Iran is a global sponsor of terror. They’ve been on the U.S. list of terrorist nations since 1984. Their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate special operations organization the Quds Force (In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as al-Quds, meaning “The Holy Sanctuary”) which specializes in unconventional warfare and operates globally organizing, equipping, training, advising and funding terrorists and terrorist attacks, have both been declared terrorist organizations by the U.S. Their state-sponsored paramilitary terrorist organization Hezbollah which was spawned by the Quds Force, operates openly in several Middle Eastern nations, and Hezbollah operatives are linked to terrorist attacks around the world. Hezbollah has also been declared a terrorist organization.
General Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian Major General in the IRGC and ran their infamous Quds Force for more than 20 years. As the commander of the Quds Force he was also in charge of the global operations of Hezbollah. Soleimani was designated a global terrorist by the U.S. in 2011 during the Obama administration making him fair game for assassination… as much of a legal target as Osama bin Laden whom Obama assassinated in 2011.
At President Trump’s direction, Soleimani was killed at 1:00 am on January 2nd near the Baghdad airport in Iraq by an advanced American missile (probably an AGM-114 Hellfire) fired by an American MQ-9 Reaper drone aircraft from high altitude (could have been as high as 50,000 feet, almost twice as high as the average commercial jet passenger liner flies).
Iran – and Soleimani specifically – was responsible for the murder of many hundreds of Americans and the maiming of thousands more in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Iran was not, and is not today, officially involved in either conflict. The actions of Iran and Soleimani in these conflicts was, and is, illegal, and has been condemned by many nations, including, of course, the United States.
The truth is that the Iranians have been at war with America for 40 years starting on the 4th of November 1979 when Iranian rebels seized our embassy in Tehran and held 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days.
Iran and General Soleimani murdered more than 300 Americans in a dozen significant attacks just in the 40 years between 1980 and 2000. Here’s a list of those attacks culminating in their involvement in the 9/11 attack which claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
Although we are not at war with Iran, Iran most certainly is at war with the United States.
But the Iranian’s were just getting started. From the time we first engaged in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, through to the present-day Iran, General Soleimani and his Quds Force have been directly engaged in killing Americans by the hundreds and maiming them by the thousands. Most of this carnage was the result of their steady import into those battleground nations of their deadly explosively formed penetrator (EFP) devices which they mass produced in Iran, smuggled in through terrorist channels, and employed through surrogate terrorist organizations like the Mahdi Army in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. These high-tech weapons are able to blow holes through the most well-armored of U.S. tanks and armored personnel carriers, literally burning and boiling alive the Soldiers inside.
But Iran’s involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t end with EFPs; they are also heavily involved supporting terrorists with training, funding and other logistics such as supplying radios, GPS jammers, providing their advanced military intelligence, forged documents, and of course hard cold cash.
And America actually helped the Iranians fund terror when in early 2016 the Obama administration literally gave the Iranians $1.7 billion in cash delivered to an airport in Tehran in the dead of night in an unmarked aircraft. Then we followed up with another $150 billion transferred through international banking channels! Why did they do that? Well, to grease the skids of Obama’s impending nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran of course! See, the Iranians refused to sign unless America paid them off… so we did!
But I digress…
“Soleimani personally directed and provided arms to Iranian-backed terrorists in Iraq for more than a decade. His most recent plans were attacks on U.S. coalition forces in Iraq, including the December 31 [2019] attack on the embassy, where written on the wall was “Soleimani is our leader.” With Soleimani’s support and lethal assistance, the IRGC-QF [Quds Force] targeted and killed more than 600 Americans between 2003 and 2011.” (Link)
More recently, “[Soleimani] … was actively plotting in the region to take actions — a big action, as he described it — that would have put dozens, if not hundreds, of American lives at risk,” U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told CNN on January 3rd 2020. “We know it was imminent”.
On this last bit, you can choose to believe the Trump administration and our Intelligence agencies or not, but that’s the current assessment. That’s why President Trump finally executed this bastard.
I’m under no delusion that the execution of Soleimani will stop Iranian-sponsored terrorism, but it sends a message that no one is untouchable. Further, leadership is a universally recognized aspect of military power, and the operations of the IRGC, the Quds Force and Hezbollah will be significantly degraded in the near term as a result of the death of Soleimani.
