The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Iranian assassination

    By Flavius on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 11:59pm |

    When Harold Wilson's  got to Heathrow in 1964  the UK had just learned that the Brit Secy of Defense had been sleeping with the same 16 year old as the Russian ambassador . The press asked Wilsonwhat he thought.

    Answer:   " No comment"

                     "In technicolor"

    Which is what we should be saying tonight :     Practice .

               NNNNNNNN NO NO NO   etc

    A "blog" saying it was a Trump  election maneuver will be copied .

    distributed on the net and will cost us one vote per each reader. 

    Comments

    Two Democratic Senators have already commented.

    Edit to ad:

    Chris Murphy

    https://www.mediaite.com/news/dem-senator-on-killing-of-top-iran-gen-soleimani-did-u-s-just-set-off-massive-regional-war-without-ok-from-congress/

    Biden and Sanders also commented 

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-says-trump-tossed-a-stick-of-dynamite-into-a-tinderbox-with-killing-of-qassem-soleimani?ref=home

    Warren and Booker commented as well.

    Is commentary not to suggest that the move was stupid, possibly illegal, or just limited to not saying Trump was attempting a diversion?


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 1:15am

    see my latest find on the news thread


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 1:34am

    Flavius, I think I understand your fears about Trump's re-election. If Democrats are silent, it makes them complicit. The only option is to condemn the action and state that there is a better solution. Solutions include better relations with our former European allies to use diplomatic maneuvers to halt Iran's efforts. Iranian troops are unlikely to run away like the troops in Iraq.

    We have a rogue President who is obstructing Congress, hiding his tax information, targeting senior officials of other governments, stacking the courts, and adding fuel to the fire of racial division. The Republican Party is aiding his efforts. We are in a coup. The DOJ and State Department act on his every demand.

    Contrary to popular belief, a frog will jump out of water that is slowly heated to the point of boiling. The water is boiling in the United States, the solution will not come from being nice and hoping Trump will turn down the heat.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 5:06pm

    Sadly, politics isn't like boiling frogs at all. There's no guarantee any country will throw off populist authoritarianism until it's too late, nor is it a foregone conclusion. But it's also not as easy as hopping out of a pot full of water.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 5:16pm

    Fox News hosts are already pushing the idea that impeachment should be halted because Trump killed a terrorist.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/foxs-stuart-varney-you-cant-impeach-a-president-who-just-killed-a-terrorist?ref=home


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 6:06pm

    It was murder.

    Having a day pass without  our giving any reason to call it anything else, it is what it is. And might as well call it that.

     You can call a cat , a dog. But doesn't make it one. It's still a cat.

    So far it seems , on whole, to be popular. At least with part of the country. Very likely more than half. But that's irrelevant when  naming what we dd.  Name it what it is. Murder,  Why not?  If we don't want to be called "murderers" shouldn't have murdered some one.

    Although  in fact , to be  precise , it wasn't " our murder". It was his: Trump's. Although we all may pay for it , when  Iran learns to do that. Drop a bomb on us.   Got a reason now for it. So if we don't prevent it , from doing it ,now, it wll  create a bomb powerful enough to murder  all of us.

    So  will it become the 51st State?  Probably not.  We like defeating countries but not "owning"  them . They'd want to become part of "us" .And there's too many of "us" already. If they become  "Americans" they'll have to get social security and use our lousy health system. 

    And watch the "Super Bowl".


    by Flavius on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 1:52am

    No, not quite murder. What Gallagher did was murder. Trump unilaterally took over assassination of a known terrorist with diplomatic cred, a different arena. He could have taken out the real guys who bonesawed a journalist, and it wouldn't be "murder". There was certainly more direct blood on Soleimani's hands than that Al-Awlaki preacher cat who Obama took out. He could have directly taken out Putin for similar reasons on a vaster scale, with little moral quandary for the act itself. But it's still a rogue act, potentially much more heinous than Abu Ghraib due to the sheer audacity of taking on a high figure with no contemplation of our national and allied consequences, consulting no one. Judge and executioner for what?

    In "The Great Game", there's a minor altercation at some British mansion in Kabul. Soon there are a few Afghanis protesting in the street in front. Soon after, protests rock the city. By nightfall, the entire British contingent in Kabul is fleeing the city for Jalalabad near the Khyber Pass. Every man, woman, and child was killed except for one to tell the tale. We live in an illusion of stability, much like walking on air. People like Trump take advantage of our suspension of disbelief, but only for a moment. Everything Trump Touches Dies. (#ETTD)

    [ok, a bit exaggerated - it took 2 months to flare up and explode. Elphinstone's negotiating style resembled Trump's - total naiveté and incompetent bravado. Skip down to the Massacre part, including the one soldier riding to the gates if Jalalabad with his head shattered. Good stuff. 

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 2:19am

     

    Joke 

    It's November 1945. Truman invites the world's political and religious  leaders to the White House to be briefed on the Atom Bomb. 

    After the formal explanation  General Marshall: "Any questions?"

    The Pope : Could Italy's  civilization be literally wiped out?

    Marshall .  yes.  

