JUST the Stolen Documents/Mar-A-Lago/"Judge" Cannon Trial

[ggait]

There's Trump Towers in Istanbul, Manila and two in India.

And Shia Iran might look at Trump's golf courses in Sunni Dubai...

[MDlaxfan76]

There's Trump Towers in Istanbul, Manila and two in India...

Particularly soft targets, within easy reach.

[Trinity]

Within the last24 hours, the US was and then was not bombing Iranian cultural sites and was and then was not preparing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

Cnn

[Typical Lax Dad]

There's Trump Towers in Istanbul, Manila and two in India.

And Shia Iran might look at Trump's golf courses in Sunni Dubai...

You don’t have to worry about the Golf course in NYC now that folks aren’t renting it out for Christmas parties. It’s always deserted.

[a fan]

No question. I'm worried about all of it. I don't know about you, but if someone hit my family?

I can't imagine what I'd do. And I don't have the US armed forces at my command......

Reason 1,302,034,554 to get the F out of that stupid region.

[old salt]

The constant aggression from you, the snarky comments about others, is what draws the responses Salty.
Don't whine or "cry when you get fragged".

Troll. I don't feel the need to comment on every absurd thing you post. I don't have the time for it.

[Typical Lax Dad]

The constant aggression from you, the snarky comments about others, is what draws the responses Salty.
Don't whine or "cry when you get fragged".

Troll. I don't feel the need to comment on every absurd thing you post. I don't have the time for it.

You shouldn’t feel the “need” to comment on anything, in my opinion.

[old salt]

Within the last24 hours, the US was and then was not bombing Iranian cultural sites and was and then was not preparing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

Cnn

CNN shouldn't go BREAKING NEWS with every unconfirmed leak that comes over the transom.
Such as an unsigned, unserialized, rough draft of a contingency planning letter which may never be signed & sent.

[old salt]

The constant aggression from you, the snarky comments about others, is what draws the responses Salty.
Don't whine or "cry when you get fragged".

Troll. I don't feel the need to comment on every absurd thing you post. I don't have the time for it.

You shouldn’t feel the “need” to comment on anything, in my opinion.

That, from the clubhouse leader in irrelevant troll snark.
Let's make a deal -- you never quote me, address me, or make reference to me again (even indirectly),
& I'll do the same for you. I'm happy to make the same deal with MDLF76.

[MDlaxfan76]

Within the last24 hours, the US was and then was not bombing Iranian cultural sites and was and then was not preparing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

Cnn

CNN shouldn't go BREAKING NEWS with every unconfirmed leak that comes over the transom.
Such as an unsigned, unserialized, rough draft of a contingency planning letter which may never be signed & sent.

But was shared with the Iraqis?

Not newsworthy?

[MDlaxfan76]

The constant aggression from you, the snarky comments about others, is what draws the responses Salty.
Don't whine or "cry when you get fragged".

Troll. I don't feel the need to comment on every absurd thing you post. I don't have the time for it.

You shouldn’t feel the “need” to comment on anything, in my opinion.

That, from the clubhouse leader in irrelevant troll snark.
Let's make a deal -- you never quote me, address me, or make reference to me again (even indirectly),
& I'll do the same for you. I'm happy to make the same deal with MDLF76.

Sorry, you're not off the hook with me, Salty.
This is a discussion forum.

But I will try not to gratuitously insult you personally.
Unless you do so to others.

[Typical Lax Dad]

The constant aggression from you, the snarky comments about others, is what draws the responses Salty.
Don't whine or "cry when you get fragged".

Troll. I don't feel the need to comment on every absurd thing you post. I don't have the time for it.

You shouldn’t feel the “need” to comment on anything, in my opinion.

That, from the clubhouse leader in irrelevant troll snark.
Let's make a deal -- you never quote me, address me, or make reference to me again (even indirectly),
& I'll do the same for you. I'm happy to make the same deal with MDLF76.

I’ll self moderate. You don’t have to comment, in my opinion.

[old salt]

That is such BS. You don't include options of that significance & import, hoping that they are not selected.
Anyone in the chop chain who did not realize that such an option would appeal to Trump, is not smart enough to be in such a position.
They may have been surprised that Trump chose it, but you don't put an option like that on the table unless you want it done.
Gen Milley left it on the list. How many soldiers do you think he lost to Iranian EFP's in Iraq ?

He keeps firing the competent guys, remember? Elections have consequences...

He is duly elected so he can fire whoever he wants. It's not illegal.

Pompeo, Esper, Milley & O'brien are doing a great job.
All in step. No personal agendas, no back biting, no leaks from them.
Trump's finally got a national security team, all pulling in the same direction
to implement the policies that got the President elected, rather than their own.
They might be smarter than Trump, but they don't feel the need to show him up to prove it.

