Iran Imposes Sanctions On Americans Over 2020 Killing Of Top General

[Gunny]

Iran needed to go 40 years ago. Doing nothing has allowed it to become more powerful and on the verge of nuclear weapons, if it doesn't already have them. Looks like this time they've stolen the Democrat's schtick of word-twisting.


January 8, 2022
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran on Saturday imposed sanctions on dozens more Americans, many of them from the U.S. military, over the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the 51 Americans had been targeted for what it called “terrorism” and human rights violations. The step lets Iranian authorities seize any assets they hold in Iran, but the apparent absence of such assets means it will likely be symbolic.
The ministry said in a statement carried by local media that the 51 had been targeted for “their role in the terrorist crime by the United States against the martyred General Qassem Soleimani and his companions and the promotion of terrorism and violations of fundamental human rights”.
Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards, was killed in Iraq in a drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020, ordered by then President Donald Trump.
Those added to Iran’s sanctions list included U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
In a similar move announced a year ago, Iran imposed sanctions on Trump and several senior U.S. officials over what it called “terrorist and anti-human rights” acts.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking on the second anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination, said this week Trump must face trial for the killing or Tehran would take revenge.
The Trump administration rained sanctions down on Iranian officials, politicians and companies after withdrawing the United States in 2018 from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran and the United States are currently holding indirect talks in Vienna on salvaging the 2015 deal.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Helen Popper)
https://www.oann.com/iran-imposes-sanctions-on-americans-over-2020-killing-of-top-general/

[revelarts]

People have been claiming that Iran is 3-5 years from a nuclear weapon since Jimmy Carter.
I'm thinking we've been lied to.

And, You know, there's something that we in the US never seem to get.. or take responsibility for.
the fact that we OVERTHREW Irans democratically elected president and replace him with our puppet the Shaw who pissed all over the Iranians for us while U.S. corps reaped the bennies of the oil and bank loans etc...

Somehow the Iranians have never forgotten that! would anyone here forget it if it was done to the U.S.?
The shaw was overthrown by crazy muslims, but they're not stupid.

NOW We kill a general and just expect them to play nice and behave like we want them too.
I don't understand the mindset that trys to make them out to be the "real" bad guys.

Not to mention they've never attacked a neighboring country but we sent Saddam Hussan over to fight a war with them. killed 10s of thousand and left unexploded munitions strewn all over parts of the country
WTH?

SO i don't want to hear any crap from folks about how they think I'm being naive, especially if you can't admit that the hands of the US have LONG been full of Iranian blood.
OWN that crap then tell me about how horrible they are and how you're so afraid (not afraid "concerned") they are going to set up a KALIF and come and kill us all with their pitiful army and navy and a the 50 years old one-day-maybe nuke weapon.

the US politicians and military animosity with Iran is NOT based on Irans "power" but it's based on the fact that the western oligarchy doesn't control it.
the American public that believes Iran is a threat is being played for suckers... so the oligarchy can regain control of that nations oil, ports and resources. that's IT.

everything else is BS.

[Gunny]

People have been claiming that Iran is 3-5 years from a nuclear weapon since Jimmy Carter.
I'm thinking we've been lied to.

And, You know, there's something that we in the US never seem to get.. or take responsibility for.
the fact that we OVERTHREW Irans democratically elected president and replace him with our puppet the Shaw who pissed all over the Iranians for us while U.S. corps reaped the bennies of the oil and bank loans etc...

Somehow the Iranians have never forgotten that! would anyone here forget it if it was done to the U.S.?
The shaw was overthrown by crazy muslims, but they're not stupid.

NOW We kill a general and just expect them to play nice and behave like we want them too.
I don't understand the mindset that trys to make them out to be the "real" bad guys.

Not to mention they've never attacked a neighboring country but we sent Saddam Hussan over to fight a war with them. killed 10s of thousand and left unexploded munitions strewn all over parts of the country
WTH?

