On January 2, the US launched an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, killing Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, and multiple Iraqis. It turns out that was not the only US assassination bid that day.
US officials are now reporting that they also took a shot at Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Abdul Reza Shahlai, who was in Yemen at the time. They failed to kill him.
Officials are declining to offer specifics, but the Treasury Department accused him of “a long history of targeting Americans and US allies globally.” Officials are also not talking about what specifically the justification for the attack was.
The Trump Administration has struggled to justify the killing of Soleimani, and has offered no public evidence of allegations of an “imminent” attack. Shahlai would need to be involved in a whole other plot in Yemen, starting a whole new call for evidence on that, too.
That the US kept the failed assassination under wraps for more than a week is raising questions on whether the US carried out any more attacks, or was planning to kill even more Iranian leaders at the time.
“That the US kept the failed assassination under wraps for more than a week is raising questions on whether the US carried out any more attacks, or was planning to kill even more Iranian leaders at the time.”
Another question should be asked. Are we done? I know, silly question.
Seriously out of control decision making clique. But nobody is questioning the legality — not any branch of government that is supposed to insure there are checks and balances. But a formula has bern created that allows a small group to make claims in the name of security. And they are not asked to account for their behavior — nobody can or will do that. Congress will posture, knowing full well Senate will stop it.
Nobody REALLY wants to question decisions in security arena. In fact, the only time Washington erupted was at the news of Trump withdrawing any troops. Now a lots of nothing — key power brokers are in agreement. This is a dangerous path. It can be addictive. Makes for good television. Globe may just give up on us. Gulliver may learn hard way.
Are we going to just keep doing this?
When do we stop, when they kill Trump?
Olaf Palme was rumored to have been a U.S. sanctioned assassination; in a sense, its always been done.
Of course, to assassinate so openly, suggests the Deep State empire appears to have hit the panic button. However, Trump is proving as useful as President Shrub was for selling American/Western extremism.
Of course, had another person been in the White House, such ‘dark resolve’ could be more universally celebrated as an antiheroism.
Wiki – Antihero: An antihero or antiheroine is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage and morality.
We’ve been conditioned for years by movies and TV to accept Trump-like leadership; it was just a real surprise to Deep State Democrats to get a real Trump.
Do we have evidence the Iranian Commander was even in Yemen?
Evidence is so yesterday. Today we have patriots telling what actually is!! ……………… Actually not. Only joking…. Jus to be like them. Full of B.S. ####################### Only I label mine as such… wondering WHO in this administration would be proportionate figure in rank, stature, and power to the late droned General S. Maybe the head of the joint chiefs or Pense.. Maybe they should beef up their S.S details.. Do yah think???
Just isn’t the same place without Raimondo. Seems lacking in passion & vigor. Leaderless, drifting along. Not making any substantive headway. Eric, find another young firebrand with heart, like Justin had.
Hmmm. When Ukraine Flight 752 first went down, Antiwar seemed slow to report on the story till it was suddenly okay to do so, after Iran was clearly implicated.
Something’s really odd about that whole narrative, like it was expected Iran would shoot down that airliner full off Canada-bound Iranian scientists, engineers, and doctors.
Apart from the IRGC triggerman, seems a continuation of Israel’s assassination program against Iran.
Wonder how many missiles were really fired at that plane; the IRGC Tor may have been reacting to a MANPAD or otherwise spoofed. Proof, on the would be extremely elusive and no-one would beleive Iran if MANPAD or spoofing evidecne were found in the wreckage..
Antiwar.com reported on the story once the story became “this may not have just been an ordinary plane crash.”
If you want a site that reports on all plane crashes, I think there’s one called Aviation News or something.
Shrugs.
Antiwar has lost its edge if Ukraine Flight 752 crashing did not trigger a “this may not have just been an ordinary plane crash.” reaction.
Brand new 737NGs do not crash ordinarily.
Preventing inevitable speculation at a difficult and sensitive time is understandable, though questionable, and the question was asked.
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Antiwar has lost its edge if Ukraine Flight 752 crashing did not trigger a “this may not have just been an ordinary plane crash.” reaction.
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From whom? The news section of Antiwar.com reports other people’s actions and reactions.
If you see a dead cow by the side of the road, Antiwar.com probably isn’t going to report on it — until there’s a newsworthy claim that it was killed by Russian spetsnaz troops.
Apples vs oranges.
“Jetliner crashes in Iran during period of high military tension” is a perfectly reasonable heads up.
OK, we’ve got three different assertions from you here:
1. “Antiwar seemed slow to report on the story till it was suddenly okay to do so, after Iran was clearly implicated”
2. “Antiwar has lost its edge if Ukraine Flight 752 crashing did not trigger a ‘this may not have just been an ordinary plane crash.’ reaction.
