it was more than well deserved. I couldn't be happier that such masters of evil are no more.