    The Pope: how many  bombs to do that ?

    Marshall: Well , Rome.  Really one.

    General Franco: Spain?

    Marshall : I suppose Barcelona and Madrid : two

    De Gaulle: France?

    Marshall: Say  Paris,  Bordeaux and Marsailles :three

    Churchill: the  United Kingdom?

    Marshall: Huh, London of course. Let's see? Manchester, Birmingham , Glasgow .Add Belfast and Dublin.

    Six.

    Molotov. The Soviet Union?

    Marshall: Sixteen.

    It's taken a while, but we've gotten there.

    "This is the way  the world ends    This is the                                                                                                                  .       way the world etc,  ?

    My wife's comment: General Soleimani was a brilliant man and a monster. We've got a  monster and a fool.


    by Flavius on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 9:54am

    It is more accurate to say that it is an act of war. The target was not a "non-state" actor but a senior officer in a government claiming rights as a sovereign state.

    As with the serial invasions of Iraq, one of the casualties of this sort of adventure is that it degrades the structure of the "Nation" as developed since the Peace of Westphalia. The problem with abandoning the structure is that states become indistinguishable from "non-state" actors. And this has long been the goal of non-state actors everywhere.

    Plan Effective!


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 2:33pm

    Excellent points,  moat.

    Got me thinking how we all like to ridicule the old timey "rules of war", myself included, but ya know, big picture all most were attempting to do is get some kind of civilization thingie going, extremely faulty as it usually was. Going back to survival of the fittest is not an answer to the problem of inadequate human structures and institutions. (Nor I imagine would most of us here cotton to "Sharia Law.")

    Edit to add: Thought to look this up: The Code Duello of 1777, an Enlightenment invention, is interesting, as is the point at the link that In America, the principal rules were followed, although occasionally there were some glaring deviations.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:02pm

    That there could be rules of war is more along the lines Clausewitz pursued in his On War. The activity of political engagement was still possible while armies fought. The world order that formed around this idea continued even through the total war scenario experienced during the Twentieth Century.

    For Clausewitz, the pesky element was the presence of non state fighters who got called "guerillas" by later generations.

    The limits established regarding treatment of prisoners, abuse of civilians, etcetera, has been blown past by all nations at different times. But to exchange hypocrisy for just "whatever" is an important development.

    The language will change. The vision of a cosmopolitan order will die. People will huddle in their tiny sheds.


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:18pm

    Trump said he didn't want a war, and Mulvaney says Trump can think, do or want whatever he wants, and the world should just shutup and "get used to it." 

     Pompeo is blaming Europeans for not "stepping up", claiming Trump just saved their lives.


    by NCD on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:37pm

    speaking of Pompeo-speak, I was encouraged to see Dan Abrams' "Law and Crime: site call attention to some of it this way:

     


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:54pm

    When you have Sadr telling his people to "get ready", then yes, a lot of dancing must be moments away.


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 5:18pm

    "jihad, bitch!"


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 5:52pm

    Something like that.

    But the present action is more along the lines of deepening Shia and Sunni divisions.

    So the wars underway in Syria and Saudi Arabia will get a new flavor.

    And Jordan too. They have been hoping for a development that won't be happening now.


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:06pm

    011000100 


    by NCD on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:39pm

    9 bits? 304? 196?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:03pm

    X or something.


    by NCD on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:08pm

    is that a hint that it's you behind the drones? most of us already figured you're connected to The Deep State somehow.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:42pm

    It's an exclusive or - either him *OR* the other guys, not both. Feel better? I better suspend his account, just in case...


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 4:51pm

    You're talking vernacular. And that's very populist of you, in a good way, probably. But try legal instead, just for the heck of it:

    What's the difference between homicide, murder and manslaughter?

    [...] Homicide is simply the killing of one person by another.  It may or may not be illegal.  Soldiers in battle commit homicide without committing a crime.  Citizens kill intruders without committing a crime.  So, what is it that separates a legal homicide from an illegal murder?  And, what makes one killing a murder and another a manslaughter?

    Murder is a homicide committed with “malice aforethought.”  That doesn’t mean it is a malicious killing.  Malice aforethought is the common law way of saying that it is an unjustified killing.  And, for a killing to be a murder, there typically has to be either an intent to kill, or, at minimum, conduct so reckless that it is punishable as murder. 

    Murder usually is broken down into degrees.  First degree murder punishes premeditated killings, the killing of especially vulnerable people (such as children), and unintended killings done while intentionally committing another serious felony.  This last kind of first degree murder is called felony murder.

    Most people equate premeditation with long term planning.  However, in most criminal codes premeditation doesn’t mean that the killing was planned for weeks or days.  Premeditation often is defined as any planning or design to cause the death before the act of killing occurred.  Second degree murder usually includes all intentional killings that are not premeditated, and some killings that resulted from conduct so reckless it showed a grave indifference to the sanctity of human life or the welfare of others.

