And what if Iran really isn't done with its revenge?

Would it matter if the Bidens really did have something corrupt going on in Ukraine?

That Suleimani was indeed a bad guy whose job was to plan terrorist attacks and devastation of civilian targets, among other, and that he doubtless did have enterprises at various phases of the planning stage do not add up to legal justification (no imminent threat) for acting without prior consultation with at least the Gang of Eight, not do they make this a lawful targeted killing rather than an illegal assassination.

Nor, of course, do those facts prevent this attack from being a wildly reckless and evil gamble (consider how may people would have died, lots of them Americans but mostly others and a lot of them noncombatants, had this gone as wrong as it might have), a wag the dog blow against impeachment, a campaign stunt and a thumb in the eye of Obama and the Democrats

So, if there really was dirt to be found on the Bidens, would that convert his impeachable subordination of foreign policy to the need of his reelection campaign to "dirty up" Joe Biden to a perfectly lawful hunt for proof of corruption?

No.

The crime boss in the White House is as far from being an Eliot Ness crime fighter as Al Capone, and is just as disturbed at the thought of corruption among government officials.

That is, not at all.

Unless pursuing it can serve his own interests, likely criminal themselves, in some way.

But the hawks are still screaming

Lindsey Graham threatens to take Iran ‘ut of the oil business’ in wake of missile strike

While President Trump issued an uncharacteristically measured response Tuesday night to Iran’s launch of more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing American troops, his vocal ally and golfing buddy Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) took a different approach: threatening Iran with the destruction of its oil industry.

“Your fate is in your own hands in terms of the regime’s economic viability,” Graham said on Fox News, addressing Iran. “You continue this crap, you’re going to wake up one day out of the oil business.”

Sean Hannity Calls For ‘Full Force’ Of U.S. Military To Strike Iran

“There is a massive price to pay. You don’t get to do what they did tonight. They have now been begging ― the president wanted to talk and wants peace ― and they are going to get hit hard. Their hostility will now be met with the full force of the greatest, most advanced, most sophisticated military this world has ever seen.”

Hannity suggested the U.S. should bomb Iranian oil refineries.

And who says there's enough unity in the Iranian government for it as a whole to adhere to the idea this was the whole of their response?

Hardliners cannot be happy with this.

EU leaders plead with Trump not to respond to Iranian attacks

European leaders have pleaded in public and in private with the Trump administration to draw a line in its conflict with Iran, and not to respond militarily to the Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq.

Donald Trump’s decision to cancel a planned statement to the American people late on Tuesday night was seen as a sign that the White House was willing to consult allies before taking any further action.

But European diplomats said they still feared that the weight of opinion in Washington was finely balanced, with hawks insisting that the US must respond militarily to the first official state sponsored attack on the US by Iran since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

There is, however, relief that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his remarks on Wednesday morning did not speak of further military action and that the bulk of the Iranian military spokesman only threatened further action if the US itself fired back.

Pompeo, too?

Pompeo orders diplomats not to meet with Iranian opposition groups amid tensions

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a cable to all US missions overseas ordering diplomats not to meet with Iranian opposition groups without specific approval because it could further exacerbate tensions with the Iranian regime.

"Many exiled Iranian opposition groups try to engage U.S. officials regularly to gain at least the appearance of tacit support and enhance their visibility and clout," Pompeo said, according to a copy of the cable obtained by CNN. 

He noted that many of these groups "have previously or are currently using violent means in support of their political aims."

"Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior," Pompeo wrote.

Iran's measured response

Put it this way.

They did not assassinate Mike Pompeo.

They did not unleash their proxies all over the region.

They are not opting for war and the response is about as little as possible without being risible.

Odd that more people don't see it.

According to Iran, those missiles were the whole of it. Done. They drew a line under it. Over to Trump to decide where it goes next.

Can Trump resist taking the next step on the escalator to war?

Or even just keep it diminuendo so the series of strikes and counter-strikes can peter out?

Pretty safe bet the hawks who have his ear are not urging that.

Iran retaliates for attack on general by firing missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq

Iran retaliated for the killing of a top general by firing more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases housing U.S. forces on Wednesday local time.

Defense Department said there was no question about the source of the missiles, and the Iranian government quickly claimed responsibility.

"It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel," the Pentagon said in a statement.

It was unclear whether there was any damage to Ain al-Asad air base, which President Donald Trump visited in 2018, or whether there were any deaths or injuries.

The president said in a tweet that "all is well!" and that damages and casualties were being assessed.

