The One Is Indivisible
The Truth Is The Whole
And ante-everything else is this:
Putin, Modi, Trump, all Sissi, and Abe should agree
an outcome for MENA then make it happen.
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.
President Donald Trump, 03 January 2020
The Theological Component In Announcing
Strategic War To Annihilate The Salafi Jihad
GEN (R) Petraeus puts too much stock in interagency/deep state making the call [to eliminate Soleimani, Muhandes, et al.). It was a leadership call. Bill Knudsen: A committee is a group of people who individually can get nothing done and together decide nothing can be done.
Still, Peaches is not playing the schmuck.
His estimate of the importance of eliminating Soleimani, to include comparing to UBL and Baghdadi, is accurate. UBL and Baghdadi were non-state actors even though supported by Qataris, Turks, Syrians, Saudis, and Iranians. Soleimani (Solomon/Salomon/Suleiman/Sulayman) was a state actor.
The Iranians have no options they cannot expect to result in losing their infrastructure, all of it, to what for US Armed Forces would be a day’s work.
Expect now infighting among Iraqis loyal to Iran (Ministry of Interior + others), a minority of Iraqis, and Iraqis, to include Shiites, favoring alliance with USA, the large majority of Iraqis, especially now that, with Soleimani gone, they sense USA/Trump has their back.
Soleimani was arrogant with Iraqi government officials. His sway was such that he was accustomed, literally, to calling and chairing meetings of top-most Iraqi government officials, to include PM and President. Soleimani ordered these officials about as if they were his functionaries. Many of them resented that but felt powerless to resist.
With Soleimani gone and sight of USA/Trump courage and resolve (DO NOT HURT AMERICANS!), those officials, especially Iraqi Army and its SOF professionals (CTS, Combatting Terrorism Service) are going to clean Iran out of the Iraqi government. The trend line is to that effect. Meanwhile, expect fireworks, which is normal and unavoidable.
jaytrain
Do not let up : Nasrallah is next. Which should give Assad pause to be part of the Shia Crescent.
David R. Graham to jaytrain
US/EU foreign policy establishment has operated from fear for decades. Don’t annoy the pigs. We know they are pigs, but don’t annoy them and maybe they will leave most of us alone. This is not a patriotic posture.
Nasrallah makes an excellent Tier I target. So does Iranian infrastructure.
For long-term effect and problem-solving, the targets, for annihilation, should be the seeds of Islamic barbarism, its seeders, and its seed beds. The seeds are Salafi/Asharite-Shiite ideology and so-called jurisprudence. To annihilate those: form institutes for Text Criticism of the Koran. The seeders are the mullahs. To annihilate those: lay on fires. The seed beds are the mullahs’ madrassas. To annihilate those: lay on fires and have speaks with Qataris and Saudis, without chairs, regarding their financing habits. In other words, cancel fear and do what is right.
lydia to David R. Graham
I kind of think bin Salman might appreciate getting rid of his fundy Mullahs. Not that he is a paragon of democracy, either. But they can’t bank on oil forever.
David R. Graham to lydia
al Wahhab married a Saud. Sauds were afraid of his puritanism, agreed to let and support him religion-police Saud territory and spread Salafi (= Pure) ideology as far as possible across the world. Ideology matters more than oil in this matter.
Wahhab was aghast at Euro-American Enlightenments (there were several, US one being mostly Scots-derived). Qutb, years later, was horrified at consequences of American implementation of Enlightenment insights, specifically a high view of man and his abilities God-like.
US has been at war with Salafism and then its Shiite correlate from Iran for 250 and 40 years, respectively. MBS breaking truly with Salafism would be a Magnitude 9 earthquake, so to speak, at least. I am not taking bets on it.
Meanwhile Saudi royals continue to finance Salafi movements all over the planet, both violent and seditious varieties, which go violent when mullahs think opportunity beckons. They also send their children to Salafi madrassas, in part as penance for the hedonistic lives they lead.
Wahhab’s first evangelical act, after receiving Saudi imprimatur, was to stone to death a woman, for adultery.
Note that the demises of UBL, Baghdadi, and now Soleimani have not precipitated eruptions of the so-called Arab Street. For decades USA clergy, teachers, businessmen, and government officials warned that Americans must not tempt The [Fearsome] Arab Street to erupt into anger against us, meaning, actually, against those American leader worthies themselves. Instead, Americans were told, they must finance appeasement of The [Volatile] Arab Street lest it rise forth to do us harm.
