[N_Fiddledog]

Here are Trump’s full comments, via a poll report from a White House reporter in Florida.

$1:

"Thank you very much and good afternoon. As president my highest and most solemn duty is the defense of our nation and its citizens. Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.

Under my leadership America’s policy is unambiguous to terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American. We will find you. We will eliminate you. We will always protect our diplomats, service members, all Americans and our allies. For years the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its ruthless Quds Force under Soleimani’s leadership has targeted, injured and murdered hundreds of American civilians and servicemen.

The recent attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq, including rocket strikes that killed an American and injured four American servicemen very badly, as well as a violent assault on our embassy in Baghdad, were carried out at the direction of Soleimani. Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion, contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London. Today we remember and honor the victims of Soleimani’s many atrocities and we take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over. Soleimani has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize the Middle East for the last 20 years. What the United States did yesterday should have been done long ago. A lot of lives would have been saved. Just recently Soleimani led the brutal repression of protesters in Iran, where more than 1,000 innocent civilians were tortured and killed by their own government.

We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war. I have deep respect for the Iranian people. They are a remarkable people with an incredible heritage and unlimited potential. We do not seek regime change. However, the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end and it must end now. The future belongs to the people of Iran, those who seek peaceful co-existence and cooperation, not the terrorist warlords who plunder their nation to finance bloodshed abroad.

The United States has the best military by far anywhere in the world. We have the best intelligence in the world. If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified, and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. And that in particular refers to Iran. Under my leadership we have destroyed the ISIS territorial caliphate, and recently American special operations forces killed the terrorist leader known as al-Baghdadi. The world is a safer place without these monsters.

America will always pursue the interests of good people, great people, great souls, while seeking peace, harmony and friendship with all of the nations of the world. Thank you, God bless you. God bless our great military, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... soleimani/

[xerxes]

[N_Fiddledog]

From Trump's address above:

We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.

[N_Fiddledog]

$1:

The assumption among both leftist Trump haters and anti-interventionist Trump supporters like Tucker Carlson is that the United States could well be drawn into a broader conflict that will lead to another Iraq or Afghanistan, replete with a full-scale invasion and occupation. Yet this would conflict with President Trump’s word, deed, and demonstrated instinct, and almost assuredly the desires of his supporters.

These critics are missing a number of other crucial points. First, Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, when it stormed our embassy in Tehran and took Americans hostage. The presumed alternative to the Trump administration’s Iran policy, namely the Iran nuclear deal, was not an alternative to war, but the continuation of war by other means—a ruse built on collusion with a willing Obama administration seeking to make Iran the strong horse in the Middle East, and greedy and fearful European partners that enabled the mullocracy to expand under the veneer of a Swiss cheese “verification regime.”

Aside from facing on-again off-again economic sanctions, the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad has paid very little price for the blood it has shed. It has tapped along the West while spreading its influence globally, developing its military capabilities including its nuclear program, and acting against America and our allies.

The storming of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, in which attackers spray-painted references to Soleimani on walls and windows, along with Soleimani’s openly traversing the Middle East and beyond, reflected a level of hubris that may well have proved to be his downfall. Now Iran knows that America is fully engaged, unconstrained by politically correct rules of engagement, and no longer acting out of fear or willfully blind delusions about bribing a jihadist regime into peace. It knows it will pay a severe price should it endanger Americans, a price that yesterday it would not have anticipated. The strength of this deterrent both psychologically and materially cannot be easily dismissed.

This Is Retaliation, Not Provocation

Second, the expressly stated purpose of the attack on Soleimani was deterrence, not a prelude to invasion. Attacking a U.S. embassy is again an act of war, and the U.S. responded in kind if not disproportionately given Soleimani’s existential importance to the mullocratic regime.

Such an act should be seen not as an attempt to enter a war that President Trump has never desired, but to prevent Iran from even thinking about dramatically escalating towards one given the overwhelming, catastrophic response it now knows it could face. This is even before considering how Israel or anti-Iranian Sunni Arab nations would respond in such a scenario. The killing of Soleimani should have changed the strategic calculation of Iran’s leaders.

Third, for those fearing a greater war, the Trump administration has acted with substantial restraint with respect to the Iranian regime, slowly and methodically ramping up economic pressure while speaking of a desire for diplomacy. It has avoided direct military action to the point when American assets and then lives were repeatedly threatened, and now shown that any such attacks will be met with overwhelming force—force directed at the head of the snake, not merely at proxies that could needlessly bog America down. These are prudent acts, not the acts of a president who wants to dive headlong into the kind of engagement he ran against.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/03/tr ... entionism/

[CharlesAnthony]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

From Trump's address above:

We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.

As long as the sheepletards are convinced that Trump ordered the attack, then all is good in the empire.

[herbie]

Those incapable of thinking for themselves love to post endless pages of Trump quotes.

[xerxes]

It’s sad how they still believe every single word he says when he is demonstrably a pathological liar.

[N_Fiddledog]

herbie herbie:

Those incapable of thinking for themselves love to post endless pages of Trump quotes.

But how dumb would you have to be to think nothing but one-line insults is the winning argument.

It's not like it's difficult. Anybody can do it.

For example, 2 is not endless, Einstein.

[Martin15]

xerxes xerxes:

It’s sad how they still believe every single word he says when he is demonstrably a pathological liar.

It's only sadder to watch the Leftists sputter all over themselves to make sure
Iran gets a 1000% free pass, the biggest dindunuthins in the ME.

[N_Fiddledog]

[Thanos]

Will all those brave right-wing pundits lusting for war in their columns today the same way they were back in 2003 be the first ones to enlist this time to go do some righteous killin'? Killin' that needs to be done for the sake of America's Saudi friends and their great pals at Likud HQ? The world wonders what the bravest of keyboard warriors will do this time around....

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanos Thanos:

Will all those brave right-wing pundits lusting for war...

OK so we've heard what you wish right-wing pundits we're saying, now let's hear what the bigger names in right wing punditry were actually saying. I think you're neglecting the nuance.









But you were talking about columnists. Go ahead then, show us what you're talking about. Some fringery your fringe progressive media has told you about, right?

[herbie]

Trump's propaganda channel. Laughed at a Reddit post where son used parental control to lock out access to Fox News on his parent's TV.
And the wiener of the argument is the one who posts every single garbage source as his own thought and opinion.
Well here's a counter

[Thanos]

Anyone from the tough-guy side of CKA enlisting in this latest iteration of the Great Crusade? Or are they going to sit here posting in safety again, far away from the ickyness of the blood and the smell of burning bodies?

And Trump tweeted that he has 52 targets in Iran lined up to represent the 52 Americans held hostage when the Iranian revolutionary guard assaulted the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. Sounds chummy. Maybe he should also have 3000 targets lined up in Saudi Arabia to represent the 3000 people killed by the Saudis on Sept 11 2001. Too bad that unlike the Saudis the Iranians don't have a magic glowing orb for Trump to touch. If they did maybe they'd now be among America's best friends today in the same way the Saudis are.

[N_Fiddledog]

herbie herbie:

And the wiener of the argument is the one who posts every single garbage source as his own thought and opinion.

Well here's a counter

How cute...you're complaining about "garbage sources" and what you call your counter is The Young Turks.