As Congress reacts to Iran attack on U.S. forces, Pelosi says 'world cannot afford war'

Members of Congress said Tuesday night that they were praying for U.S. military forces overseas and that they were monitoring developments following news that Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted that the United States and the world "cannot afford war."

"Closely monitoring the situation following bombings targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. We must ensure the safety of our servicemembers, including ending needless provocations from the Administration and demanding that Iran cease its violence. America & world cannot afford war," she said.

It's looking like some of the Shiite cat's paws in the region may not be willing to accept Iran's choice to respond entirely on its own and in so limited a way.

Hezbollah in Lebanon and some militias in Iraq are grousing and in the latter case openly signally they will take action of their own at least on the same scale as Iran's.

Will Trump resist the temptation to blame all such responses on Iran and leap onto that escalator?

How many dead to wag the dog?

Conspicuously not elected officials

Republicans who don't mute their criticisms of Trump and his idiotic moves on Iran

A National Review piece.

Scarborough in WAPO.

This one may be an overreaction.

Why take a chance trying to contain nuclear ambitions of even more America-hating, terrorist-loving states?

How's that containment stuff working out in the Axis of Nuts?

A somewhat different view at NR.

Is Tucker Carlson the new Shep Smith?

No, he seems much angrier than Shep ever did.

And he's still peddling Trumpist bullshit about everything to do with Russiagate.

But this rant is definitely worth watching.

"So we trust the Deep State now?"

Well, Americans do like violence

Here’s What Americans Think About Trump’s Iran Policy

Trump personally wags the dog

Tweet,

Congress & the President should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax when we have so many important matters pending. 

196 to ZERO was the Republican House vote, & we got 3 Dems. 

This was not what the Founders had in mind!

Iraq to give us the boot

Trump doubles down on threat to Iranian cultural sites, demands Iraq pay for U.S. base

The crime boss speaks.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on his return to Washington Sunday from a holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump said: 

"They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites. It doesn’t work that way."

Meaning "I'm not going to obey the law. War crimes? Who gives a shit?"

And it never occurs to him to find out whether there might be binding legal obligations limiting his actions.

Who will make him obey?

Trump on Sunday night also sounded a note of defiance over the news that Iraq's Parliament voted to expel U.S. troops from the country. He said military personnel would not leave unless Iraq pays the U.S. back for an airbase there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time," Trump said. "We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it."

Or that some actions might require legislative backing.

The president went on to say that if Iraq forces the U.S. military out of Iraq, "we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

"If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq," Trump said.

He's too stupid to see that all his bullying could easily backfire.

Iraq's prime minister has scheduled a meeting Monday with the American ambassador to discuss the U.S. role in Iraq, according to two officials familiar with the planning.

The officials say Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi is expected to tell Ambassador Matthew Tueller that U.S. troops will have to leave the country, and he is expected to ask for a timeline.

Trump tweets to congress: this is all the notice you're going to get, and I won't seek and don't need your permision

I will wage war without asking and without even advising in advance, he is saying.

Pompeo and other nutcases are fine with all this egregiously illegal and unconstitutional behavior.

And the congressional Republicans?

Trump warns of 'disproportionate' response if Iran strikes US targets

President Trump warned Sunday of a "disproportionate" military response to Iran if it carries out a retaliatory strike against the U.S. 

Trump said "these Media Posts" -- seemingly referring to his tweets -- "will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner.”

“Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!," he added in his tweet. 

Steve M. has been warning for months that the Duce will not leave the White House if he loses in 2020 or when his second term (if he wins one) runs out in 2024.

I took that to be entirely Democratic bullshit propaganda.

But maybe not, eh?

Unsurprisingly, justification for such a refusal has already been provided by Pat Buchanan in several of his columns about how democracy - the republican order of our representative government - is harming the US and authoritarianism might be just the thing.

The authoritarian being Trump, or anyone of his ilk.

Cultural sites legitimate targets or unlawful and criminal?

Stupid and outrageous even if lawful to attack them, and I don't think lawful.

Teheran has rightly compared such attacks with the crimes of ISIS and the Taliban.

Mike Pompeo is just fine with targeting such sites, though.

Senior US officials say there is widespread opposition within the Trump administration to targeting cultural sites in Iran

Two senior US officials on Sunday described widespread opposition within the administration to targeting cultural sites in Iran should the United States launch retaliatory strikes against Tehran, despite President Donald Trump saying a day before that such sites are among dozens the US has identified as potential targets.