Yet, the destruction of three major Salafi-Shiite Jihad leaders has come and gone without The Arab Street, feared — selfishly — by Americans’ leader worthies, striking forth in violence to show that said Street can harm or even rule the world merely by instilling fear of their allegedly intrinsic, super-potent barbarity. Economies, daily family and personal rituals and habits have continued, and The Arab Street has failed to materialize its allegedly terrifying and subduing presence much less its hegemonic ambitions. Americans have deployed their discriminating powers to become skeptical of if not holding in derision this allegedly almighty Arab Street Americans’ leader worthies wanted Americans to fear ahead of fearing God.
The discrepancy between what we are told fearfully — by our own soi-disant leader worthies, sententious betters — and what we see somewhat amusedly with our own eyes and intellects shows two things at least. One is that The Arab Street is a straw man, an idol, a figment of Americans’ soi-disant elites’ fearful imagination, an ideational device invented by Americans’ leader worthies for some purpose(s) other than stewarding Americans’ interests. The other is that The Arab Street, when it actually appears, is a manufactured device, not a self-initiating phenomenon. No coincidence is it that The Arab Street manifests directly after Friday prayer at mosques. Mullahs manufacture The Arab Street and Americans’ leader worthies — our soi-disant Foreign Policy Establishment — quiver and quake at the thought and sight of that incitement merely. That is all there is to it. Incitement sans substance. Americans’ Foreign Policy Establishment are cowering, despicable ninnies deep in their cups, bongs, pipes, and lines.
Now, if the mullahs did not incite The Arab Street into fanatical violence following the destructions of UBL, Baghdadi, and Soleimani, that means the mullahs themselves recalculated their trumps following those events and decided incitement of mobs (aka democracy) is not in their interests. In other words, they digested the message from an actual authority — USA — and they, too, low and behold, value embodiment in this world.
Americans’ leader worthies of recent generations fear figments of their own imaginations and essay to instill that fear, which paralyzes them, into Americans generally. Schmucks our so-called Foreign Policy Establishment are, cowering, despicable ninnies. Transgressives they are. They do not give a damn about Americans or the soul of The United States of America.
When you look at everyone around you with love, God will also look at you with love. In whatever situation you may be, you should never show anger, jealousy, hypocrisy or pomp. Do not treat others with anger or hatred. By experiencing your selfless love, others also will also grow in love. When you treat others with love, they will also return that love in thoughts and words towards you. On the other hand, if you choose to be angry with them, they will also behave angrily with you. You should not create distance between one another by your talk or conduct. Draw everybody close to you with love. Then all of you will become united. Each one of you will also attain proximity with God. God is the embodiment of love. He protects the entire mankind by His love. Hence, embodiments of love, develop selfless love in you, more and more!
Sathya Sai Baba – Divine Discourse, January 27, 2007 / Daily Email, Sai Inspires: Subscription
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Update 1: Glenn Reynolds:
WISE THOUGHTS FROM A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK, WHO WOULD RATHER NOT BE NAMED HERE:
Following the death of Soleimani, it seems like nearly the entire DC / academia / journo natsec/forpol commentariat has penned variations on exactly the same essay: the President has acted hastily, has no plan, and isn’t capable of envisioning or handling what happens next. The template was established by Ben Rhodes on Twitter a few hours after an MQ-9 Reaper shot a Hellfire missile directly into his professional legacy, and it hasn’t varied much since.
Yet the more we learn — about the deliberations preceding the strike, about the chain of events leading to it, about the prior and subsequent moves by CENTCOM to harden the American position in the region — the more it seems that the President acted with deliberate aforethought, that he does in fact have a plan, and therefore likely is capable of envisioning and handling what happens next. That much is only fair, whether or not one agrees with the decision as such.
What nearly the entire DC / academia / journo natsec/forpol commentariat actually means by its critique, though, is that they weren’t included in any of this. Ben Rhodes took the time to rally them together, get their talking points aligned, illuminate a pathway to social and professional advancement: that’s their preferred template for Iran-related policymaking.
Donald Trump’s template for Iran-related policymaking is the smoking wreckage of a terror mastermind’s vehicle. The courtiers see it, and want to know what’s in it for them.
Americans see it, and they know.
Indeed they do.
Update 2: Sundance: Margaret Brennan Hosts a Cocktail Conversation With General Petraeus – Clueless Duo Can’t See What’s Coming
Update 3: Richard Fernandez: Soleimani was the man, the Islamic Republic was the regime that no one was supposed to anger lest they turn their baleful glare on us instead of passing by to kill someone else.
Update 4: Lee Smith: Iran and America Are Suddenly Both Naked
Update 5: Robert Spencer: Muslim leader calls for removal of parts of Qur’an that ‘promote terrorism,’ Muslim cleric calls for his beheading