These brilliant geniuses get exposed today when the Iraqi PM's office leaks an official letter from Marine Corps General in command in Iraq to his counterpart in IDF with details of withdrawal of US Troops from country and what to expect in terms of movements and air traffic. This then forces Gen Milley to issue this statement: Joint Chiefs Chair GEN Milley: “That letter is a draft it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released…poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what’s happening” - nice to throw your local USMC commander under the bus, General.

Amateur hour continues but I'm sure Salty will find a way to place lipstick on this pig.......

...oh and we also lost one soldier and two contractors dead at a Kenyan airfield. Attack left six aircraft and helicopters damaged or destroyed.an attack from Al-Shabab militants. This includes a secretive U.S. military de Havilland Dash-8 twin-engine turboprop configured for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Just what did your bombshell leak du jour expose ? That we have a withdrawal plan, in case we're ordered to leave, that we're coordinating with Iraqi military counterparts. That were repositioning & massing our forces for self defense. Shocking !

Reading the letter, there may be a pro-forma rqmt to notify the IMOD anytime we reposition forces within Iraq.
Esper said we're repositioning forces within the region. It may have to do with moving more combat troops into the Green Zone from elsewhere in Iraq & Kuwait.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/0 ... eave-iraq/
https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1214278172872544256

https://apnews.com/e384b6e3d230b63d3f69092ef53b5bd9

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. has been re-positioning troops, largely due to increased security threats from Iran. The letter was meant to coordinate with the Iraqi military on an increase in U.S. helicopter and troop movements as they shift positions around the country, Esper and Milley said.

“There’s been no decision whatsover to leave Iraq,” Esper said. “There’s no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave.”

It’s not entirely clear who leaked the letter. According to Milley, the draft was circulated to key Iraqi officials as part of a coordination process to let them know about the increased helicopter movements. Officials say it was first posted on the website of an Iranian-backed militia group.

“Now it’s a kerfuffle,” Milley lamented.

[old salt]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq ... SKBN1Z301Z

(Reuters) - In mid-October, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani met with his Iraqi Shi’ite militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad.

The Revolutionary Guards commander instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters.

The strategy session, which has not been previously reported, came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight. Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Soleimani’s efforts ended up provoking the U.S. attack on Friday that killed him and Muhandis, marking a major escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. The two men died in air strikes on their convoy at a Baghdad airport as they headed to the capital, dealing a major blow to the Islamic Republic and the Iraqi paramilitary groups it supports.

Interviews with the Iraqi security sources and Shi’ite militia commanders offer a rare glimpse of how Soleimani operated in Iraq, which he once told a Reuters reporter he knew like the back of his hand.

Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons - such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters - to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah - a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran - to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings.

Soleimani told them such a group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans,” one of the militia sources told Reuters.

Before the attacks, the U.S. intelligence community had reason to believe that Soleimani was involved in “late stage” planning to strike Americans in multiple countries, including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, U.S. officials told Reuters Friday on condition of anonymity. One senior U.S. official said Soleimani had supplied advanced weaponry to Kataib Hezbollah.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters on Friday that Soleimani had just come from Damascus, “where he was planning attacks on American soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and against our diplomats.”

An official at the headquarters of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry was not available for comment.

PICKING U.S. TARGETS WITH DRONES
The United States has grown increasingly concerned about Iran’s influence over the ruling elite in Iraq, which has been beset for months by protesters who accuse the government of enriching itself and serving the interests of foreign powers, especially Iran, as Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs or basic services.

Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, was instrumental in expanding Iran’s military influence in the Middle East as the operative who handles clandestine operations outside Iran. The 62-year-old general was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Muhandis, a former Iraqi lawmaker, oversaw Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of paramilitary forces mostly consisting of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces.

Muhandis, like Soleimani, had long been on the radar of the United States, which had declared Muhandis a terrorist. In 2007, a Kuwaiti court sentenced him to death in absentia for his involvement in the 1983 U.S. and French embassy bombings in Kuwait.

Soleimani picked Kataib Hezbollah to lead the attacks on U.S. forces in the region because it had the capability to use drones to scout targets for Katyusha rocket attacks, one of the militia commanders told Reuters. Among the weapons that Soleimani’s forces supplied to its Iraqi militia allies last fall was a drone Iran had developed that could elude radar systems, the militia commanders said.

Kataib Hezbollah used the drones to gather aerial footage of locations where U.S. troops were deployed, according to two Iraqi security officials who monitor the movements of militias.

On December 11, a senior U.S. military official said attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were increasing and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.

His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but a U.S. military official said intelligence and forensic analyses of the rockets and launchers pointed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia groups, notably Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

On Dec. 27 more than 30 rockets were fired at an Iraqi military base near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk. The attack killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four American and two Iraq servicemen.

Washington accused Kataib Hezbollah of carrying out the attack, an allegation it denied. The United States then launched air strikes two days later against the militia, killing at least 25 militia fighters and wounding 55.

The attacks sparked two days of violent protests by supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups who stormed the U.S. Embassy’s perimeter and hurled rocks, prompting Washington to dispatch extra troops to the region and threaten reprisals against Tehran.