3. “‘Jetliner crashes in Iran during period of high military tension’ is a perfectly reasonable heads up.”
The third assertion is perfectly correct.
The first assertion hints at some kind of pro-US/anti-Iran agenda on Antiwar.com’s part. That’s simply incorrect and any overall look at our news coverage, even excluding commentary/blog stuff, quickly dispels it.
The leaves the second assertion, which implies an “edge” that we used to have and perhaps don’t anymore. Which I guess is fair game, but would take quite a bit of comparative historical research of an inherently subjective sort to prove.
So, in reference to that second assertion, let me give you a small peek inside our news coverage:
Margaret Griffis keeps track of casualties in Iraq.
Jason Ditz does, well, everything else.
His main coverage is posted in the evening, when he posts five to ten (usually somewhere between) stories from the day that bear on war, rumors of war, possibilities of war, etc., having kept an eye on things and then put together his own summaries (with a little bit of analysis) of events.
If something insanely big occurs at some other time of the day, you’ll see a story ASAP. If Jason is awake, at home, and on the Internet at that time, you’ll see it pretty quickly. If he’s asleep or out and about, it might take a while longer. Because Jason is, effectively, the entirety of Antiwar.com’s “news staff” for all subjects other than Iraq casualty counts.
But that leaves out the “news” section on our front page, where you’ll see links to news stories at other publications about both the things Jason is covering for us and other things that didn’t strike him as worth the personal touch.
In my opinion — and it’s just my opinion — Antiwar.com’s “edge” is in its commentary on events.
That doesn’t mean the news section is less important, but it’s a matter of, to use a convenience store analogy, what we stock and why. If Antiwar.com was a convenience store, our commentary section would be the gasoline pumps and cigarette shelf, while our news section would be the items that you could get elsewhere but that we keep some of in stock to make your evening commute home a little easier — you can grab some milk or a single dose of ibuprofen here, but you don’t want to count on us necessarily having the gourmet coffee you like, bagged in both ground and bean varieties.
And, like that convenience store, we have a bunch of cashiers ringing up customers’ purchases (commentary writers) and one poor SOB (Jason) running around trying to make sure the shelves don’t run empty of Twinkies, Diet Dr. Whatsit, and Andy Capp Hot Fries.
I don’t know how much Jason gets paid, but I can confidently say he doesn’t get paid enough.
Well said.
I never guilt-tripped easily. Well, actually I did, but its not productive… Anyway, none of my assertions are contradictory or intended to be deliberately inflammatory. For those who have taken offense, I’m sorry and apologize.
1. Antiwar relies on donations; comments regarding Ukraine 752 at such an early phase might be controversial, political, and partisan. Not to mention stupid. Yet it happened; what to do?
Based on that, if I were Editor, waiting a day or so for more information might be appropriate caution, giving people the ability to respond with more factual information.
Yet, that’s not necessarily firebrand-level news-now activism.
2. Self-evident. When a large civilian plane crashes in the middle of a war zone/potential war zone, common sense suggests that’s antiwar news,
Even if such a disaster were a complete accident (which it turned out not to be), it could inflame a bad situation worse and sow confusion. One Iranian witness claimed he first thought the Americans were bombing them and at took shelter in his basement.
Again, Raimondo was a firebrand, and while MvGuy was harsh, 176 innocent human – not bovine – lives were lost. It also turns out, the crash was geopolitically significant, potentially triggering civil war levels of unrest in Iran.
3. Is the entire point behind 1 & 2.
My awareness of what 5G warfare means, leaves me particularly alarmed. Civilians become fair game in 5G shadow warfare, on a regular basis, on the pretext of fighting ‘enemy’ social networks.
The line between combatant and non-combatant, is deliberately blurred beyond recognition as civilian bystanders become dissenters and protesters become activists and influencers become targets and agents.
Unlike yourself, Mr. Ditz, and other hardworking Antiwar. com staff, I don’t, and can’t, follow this every day. My real-life problems and commitments do not allow that.
This also means, I don’t jade as fast.
What’s unimportant to you, because its equivalent to just another dead cow by the roadside (which actually doesn’t happen that often outside war-torn countries), is potential geopolitical roadkill to me.
That first day, my reaction was, why am I not surprised a Boeing crashed; how serious is this? Then, check Antiwar to see if it was significant, even though I would not have had time to comment.
Apparently not significant enough to mention, and an odd omission by most common sense standards. Its not like the crash wasn’t breaking news everywhere else.
“Antiwar relies on donations; comments regarding Ukraine 752 at such an early phase might be controversial, political, and partisan. Not to mention stupid.”
