Well, I am a graduate of the Army War College and I wouldn't presume to think I have even 10% of the info of the Pres. and Joint Chiefs (which is why anything the talking heads in the media say is so absurd). I don't know enough to truly judge his decision either way, on the surface it seems like the right call to show restraint and on the home front deny the GDCs their next "scandal."

Most choices aren't binary anyway...good/bad, right/wrong. A lot of times it can be good/better, bad/worse, good/not as good. Of course, without a crystal ball you can't really know which is which until you make one, even then you may never know.

Had he struck them maybe that would have been OK too or maybe the Dems would have gotten their "warmonger" talking points and maybe our enemies in the region (including supposed "allies) would use this excuse to abandon us and let Iran wiggle out of some sanctions.

Another point mentioned earlier in the thread....we don't even have a Sec. Def. right now, not a good time to start a war if you have a choice.

Trump will drive the Iranians crazy but Not Responding as they wish.

You want to unify the Iranian People Against Us and not their corrupt Government- Bomb them for no reason.

No, it's a junior high school fist fight, where you get goaded into throwing a punch because somebody called you 'chicken'.

quote:

I don't know enough to truly judge his decision either way, on the surface it seems like the right call to show restraint and on the home front deny the GDCs their next "scandal."

Most choices aren't binary anyway...good/bad, right/wrong. A lot of times it can be good/better, bad/worse, good/not as good. Of course, without a crystal ball you can't really know which is which until you make one, even then you may never know.

Had he struck them maybe that would have been OK too or maybe the Dems would have gotten their "warmonger" talking points and maybe our enemies in the region (including supposed "allies) would use this excuse to abandon us and let Iran wiggle out of some sanctions.

Yeah... politically, it was the right call.

And, as you suggest, it's hard to know exactly what the situation was on the ground/over the water. It's a congested and very dangerous area. The straight of Hormuz is only 12 miles wide.

The Iranians are DESPERATE for President Trump to lose the election. They're working behind the scenes with Kerry and they were willing to take a bloody nose, including having their own people killed, in order to hurt the President politically. Didn't quite work out the way they hoped. They won't make another move because the President would then have support for a strike and his opponents would have difficulty arguing against.

If you're in the mood for some entertainment, head over to CNN for 5 minutes. They're bending themselves into a pretzel trying to criticize the President for not responding. I'm certain that if he had attacked them, CNN would have thrown their full support behind him

Just imagine if he had wiped out 150 Iranians, even if they were all military with no civie casualties...

CNN / MSNBC would be all over it, giving 24/7 coverage of their families wailing and beating their chests, with allusions to it not being fair (unmanned drone v 150 humans)... plenty of footage for the Leftist presidential campaign ads...

Honestly, I think Trump had it thought about beforehand but needed to be seen as ready / willing to strike. And as I mentioned before, if something similar happens again, it'll be game on.

As for the asymmetrical warfare nonsense. This is not warfare, and to be asymmetrical warfare we'd need some kind of proximity to them. They are not sneeking guerrillas accross the Atlantic for overnight raids. The best they can do is attack our assets in the ME. Which will result in 5x as many deaths as they inflict on us and 10x as many assets.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Thank you. Some of these philosophical pundits think they should be guests on Face the Nation.

quote:

No, it's a junior high school fist fight, where you get goaded into throwing a punch because somebody called you 'chicken

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep, and the fight is right in front of the teacher.

Gustofer— what exactly did Reagan do to Iran after the hostage crisis? The Iranians released hostages when Reagan was elected, did Reagan then attack for revenge? No. That entire episode went without a response. Because we don’t want war there. So I’m not sure what you are trying to prove by referencing Reagan.

Iran is not our friend. They are definitely our enemy. They have attacked us several times and there are numerous low level conflicts happening with them in many locations. If they had shot down a P3 or AWACS and killed folks, I still wouldn’t have wanted to attack them but that situation would demand a violent response and I’d support doing so. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want. This isn’t one of those times. It’s a robot. Why would you advocate putting our strike pilots in harms way to avenge a robot?