On Thursday – the day before the attack that killed Soleimani - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned that the United States might have to take preemptive action to protect American lives from expected attacks by Iran-backed militias.

“The game has changed,” he said.

[jhu72]

Largest crowds if memory in Iran show up for the general's service yesterday in Iran. Seems like Trump succeeded in doing what the Iranian government couldn't, unite the country by in large.

Have to say I like the Iranian plan going forward - getting the US out of the ME.

[old salt]

B-52's enroute Diego Garcia. Can B-2's with MOP's be far behind ?
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... c-missiles

[a fan]

“There’s been no decision whatsover to leave Iraq,” Esper said. “There’s no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave.”

Not two days ago, you made fun of me for not understanding that Trump was executing a...what did you call it? A guarded Retreat?


Ready to admit I'm right yet? There are no retreat plans whatsoever? Or is Esper lying?

[old salt]

“There’s been no decision whatsover to leave Iraq,” Esper said. “There’s no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave.”

Not two days ago, you made fun of me for not understanding that Trump was executing a...what did you call it? A guarded Retreat?

Ready to admit I'm right yet? There are no retreat plans whatsoever? Or is Esper lying?

Do you think it's clever repartee to be so disingenuous ? Here's what I asked you :

Have you considered the possibility that Trump may be using this as an excuse to get us out of Iraq ? Force the Iraqi govt to choose between the US & Iran as allies. If the Iraqis want to continue to receive US economic & military aid & training, they need to get control of the PMF Shia militias. How effective do you think the ISF will be without US trainers, contractors & logistics. Do they want to count on the PMF to protect them from a Daesh comeback. They need to face the reality that if they ask us to leave again, we won't come back next time.

You also said : If our forces are getting attacked by Iran, and Trump REALLY wanted to leave? His reaction wouldn't be to send reinforcements. His reaction would be to pull every last troop out.

I replied : Have you ever heard of covering a retreat ? He's sending Marines in V-22's & paratroopers. We have to protect our troops & diplomats until they're guaranteed safe passage out. The other forces we sent were for air defense of our other forces alteady there, in our Gulf State allied nations.

Esper said we're repositioning our forces within the region for force protection.
We're bringing in troops to reinforce the Green Zone & to cover our withdrawal if we have to leave,

Sorry Capt Instant Gratification -- we don't know yet if we're staying or not. As I said above -- it' depends on whether or not the Iraqis want us to stay & whether or not they can rein in their PMF Shia militias. It's not our call. We're obviously trying to plan for all contingencies.

[a fan]

“There’s been no decision whatsover to leave Iraq,” Esper said. “There’s no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave.”

Not two days ago, you made fun of me for not understanding that Trump was executing a...what did you call it? A guarded Retreat?

Ready to admit I'm right yet? There are no retreat plans whatsoever? Or is Esper lying?

Do you think it's clever repartee to be so disingenuous ? Here's what I asked you :

Have you considered the possibility that Trump may be using this as an excuse to get us out of Iraq ? Force the Iraqi govt to choose between the US & Iran as allies. If the Iraqis want to continue to receive US economic & military aid & training, they need to get control of the PMF Shia militias. How effective do you think the ISF will be without US trainers, contractors & logistics. Do they want to count on the PMF to protect them from a Daesh comeback. They need to face the reality that if they ask us to leave again, we won't come back next time.

You also said : If our forces are getting attacked by Iran, and Trump REALLY wanted to leave? His reaction wouldn't be to send reinforcements. His reaction would be to pull every last troop out.
I replied :Have you ever heard of covering a retreat ? He's sending Marines in V-22's & paratroopers. We have to protect our troops & diplomats until they're guaranteed safe passage out. The other forces we sent were for air defense of our other forces alteady there, in our Gulf State allied nations.

Esper said we're repositioning our forces within the region for force protection.
We're bringing in troops to reinforce the Green Zone & to cover our withdrawal if we have to leave,

Sorry Capt Instant Gratification -- we don't know yet if we're staying or not.

I have no clue how to make this any clearer. It has nothing to do with instant gratification. Esper just to you that you're wrong. There is no Trump plan to leave. Full stop. You're wrong.

[old salt]

Soleimani made it clear, he was going to use his Iraqi PMF proxy militias to continue escalating attacks on US forces in Iraq. This would have made continuing our training, support & anti-ISIS missions impossible.

The only question was how many more attacks & casualties would we absorb, before slinking out of Iraq again, with our tail between our legs.

Instead, we seized the window of opportunity to take out Soleimini & his key Iraqi militia commander(s). Our only hope of salvaging our ongoing mission in Iraq was to reverse the dynamic & deter the PMF militias. It might be too far gone for that. If so, ar least we took Soleimani & his top PMF commanders out of the fight.

It's now up to the Iraqi politicians to decide if they want the coalition's anti-ISIS mission to continue or are they willing to put their future in the hands of the IRGC ?