Yeah, Rand is a bad example if you are trying to somehow show this is a particularly bad decision that's fracturing the party in any way. He has largely been against almost anything dealing with military presence in the middle east and elsewhere in the world.
An interesting statement in the article though peaked the conspiracy theorist in me.
Rand mentioned Bolton somehow being behind this. Did Trump just "buy" Bolton's potential testimony in the impeachment by taking and acting on his advice now, even though he's not part of the administration.
Originally Posted by eccielover
You are right, Rand Paul would have been against this no matter who the President was. I do like the guy but he is the Neville Chamberlain of the GOP of our time. Some of you on the left will have to look that up.
No chance at all that Trump consulted with Bolton on this but it is something Bolton would have said yes to if he was still there. I think Democrats are going to be in for a big surprise if Bolton testifies at a Senate trial. They believe that because Trump and Bolton parted with hard feelings that Bolton will throw Trump and the Republican party under the bus. I don't believe he will. Yes, he was against Giuliani being in Ukraine and wanted nothing to do with him but will ultimately, I believe, say that what Trump did was "ill advised" it was not an impeachable offense. What do the Democrats do with that if I'm right? If I'm wrong and Bolton confirms what I already know, that Trump did hold up funds until he was guaranteed an "investigation" into the Bidens ( not a forgone conclusion of guilt ) which by the way never happened, there will still not be 20 Republican Senator's voting to convict Trump.
I'm not a lawyer put I play one on the internet
and there is an old saying in the legal community, "never ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to". This could be a big risk for Democrats if Bolton doesn't say what they want him to say. It will end any talk of being found guilty of an impeachable offense IMHO.
I keep hearing Trump doesn't have a clear strategy, he didn't have a good enough reason for doing what he did in killing Suliemani.
Trump told Iran after shooting down our unmanned drones in international waters, after blowing up and capturing oil tankers, after attacking SA oil fields, that the one thing we will not tolerate is killing an American and they did. Unlike Obama drawing a red line that he didn't back up and additionally invited the Russians into Syria to handle the chemical weapons they had that Obama told them they couldn't use but did and he did nothing, Trump's red line was violated and Iran paid the price that they surely never expected to see from an American President.
Now they are trying to decide what they will do in return. They stupidly suggested that they would conduct a "proportional" response and kill more Americans but only as many as we killed. HELLO! RED LINE! You kill more Americans and Trump will not use a "proportional response", he will most certainly make an anything but proportional response.
I have to say that Trump was completely wrong and stupid for saying he would target "cultural sites". That is against international law and I believe our Generals would refuse any such order. They already said in public that would not be allowed but refusing to do it would be a whole different ball game but I think in private, Trump will back down from any such action. I would go even further and say that if Trump could find a General to do it and he did, that would most certainly be grounds for impeachment which I would support 100%.
That kind of shit is what ISIS did and we and the world condemned. With anti aircraft sites, command and control sites and oil fields to hit, Trump has many targets to choose from. I heard that simply taking out Iran's 3 major oil refineries would collapse the entire Iranian economy and they would be in no position to support any of their proxy armies.
The only question left is, is Iran stupid enough to kill another American?
Originally Posted by WTF
Originally Posted by eccielover
