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Perpetual Middle East Geopolitical Quagmire Megathread


Hugo Stiglitz

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3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


Those were the only two options? Huh. Interesting. So, I guess the option of “kill him covertly and don’t brag about it on twitter so we maintain deniability” wasn’t a thing? You know, like the Russians do? A little Polonium tea, maybe.

There are plenty of wrong ways to do the right thing. Trump has a gift for finding them.

We could have done it differently and stayed anonymous and not brag on twitter about it, and let the Iranians wonder if it was  the Turks, Israelis, ISIS, Saudis, or even Sunni Iraqis.  

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Haven't seen this posted here yet from our acting head of DHS:

Following Soleimani's assassination, DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said he had met twice with senior leadership within his department to "assess potential new threats and component actions to respond to the constantly evolving threat landscape."

They determined that "there are currently no specific, credible threats against our homeland."

...

Senior US officials said that in the day before he was killed, Soleimani traveled to Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq to finalize plans on these attacks.

However, a Congressional aide who was briefed on the intelligence told NBC News that he didn't see a compelling case for why the US acted now, since Soleimani was up to the same business as usual.

...

Apart from Wolf's statement on Friday, the only other message to come out of DHS was from its chief of cybersecurity, who warned the public that it was "time to brush up" on Iran's hacking tactics.

 

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42 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

There’s no perfect answer to shit like this...  Option one keep him alive and let him keep doing attacks on Americans and killing them, option two kill him and see if anything actually happens.  Do we know anything will actually happen yet?  No.  It’s not black and white as most politics isn’t but most people see all politics that way these days.  One side can say the sky is blue the other will argue till they are blue in the face it’s not right now, it’s a fucking joke.  See above Post for reference 🙄.  Killing a guy that has killed Americans before is not close to slaughtering innocent people.  So yea we’re isis I guess lol. 

I was referring to the explicit threat by the President of the United States of America against cultural sites important to Iranians, you dunce. 

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11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

We could have done it differently and stayed anonymous and not brag on twitter about it, and let the Iranians wonder if it was  the Turks, Israelis, ISIS, Saudis, or even Sunni Iraqis.  

None of those countries are flying AC-130s and drones over their air space. No sense in playing coy.

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4 minutes ago, maninblack said:

Maybe, maybe not but either way shits coming

 

This is the cyberattack equivalent of a burning bag of dog shit on the front door step lol. But a subtle defacing that looks the same but it's just a honey pot would be extremely effective to fish a bunch of username and password combinations on an external facing government website. Username and password combos that lazy and dumb boomers reuse on internal resources that are useful for privilege escalation when penetrating a domain or network infra. 

Boys, it's gonna be real fucking messy and interesting. 

Edited by Captainant
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1 hour ago, Hook1997 said:

There’s no perfect answer to shit like this...  Option one keep him alive and let him keep doing attacks on Americans and killing them, option two kill him and see if anything actually happens.  Do we know anything will actually happen yet? ......<some blather...some shit I did not say or imply....more shit I did not say or imply> 

Granted, there is the low hanging fruit of killing a bad guy.    I'm not at all sad he is dead.   As to your other comments in bold, the questions are a tad naive.  "If"?  Really?  As Marcellus would say, Iran is 'pretty fuckin' far from okay' with this  "If" is not really a question.  As to the second, we abso-fucking-lutely know that something will happen.  We knew before we did it.  We just don't know what.   Iran will do something, because they can't be seen as being punked.  So we will have some response, and we will respond again.   The issues are , who will do it, where will they do it, and how far will they go?  Will they try to fuck with our military in a start a war way - like send a missile at some U.S. naval target?  Not out of the question, but I doubt it.   Far easier to get their puppets and allies to shoot down  a jet.   Or bomb the fuck out of a target in some country where the access to Americans is easier.   Like a luxury hotel or restaurant in Europe.    That way they can kill Americans and get the host country mad at us for bringing this to their shores.    If you think that they will say, "Oh my! We must have overstepped our bounds, so sorry, we shan't try to kill your folks ever again due to the threats of Cadet Bone-Spurs !" and forego a response, that ain't happening.  

So you can say that the Hatfields are being dicks, and Devil Anse's kid is a murdering asshole.  But if a McCoy kills him, no matter how much he needed killing, it is very likely a lot more folks in Logan County will die than if the kid had not been killed.    So that is the conundrum.

 

Edit:  I guess it would wise not to stay in any Trump branded property for a while.  Or at least that is the rumor I want to start to get empty beds in his properties.

