General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsgreatauntoftriplets
(175,743 posts)Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)If it's anything under 48 hrs, then the choppers will be necessary.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,743 posts)What a bloody mess.
Liberalhammer
(576 posts)Americans in Iraq are sitting ducks.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)Will we evacuate them, or leave them at the mercy of an angry populace? We evacuated as many South Vietnamese as we could before the Viet Cong came.
Given Trump's track record with "allies"... I fear they're goners.
world wide wally
(21,745 posts)greatauntoftriplets
(175,743 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)RKP5637
(67,111 posts)Ohiogal
(32,012 posts)about those who dont study history ...
CousinIT
(9,247 posts)ORIGINAL TWITTER THREAD:
Link to tweet
For those of you who didnt live through the invasion of Iraq, here is what is about to happen:
1. There will be a MASSIVE propaganda push (by Republicans) to frame this act of war as a moral necessity and to act like anyone who opposes it is working for the enemy.
2. The propaganda push will include enormous appeals to American militarism disguised as patriotism: flag pins, flyovers, reverent cries to support the troops, as if the greatest support you can offer the troops isnt to keep them from dying for no good reason.
3. Over time, this vague appeal to patriotism and militarism will start to have a specific aim, an invasion, bombings, the takeover of oil fields, the support of proxy wars. These aims will magically align with the financial interests of multi-national corporations.
4. The people in harm's way -- innocent civilians in Iran, mostly -- will be framed and/or dehumanized as "the enemy." This will include everything from racial slurs to endless talking points about their "blood thirst" their "hatred of freedom and Americans." It's utter bullshit.
5. When the bombs start to drop, all of the reporting will be about the small number of US troop casualties.
For example, most Americans know roughly 4,000 US troops died in Iraq.
What most Americans don't know is over 200,000 Iraqi CIVILIANS were killed.
6. This horror too, this murder of children, of families, the bombing of weddings & birthdays, this destruction of entire regions, will be swept up under the guise of American militarism (disguised as patriotism), of "supporting our troops," who are "fighting for our freedom."
7. In the end, and there will be an end -- this isn't the beginning of World War III, this is asymmetrical slaughter -- the vast number of dead will be people who don't even know why the war was waged, they will be mostly young, innocent and brown-skinned. That is the ugly truth.
8. And even the US troops -- most of whom signed up out of a genuine desire to protect their country -- they will be abandoned too as the people who waged the war, who made such big promises of "support for the troops" will CUT veterans medical care, forget the dead and move on.
9. And the only people who will have benefitted will be those massive multi-national corporations -- oil and weapons manufacturers mostly -- who rushed in to profit off the death of all those innocent brown-skinned children lying in the rubble.
10. A couple more things:
The media (especially cable news) LOVES a war. They love the spectacle, the drama. It means big profits. It means eyeballs on screens. It makes stars of their anchors.
They will ask the wrong questions, they will follow militaristic talking points.
11. Cable news will try to EMPOWER the warmongers, by accepting rumors of impending harm to Americans as real news, by making stars of the "brutal enemies" handed to them by the Republican propaganda machine. You can practically see them salivate over the possibility for profit.
12. What will get lost in all this bickering and drama and tragedy and spectacle is the fact that all of this was AVOIDABLE.
That Trump inherited a reigned-in Iran, that he set in motion an escalation to war because he thought it would benefit HIM.
rampartc
(5,418 posts)i remember the process, and it fits from "remember the maine" and the gulf of Tonkin through the weapons of mass destruction and the Syrian gas attacks. .
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)Corgigal
(9,291 posts)Iran is going to kill thousands of our young military people. Were gonna need a new wall, near the Vietnam wall.
Still all avoidable. Im lucky my daughter is out of the service. Will hug her later.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I am so relieved. He had done numerous tours and some very dangerous special missions. Every single one terrified me. No family should have to go through this, especially for unnecessary wars.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)I think we are going to be asked to leave in more ME countries.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)roamer65
(36,745 posts)samnsara
(17,623 posts)...born.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)a possibility? I assumed Iraq was doing this because they are ground zero for this mess and Qasem Soleimani was a guest of the Iraqi government.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)But this is a very difficult time in which to predict the moves of any middle east player.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)safeinOhio
(32,690 posts)to be sucked up by Russia.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)Traildogbob
(8,761 posts)Show all the unedited blood in HD daily. Show our death and destruction, for political gain. But, who knows, God sent trump to slaughter people, has to be his plan right? What an ass he has turned out to be. Is Putin paying God?
Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)this failure of a president and his administration. This is what happens when unqualified people are put in charge. Who seriously thinks the US can come along and tell another county how to govern themselves? What a JOKE. Look at the "Senior Advisors" to tRump "The Honorable Ivanka Trump" "The Honorable Jarod Kushner" If I was not so heartsick, I would laugh. Watching the trops boarding the transport planes heading overseas I turned to my son and said "Why don't they just shoot them now, instead of letting them go into that snakepit to get mutilated?" member of this government should be required to supply at least ONE family member to the war effort, if they feel so strongly about it being right. Let them suffer some loss for a change. Beavis and Butthead tRump like shooting animals, let them go do their part for their daddy's war. Liz Cheney has 5 kids, surely there are a couple old enough to serve?
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)prank gone wrong.