A solid majority of comments at Antiwar.com are controversial, political, and partisan. And quite a few of them are stupid. Since that hasn’t stopped us from covering anything else, why would it stop us from covering this one story?
That’s what I asked myself when Antiwar DIDN’T initially cover this story.
Editorial discretion was the only answer I could come up with. Once there was a clear war-related story to report on, Ditz reported it, but by then the story had become an anti-Iran MSM narrative.
I’m not going to apologize for taking Jason Ditz seriously as a real journalist and capable Editor.
He got scooped, and by old-time journalistic standards, missing a story in plain sight is not cool.
Thomas Knapp would be a great choice.
I deeply appreciate the sentiment, but disagree with it.
We do need a new “anchor columnist” to succeed (not replace — that will never happen) Justin, but I’m neither a particularly good choice for that position nor interested in holding it.
Man, you’re just like him. Pigheaded sarcastic smart ass. My kind of people.
Once again, I’m flattered.
But no, I’m not just like him.
Even if we assume I’m as talented and prolific a writer as he was — and that’s not something I assume — he was “foreign policy 24/7/365.”
He seldom wrote about anything else (and when he did, that was almost always when he wasn’t at his best).
I don’t have three columns a week on foreign policy in me. In a normal week, zero or one. In a good week, two. Hardly ever three.
And even if I was as highly motivated as he was, I’m not as well-informed as he was.
I came to Antiwar.com to do a couple of jobs that nobody else really wanted — first, as a volunteer, a letters column that was already dying for lack of interest. Later, as a paid comment moderator because no one else would do it and if they didn’t find someone they were just going to shut down commenting altogether. Lately, I do some proofreading and social media linking as well.
I love the site, and I love its content, and I’m happy when I have a piece to contribute to that content, but I’m simply neither qualified to be, nor interested in being, its flagship commentary writer.
The US also invades, then kidnaps and imprisons the heads of countries it not at war with: Noreiga. He was a US ally until a falling out over his cooperation with CIA drug-running operations.
Maybe Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He should reconsider his visit to the U.S. to sign that Phase I trade treaty Jan. 15…
Ya know, stuff happens with drones and stuff and planes crash and Liu He has been instrumental in China, if not winning the trade war against the U.S., not losing badly either…
Who is above the law?
whomever is temporarily
alone atop the hill
course that flag
flies higher than all
devine
indispensable
faultless
while its crimes
pollutes its banners
sullies its muskets
mark a m/o
bs
you know
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f02c8fb1a2b6fb090502b2b9bbbddbf5c3c927ea1d766debed95cf204fac189.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7e35526c72fbf855311bef1266485a7529149c7df577de3f0b16b8d13881970.jpg
Agree site has.lost its bite compared to 10-15 years.ago, but a lot of past antiwar advocates can only gum their gruel and be happy to find adult diapers on sale.
And even with their heartng aids turned up their bark is more of a wheeze today.
It is hard in US to raise much antiwar fervor today, we are busy making a living, price of Viagra keeps climbing as members get limper, war helps keep jhigh waged jobs flowing, and there is no shortage of volunteers from the educated classes over 20,000 University and College Administrators,Professors, and undergrads recieve grants for military research from the billions of funds paid out by Federal Department of education.
A blog site can raise.more funds trying to get unisex bathrooms for LGBTQ’s than being anti war.
Religious organizations make more money yearly than coal mines and 40p of top 500 corporations in US, more than NRA guns for civilian manufacturers, and through dark money channels set in place by after years of organizing by GOP contribute to campaigns for Hawks and lobby to keep killing Islamics in Middle East.
Was a time when antiwar advocates got used to first whiff of sweetness by teargas, bellying up to cops shields and Billy clubs, but violence must be avoided today, and bottled water and walks in parks by Millenials protesting lack of 6 and 7 figure jobs is more important than dead people thousands of miles away.
Some can get up to a $40,000 USD bonus for joining military, that in a nation where 40% earn on average 30,000 and under yearly.
90% of military have occupations that are 40 and under hourly week at over 15 USD an hour salary for a full month of 8 hour 5 day a week, and will never hear a shot fired in anger.
Gone are old style boots on ground in gore and muck journalist, why travel when they can sit at PC and find enough Info to earn a living.
There is a whole industry and put in place circuits to travel along for speaker fees and book publishers favors to curry.
OUR military pays video programmers to make war games for juveniles from 7 to 60 years of age, and hundreds of millions can be earned by movie producers writing scripts to be approved by military for the same age groups.
There is no war within US or Europe, they prefer making war upon the weak and poor who live where resources are there for the takers.
Anti war activist are largely more along the line of past stoners sitting around in fantasy land mentally masturbating about how ceuel the world is.