"Nothing rallies people like the deliberate destruction of beloved cultural sites. Whether ISIS's destruction of religious monuments or the burning of the Leuven Library in WWI, history shows targeting locations giving civilization meaning is not only immoral but self-defeating," one of the officials told CNN.

"The Persian people hold a deeply influential and beautiful history of poetry, logic, art and science. Iran's leaders do not live up to that history. But America would be better served by leaders who embrace Persian culture, not threaten to destroy it," they added.

A strategy of crimes against American law, of unconstitutional actions, and of war crimes

Pompeo: U.S. is now targeting Iran’s ‘actual decision-makers’

Totally unauthorized acts of war that would likely be, moreover, war crimes, in defiance of American law and the constitution.

That's his plan, to do all this without worrying about the congress at all.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday the U.S. strategy in countering Iran is to target the country’s “actual decision-makers” rather than to focus on Iranian proxy forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Pompeo was explaining U.S. strategy in the aftermath of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani, who was mastermind of the country’s military operations outside Iran.

. . . .

Pompeo strongly criticized the Iran policy of the Obama administration, saying it fruitlessly focused on Iranian proxies rather than on Iran itself.

He said the U.S. had previously sought to “challenge and attack everybody who was running around with an AK-47 or a piece of indirect artillery. We’ve made a very different approach. 

"We’ve told the Iranian regime, ‘Enough. You can’t get away with using proxy forces and think your homeland will be safe and secure.’ 

"We’re going to respond against the actual decision-makers, the people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Working out fine, all this

If you're a hawk and intended this to push us into war with Iran.

Iran pulling out of nuclear deal following U.S. strike that killed Soleimani

Iran said Sunday that it was ending its commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in the wake of the U.S. strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal last May, renewing tensions between the two countries that reached new heights after Friday’s air strike.

Iran’s state television reported Sunday that it will no longer abide by the limits of the deal, which restricted nuclear development in exchange for the easing of crippling economic sanctions.

The agreement placed limits on Tehran’s uranium enrichment, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium as well as research and development in its nuclear activities.

Elsewhere Pompeo has told newsies his expectations regarding Iranian blowback, "There may be a little noise."

A nuke makes more than a little noise.

Update, Iran says this move is reversible if the US drops its crippling economic sanctions that Trump imposed with zero justification when he withdrew from the Iran nuke deal, also with zero justification, all the urging of people who want a war of regime change.

The Duce, unchained

Trump was not out to stop any imminent attack. That's just a lie.

The guy was just doing the same sort of thing he's been doing, organizing hostile actions in the region that certainly might have cost American lives, for many years.

The guy's a general and that's was his job.

There was no specific and imminent threat at all.

Cable TV reports are increasingly taking the line Trump stunned nearly everybody in our own government with the decision to kill Suleimani just days before doing it.

Nobody thinks his threats to attack 52 new targets, some of them cultural and hence protected by international law, reflect any vetting or planning occurring anywhere but in Trump's ass.

This below from Pompeo is as close to an admission as you could wish that Trump simply ignored the law and the constitution when he ignored the gang of eight.

Bozo is now an authoritarian ruler de facto and has the entire American military under his personal control.

He's ignoring every institutional or legal restraint aimed at imposing intelligence and discipline on the use of all that military power.

And the Republican Party still has his back, even at the cost of trashing the constitutional order as well as the post-war world order - and the immediate risk of a very stupid, bloody, and costly war.

Think of Trump's second term.

Pompeo snaps at CNN’s Tapper during grilling over claim ‘world is safer’ after killing Suleimani

In a long interview where Pompeo insisted that Suleimani was planning an attack — without presenting any evidence — Tapper pressed the White House administration official on what happens next.

“When you are talking about the attacks are imminent, days or weeks?” Tapper asked.

“If you are an American in the region, days or weeks is not relevant. We have to prepared and be ready. We took a bad guy off of the battlefield and we made the right decision and there are less risks today to the American forces in the region as a result of it,” Pompeo recited back. 

“And I am proud of the effort that President Trump undertook and the execution of the military was phenomenal and the work by the diplomats was very fair and powerful and effective.”

OK, so David Frum (on CNN's Reliable Sources) and Tucker Carlson (on Fox) are alarmed and saying so.

Carlson's Friday night show was very harshly critical of the neocon wars all the way back to Afghanistan and especially fierce about Bolton and the other hawks who have wanted a war of regime change in Iran for decades.

It appears Trump really intended his attack to move the Iranians to stop their hostile diplomatic and military activities throughout the region, and did not at all intend and does not want war with Iran.

