Everything That Happened Since Yesterday In Our Iran Iraq Clusterfuq ... Wait, BREAKING!
Stop the news, I want to get off!
Good God, y'all! We have been promoted from Mommyblogger to Warblogger, so buckle up for a roundup of all the military funtimes stories breaking today. We are locked, and also, too, perhaps loaded?
Matt Gaetz ... right about a thing????
Yesterday the House voted on Rep. Elissa Slotkin's non-binding war powers resolution that would revoke the president's power "to engage in hostilities in or against Iran" without specific congressional authorization, unless it becomes "necessary and appropriate to defend against an imminent armed attack upon the United States." Eight Democrats voted "no," and three Republicans -- Gaetz, Thomas Massie (KY) and Francis Rooney (FL) -- voted "yes." Plus independent Justin Amash ( Biceps ), who can sit with us now, we guess.
This caused great Sturm and Drang in Wingnuttistan, with Lou Dobbs growing so distracted that he left his Just For Men on for an extra hour, to disastrous effect.
Unconstitutional Resolution. @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy says the radical Dems & RINOs voted today to defend Iran.… https: //t.co/RxKNHeuOdX
— Lou Dobbs (@Lou Dobbs) 1578616053.0
Luckily Rep. Kevin McCarthy was too busy tut-tutting to notice.
For his part, Gaetz defended himself as Trump's staunchest supporter. "I take a back seat to no member of this body when it comes to defending the president," he said on the House floor. "I represent more troops than any other member of this body. I buried one of them early today at Arlington, and that sergeant died a patriot and a hero. If the members of our armed services have the courage to go and fight and die in these wars, as Congress, we ought to have the courage to vote for them or against them."
Even a blind squirrel is right twice a day.
Trump's batshit Thursday presser
No one has time for this shit. Have a twitter thread. Apparently, Trump claimed to have come up with the catchy name for the YMCA?
worst Village People tribute band of all time https: //t.co/9aMU2WtQbb
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1578588249.0
The important part for our purposes is that Trump claimed we killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani "because they were looking to blow up our Embassy." And then he said it again last night at his pitchfork mob rally in Toledo.
Was this a gross mischaracterization of the protestors attempting to storm the US Embassy in Iraq two weeks ago? Intel from Trump's underpants gnomes? No one knows! But now Trump's lackeys are locked into the story -- or at least barred from denying it outright -- despite the fact that it never came up in the classified congressional briefings.
Because objective truth is now illegal.
Mike Pompeo needs SAT prep classes, STAT
Words, what even are they? Can't they just mean whatever you want them to?
This is amazing. WATCH: Pompeo just revealed how weak this claim about an “imminent attack” was. “There is no do… https://t.co/iPlkfBij66
— Marcus Baram (@Marcus Baram) 1578631286.0
After insisting for a week that we had to kill Soleimani to prevent specific, imminent threats, Secretary of State Pompeo finally admitted that we did it because Soleimani was a bad guy (he was), who had killed a lot of people (he had), and would probably try to kill more Americans (likely true, but not "imminent"). And don't forget that he was plotting to blow up our Embassy (uhhhh ....)!
Memo from Iraq: Yankee, GTFO!
Last night, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called up Mike Pompeo's Obummerphone and said it was time to "send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism to carry out the Parliament's resolution regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq."
According to a statement released by his office, "The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements." Because assassinating a foreign official on a third country's sovereign territory is often considered rude.
Memo from US: Fuck You Make Us!
We are old enough to remember candidate Trump promising to get our troops out of the Middle East, not like that hellacious warmonger Hillary Clinton. And yet, here's State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus's reply to the Iraqi Prime Minister, issued this morning:
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial our D-ISIS mission is in Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership—not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's role in Iraq, in line with the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts. There does, however, need to be a conversation between the US and Iraqi governments not just regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.
That would be a not-so-veiled threat to impose economic sanctions if the Iraqis kick us out and refuse to let us use their country as a beachhead for any upcoming war with Iran.
Don't worry, we won't have to fight 'cuz we've got a SECRET WEAPON
Yeah, it's not a secret. It's the same weapon we've been using for the past three years with such rousing success. We're imposing more sanctions on Iran. This time it'll totally work!
Pompeo and Munch's Excellent Adventures
Just kidding, it was another stupidass presser. Help us, Aaron Rupar!
REPORTER: Why are you saying that Soleimani presented an imminent threat against embassies here but not to senators… https://t.co/9d9pJTHeZZ
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1578672474.0
So, the word "imminent" continues to mean "likely going to happen at some undetermined future date." And Soleimani was definitely plotting to bomb our embassies like Donald Trump said, but no one mentioned it to Congress and Mike 'n' Munch can't discuss it because CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT NOSEY PARKERS. Kewl.
One man's 'Imminent Threat' is another man's 'campaign of targeted killings.' Po-tay-to To-mah-to.
Sadly we failed to type fast enough, and now there's even more news to add to this longass roundup. Apparently, at the same time we were dispensing with "imminent threat" Qasem Soleimani, we were also trying to kill IRGC Quds commander Abdul Reza Shahlai in Yemen, a military leader and financier who had a $15 million US bounty on his head. The Washington Post reports:
The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated.
Yes, indeed, it does raise questions about whether we're trying to head off an "imminent" attack, or decapitate the leadership of the Iranian army in preparation for a war cooked up by a bunch of religious nuts who think they'll get in God's good graces by engineering some kind of Middle East end times Armageddon.
TL, DR?
Even Matt Gaetz knows this is bad. They all lie. Everything leaks immediately.
[ WaPo / Trump Transcript / WaPo , again / WaPo , FTW]
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