Oops. that was a silly typo.

People who work for Swiss tell me flght bookings to Israel are much reduced

What "war crimes"?

Tom

Meanwhile, #1 on the Top 40 again after many decades:

Tom

Killing civilians in Iraq who happened to be too near to Soleimani.

Even ex president Bush, who had learnt from previous mistakes in the Middle East, and ex president Obama, they both have found authorizing of the attack on Iranian‘s leader too risky. This only shows that the US’s president is playing with fire. Hopefully not a countdown to WWIII or it will lead to conflict on much larger scale ... Scary stuff!

Iran rolls back nuclear deal commitments https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51001167

Another unintended consequence.

The international coalition fighting Islamic State has suspended operations against the terrorist group so its forces can concentrate on protecting US, UK and other troops at bases in Iraq following the killing of Qassem Suleimani.

Source

Meanwhile;
Since the killing of Suleimani, the US has said it will deploy an additional 3,500 troops in the Middle East to deter Iran from an aggressive response. They are expected to be based in Kuwait.
So much for Trump's promise to stop endless wars in the ME and bring the troops home.

Exactly!
There is no war. The war with Irak ended May 1st. 2003 (declared to be over by Bush), there is no war declared to Iran either.

Therefore this was not a war crime but a simple terrorist attack by US-citizens. The fact that it was soldiers (I suppose) following orders from Trump would be a separate case re Trumps incitement to murder. And it all ended in multiple murder.

Y'all can sugarcoat (schönreden) any way you want. It was plain murder. Just like Khashoggi, Bin Laden and .... and .....
I don't care how much the masses say they deserved it, in the 21st century (actually even before) no matter who gets a trial and a sentence. In the US - slightly behind times - this in the end may be a death sentence. Ruled by a judge.

Not surprising that the US has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)


So you can groan as much as you like - I will happily collect the groans.

__________________
It's all a matter or perspective.
So move your butt and look at it from the other side

Source

Iran not claiming any credit, so far.

The United States now governs on Twitter.

Actually:
U.S. Constitution
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11:

“THE CONGRESS SHALL HAVE POWER TO DECLARE WAR.”

al-Shabaab is Sunni and Iran is Shiite so there is no possibility that this was organised by Iran, Trump will just have to find somebody else to bomb.
p.s. The three dead were all Americans, every sympathy to them and their families.

As I said, this is not an isolated case:

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-kill-chain/

Every single one of those drone-strikes to take out high-value enemy targets has to be signed by POTUS.

I don't really see a reason to make Soleimani's case special.
I also don't see a reason to single out the current POTUS even though he "just" continues a scheme set-up by his predecessors (who had....different...views and judgments on some things).

Trump likes - loves, celebrates - his role as a wildcard, a "joker".

He literally wants to be seen as the man who goes where no-one has gone before, where no-one has dared to go before. The fact that Obama and Bush shied away from taking out Soleimani was probably making that option more attractive than it was a deterrent.

Iran has smart people in government and intelligence - they should have seen this coming, after that drone-attack job in Saudi-Arabia at the latest. If they don't have a psychological profile of Trump, their analysts aren't worth a piece of camel-dung.

Soleimani was an actor in a war-zone, there is no way to sugar-coat that.

He was meddling with (and sometimes steering) every single armed conflict in the Arab world as well as several others.
He was living on borrowed time and probably fully knew (and accepted) it. Maybe, deep down, dying as a martyr was part of a larger plan anyway?
He was, by all accounts, a very smart man after all.


Should we lament that the world is seemingly on the edge of a dystopian nightmare where there is no law but that of the one who has the most powerful military?
Hell, yes!

But it's IMO hypocrisy to put all the blame on Trump.
Some of the blame must go to us, for not electing better politicians.

He may have been an actor in somebody’s warzone, but certainly not the US’ as they haven’t (yet!) declared a war there.

That is true in theory, but as pointed out we've long since passed the point where countries declare war before they take part in a conflict.


In some cases, there isn't even a country or a person to whom you could deliver a declaration of war.



Doesn't change the fact, of course, that we're "not in Kansas anymore", regarding the future outlook.

The latest info seems to suggest that the US were actually involved in inviting him to Baghdad to have the Iraqi PM mediate the various situations arising (Embassy attack, etc).

They have really broken the spirit of Xenia there, although I must admit seeing Captain Bonespurs rolling a bolder up a hill for the rest of eternity does cheer the soul somewhat.

Well, it's government. One hand can perfectly undo a thing the other hand tries to do.


And as these operations are often highly compartmentalized...

Whilst I would generally agree with you on government incompetence, I think in this instance, opportunism has probably trumped incompetence.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.


;-)

The Iraq PM has confirmed he had a meeting planned with Soleimani that day; killing an invited guest is really taboo in those countries.

More [unexpected!] consequences.
Crude oil is now over US$ 70; ca. 6% increase and US stock market futures are sharply down today after falls on Friday, gold is at a seven-year high.

US citizens have been advised to leave Iraq which destroys Trump's and Pompeo's claims that the killing has made the world a safer place.

Trump has now threatened Iraq with sanctions if they force US troops to leave; bizarre!

Pompeo also improbably claimed that the Obama administration "kicked off" war with Iran with its deal that froze Iran's enrichment activity and halted what the US said was a march towards a nuclear bomb.

There is increasing skepticism over the claim that Soleimani was planning an imminent attack.

And you think Trump as heard of Sunni and Shiite?
If so, he thinks they are types of hamburgers.

I don't. I felt the same way when Obama did his stunt with Bin Laden etc. etc.
This. I don't believe in lamenting though. I think it must be corrected. The laws are all there .... unless the POTUS has a license for murder that I don't know of.

I would have been misunderstood if thought that I put all the blame on Trump, he's just following the path other presidents have started to trample and it will become a road if not stopped.

The US is rapidly descending to the level of Saudi Arabia, Iran+Irak who's systems they claim to despise so much. There is not much "western" left in the US, the government there seems to be a joke and the president (who ever at the time) free to play.

__________________
It's all a matter or perspective.
So move your butt and look at it from the other side