The Iranians might well push us into war. But when/if they do, it’s important we’re seen as justified in our response. President Trump withstood tremendous political pressure to keep us from another war. If he later is forced by Iranians into a violent response, it’ll be tough to call him a war monger since he has established a history of proving his desire to avoid conflict. That’s chess, not checkers.

I'm with the group here who think our president handled this incident about as well as he could have. But I do have a question for the group.

Why is 'proportional' such a key consideration in responding to such incidents against the US? When I was a child and misbehaved, my father whooped my ass big time to insure I never did what I'd done again. I don't believe his actions were 'proportional', but rather an 'escalation' of force to insure the outcome he demanded. And interestingly, his actions generally always results in accomplishing his primary goal(s).

I'm not suggesting killing 10 or 15 or 150 people is right or proportional, I'm just curious why proportional is the desired approach rather than an escalation of force to try and insure an outcome. I'd propose the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were a huge escalation of force by the US against the Japanese, with those actions bringing WWII to an end in a matter of hours. Are we simply too civilized and evolved at this point to use such extreme force to insure an outcome?

I'm comfortable with Trump's decision because I know he's not a pussy. I know there's a limit to the nonsense he'll put up with. Unlike our old friend Barry.
Iran understands this too, make no mistake.

quote:

I'm not suggesting killing 10 or 15 or 150 people is right or proportional, I'm just curious why proportional is the desired approach rather than an escalation of force to try and insure an outcome. I'd propose the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were a huge escalation of force by the US against the Japanese, with those actions bringing WWII to an end in a matter of hours. Are we simply too civilized and evolved at this point to use such extreme force to insure an outcome?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Curtis LeMay and Douglas MacArthur might agree, but the world is very different now.

quote:

Curtis LeMay and Douglas MacArthur might agree, but the world is very different now.

And that is unfortunately why this country is involved in never ending wars. Savages understand one thing, and one thing only: power. They laugh at "proportional".

I'm glad the US didn't strike, I really am. But if the time ever comes where we have to it absolutely should NOT be "proportional". It should be severe enough to insure we never have to strike them again. (And no, I'm not talking about ground troops).

quote:

Why is 'proportional' such a key consideration in responding to such incidents against the US? When I was a child and misbehaved, my father whooped my ass big time to insure I never did what I'd done again. I don't believe his actions were 'proportional', but rather an 'escalation' of force to insure the outcome he demanded.

The parent-child analogy doesn't work to understand this. A parent is responsible for the child. We are not the global parent, responsible for the global children.

Try another analogy: Big kid on the block.
Sure, as the biggest and strongest kid on the block we could beat up any other kid if we had to or wanted to. But as the Big kid on the block would you want to escalate every minor insult or provocation to the point that you have to kick a dozen kids asses? And at some point don't you think that it doesn't matter if you didn't really start it, you're going to find yourself hated by everyone. Furthermore, you might be able to kick their asses individually but not collectively. Eventually, they will gang up on you.

So what do you do? You pick your battles. You eventually do kick a kid's ass when he's pushed it too far. But every other kid on the block knows that kid was asking for it. You probably put up with a little more BS than you'd like to but each of them know not to push it too far.

When this whole thing went down I was hawkish towards retaliation but in reflection I think that Trump made the right decision. I'm sure that the bulk of Americans are war weary and don't want to subject our men and women in the military to more conflict. If Iran were to take American lives then it becomes whole new game and I'm hopeful that Iran's leadership is well aware of that.

