JRH 1/7/20
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Blog Editor: Rather than
capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post
and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship
tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false
accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat
censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you
belong to.
*************************
Iran Should Fear the Reaper
A Resolute Defense of America
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 1/5/2020 1:54 PM
Making a fine and righteous decision, President Donald J.
Trump gave the order **Statement by the Department of
Defense for an airstrike, conducted near Baghdad
International Airport on January 3rd 2020, in retaliation for the U.S.
contractor killed at the K1 Iraqi base by Kata'ib Hezbollah^^, and the
President's quick response sent Iran's Quds Force^^^ General Qassem Soleimani to the hell he had
earned here on earth, as the leader of the world's largest terrorist
organization, tearing his body apart. The strike also took Iraq's Abu [Mahdi]
al-Muhandis [CEP Profile & JPost Profile], deputy commander of
Iran-backed militias in Iraq -- the Popular
Mobilization Forces†† -- and twenty-five others, including the
PMF protocol officer, Mohammed Reda. This was an end that was far from anything
resembling justice, because it was much too swift and much too humane for a
monster, and his fellow terrorists, who had caused so much destruction, misery
and death around the globe, including the deaths of at least 603 U.S. soldiers;
however, it did deliver a hard blow to international terrorism.
^^[Blog Editor: Info on Islamic Terrorists Kata’ib
Hezbollah:
o Who is Kataib Hezbollah, the group the US attacked in Iraq
and Syria? By Seth J. Frantzman; Jerusalem Post;
December 30, 2019 22:39
^^^[Blog Editor: Info on Iran's Quds Force:
††[Blog Editor: Info on Popular Mobilization Forces:
After the PMF had failed in an attempt to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad,
on New Year's Eve [Military Times info],
President Trump delivered a threat to Iran to cease its efforts to destabilize
the area or prepare to "be held fully responsible for lives lost, or
damage incurred, at any of our facilities," and "pay a very Big
Price. This is not a warning; it is a Threat. Happy New Year!"
"You can't do anything," responded Ayatollah
Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader. The next day, President Trump showed him
different.
Shortly after the airstrike, President Trump took to the
airways to deliver the news to the American people. In part, his message read as follows: "We took the
action last night to stop war. We did not take the action to start a war. I
have deep respect for the Iranian people. They are a remarkable people with an
incredible heritage and unlimited potential. We do not seek regime change.
However, the Iranian regime's aggression in the region, including the use of
proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors must end and it must end now. The
future belongs to the people of Iran, those who seek peaceful coexistence and
cooperation, not the terrorist warlords, who plunder their nation to finance
bloodshed abroad."
Many of the Leftist Democrats, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senator Chuck Schumer were deeply distressed that they weren't notified
that the President was preparing to take such action. However, as Senator
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) noted on Fox News: The last group of people
you want to talk to about this is Democrats in Congress, Republicans in
Congress ... To all those Democrats who are criticizing the President, I was
aware of what his options were. They were about to unleash holy hell on our
people in Iraq and throughout the region, and the President decisively took
action." [Similar in Senator Graham Press Release]
Quick as a hard rain, a number of the usual critics, leftist
Trump haters and anti-interventionist Trump supporters, decried the action, as
a move that will result in a significantly fearsome Iranian retaliation against
America and its allies and a possible recklessly risked all-out war with Iran.
They assume the U.S. will be drawn into a broader conflict similar to what
unfolded in Afghanistan and Iraq; but, these people have obviously been
stranded on a deserted island for the past four decades, because Iran has really been at war with the U.S. since 1979.
Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was created in 1979, the
Quds Force has actively wreaked havoc across the globe, in countries like
Bosnia, Kenya, Turkey, Bahrain, Germany, and it was even the bad actor behind
the brazen failed plot in 2011 to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador on U.S. soil,
just as its IED's maimed and killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers and Marines in
both Afghanistan and Iraq at the peak of the wars, as Iran worked against our
efforts there, initially; it was also responsible for the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, in 1996,
that took the lives of nineteen Americans; and, the Quds Force has planned bombings in
Kenya and Germany, just to name a few of the many acts of terrorism that have
the Quds Force's signature.
The Supreme Leader and General Qassem Soleimani, who was
more powerful than Iran's president in foreign policy matters and controlled
billions of dollars in terror financing across the world, were responsible for
the only true act of war in this latest Iranian misadventure. They put
boots on the ground in Iraq for the purpose of planning and directing attacks
against U.S. diplomats and U.S. forces, that are lawfully in country by the
authority of Congress and with the Iraqi government's permission, and those
U.S. forces have a right and a duty to defend their positions, against all
threats, especially those from enemy commanders directing Iranian backed
militias to attack them in a combat zone; they could and they did lawfully
remove the threat Soleimani represented, when they killed him, as a legal act
against an enemy combatant under the rules of war, and President Trump's action
was Constitutionally legitimate and a stunning counter-move, not an
assassination.
