As we know, Iranian General Soleimani was attacked by the US Military via a drone just outside Baghdad Airport a week ago. It led to a token missile strike against two US/Iraqi bases (see my blog before this one – The Iranian Missiles Got Through). It also led to the Demorats voting in Congress to restrain Donald J Trump’s war powers. Mike Lee of Utah, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Republicans, indicated that they will/might support the motion. This came about after the Members of Congress received a briefing from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley. It was less than impressive:
“The briefing lasted only 75 minutes, whereupon our briefers left. This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I've seen at least on a military issue in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate. I find this insulting and demeaning to the Constitution of the United States. It's un-American. It's unconstitutional. And it's wrong . . . They are appearing before a coordinate branch of government responsible for their funding, for their confirmation, for any approval of any military action they might take. They had to leave after 75 minutes while they were in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and not debate this in public. I find that to be absolutely insane. The officials refused to go into ‘sensitive’ information, even though senators have security clearances and the briefing was held in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.” Lee would later say to Fox News: “What I'm concerned about is the flippant attitude that they reflected, both with regard to the underlying facts on Friday's attack and especially as they relate moving forward to any subsequent attack that we might undertake on Iran. There was a dismissive attitude, one that was displayed in such a way that resulted in them saying: ‘We can't identify what circumstances in which we would need to come back to Congress to get approval or authorization.’ That is antithetical to the Constitution.”
Rand Paul said, “The briefing was ‘less than satisfying’ ... I see no way in the world you could logically argue that an authorization to have war with Saddam Hussein has anything to with having war with people currently in Iraq. They have justified the killing of an Iranian general as being something that Congress gave them permission to do in 2002. That is absurd, that's an insult.”
As you might expect, the war mongrels and NeoCons immediately condemned the two Republicans, lashing out. That was expected. The arch war mongrel, Lindsay Graham, Republican, claimed that Lee and Paul were “empowering the enemy.” Lee responded. “That's fundamentally antithetical to the Constitution. Look, I love Lindsey Graham. He's a fantastic guy, we work closely on a lot of issues. He's dead wrong to suggest this is playing a game . . . the Constitution of the United States is not a game.” Rand Paul was more to the point, he often is: “I think it’s sad when people have this fake sort of drape of patriotism and anybody that disagrees with them is not a patriot. For him, to insult and say we’re not as patriotic as he is - he hasn’t read the Constitution . . . He insults the Constitution, our Founding Fathers and what we do stand for in this republic by making light of it and accusing people of lacking patriotism. I think that’s a low, gutter type of response.”
Nothing will come from the Demorat motion to limit the President’s powers, it will not be binding. In the background we had plentiful “f you, we are the mighty,” “the ‘indispensable nation’ etc. etc. etc.” neo-Nazi comments loaded across the US & UK news outlets. They show the level of thinking and understanding which is retarded. But that can still be excused. Every man has an opinion and patriotism not a bad thing per se. Yet, when a serving Secretary of State admits, confesses, to murder, and not an eyebrow is lifted in the mainstream media, you know that the world has gone mad: Mike Pompeo, known as “Pompous Pompeo” in my books, declared on Fox: “We don't know precisely when - and we don't know precisely where. But it was real ... There was a real opportunity here and there was a real necessity here. We made the right decision. The president made the right call.” He then insisted though that the threat from General Soleimani (unspecified, unproven, not even explained to US Senators) was “imminent.”
Let me point out that under international law General Soleimani was murdered as much as the Jews were murdered during the Holocaust or the victims of 9/11 based upon the above Pompeo Confession. You are not allowed by international law to strike/kill without an imminent (and it must be real, not based on CIA assumptions) threat. Pompeo, the obese former West Point cadet, just admitted that they did not know precisely where or when the supposed Soleimani strike against the US will take place. Then how, tell me, could they know it was “imminent?” With that answer, so facetiously given, he destroyed the Trump Administration’s own justifications. Unless he can come up with the evidence (and I mean evidence, not his word or that of the some US official) that an imminent strike against the US was being played out, he and everyone that was involved committed a war crime and an act of war (which is a war crime too). If this goes to a Nuremberg Trial there will be a meeting with the gallows for them. It is that serious and that is how the Muslim world and many others, hundreds of millions, read the events. Perception is everything. This will lead to further US casualties. To me and many like me, even US citizens, it is reprehensible to see what is happening in the USA.