SO i don't want to hear any crap from folks about how they think I'm being naive, especially if you can't admit that the hands of the US have LONG been full of Iranian blood.
OWN that crap then tell me about how horrible they are and how you're so afraid (not afraid "concerned") they are going to set up a KALIF and come and kill us all with their pitiful army and navy and a the 50 years old one-day-maybe nuke weapon.

the US politicians and military animosity with Iran is NOT based on Irans "power" but it's based on the fact that the western oligarchy doesn't control it.
the American public that believes Iran is a threat is being played for suckers... so the oligarchy can regain control of that nations oil, ports and resources. that's IT.

everything else is BS.Not naive. Uneducated. Your history is off a bit. Quite. The Shah was the last "king" of Iran. His father abdicated during WWII and the Prime Minister took over. Pahlavi was reinstalled as Shah after a coup removed the Prime Minister. There was no "democratically elected anything".

The WWII victors carved up the ME. We were part of it and we got Iran and supported the Shah. He had oil, and a border with the USSR. Anything anit-USSR post-WWII was our "ally".

We didn't send Saddam Hussein to do anything. Saddam Hussein went to war with Iran over oil. We supported him with dual use equipment against Iran because Iran had just held our embassy staff hostage for over a year and Khomeini created the state of affairs that currently exists between the US and Iran.

The only any kind of sort of right that you are is that the Shah was a corrupt imperialist. What do you expect from the last of an imperial line? He was nothing to brag about, just as most of our "allies" aren't.

You can incorrectly think what you want, but my issue with Iran, and the military's position at least from 1979-2001 that I know of sure is that Iran is supporting every Islamic terrorist organization in the World. I could give a fuck less what they believe in or who they don't like. Iran's international behavior is unacceptable.

[revelarts]

I know you don't like "copy and paste" replies but i've already said what i had to say WITHOUT copy and pasting but you're under the mistaken impression that i've incorrectly outlined the history SO instead of just insisting i'm correct, i'll quotes some sources.
to backup the accuracy of my original.


Not naive. Uneducated. Your history is off a bit. Quite. The Shah was the last "king" of Iran. His father abdicated during WWII and the Prime Minister took over. Pahlavi was reinstalled as Shah after a coup removed the Prime Minister. There was no "democratically elected anything".
"Mosaddegh reentered public service in 1944, following Reza Shah’s forced abdication in 1941, and was elected again to the Majles. An outspoken advocate of nationalism, he soon played a leading part in successfully opposing the grant to the Soviet Union of an oil concession for northern Iran similar to an existing British concession in southern Iran. He built considerable political strength, based largely on his call to nationalize the concession and installations in Iran of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (see British Petroleum Company PLC). In March 1951 the Majles passed his oil-nationalization act, and his power had grown so great that the shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was virtually forced to appoint him premier....
...A continuing struggle for control of the Iranian government developed between Mosaddegh and the shah. In August 1953, when the shah attempted to dismiss the premier, mobs of Mosaddegh followers took to the streets and forced the shah to leave the country. Within a few days, however, Mosaddegh’s opponents overthrew his regime and restored the shah to power in a coup orchestrated by the U.S. and Great Britain. Mosaddegh was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for treason and, after he had served his sentence, was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. Iran retained nominal sovereignty over its oil facilities, but, under an agreement reached in 1954, it split revenues 50–50 with an international consortium that controlled production and marketing..."
Britanica




We didn't send Saddam Hussein to do anything. Saddam Hussein went to war with Iran over oil. We supported him with dual use equipment against Iran because Iran had just held our embassy staff hostage for over a year and Khomeini created the state of affairs that currently exists between the US and Iran.
"Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan administration feared (Iran Never militarily attacked any other nations EVER) that the Iranian revolutionaries who had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and its vital oilfields. On the-theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions."
https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167-attack/34978.html
AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS used on the Iranian people.