He appears genuinely alarmed at the prospect of retaliation and escalation to war.

He is a boob who was talked and perhaps even deceived into this, some suggest, by Iran hawks like Pompeo and Graham and Jared and others, some high military leaders, who have his ear.

War would have been and always has been their goal; getting the president to bungle into it is one way to achieve it.

No doubt they would also have counseled him to ignore the law and the gang of eight, ignore the congress, ignore the allies and the coalition, and anyone else who might have talked him off the ledge, and even lied to him about the efficacy or legal merits of the lie of imminent danger.

If indeed that is how it all went down.

They are the true enemies of the state, of the constitutional order, of the rule of law, of legitimate government, in all this.

They conspired with each other to push their patsy Trump into an illegal and unconstitutional attack with the purpose of unconstitutionally denying congress its role in deciding whether to go to war and getting us there in a way and at a pace that would utterly escape congressional control.

Not that Trump isn't an enemy of the state.

But he is just a boob, while they are canny conspirators.

And the US military is in his hands.

Nor, of course, should we underestimate the potency in his mind of the wag the dog aspect.

He has already pushed impeachment off the top of the news desks of the world, and some of his henchmen are already claiming the impeachment process needs to be abandoned or summarily stopped for the sake of national unity in the face of the Iranian threat.

Violence kitch in the manner of the authoritarian ruler of some third world, shithole country

He's pretty sure he can launch a war at will without anyone's permission.

He's pretty sure he can hit all those targets without consultation with the gang of eight, anyone else in congress, or any allied or coalition state leaders.

Trump vows to hit 52 sites 'very hard' if Iran retaliates over Suleimani killing

Donald Trump has threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites “very hard” if Iran attacks Americans or US assets in retaliation for the drone strike that killed the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani and an Iraqi militia leader.

. . . .

Trump tweeted that Iran “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets” in response to Suleimani’s death. He said the US had “targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD”.

“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979.

Another nuclear accident in the land of Chernobyl

[T]he Russian military base near Nenoska, Russia, where a small nuclear reactor exploded last week.

In online posts and calls to local officials, Russians on Monday expressed anger that the explosion of a small nuclear reactor at a military test site last week has gone unacknowledged for days by their government.

“Even if it is not as dangerous as it seems, we deserve to know,” said Danil Kotsyubinsky, a resident of St. Petersburg who has been pressing local officials for information.

The accident, which has been cloaked in secrecy, took place on Thursday at the Nenoska naval weapons range on the coast of the White Sea in northern Russia, and it apparently involved a test of a new type of cruise missile propelled by nuclear power, American analysts say.

The explosion killed at least seven people, released radiation that briefly elevated readings in a city 25 miles away and set off a scramble by Western experts to ascertain what happened. 

They're testing development of a nuclear engine for cruise missiles.

To whom would that seem like a good idea?

Or, "what could go wrong?"

"Think of it like a mini Chernobyl on a missile," MIT's Narang said. 

"It's an air-breathing cruise missile and they put an unshielded mini nuclear reactor on it. Obviously, that's pretty bats--- insane. 

"We tried this in the 1960s and gave up for a reason, and this is why. It's very risky."

Thursday's accident is the latest sign that Russia's attempts to succeed where the U.S. failed are not going to plan. 

This is the latest of several failed tests since they started in 2017.

Cheryl Rofer, a retired chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb in New Mexico, believes Putin will never succeed.

"There are basic and fundamental engineering considerations that suggest that a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a very small power source will be very difficult or impossible to build," she wrote on the Nuclear Diner website Sunday.

That's because of how difficult it is to make this type of missile light enough but with enough power to fly. 

But the main reason it was abandoned in the past is the design has the potential to spread radioactive particles over the ground as it flies. 

In the 1960s, the U.S. did not want to test its rocket in Nevada or over the Pacific because of the risk it could veer off course and cause an environmental catastrophe.

"Is it dangerous? Yes!" Lewis said. 

"I think the phrase 'flying nuclear reactor' tells you all you need to know. 

"You've got air blowing through an open nuclear reactor and spewing out the back."

Putin is worried US anti-missile technology, reputedly now practically useless, will improve sufficiently to provide the US with what American policy leaders - though perhaps only the loonier - might think of as a first strike capability.

An unlimited range cruise missile looks like an answer, and a nuclear engine looks like the way to power it.

Sounds like Chamberlain in Munich, eh?

So, feel safe, tankers?

