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An Iranian assassin is loose in the U.S. and trying to recruit people to kill Trump and others.

I guess he's here trying to get revenge for that one general killed while Trump was president.

You know what would have saved that general's life? Stop helping people kill Americans.

No word if Biden helped fly him into the country.

Apparently have kicked off a bit of a war a few hours ago. First wave of suicide drones to Israel - ~6 hours until they could land. Cruise missiles following ~2 hours to land in Israel, no word yet on ballistic missiles - 12m to Israel.

Had deleted a post about ballistic missiles being fired because I wasn't sure about the source.

Well, shit:

Pretty cool, never seen an above the atmosphere interception before.

Those ballistic missile strikes seemed very weak. Comments in that thread say very minor damage.

I doubt Iran is going to take this a lot farther knowing Israel is a nuclear power.

I wonder if Biden and Putin are talking tonight, just in case?

Iran has stated the attacks are over.

Iran just cannot escalate. They have to do something to show their people they're not just going to take it. But they really have a limit on how much they can do directly.

Meanwhile, China's like "Yep, just keep distracting each other"

Take what? I missed the instigator.

GORDON wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 9:19 am Take what? I missed the instigator.

One of their generals was killed by Israel, or something like that.

GORDON wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 9:19 am Take what? I missed the instigator.

The analogy I saw is that Iran “moneyballed” a new Sulemani out of like 5 new military officers. They were all at a Syrian embassy when Israel smoked the lot of them.

I missed all of that.

why did Israel hit the Syrian embassy?

GORDON wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 10:26 am why did Israel hit the Syrian embassy?

Israel believed those officers were responsible for helping organize 10-7.

Mossad is generally pretty good at figuring shit like that out.

Can you imagine the thought process?

"Hey, we haven't killed any jews lately. I'm starting to feel twitchy. Where can we hit some women and children next week?"

Was reading an interesting conversation about how all the major players in the ME have played their role "correctly", except Hamas.

Generally in the ME, you threaten all kinds of death and destruction, and then do a moderate action. Israel struck Iran, but they did it off Iranian soil, to only 5 military officers. In response Iran threatens all kind of death and destruction - and telegraphs to the U.S. and allies exactly what they are going to do so they can get defensive capabilities in time. Plenty of back channel de-escalation and in the end, lots of explosions, few if any people actually get killed. Other example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation ... _Soleimani

They do that so they can act tough, but not make the other side believe they are actually out to get them, prompting a true response.

Hamas went off the reservation, pushed way over the limit into "trying to kill you" territory. And Israel had to respond to that. And here we are.

I think Iran just re-established deterrence. Had not had any directly w/r/t Israel in a while, and didn't respond to a number of attacks in Syria on Iranian troops.

We can laugh off the 99% interception rate, but it required what - 6 countries worth of Air Forces to do that? A billion dollars in fuel and munitions?

I cant help but think the US forces are watching the Drone Wars.... Ukraine, Huthis, this, and taking a lot of notes.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we cancelled the next-next aircraft carrier, for a drone robot ship.

Drone swarm is a shitload cheaper than a single $10M missile.