Khomeini created a state of affairs? Seems like our known support of Saddam might CREATE a state of affairs alone but then ADD what went before.
After the U.S. supported the Shah who ruled of Iran from 1942 until 1979 spanned eight U.S. presidents.
"From 1942 onwards, the U.S started to take interest in Iran’s internal matters.
Contracts for oil projects and construction projects were usually given to American, British, and West German companies. Western companies dominated Iranian industries. An American, Arthur Millspaugh was the Treasurer-General of Iran from 1942–45. At the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, more than 50,000 Americans were working in Iran. The entire oil industry was dominated by British and American companies. U.S. oil companies owned 40 percent of the foreign consortium that controlled the purchase of Iranian oil.¹

atrocities
In 1957, with the U.S., Israel, and France’s assistance, the Shah established the SAVAK (a secret police agency), which had the mission of controlling antiregime activities, in doing so the agency committed human rights abuses on Iranian people.

The first generation of SAVAK agents was trained by the CIA. SAVAK was one of the biggest secret police forces in the world. In 1971, a SAVAK official confirmed that their informers included “workers, farmers, students, professors, political parties and other associations.” In 1974, Newsweek claimed SAVAK’s informants to be three million,² about 12% of the adult Iranian population.

John Barry in his article “Watching Torture” writes about his experience when he watched a film with victims being tortured by the SAVAK:

“I recall the reel unspooling with a clatter through the 16mm projector in that apartment with its curtains drawn. The film lasted, I think, for close to an hour, though my memory may be at fault. It seemed endless. I have no words to convey the horror. The film showed sequences of torture on living victims, men and women, all naked and shackled to what looked like a bed frame.

A variety of techniques were demonstrated: cigarette burns to sensitive parts of the body, the effects of electricity, and then on into other savageries I shy from recalling. One technique shown on the film used water. The film was clearly professionally made. There was a commentary, which Ghotbzadeh translated — explaining, among other things, the varying sensitivities of men and women to different techniques, with a filmed example to illustrate each lesson. This was an instructional film. These torture sessions were not even designed to elicit information. The film was intended to teach Savak recruits.³” link (https://historyofyesterday.com/the-shah-of-iran-was-not-a-saint-f8d78814f86)...




The only any kind of sort of right that you are is that the Shah was a corrupt imperialist. What do you expect from the last of an imperial line? He was nothing to brag about, just as most of our "allies" aren't.
You can incorrectly think what you want,

Yes, "the Shah was a corrupt imperialist" with a secret police created by the U.S. Israel and France and trained by the CIA.
What can you expect from that but 30 years of U.S. backed authoritarian control and torture.

Gunny you can incorrectly think what you want, white wash Americas bloody hands if you like.
And ignore the list of legitimate grievances of the Iranian people against the U.S. if you like but don't pretend that Iran has been worse... much less a "threat".
because they have not been.
they'd have to to a LOT more to reach the level of blood and theft that we've waged against them since the 1950s to present day.



but my issue with Iran, and the military's position at least from 1979-2001 that I know of sure is that Iran is supporting every Islamic terrorist organization in the World. I could give a fuck less what they believe in or who they don't like. Iran's international behavior is unacceptable.
"international behavior"
hah. the US needs a clean mirror.

"supporting every Islamic terrorist organization in the World"
not really,
the biggest supporters of islamic terrorist/ism via cash, training and ideology have been the Saudis and the USA.
Exhibit A: Osama bin Laden Saudi raised, funded and U.S. trained, supplied and supported.... until he wasn't... supposedly.
Same for most other major islamic terrorist groups... including those that have attacked Syria, were in Libya etc etc etc.

Iran is played as a boggie man by the western oligarchs who just want to ride it like a call-girl again like they did for 30+ years.

[Gunny]

I know you don't like "copy and paste" replies but i've already said what i had to say WITHOUT copy and pasting but you're under the mistaken impression that i've incorrectly outlined the history SO instead of just insisting i'm correct, i'll quotes some sources.
to backup the accuracy of my original.

