Let's deal with this stupid analogy right away, since it's become a thing.
If GEN Milley were running around various countries near Iran helping plan terror attacks on Iranians and organizing guerrilla actions against Iranian military forces, maybe this could hold. It doesn't. /1
If GEN Milley were running around various countries near Iran helping plan terror attacks on Iranians and organizing guerrilla actions against Iranian military forces, maybe this could hold. It doesn't. /1
If we were actually *at war* with Iran itself, sure, Iran would try to kill him, and Esper and anyone else. That's war. But QS was playing in the shadows, leading actions deniable by the Iranian regime while killing Americans. This made him a legit target long before Trump. /2
Whether killing him right now, in the way and in the place we got him, was a prudent move, I don't know. I'm glad he's gone, but I worry that a high-risk plan like this is being led by guys who can't tie their own goddamn shoes every morning. But that's not the point. /3
"Oh, this is like the Iranians killing Milley or Esper" is just plain stupid. We don't have an equivalent to Soleimani, and if he did, he'd be a target for whatever government he was terrorizing from behind the scenes. Soleimani was a general; he was also a terrorist. /4
And have Americans fighting in the shadows been killed by other governments? I mean, is it possible we've run dark ops and our guys have gotten killed?
There's an entire wall at the CIA that can answer that question for you. Soleimani lived a dangerous live and got burned. /5
There's an entire wall at the CIA that can answer that question for you. Soleimani lived a dangerous live and got burned. /5
Whether that was the right move *right now*, I don't know. But the chances anyone - not just us - were gonna let that guy retire and go play with his grandkids were always low. So just drop this dumb analogy and take a deep breath for a day. /6x