A cold-blooded killer, the hardliner of hardliners, a
constant shadowy figure in the Middle East, and Iran's indispensable man, Qassem
Soleimani had enormous control over the entire global Islamic terror network,
overseeing operations and executing Iran's geopolitical vision, since he also
ran proxies in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, appearing where conflicts rage
and disappearing just as quickly. Between 2011 and 2013 alone, he had planned thirty
separate terror attacks, and prior to this, he had orchestrated terror attacks
in Thailand, New Delhi, Lagos and Nairobi, honing his skills with ruthless
cunning. And taken in its entirety, as the head of the Quds Force's irregular
warfare and intelligence arm, Soleimani's death was bigger than that of Osama
bin Laden and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, and his killing marks a major escalation
with Tehran, that has been long overdue, and it signifies a new era in U.S.
relations with Iran.
On January 2nd 2020, telling reporters that Islamic violence
by Iranian backed Shiite militias in Iraq will be met with U.S. force and
countermeasures, Defense Secretary Mark Esper declared, "The game has
changed."
In an interview with Fox News on January 3rd 2020, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo stated: "We don't seek war
with Iran. But we, at the same time, are not going to stand by and watch the
Iranians escalate and continue to put American lives at risk without responding
in a way that disrupts, defends, deters and creates an opportunity to
de-escalate the situation."
The leadership hierarchy of Iran condemned the attack, as
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called Soleimani's killing "an
act of international terrorism." The Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, "A severe retaliation
awaits the murderers who have the blood of Soleimani and that of the other
martyrs on their hands", and according to Iran's state-owned newspaper,
Hamshari, for the first time ever, Khamenei took part in an emergency meeting
of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, vowing to avenge Soleimani's
killing.
In reality, nobody knows for certain what happens from this
point on, not even those in making the decisions, who are weighing out the
costs and the benefits to some of their next steps. Make no mistake. The
Iranian ayatollahs and mullahs are not completely suicidal, although that
dynamic is at play; but in the course of waging their jihad against the West,
they are mostly calculating and strategic, so the chances for an all-out direct
war between Iran and the United States is low, at the present time.
Although President Trump's hardened sanctions are now
bringing some real economic pain to Iran and its leaders, Iran has paid a very
small price for all the innocent blood it has shed over the past four decades,
while it increased its global reach and influence and achieved greater military
capabilities, as it developed a nuclear weapons program and acted aggressively,
belligerently and violently against America and Her Allies. The strike that ended
General Qassem Soleimani's life has rocked the Iranian regime to its
core.
Over the decades, past administrations have been overly
patient with Iran and engaged them only through proxies in Saudi Arabia, Iraq
and Israel, and although President Trump followed with substantial restraint
and respect for the Iranian regime, always leaving the door open to
negotiations towards better relations, that restraint was viewed by Tehran as
proof of the Trump administration's lack of will to respond. Their miscalculations
and overreach in Iraq resulted in Soleimani's death, as President Trump engaged
them directly for the first time, since the Reagan administration, and he
proved America will meet their attacks with overwhelming force, when deemed
necessary, without fighting proxy wars.
Reported by Victor Garcia on January 4th (Fox News), President Trump made a statement that read:
"Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge
for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed and
American [and] badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he
had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian
protesters. [Soleimani] was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for
additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many
years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or
American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52
American hostages taken by Iran many years ago) some at a very high level (and)
important to Iran [and] the Iranian culture, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY
FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!"
Iran does have sleeper agents in America,
and it also holds the largest arsenal of all types of missiles capable of
striking our forces anywhere in the region, but these facts should not make us
throw up our hands in surrender and let Iran intimidate us into meekly
accepting whatever Iran seeks to do there and elsewhere in the world, because
the policies of appeasement are precisely what has led to the current reality.
Those hysterical voices adamantly asserting President Trump's airstrike has set
us on a path of all-out war are the same voices in the Middle East who were
directly responsible for aiding and enabling Iran to the point that Iran could
now pose such a dire threat.
Normally averse to war, President Trump has obviously been
prepared for this moment for much of his presidency, and the American people
should not overact to the notion of an escalation, since Iran's economy is shot
and its military power, both in conventional and terrorist ranks, is eroding.
While President Trump can effectively use America's massive military power, he
has only ever sought to prevent Iran from dramatically escalating hostilities
to the point of a catastrophic response, such as Iran now understands it will
face; and, regardless of how Soleimani's death has changed Iran's strategic
calculations, President Trump's actions demonstrate he is intent on bringing peace
through strength and a resolute defense of U.S. interests and America against
any who threaten Her.
Americans should note the incongruity and the hypocrisy, the
double standard employed by Democrats, who castigated President Trump's
decision not to intervene in Turkey's genocide against the Kurds and now
harshly damn him for properly reacting in Iraq to protect Americans. President
Trump faced a determined enemy and sent their blood-thirsty commander to hell,
no virgins in paradise, by way of the fire and fury of an American MQ-9 Reaper
drone.
By Justin O. Smith
++++++++++++++++++++++
Blog Editor: Rather than
capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post
and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship
tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false
accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat
censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you
belong to.
_____________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text embraced by brackets and
source links except by the indication ** are by the Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
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