    As mentioned above, felony murder is a subset of either first degree murder and, in some criminal codes, voluntary manslaughter.  It punishes people who didn’t actually do the killing.  If a person participates in the commission of a felony, and that felony caused someone’s death, all the participants in the felony can be charged with murder.  Common examples of this include the get-away driver in a convenience store robbery who is charged with felony murder after the actual robber shoots the clerk.  Or, the burglar who inadvertently scares a home owner so badly that the home owner dies of a heart attack [.....]


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:10pm

    I'm feeling frisky so I will share this (in my eternal-naive?-hopefulness that grownup conversation can ensue on this site):

    This is the level of analysis Nike is paying for, I guess, but it's really bad analysis that misunderstands how US foreign policy (or any foreign policy) operates, and is part of why the left isn't taken seriously https://t.co/5B1Yjg5GnE

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) January 4, 2020

    America isn't in some kind of race war with the world. America is allied with Saudi Arabia in its conflict in Yemen and outsourced all its manufacturing to China because of a race war?

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) January 4, 2020

    This is why I hate the segregationist term people of color. There isn't some united interest of people of a skin color. Iran itself helped Syria crush a revolution. China is doing soft imperialism in Africa through investment and buying silence on human rights abuses

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) January 4, 2020

     


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:22pm

    And ta-dah, when I went back to Twitter I also found this crass cynical political version of the argument:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 3:28pm

    We really have gone through the looking glass, guys. Here Tucker Carlson is basically blaming the neo-con warmongers ("like Max Boot and John Bolton") for misleading Trump!

    "Is Iran really the greatest threat we face?”
    Tucker tough on Trump here.
    Good write up from @brianstelter too https://t.co/zJr5Kf9H1npic.twitter.com/lpcWsiRf2n

    — Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 4, 2020

    He especially targets Sen. Ben Sasse for warmongering comments as regards the assassination..Basically It's a very isolationist message.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 5:18pm

    Tucker is serving Trump here by putting the reason why stuff happens out of Trump's control.


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 5:20pm

    it's like Drumpf is not heeding his masters @ Fox, has the teevee shut off or something, doing his own king genius of the world thing?



    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:04pm

    reminds me of how he started out ridiculing Kim as rocketman, then he gradually fell in manlove, then looks like last month it was back to rocketman-was that because Kim called him a dotard? He's nobody's girly man? Can be just as  tough as Mullah Omar blowing up big buddhas, so there!


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:12pm

    Hmmm.
    He is watching a show he made be produced. That's it.

    No reason to ask why.

    Unless you were interested in the causes of things.


    by moat on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:14pm

    well, one could segue to "is it an impeachable offense to threaten war crimes?"


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:33pm

    this is a good question but I would hope they answer no because I don't like the idea of Twitter being the one deciding who's crazy and incapable of executing their job and I do like him revealing his incompetence in public:

    Dear Twitter, does threatening a war crime violate the site's ToS? Asking for the whole world.

    — Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 4, 2020

    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 6:51pm

    Biden is focusing on the tweet threatening war crimes, but so far is only targeting the "irrational" behavior:

    The more the walls close in on this guy, the more irrational he becomes. https://t.co/Nba7Color1

    — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 5, 2020

    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 10:23pm

    Here's a nasty Catch 22 if one were to insert a President Pence into this current situation to replace a President Trump who is isolationist one day and making crazy choices and threatening war crimes the next. Looking a little like a President Pence would be like having a Dick Cheney world deja vus allover again, no guessing games about him but still plenty of disinfo. He did a long feed of tweets today elaborating many examples of why Soleimani's Quds was an enemy of America, including this nonsense about 9/11:

    And maybe worse than Cheney, maybe more anti-Muslim Christian Dominionist than he lets off, appearing secular but making Christian Dominionist choices in foreign policy?


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 9:27pm

    Interesting analysis recommended by Laura Rozen, by Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council, long twitter thread here giving many examples to back up his opinion that

     the only discernible common thread in Trump’s decision-making is proving that he is different than Obama

    and

    when Trump’s desire to be the anti-Obama is mixed with the foundational Islamophobia that he has repeatedly displayed at home and abroad, a clear picture of where he's coming from on Iran emerges.

    except he then goes on to explain how 

    That being said, Trump isn't the only one in his administration with a personal grudge. The majority of his top advisors on Middle East policy are white men with military backgrounds who view the Iranian govt through the prism of “payback” after losing in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

    — Reza Marashi (@rezamarashi) January 4, 2020

    From the outset of Trump's presidency, career U.S. govt officials have told me: “These guys are looking to settle scores, American interests be damned.”

    — Reza Marashi (@rezamarashi) January 4, 2020

    that is continued on his feed....


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 9:57pm

    As a by product of his self defense Trump is  undermining the constitutional separation of powers .And using    not only those of the executive to do that but also his-admit it-  well honed rabble rousing skills.

    The Entertainment Power strikes back!

    Back in the day it was well known that if  you'd want to strike at the King, be sure you're successful.

    Ir's the bottom of the ninth, score tied , nobody out and Donnie at second. Fortunately he's too fat to steal third!


    by Flavius on Sun, 01/05/2020 - 8:57am

    Someone may steal it for him.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 01/05/2020 - 1:10pm