Jim

I have no problem with Trump letting the drone incident slide. If Iran threatens or attacks a manned US aircraft or naval vessel, that is something else entirely. At the rate we use drones, it stands to reason that someone will get a lucky shot in once in a while.
If we are going to commit our military anywhere in the Mideast (or anywhere, for that matter) it should a no holds barred, scorched earth campaign that totally annihilates our enemy. In the case of Iran, say we did go in and invade or attack them. We lose American lives and either have spend lots of cash to rebuild the shithole or abandon them to their own ends. And we would be right back there again some years later.
A far simpler military tactic is to target those who control these dumps, their Government leaders and top command staff. I think we have the assets, hardware and technology to do so. And let them know they are targeted. All day, every day. Make it personal. Really personal. And then rinse and repeat for whoever replaces them.
Assassination, you say? I am all for it. Threaten Americans or American interests? Reap the whirlwind! Be far cheaper than invading and occupying these shitholes. These fine folks in the Mideast have been killing each other for centuries. They only understand violence and force. So lets deliver some to them. Personally.

One thing that has changed with regard to these events is the rate at which information flows - back in the great Ronnie Raygun days, he could blow up Libyan barracks, sink Iranian ships / oil platforms, and all we would hear were the general facts and a video clip on the evening news, in addition to the article in the newspaper.

Today the MSM would be ALL over it and Iran would be killing civilians and dragging them to the strike sites to show how "savage" the US & Trump were. Regardless that it would be 95% bullshit, it would be another anchor he'd have weighing him down next year.

All this changes if they killed Americans or take out another expensive drone. And I'd venture to say the intel community has a list of easy to hit targets that are generally unoccupied for very low casualty strikes next time around.

Believe it or not, there is a good deal of 'friction' and 'fog of war' out there on the front lines of this. Do we really want to start a war over a single rouge SAM operator or boat driver?

Shit, we shot down an Iranian airliner back in the 80s and got off with an "oops, our bad. Fog off war, here is some money. Sorry". The world can be a messy place.

quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:
Gustofer— what exactly did Reagan do to Iran after the hostage crisis? The Iranians released hostages when Reagan was elected, did Reagan then attack for revenge? No. That entire episode went without a response. Because we don’t want war there. So I’m not sure what you are trying to prove by referencing Reagan.

'83 Marine barracks in Beirut anyone? CIA had a number of their station chiefs assassinated/kidnaped, embassy/consulates/missions blown-up, and a number of diplomatic & military personnel under threat. We packed it all up and got out after that, never been back. It's too bad, before the Iranians and Syrians got there, Beirut was the Paris of the Eastern Med.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
I'm with the group here who think our president handled this incident about as well as he could have. But I do have a question for the group.

Why is 'proportional' such a key consideration in responding to such incidents against the US? When I was a child and misbehaved, my father whooped my ass big time to insure I never did what I'd done again.

Proportional meaning it was measured against the transgression and your past history; your father didn't bruise, break any bones or, paralyze you, right? That would've been over doing it and not proportional.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
A far simpler military tactic is to target those who control these dumps, their Government leaders and top command staff. I think we have the assets, hardware and technology to do so. And let them know they are targeted. All day, every day. Make it personal. Really personal. And then rinse and repeat for whoever replaces them.

The language of old cultures, make it personal.
The Church hearings and Jimmy Carter neutered and drummed-out those gumshoe case officers who understood what working on the ground meant and entailed. We traded basic tradecraft for technology.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
A far simpler military tactic is to target those who control these dumps, their Government leaders and top command staff. I think we have the assets, hardware and technology to do so. And let them know they are targeted. All day, every day. Make it personal. Really personal. And then rinse and repeat for whoever replaces them.

This is what I am in favor of. Instead of blowing up a missile site and killing some poor schmuck who was just following orders, send a bomb through the bedroom window of the guy who ordered the shoot-down.

Crap would stop really quickly when THEIR necks are on the line. . .

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
A far simpler military tactic is to target those who control these dumps, their Government leaders and top command staff. I think we have the assets, hardware and technology to do so. And let them know they are targeted. All day, every day. Make it personal. Really personal. And then rinse and repeat for whoever replaces them.

This is what I am in favor of. Instead of blowing up a missile site and killing some poor schmuck who was just following orders, send a bomb through the bedroom window of the guy who ordered the shoot-down.

Crap would stop really quickly when THEIR necks are on the line. . .

This should happen simultaneously across the region, to everyone over the rank of Captain in their forces and all of their political leaders