The AP is reporting another US drone strike in Iraq:
Another airstrike almost exactly 24 hours after the one that killed Soleimani hit two cars carrying Iran-backed militia north of Baghdad, killing five people, an Iraqi official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces confirmed the strike, saying it targeted one of its medical convoys near the stadium in Taji, north of Baghdad. The group denied any of its top leaders were killed.
I hope that every American in Iraq is taking really good care of their personal security; they are all targets now.
And I really hope against hope that the millions of Iraqis and Iranians in the crossfire don’t get further grief added to the tally of misery they’ve experienced for decades now.
And finally, I’ll note that war when pursued by sober and prudent leaders, who define their goals, identify strategy and tactics that can plausibly lead to those ends, and enact an ongoing process that can deal with what happens when any plan makes contact with the opposition is still a wasteful, tragic, destructive and always contingent and hugely risky proposition.
And then there is the GOP, and the whole feckless troupe of Trumpanzees.
Fuck.
Here’s a John Prine song that seems way too on point today:
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Massacre of the Innocents, between 1611 and 1612
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
That John Prine song is beautiful, Tom. I hadn’t heard that one before.
Frankensteinbeck
I think the Iraqi government is going to tell the US we’re persona non grata, which will greatly increase Iran’s strength in the region. I don’t think even Trump would re-invade Iraq. He seems to have gotten enough courage or desperation to try ordering air strike assassinations to try and get the public to praise him like they did Obama, but a ground war is many levels past that.
Spanky
From Cole’s twitter feed over there on the right:
It’s been this way for decades, since well before Cole himself was rolling through the desert. No sign of it stopping, and now we have guys at the top who get off on the same thing.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Heard a report that the Selective Service website crashed today from all the people looking up how to get an exemption.
trollhattan
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
The singing postman has a way with words.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@trollhattan: Yes, he does. And one of my favorite voices.
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: It seems to still be broken. Glad Shrub didn’t use it after 9/11.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well to be honest, when they killed Solomini they called down the whirlwind, the militias are still there and capable of considerable violance, so if anything this is too little. To paraphrase Sherman, get to being nice or get to the killing because the in-between just prolongs the agony. The message from the Dems looks to be “this isn’t a game stupid” and that’s exactly how the Trump admin is treating it.
Aleta
(Post live blog)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Aleta: Wallstreet being idiots; you don’t need F-35s with what is going on in Iraq. Even if it turns into a regional war, the serious fighting will be over long before anything ordered today will be ready. This is good news for beans, bullets and services.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And under “We’ve always been at war with Eurasia”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-biggest-fox-news-boosters-234154938.html
Orwell never realized you could have a totalitarian state and a democracy exist side by side in the same country.
Keith P.
Not small odds that Trump nukes Iraq and/or Iran before year-end.
mrmoshpotato
@Keith P.: Why not a 3rd country too?
“Truman was a total loser! He only dropped 2 atomic bombs.”
I say draft cards should be sent to the 63 million fascists who voted for this POS and the thousands that needed to feel pure about their votes. Happy warring, you fucks!
Virginia
Oh god. Never heard that song from John.
Perfect.
Thank you, Tom.
patrick II
We should not forget how inane the beginnings of and predictable this military action was. Obama signed an agreement with Iran. Trump, out of petty jealousy, thoughtless stupidity and a foreign policy philosophy built almost entirely on coercion, abrogated that agreement. The re-imposition of sanctions have harmed Iran’s economy and tensions have inevitably spiraled upward, as they will continue to do. Something like this was going to happen from the day Trump was elected president, and it will only get worse until he leaves.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
In happier news, saw a TV ad today for Thom Tillis’ upcoming opponent. I think the local Dems have found a good one.
pat
Funny that this is not being emphasized in the MSM news (NBC, even MSNBC seems to not want to go back that far.)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
It was a VoteVets ad. Cunningham was going to run to Lt. Governor this cycle and switched to the Senate race.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: SAIC is employee owned, it doesn’t actually trade.
Evil_Paul
Okay so…not a foreign policy expert here or anything…but it seems to me that the chances of Iran’s retaliation coming in the form of a slow play diplomatic move that forces America out of Iraq and weakens the sanctions regime is getting lower and lower.
RepubAnon
@Aleta:
Jay
pat
@pat:
Chris Hayes kind of went there…
Chyron HR
“B-b-but Trump PROMISED he’d be better than Shillary!” – Bernard S., Burlington VT
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Everyone of those companies provide butts in seats. So Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon all provide government services just like SAIC and CACI. And that’s why their stock prices went up. The bet being made is that requests for personnel will be put out as build outs of existing QA/QC and omnibus contracts. Or that new ones to meet new requirements will be put out for competition.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Orwell never got a chance to visit Bibi Netanyahu’s Israel.