"Mosaddegh reentered public service in 1944, following Reza ShahÂ’s forced abdication in 1941, and was elected again to the Majles. An outspoken advocate of nationalism, he soon played a leading part in successfully opposing the grant to the Soviet Union of an oil concession for northern Iran similar to an existing British concession in southern Iran. He built considerable political strength, based largely on his call to nationalize the concession and installations in Iran of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (see British Petroleum Company PLC). In March 1951 the Majles passed his oil-nationalization act, and his power had grown so great that the shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was virtually forced to appoint him premier....
...A continuing struggle for control of the Iranian government developed between Mosaddegh and the shah. In August 1953, when the shah attempted to dismiss the premier, mobs of Mosaddegh followers took to the streets and forced the shah to leave the country. Within a few days, however, Mosaddegh’s opponents overthrew his regime and restored the shah to power in a coup orchestrated by the U.S. and Great Britain. Mosaddegh was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for treason and, after he had served his sentence, was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. Iran retained nominal sovereignty over its oil facilities, but, under an agreement reached in 1954, it split revenues 50–50 with an international consortium that controlled production and marketing..."
Britanica


"Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan administration feared (Iran Never militarily attacked any other nations EVER) that the Iranian revolutionaries who had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and its vital oilfields. On the-theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions."
https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167-attack/34978.html
AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS used on the Iranian people.

Khomeini created a state of affairs? Seems like our known support of Saddam might CREATE a state of affairs alone but then ADD what went before.
After the U.S. supported the Shah who ruled of Iran from 1942 until 1979 spanned eight U.S. presidents.
"From 1942 onwards, the U.S started to take interest in IranÂ’s internal matters.
Contracts for oil projects and construction projects were usually given to American, British, and West German companies. Western companies dominated Iranian industries. An American, Arthur Millspaugh was the Treasurer-General of Iran from 1942–45. At the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, more than 50,000 Americans were working in Iran. The entire oil industry was dominated by British and American companies. U.S. oil companies owned 40 percent of the foreign consortium that controlled the purchase of Iranian oil.¹

atrocities
In 1957, with the U.S., Israel, and FranceÂ’s assistance, the Shah established the SAVAK (a secret police agency), which had the mission of controlling antiregime activities, in doing so the agency committed human rights abuses on Iranian people.

The first generation of SAVAK agents was trained by the CIA. SAVAK was one of the biggest secret police forces in the world. In 1971, a SAVAK official confirmed that their informers included “workers, farmers, students, professors, political parties and other associations.” In 1974, Newsweek claimed SAVAK’s informants to be three million,² about 12% of the adult Iranian population.

John Barry in his article “Watching Torture” writes about his experience when he watched a film with victims being tortured by the SAVAK:

“I recall the reel unspooling with a clatter through the 16mm projector in that apartment with its curtains drawn. The film lasted, I think, for close to an hour, though my memory may be at fault. It seemed endless. I have no words to convey the horror. The film showed sequences of torture on living victims, men and women, all naked and shackled to what looked like a bed frame.

A variety of techniques were demonstrated: cigarette burns to sensitive parts of the body, the effects of electricity, and then on into other savageries I shy from recalling. One technique shown on the film used water. The film was clearly professionally made. There was a commentary, which Ghotbzadeh translated — explaining, among other things, the varying sensitivities of men and women to different techniques, with a filmed example to illustrate each lesson. This was an instructional film. These torture sessions were not even designed to elicit information. The film was intended to teach Savak recruits.³” link (https://historyofyesterday.com/the-shah-of-iran-was-not-a-saint-f8d78814f86)...



Yes, "the Shah was a corrupt imperialist" with a secret police created by the U.S. Israel and France and trained by the CIA.
What can you expect from that but 30 years of U.S. backed authoritarian control and torture.

Gunny you can incorrectly think what you want, white wash Americas bloody hands if you like.
And ignore the list of legitimate grievances of the Iranian people against the U.S. if you like but don't pretend that Iran has been worse... much less a "threat".
because they have not been.
they'd have to to a LOT more to reach the level of blood and theft that we've waged against them since the 1950s to present day.


