Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/6/2020 10:23:10 PM

No one disagrees with the Trump and keeps his job. This makes Trump look weak and incompetent.

"The defense secretary acknowledged that “the laws of armed conflict” prohibited attacking antiquities and said the military had no plans to do so, even though the president declared them targets."

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	This is a lie
Date:	1/7/2020 8:24:14 AM

Trump never said he would target antiquities.  

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	This is a lie
Date:	1/7/2020 12:04:45 PM

Nice of you to call Trump's appointee the Secretary of Defense a liar. What do you suggest Trump meant by "Iranian culture"?

"In unusually specific language, Trump tweeted that his administration had already targeted 52 Iranian sites, “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture." He linked the number of sites to the number of hostages, also 52, held by Iran for nearly 15 months after protesters overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979."

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Thanks for proving my point
Date:	1/7/2020 12:11:04 PM

Nowhere does he mentions antiquities.  If military sites are co-located with cultural sites they are fair game.  No more avoiding military sites because they are hiding them in cultural locations.  And as Pompeo stated unequivocally, they will not violate any laws.  But if they think we are going to let them skate by hiding things in cultural locations they are wrong.

Name:	lakngulf -	Reply
Subject:	Thanks for proving my point
Date:	1/7/2020 1:24:22 PM (updated 1/7/2020 1:26:12 PM)

And the bombs will not be accompanied by pallets of CASH

Welcome to the End of Appeasement. 

And if that means the end of the world, then so be it.  I am a cosiderably religious person.  But I have never really thought much about the concept of END TIMES.  But by golly I think it could happen, as predicted.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/7/2020 6:48:24 PM

My Director used to work closely with Mark Esper in another of his iterations.  I can assure you that he is a man of integrity and he will do his very best to keep Trump from committing a crime.  Mark is not your normal, no experience political appointee.  He is a straight arrow.  BTW, Pompeo has said the same thing.  

It's not illegal to talk about such things.  Trump is giving the Iranians something to think about.  

And While we're talking about Iran, just because he deployed troops from the 82nd does not mean we are going to war.  It's a show a military force projection - and it's not a bad training exercise either.  

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 8:28:55 AM

Imagine how the left would howl if he didn't prepare and Iran did something incredibly stupid.  So they lobbed some missiles at some bases in Iraq and we will see how effective that was and whether this continues to escalate.  Their statement that this was a proportionate response to the whacking of a terrorist seems to me a message that they did this to save face and not to up the ante.  We will see if and how Trump responds.  I imagine there is a lot going on behind the scenes diplomatically that will inform their decision.  If this is all they do as a direct response I would not be surprised if we didn't respond in kind.  No doubt though they are mobilizing all sorts of things via their proxies and we need to be diligent.

Name:	lakngulf -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 8:36:08 AM

That Iran response was simply "ceremonial"

What country has more deaths from a funeral march than a missle attack?

Oh, and what about the "accidental plane crash" and "earthquakes"?

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 9:15:33 AM

Iran is having a bad week and it has the potential to get even worse.  The really sad part is had Obama not turned his back on the Green Movement in Iran there may have been a regime change back in 2010 and we might not be in this predicement.  But you can't change history and Trump has to clean up one more mess on isle 9 by the former administration.

Name:	MrHodja -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 9:43:03 AM

If, as some are speculating, the Iranian response was intended to be a non-fatal save-face move and they targeted unpopulated areas of the bases, then we have a bigger problem.  If they can target non-populated areas then they have the targeting sophistication to hit specific, populated areas as well.  Would definitely be interesting reading to see the back-channel messages flying around on this one.  Is Iran subtle enough to send that kind of message?  They may be radical but the Persians are also smart.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 10:40:53 AM

My understanding is that the missiles they used are dumb ones.  They don't have specific targeting capabilities.  Not sure if this is correct but that's what was written about them.  I think its a fair assumption that this response was a face saving one and they are hoping or working back channels to make sure this is the message Trump gets.  We will know by his response.  More likely they will try to exact revenge in asymetric ways using their proxies because that's what they do and why we targeted this guy in the first place.  Despite all the bluster about Iran and its military capability the Mullahs know that a direct conflict with the U.S. would be an end to their regime.  I too would love to hear all the back channel stuff but let's hope it stays in the dark where it belongs, especially if it keeps this from escalating.

