You Will Anyway: New reason for killing Soleimani: "He was saying bad things about our country"

Saturday, January 18, 2020

New reason for killing Soleimani: "He was saying bad things about our country"

Trump, speaking at a GOP fundraising dinner Friday evening, offered new details about the strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

[...]

In his speech — held inside the gilded ballroom on his Mar-a-Lago property — he claimed that Soleimani was "saying bad things about our country" before the strike, which led to his decision to authorize his killing.

"How much of this shit do we have to listen to?" Trump asked. "How much are we going to listen to?"

CNN

Jesus wept.

Trump did not describe an "imminent threat" that led to his decision to kill Soleimani, the justification used by administration officials in the aftermath of the attack.

Instead, he described Soleimani as a "noted terrorist" who "was down on our list" and "was supposed to be in his country" before traveling to other nations in the region.

[...]

Trump claimed erroneously that Soleimani was meeting "the head of Hezbollah" (the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group is separate from group led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis).

And he claimed the strike he authorized took out "two for the price of one."

Christ.

"He was supposed to be invincible," Trump said of Soleimani. In his remarks, Trump also repeated claims that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died "screaming" following a US raid on his compound.

"He was screaming, going crazy," Trump said. Other US officials have declined to provide further details of al-Baghdadi's final minutes.

And Trump joked the Belgian Malinois dog that assisted in the Baghdadi raid "got more credit than I did" for the killing.

[...]

He went on to recount listening to military officials as they watched the [Soleimani] strike from "cameras that are miles in the sky."

"They're together sir," Trump recalled the military officials saying. "Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. '2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the car, they're in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30 seconds. 10, 9, 8 ...' "

"Then all of a sudden, boom," he went on. "'They're gone, sir. Cutting off.' "

"I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him."

I'd like to know when we're going to hear the last from Trump. It's long overdue.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.