Taking out Soleimani was necessary. He was a monster… and his assassination was legal under U.S. law – every bit as much as bin Laden. And if his replacement continues in the same vein, I would expect that America will assassinate him as well.
However, the crazed leadership of the Democratic Party and our Leftist media here in America doesn’t see things that way. They actually honor monsters and dictators like Castro and Soleimani as “freedom fighters”.
Reporting on the assassination of Soleimani, America’s main stream media (MSM) were unanimous in their outrage… they were literally in shock, collectively gasping that Soleimani was no monster, but in fact was…
CBS & CNN; “Revered”
NBC News; “Iconic”, “a brilliant man”
CNN; “Incredibly brave, loved by his troops” and Anderson Cooper compared him to France’s beloved Charles de Gaulle who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany during WWII and later became the President of that country
MSNBC; “… right decision, wrong Commander-in-Chief” – whatever the hell that even means! Although I suspect the CNN “reporter” was simply concerned that by making the “right decision” (his words) President Trump would gain even more popularity and votes.
Unbelievable! This is truly sick and depraved. Comparing him to de Gaulle? I submit that a more accurate comparison would be to Osama bin Laden!
These people would – quite literally – rather see America and other nations around the world continue to suffer casualties planned and sponsored by this monster, than see President Trump lauded for acting when the opportunity to kill this bastard finally presented itself.
Liberals in America are so filled with unreasoning hate for President Trump that they are willing to shower accolades on this murderous monster – with the blood of hundreds of Americans on his hands – just to paint Trump as an petulant, out-of-control child who is using our military to indiscriminately kill a helpless “revered and brilliant” government official from a country upon which we’ve not declared war.
Remember that President Obama “droned” at least 116 people during his administration. And yet, in 2011, the Obama administration actually disrupted Israeli plans to execute Soleimani because they feared that it would spoil their nuclear deal with Iran! Both sets of actions were well publicized at the time and both were widely praised by the Liberal American MSM.
With the death of Soleimani the MSM immediately began their one-sided coverage, showing us the threats being made by Iranian leaders, and the well-orchestrated march of a million Iranians forced into the streets of Tehran by closing schools and businesses chanting “Death to America” and “Revenge for Soleimani”.
What the fake news media did NOT show us was the 1,500 Iranians who were rounded up late last year during the anti-government demonstrations in Tehran and executed by Soleimani’s Quds Force for daring to demand to live in a free nation. Yet despite this extant brutal threat from their own government tens of thousands of Iranians have been rioting in the streets of a dozen major cities in Iran for weeks now risking their lives to protest the terrorists who have taken over their country.
Soleimani was an enemy combatant. He was killed while was in Iraq killing Americans just as he’d done for 20 years, and he was planning to kill more Americans. Can you imagine the outcry if President Trump had not taken out Soleimani and more Americans had died… and some “whistle blower” ran to our Liberal House of Representatives with proof of that? Trump would have been crucified!
There are those opposing this action who say; “It won’t stop terrorism”. Does that mean we shouldn’t fight back? Others say; “Soleimani’s death will make him a martyr”. Does that mean we should never kill a terrorist for fear new terrorists may spring up? These are the words of a pacifist, of someone who has already lost even before the battle was met.
Live in that world if you want to, and vote for those who would manage our nation in that manner. God knows their lining up at podiums on the campaign trail right now to assure you that they would never take such outrageous action against a man so revered and respected as Soleimani. These are the same people who signed a devil’s pact that would have put nuclear weapons in Iranian hands within a few short years.
I choose to fight back and have personally done so for decades and have friends who died and were maimed at the hands of monsters like Soleimani. I choose to vote for a President who will fight back, and not bow and scrape and apologize to the terrorists of the world for fear that opposing them might lead to war. I prefer to live in a nation that stands up to the monsters and terrorists of the world in order to defend not only our freedom but the freedom of millions around the world.
This is a sad time for America. I would have said sad and dangerous, but with Trump in the White House I doubt that we’ll wring our hands and fretting over engaging decisively with Iran, the way ALL PREVIOUS Presidents – Democrats and Republicans – have done.
After all this, I submit that President Trump is damned if he does and damned if he does not. If he cured cancer this evening, the Democrats would have talking points criticizing him by morning.
I’ll end with a ‘famous dead guy quote’; “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.” ~ John Stuart Mill, British philosopher 1806-1873