"international behavior"
hah. the US needs a clean mirror.

"supporting every Islamic terrorist organization in the World"
not really,
the biggest supporters of islamic terrorist/ism via cash, training and ideology have been the Saudis and the USA.
Exhibit A: Osama bin Laden Saudi raised, funded and U.S. trained, supplied and supported.... until he wasn't... supposedly.
Same for most other major islamic terrorist groups... including those that have attacked Syria, were in Libya etc etc etc.

Iran is played as a boggie man by the western oligarchs who just want to ride it like a call-girl again like they did for 30+ years.Your cut n paste just reiterates your previous misinformation, and is quite telling of your age. Your "education" on Iran come out of a book? Or google? Wiki? Regardless, it obvious you are either not old enough to have anything but third-hand information which smells suspiciously of leftist revisionism that twists us into the bad guys and has been doing so long enough that too many people believe it. You are the first to cry foul when you smell an institutional rat and start questioning any-and-everything. Yet here you clearly display you're willing to accept "the US us the bad guys" narrative that isn't what was happening at the time, in the real World. We were living IN THAT TIME, not 50 years of second-guessing and vilifying into the future.

The Cold War isn't right wing fiction. It was real. We lived it every day. I was born into it and was in my 30s before they changed its name (as current events show it was never "over"). The entire World was "us or them"/East v West. If you weren't on the West's/East's side, you were on theirs. Any government declaring itself a "democracy" and anti-communist was supported by the West. Not just the US, the West. Vietnam, Korea, and nowhere in the ME is there nor was there any democratically elected government in the Western sense of the word. This mythical "democratically elected government" you place in Iran was a fairy tale. Mosaddegh took on the King and lost. The West, not just the US, supported the Shah as rightful ruler. Keep in mind what REALLY mattered in the West was that Iran did not fall into communist hands.

The West basically ran a protection racket for oil they justified as the latter paying for the former. A blind eye was turned to people like the Shah, Diem, Rhee to achieve the greater good. We do the same internally here every 4 years -- choose between the lesser of two evils rather than anything resembling the best of anything.

Feel free to go back to that era and find where that was considered "bad". It was in fact common practice and was considered just. You don't have to like it, but it changes nothing that was happening THEN.

You want to vilify the Shah as YOUR "boogeyman" which sets Khomeini up as your "savior"? Repressive monarchy is worse than oppressive theocracy? Iran was not a threat to the West nor the entire World under the Shah. It's a threat to our life on Earth under Khomeini. Scratch the downplaying Iran BS. It is known fact Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is intent on converting or killing anyone who doesn't follow its warped version of Islam. Iran supports ALL the wars, violence and killing currently in the ME. Hezbollah, Hamas, boco harum, the taliban, ISIS -- Iran's fingerprints are all over those groups and more.

That's not "inventing a boogeyman". It's identifying a REAL threat to World peace NOW.

[revelarts]

Your cut n paste just reiterates your previous misinformation, and is quite telling of your age. Your "education" on Iran come out of a book? Or google? Wiki? Regardless, it obvious you are either not old enough to have anything but third-hand information which smells suspiciously of leftist revisionism that twists us into the bad guys and has been doing so long enough that too many people believe it. You are the first to cry foul when you smell an institutional rat and start questioning any-and-everything. Yet here you clearly display you're willing to accept "the US us the bad guys" narrative that isn't what was happening at the time, in the real World. We were living IN THAT TIME, not 50 years of second-guessing and vilifying into the future.

The Cold War isn't right wing fiction. It was real. We lived it every day. I was born into it and was in my 30s before they changed its name (as current events show it was never "over"). The entire World was "us or them"/East v West. If you weren't on the West's/East's side, you were on theirs. Any government declaring itself a "democracy" and anti-communist was supported by the West. Not just the US, the West. Vietnam, Korea, and nowhere in the ME is there nor was there any democratically elected government in the Western sense of the word. This mythical "democratically elected government" you place in Iran was a fairy tale. Mosaddegh took on the King and lost. The West, not just the US, supported the Shah as rightful ruler. Keep in mind what REALLY mattered in the West was that Iran did not fall into communist hands.