 

Edited by Gatorubet
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5 hours ago, GRHorn said:

I saw this posted elsewhere and it’s interesting to me to consider. 
 

The mainstream media and DC establishment that always pushes war was falling all over themselves pushing Trump to aggressively confront Syria after what was likely a fake chemical attack. Putting us directly in confrontation with Russia by proxy etc. 

Now for the most part they’re besides themselves against what Trump did. What’s the difference this time?

Why would they have used fake chemicals?

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12 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Just checked Western publications and outlets for this and I couldn't find anything. Got any more detail? Seems like sort of a big deal. 

NYT through Reuters has a military source confirming. Fighting ongoing.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/05/world/africa/05reuters-kenya-security.html

Quote

NAIROBI — Somalia's Islamist group al Shabaab on Sunday attacked a military base in Lamu county in Kenya that is used by both U.S. and Kenyan forces, a source and al Shabaab said. 

"They have attacked Manda airstrip in Lamu, which is just next to the military camp that hosts military personnel from many countries including Kenya and the U.S. We are informed that fighting is still ongoing," the military source told Reuters.

He said the fighters were trying to access the base from the airstrip.

 

Edited by washparkhorn
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14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Just checked Western publications and outlets for this and I couldn't find anything. Got any more detail? Seems like sort of a big deal. 

They just reported this on the morning news here in Germany. Not a lot of details, but they said Al Shabaab had entered the base and that shit was still burning at the moment. They had a quote from some Kenyan military guy who said the bulk of the attack had been repulsed but that pockets of Al Shabaab may still be inside the base. 

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2 minutes ago, maninblack said:

Good way of doing that. Troops are in harm's way.

Good discussion in here:

Spoiler

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-us-militarys-best-kept-secret/

The specific camp is described in this article and describes its mission.

 

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If that pick of the Iraqi PM at the funeral is legit, then that explains the entire ME in a nutshell:

 

Everybody hates everybody until they have a common foe.  Former enemies become short term friends until someone else does something one side doesnt like and then the buddies hate each other again. 

And we continually step into this shit to be the unifier.

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So, when the Iraqi Parliament finally votes to expel U.S. troops today in their special session, I am sure we will respect the will of the legitimate government of Iraq and leave. /s

News reports are already saying that Sunni and Kurdish MPs are refusing to show up for the vote and that Shiite groups are threatening any MP that doesn't show up to cast a vote with death. Even so, 170 (out of 329) MPs have already apparently come out in support of expulsion.

I am sure that this won't further escalate sectarian tensions /s.

https://arab.news/8qzy5

Edited by Shady Ray
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I guess we already know the Saudis are held to a different standard when it comes to funding terrorists who kill Americans. I wonder what standard these guys will be held to?

 

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/27/politics/afghanistan-contractor-suit/index.html

 

Family members of US service members who were killed or wounded in Afghanistan sued a number of prominent contractors on Friday that worked to rebuild the country post-invasion, accusing them of funneling millions of dollars in payments to the Taliban for protection that funded the group's attacks on American troops in the region.

The suit, filed in Washington, DC, federal court, said the funds from the development and private security firms were part of a "common practice by certain corrupt contractors" that sought to save money on security by paying off the Taliban.

The firms allegedly used a network of subcontractors and private security groups to transfer cash to Taliban agents, and in some cases dole out salaries to certain Taliban "guards" between 2006 and 2014, while the group was allying with al Qaeda and waging a violent campaign against US forces and their allies, according to the lawsuit.

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5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Well now I guess we’ll see how deeply committed Republicans are to Iraqi democracy #wisecentristcontent

Telling Trump he has to pull troops out will lead him to digging in his heels.  This will be fun.   

“They told me I had to pull the beautiful troops out.  I said no, I’m the President of the United States, I’m going to send in stronger troops, right out of central casting.”

Edited by atomheartbevo
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8 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Good way of doing that. Troops are in harm's way.

Good discussion in here:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-us-militarys-best-kept-secret/

The specific camp is described in this article and describes its mission.

 

My buddy's brother is on base. He heard they're all good this morning.

Edited by maninblack
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11 hours ago, Hook1997 said:

Once again did you miss the part where I’m not a Trump fan?  Just saying it wasn’t a bad thing to kill a terrorist.  But also don’t see a tweet from him talking about bombing civilians at all?  

Let me guess. You voted for Gary Johnson. 

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I'm sure the Saudis and Israelis are super excited about the latest developments.  

Of course, we can just move more troops to Saudi.  I'm sure the Wahhabi majority would welcome us with open arms.  Perhaps we could put the new HQ in Mecca.

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