UK defence minister rebuffs criticism over tanker seized in Gulf

Think of the costs of such a loss and consider how long commercial tankers will be able to continue in these waters, so clearly unprotected.

What does it tell you when even the hawks seem more afraid of war than of the message sent by their inaction?

Or are they?

Britain must seek to reduce tension but its first duty is to protect ships and crews

Phooey.

Bravado belied by the rest of the content of this op-ed.

While Britain alone cannot afford any longer to be anything like a real global power, the EU could and can.

Another proof the idiot Tories and Brexiteers are stupidly going in exactly the wrong direction.

And while all this goes on American media continue with their utter fixation on partisan propaganda, most of them pouring the most vile, lie-based hatred and outrageous vilification on Trump and the Republicans.

And the victims of the Castros? Or the other leftist leaders in Latin America?

Stories of crimes, murders, and atrocities in left media always seem so heavily one sided.

From the days of the Vietnam War, when the US left press flooded TV screens with crimes of the South Vietnamese troops and government, or the CIA, or anti-Communist governments - often but not always dictatorships - in South and Central America.

A reminder of how left wing French intellectuals handled such issues during France's wars of decolonization.

Italian court jails 24 over South American Operation Condor

It was all part of the Cold War as it was fought out in the region.

Did you think wet work was an invention of the war against Jiharder terrorism?

A creation of fiction writers?

Who did you think Western governments were likely to be interested in killing, back in those days?

Come to that, what did you think "cold war" meant?

Between ordinary political competition and open and direct war there is cold war.

Less destructive and intense for the opposed parties than direct, open war, cold war includes - but is not limited to - both proxy war and covert war, and any war is an affair of violence.

Here's an interesting bit.

Last April, a newly declassified CIA document showed that European intelligence agencies sought advice from South America’s 1970s dictatorships on how to combat leftwing “subversion”.

“Representatives of West German, French and British intelligence services had visited the Condor organization secretariat in Buenos Aires during the month of September 1977 in order to discuss methods for establishment of an anti-subversion organization similar to Condor,” the document stated.

According to the human rights prosecution office in Buenos Aires, 977 former military officers and collaborators are in jail for crimes relating to Argentina’s dictatorship.

PS, did you think the use of torture was a novelty introduced by the Bush administration?

Detention of POWs and the Forever War

Lines blur.

This is as much an opinion column as a news story.

Bear in mind these folks are all what Darth Cheney, most notorious for his love of torture, used to call "unlawful enemy combatants" solely because they were not wearing the uniform of any national army.

Justice Breyer Raises Specter of Perpetual Detention Without Trial at Guantánamo

The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of a man who has been held in wartime detention for 17 years with no end in sight.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a lawsuit by a Yemeni man who has been held in wartime detention for more than 17 years at the military’s Guantánamo Bay prison, prompting Justice Stephen G. Breyer to warn that the American legal system is on autopilot toward permitting life imprisonment without trial.

“It is past time to confront the difficult question left open by” a 2004 ruling allowing the indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees captured after the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan, Justice Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion.

That difficult question: In a war that effectively has no end, is it lawful to hold a person in perpetual detention, until he dies of natural causes decades after his capture, because he was once part of an enemy force — though never charged with committing a crime?

. . . .

Under the laws of war, to prevent captured enemies from returning to the battlefield, a military can detain them without trial until hostilities end. 

In 2004, the Supreme Court declared it lawful for the Bush administration to hold detainees at Guantánamo in open-ended detention without trial, citing that wartime practice and Congress’s 2001 decision to authorize military force against those responsible for Sept. 11 attacks.

But that practice developed in the context of traditional wars — the type that come to a definitive end after a few years and soldiers stop fighting and go home. 

A war against a loose-knit, evolving and transnational network of Islamist militants is different.

It is not clear anyone has the authority to halt the war declared by Al Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden, and make all its members stop fighting — especially because the network has splintered into associates and successor factions, like the Islamic State, which share Al Qaeda’s ideology but have their own leaders.

Justice Breyer wrote that the Supreme Court should consider whether the legal basis to keep holding a particular person in detention can expire even if the broader conflict continues. 

“Today’s conflict may differ substantially from the one Congress anticipated when it passed” the 2001 force authorization, he wrote.

A lawyer for Mr. Alwi, Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York, called his client’s predicament a “cruel farce” and urged Congress or the executive branch to cap how long someone like his client can be imprisoned.

“That Moath remains behind bars although the courts found no evidence that he ever used arms against the United States shows just how inhumane both the government and the law have become in these cases,” Mr. Kassem said.