The West basically ran a protection racket for oil they justified as the latter paying for the former. A blind eye was turned to people like the Shah, Diem, Rhee to achieve the greater good. We do the same internally here every 4 years -- choose between the lesser of two evils rather than anything resembling the best of anything.

Feel free to go back to that era and find where that was considered "bad". It was in fact common practice and was considered just. You don't have to like it, but it changes nothing that was happening THEN.

You want to vilify the Shah as YOUR "boogeyman" which sets Khomeini up as your "savior"? Repressive monarchy is worse than oppressive theocracy? Iran was not a threat to the West nor the entire World under the Shah. It's a threat to our life on Earth under Khomeini. Scratch the downplaying Iran BS. It is known fact Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is intent on converting or killing anyone who doesn't follow its warped version of Islam. Iran supports ALL the wars, violence and killing currently in the ME. Hezbollah, Hamas, boco harum, the taliban, ISIS -- Iran's fingerprints are all over those groups and more.

That's not "inventing a boogeyman". It's identifying a REAL threat to World peace NOW.

Seems like you can only view America as the GOOD GUY and therefore can justify every atrocity done in the name of the US as for the "greater good". whatever that is.

See I don't have a problem saying that Khomeini is bad, AND Saddam was Bad, and the Shah was BAD, and what the U.S. did to Iran was bad.
you seem to simply want to justify the U.S. actions and not see ANY legit motives for other nations REACTIONS.

Sorry, But while I'm very happy that A cop saved a school bus from kidnappers AND stopped a bank robbery it doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that he didn't rape 10 female convicts in the city jail when we've got video.
I'm not going say that "it's the real world" and we have to put up with it. No, the guy needs to go to jail and if a couple of the raped women took shots at him on the way home I'm not going act shocked, as if the cop is innocent... or the rape victims didn't have good reasons for trying.

bottom line, I have no compulsion to make the U.S. actions (past or present) look better or worse than they are.
And it's my contention that UNLESS we are honest about WHY other countries think about the U.S. the way they do... based on our REAL actions... then we can't honestly move forward with real negotiations.

The rapist cop can't sit down at the table with the raped convict and pretend that he did no wrong and just accuse the perp of trying to kill him for NO reason. no matter how much good he's done in the world.

But I'm guessing this isn't a POV you and few others here can even process.
America:saluting2: just can't be viewed in any light but a good one.

[Gunny]

I'm not done. You're interfering with my Sunday morning coffee n smokes :)

You mentioned Saudi Arabia. Draw the parallel between pre-Islamic Iran and Saudi Arabia. Our duly elected Democrats keep us dependent on the ME for oil. One thing I give Trump props for is he had us energy independent. THAT changes the whole playing field but doesn't suit where the left gets its money.

Ever been to the ME? It sucks. All of it. In Saudi Arabia, we couldn't go off the camp. Can't have a beer. Can't wear any religious emblems anyone can see. US military women have to cover up if they leave the camp's perimeter. They just started letting women drive and the left and MSM hailed it like it was the Second Coming. Can't do this - can't do that. We CAN however kill the designated enemy :rolleyes:

If an when Saudi Arabia and/or any of those kingdoms fall to the shia or revolution, we'll be odd man out there just as we were in Iran in 79. We don't learn from our mistakes.

We have our own oil. If we were not dependent on ME oil, we would have no reason to give a shit WHO was doing what over there EXCEPT: Iran's ambition of World domination and its willingness to destroy itself to destroy us is a threat to the World. Not just the US.

If you need a class on the different Islamic sects and what they're fighting over let me know and I can write you a book. I like to know where I'm being sent and why, and who I'm killing and why.

I didn't read it in a book nor on the internet :)