Baud
@Chyron HR:
C’mon. I also dislike him very much, but like Trump, it’s exhausting to keep bringing him up at random times in random posts.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
It’s always projection
Frankensteinbeck
@Chyron HR:
I recall commenters on this blog telling me Hillary would start a war with Iran immediately because she felt like she had to prove that she had bigger balls than any man.
Mj_Oregon
From Jim Wright – Stonekettle Station – on FB today
rikyrah
Latest polling
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
Baud
@rikyrah: Bloomberg is at 11%?
Ugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Maybe they misspelled Baud.
The Dangerman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Was driving the 134/210 westbound interchange yesterday (Note To Self: Driving through Pasadena on the day AFTER the Rose Parade/Bowl is still a bad idea) and damn near drove off the road when I saw the “Barack H. Obama Freeway” sign. Considered whipping out the saws all for a quick souvenir, but figured the thousands of witnesses, plus my getaway driving at speeds generally reserved for skateboards, made this a bad idea.
When did THAT happen? I drive that stretch fairly frequently and don’t recall seeing it previously. It’s new or I need to consider adjusting my meds.
Brachiator
@RepubAnon:
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam…
Now, via Iraq and Iran.
Dorothy A. Winsor
For today, I gave up on speculating about Trump’s actions and what will happen now. Instead I worked a big jigsaw puzzle and read Backman’s BEARTOWN. It’s just draining to be governed by crazy grandpa. I’m hoping the world will still be here tomorrow. I can catch up then.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
And the irony is that Trump may be starting a war, and he ain’t got no balls at all.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Wise move. As opposed to electric vehicles, when it comes to people unplugging for multiple hours allows recharging.
raven
@RepubAnon: It’s called “Feel Like I’m Fixin To Die Rag”.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
It was probably a butterfly poll.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah:
@Baud:
It’s an online poll. (photo)
raven
Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes
while cold silver birds who came to cruise the skies
send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands
and then proceed to “target b” in keeping with their plans
khaki priests of christendom interpreters of love
ride a stone leviathan across a sea of blood
and pound their feet into the sand of shores they’ve never seen
delegates from the western land to join the death machine
and we send cars and letters.
The oxen lie beside the road their bodies baked in mud
and fat flies chew out their eyes then bathe themselves in blood
and super heroes fill the skies, tally sheets in hand
yes, keeping score in times of war takes a superman
the junk crawls past hidden death its cargo shakes inside
and soldier children hold their breath and kill them as they hide
and those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death
lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath
and we send prayers and praises.
Country Joe was way ahead of thoughts and prayers.
sdhays
@Mj_Oregon: Dump is too coherent in this transcript. Needs more self-flattery and nonsense. And lies.
Old School
To give credit where credit is due: R.B. Morris wrote the song that John Prine sings in that video.
Spanky
WaPo has a fairly lengthy article up, “How Trump decided to kill a top Iranian general“.
Bill Arnold
@Evil_Paul:
Explain your reasoning please.
Procopius
@Frankensteinbeck: There are supposed to be about 5,000 American soldiers in Iraq. We don’t know the number remaining is Syria, but I think it’s less that 1,000. 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne landed in Kuwait Jan. 2nd. Iraq’s population is about 38 million. Iran’s is 81 million. The Army has had recruiting shortfalls of tens of thousands over the last couple of years; I think serious combat operations will disincentivize many would-be recruits. If Trump finds sufficient forces to mount an invasion it is going to take three or four months up to a year to assembled the troops and supplies in Kuwait. If we use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran, the rational response from every other nation which owns nuclear weapons is to use them on us before we decide we have to take them out, too. This is not likely to end well.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Old School: Thanks – beautiful song!
mad citizen
@trollhattan: Googling and discovering the great song was written not by Prine, but by R.B. Morris. Link to an interview: http://www.stilljournal.net/interview-rbmorris.ph
I see oldschool beat me to it, but will leave this for the link. Because this sounds like an interesting artist: “He’s a hillbilly transcendental symbolist Dylan-folkie Beat-rocker, who picked through the leavings of the British Invasion and American post-psychedelia, filtered it all through the inspiration of James Agee and Charles Bukowski and Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.”
raven
@mad citizen: Well he did write Sam Stone.
mad citizen
@raven: Yes, not knocking Prine, he’s written loads of great songs. I have underappreciated him and his catalog. In fact I was reading the lyrics while listening to the song, and was surprised to see it credited to someone else. I didn’t know Prine did other peoples’ songs.
raven
@mad citizen: I know.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I was saying in the Warren thread that she’s toast in the primary if she doesn’t get her numbers up with Black voters, and she doesn’t even seem to realize it.