Name:	MrHodja -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 11:10:02 AM

The reports have been careful to point out that these were ballistic missiles, which means some sort of guidance system is employed.  The question is how sophisticated and accurate that guidance capability might be, and thus the concern about them telling us what they can do by what they didn't do..... Our nuclear missile fleet, either ICBM or SLBM, is also ballistic and the CEP (circular error probability) is classified but one could surmise pretty small.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 11:39:10 AM

Yeah our missile systems are scarily accurate.  I still recall during the first gulf war the video of some guy standing outside a building smoking and then boom, it was all gone.  When I used the term dumb, I meant to imply they don't have the sophisticated guidance systems and can only target a general area, not down to a few meters.  How things have changed since the Germans were firing off V-rockets toward England.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Time for Trump to fire his Secretary of Defense
Date:	1/8/2020 12:22:18 PM

Still pretty scary how accurate those V2s were for the time period / technology.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Turns out
Date:	1/8/2020 10:14:40 PM

All of the speculation was good.  It was a face-saving attack, there were back channels and there was no loss of life.  I got a kick from an article in the NYT that portends that military and intellience officials were shocked at how accurate and powerful their missiles were.  I have a feeling that no one, except someone that doesn't see the really good intelligence, was surprised. 

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Not So Dumb
Date:	1/8/2020 10:29:50 PM (updated 1/8/2020 10:34:15 PM)

Based on this evidence, the missiles were on target. They hit 5 buildings with no loss of life.

Guidance System Looks Anything BUT Dumb

Name:	MrHodja -	Reply
Subject:	Not So Dumb
Date:	1/8/2020 10:37:47 PM

What is your point?  If you are saying the Iranians specifcally targeted empty buildings then President Trump is spot-on when he doesn't retalite militarily.  Are you saying DJT is right?

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Not So Dumb
Date:	1/9/2020 1:02:00 AM (updated 1/9/2020 1:05:19 AM)

MM made the point that the missiles were " dumb"... "My understanding is that the missiles they used are dumb ones.  My post was to show they appear to be more sophisticated.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 8:11:37 AM

I already explained what I meant by dumb ones from what I read.  They do not have the level of sophistication that ours do and while they did hit buildings in these bases I doubt they were specific targets (if the article is correct).  And as I said, that is what I read and it may or may not be correct but one thing we know for sure is that it is irrelevant.  Why this one throw away comment is suddenly the source of discussion is mystifying to me.

What isn't mystifying is that Iran was allowed to save face internally without risking further retaliation from the U.S.  What is also clear is that Iran's immunity from a direct response using proxies is over.....at least while Trump is President.  What is also clear is that the left hates Trump more than they love America and its military personnel.  And it's also clear that they are completely irrational.  One day they are screaming from the rafters that Trump is a warmonger and is going to start WW3 and the next day they are calling him a wimp for not responding to the missile strike.  TDS will make you do and say incredibly stupid things.  And finally, what is crystal clear is that once again Trump was correct in taking out Soleimani and that the way to defeat our enemies is through resolve and not impeasement.  Not that any of you TDS sufferers will ever admit to anything positive about Trump and you will continue to cheer and hope for bad things to happen to our country if you think it will harm Trump politically.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 8:41:58 AM

The different being it hit a large building vs it went through the sunroof of a small car landed on the targets belt buckle before either exploding or doing the ginsu knife trick.

Name:	MrHodja -	Reply
Subject:	Not So Dumb
Date:	1/9/2020 10:04:11 AM

Plowing old ground.  Read the entire thread and you will see it has already been discussed.  New information coming out, though, is our intelligence and overhead warning systems gave us enough warning that we could react defensively in any case, whether the missiles were accurate or not.  Google Defense Support Program and read the Wikipedia page.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 10:50:20 AM

Have to admit I'd rather have Navy Seals after me versus the Hellfire with Ninja blades.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 4:25:28 PM

Either way you are screwed and probably not going to make it far.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 4:47:52 PM

True that.....either one comes after me and it's time to make a good act of contrition.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	1/9/2020 5:04:16 PM

If someone see either coming, I doubt there is much time for contrition or anything else but schiffing your pants.