Mary G
We bombed a medical convoy today? Schools and hospitals next, I guess? I am sick at heart for Australia, the Iraqi citizens who’ll pay the blood price, and that we’ve let this pitiful excuse for a man throw away so much that was good about America for nearly three years now.
@raven: I hate that Country Joe is right again.
J R in WV
@Spanky:
Don’t know if I need a lengthy article to analyze that question. Just did it on his gut instinct, right? Right!! After remembering his dissertation on Obama’s attack on Iran before the 2012 election, right? Sure!!
I bet he hates seeing those quotes from himself about Obama going to attack Iran to win the 2012 elections. I hope to see those over and over for the next 10 months.
Dan B
@raven: Saw Country Joe, sans Fish, at an anti-war demo on Nashville. It was maybe 30 people and Joe seemed annoyed at the small number. I was trying to counsel GI’s at Fort Knox with no luck. What they say about Fort Knox seemed to be true.
Did start a Gay Lib group that stopped some harassment at a restaurant, after I showed up in a dress. Couldn’t get rid of the jerk that appointed himself bouncer at one bar and razzed fem guys while wearing a six gun. Fun times.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
IIRC, bombing medical personnel is a no-shit war crime.
Yay.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@The Dangerman: I think it went up early last year, the 134 between the 210 and the 2 is the President Barrack H. Obama Highway. I was on it today!
Comrade Scrutinizer
Bill Arnold
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
The War Prayer by Mark Twain
(But read the whole thing at least once)
Aleta
Country Joe McDonald – Tricky Dicky
Late last night I was watchin’ the tube when I saw the most incredible thing
They built a new mechanical man, looked just like a human being.
I started to become terrified, Good God it was makin’ me sick
Then I began to realize it was no one but Tricky Dick.
Well, oh my God, it’s terrible here in the U.S.A.
The water’s polluted, the economy’s crashing, can’t someone save the day ?
The war keeps going on and on and the kids won’t respect the cops,
It’s even said that God is dead, well, when will it ever stop ?
Call Tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda hip hip hip hurrah,
Call Tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda hip hip hip hurrah,
Well, he walks and he talks and he smiles and he frowns, he does what a human can,
He’s Tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda, he’s the genuine plastic man.
Evil_Paul
@Bill Arnold: 1) Iran’s main source of power within the region (and especially Iraq) comes from their proxy forces who make up a substantial part of that nation’s security forces.
2) If the US stopped at killing Soleimani, it could be seen as a direct response to the attack on the embassy, leaving it up to Iran as to whether they want to fold, call or raise in response.
3) There’s at least a few diplomatic options (get Iraq to kick out the Americans, solidify their hold on Iraqi Parliament) that are relatively non-violent but still serve Iranian strategy (greater regional power & influence through Shi’a proxies). Violent retaliation could lead to further attacks from the US.
4) HOWEVER, this is a long game option. If the US is continuing to strike at the leadership of Iran’s proxies, Iran is going to have to escalate in order to maintain their credibility with these militias. This is the second attack within 24 hrs, and Iraq’s Parliament probably won’t be meeting again until next week.
5) Therefore (it seems to me) if Iran doesn’t hit back quickly, they’ll look scared, which hurts their credibility with their militias, which in turn hurts their ability to influence and control the region.
Again, not an expert, but this seems to have a certain logic to it: Act now, or lose in the long term.
rikyrah
Ruckus
John Prine.
A legend. Tom, that’s a great selection, from a great artist.
Bill Arnold
@Evil_Paul:
OK (well, not OK), this seems correct. Sigh. A third US attack would be enemy action (Goldfinger rule) and would be an additional escalation intended to force a violent response by the Iranians. Hopefully our only-partly-supine press would spot this and call it out loudly.
Jinchi
I’m going to have to see a lot more polling before I believe Bloomberg has moved past Buttigieg and tied with Warren for 3rd place.
artem1s
@Procopius:
I think you are right in assuming the military leaders and regular troops won’t want to play in Darth Cheney’s wet dream war again. But this may not be about our military response at all, but our allies response to Dolt’s self-absorbed warmongering to upstage Obama.
I’m betting Putin would prefer the disruption further destabilize the EU and NATO. Europe will be looking at another massive wave of refugees. It will get worse as we move into spring and summer. And all the countries that have to deal with it will rightly put the blame where it belongs – on the US cowboy diplomacy and military industrial complex greed.