100 Marines to Baghdad (Iran conflict discussion)(Reopened & Merged) (2 Viewers)

The protesters were organized by Code Pink. They originated as a pro-Cuban communist front organization and morphed into an anti-war organization during the Bush years. They're best known for showing up at congressional hearings with bloody palms. The woman on the right below is an editor, protesting a hospital bombing in Afghanistan a few years ago. I believe that's her in the picture above as well.


2015 Code Pink protester, Medea Benjamin

Regarding today's protests . . .

“No justice, no peace. U.S. out of the Middle East,” hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel a few blocks away.

Similar protests were held in New York, Chicago and other cities. Organizers at Code Pink, a women-led anti-war group, said protests were scheduled on Saturday in numerous U.S. cities and towns.


"a woman-led anti-war group"
That's laughable, given their history.

Medea Benjamin - Co Founder, Code Pink

I don’t think it’s the same woman. I reverse googled the image Intense posted and I think I know now why he didn’t source it. It’s from a twitter feed of a Townhall contributor. He says it’s an L.A. anti-war protest. He says the woman is memorializing the slain general, but doesn’t identify her. Or really provide any proof of his statement.

So I looked up Townhall. It is a biased site that fails fact checks. Here is what MediaBiasFactCheck says about it:

”Overall, we rate Townhall Right Biased based on story selection that always favors the right and denigrates the left. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to the use of columnists that have poor fact check records. (7/19/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 2/1/2019)”

DD, you don’t even have the right city. Intense’s photo is from Los Angeles.

MT15 said:

DD, you don’t even have the right city. Intense’s photo is from Los Angeles.

Click to expand...

Oh? If I'm mistaken, my apologies.

So Code Pink isn't supporting the protests in Los Angeles?

Joe Okc said:

Not trying to be stubborn there Ward... But I knew the story was from Iraq and not Iran when I posted it. Perhaps my mistake was not clarifying that distinction when I posted the story. I'll make sure to do that from now on...

Click to expand...

Ok, then what are these reports from Iran you were speaking of?

Dadsdream said:

Oh? If I'm mistaken, my apologies.

So Code Pink isn't supporting the protests in Los Angeles?

Click to expand...

I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure you have misidentified the woman in the picture that Intense posted.

MT15 said:

I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure you have misidentified the woman in the picture that Intense posted.

Click to expand...

But, you don't know.

She's quoted in an article with a picture from the Los Angeles protest. Please feel free to look up The New York Times, if you wish.



Protests were initially planned in 10 to 15 cities and the number grew to 30 by Thursday. When the general was killed near the Baghdad airport early on Friday, the number of participating cities more than doubled, Mr. Becker said.

As of Saturday afternoon, more than 80 protests were organized, Medea Benjamin, a director of Code Pink, said.

She said she had not seen numbers like this since 2003.

“One thing that’s very different this time is that more young people and people of color came out to protest,” Ms. Benjamin added.

Ms. Benjamin said the surge of protesters reflected a momentum and energy that she hoped would be seen and heard by lawmaker


I first became interested in Ms. Benjamin and Code Pink when they started harassing wounded warriors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, waving "No Blood For Oil" signs, chanting Viet Nam era "baby killers" chants and junk like that.

If they're supporting these new protests, others can go right ahead and back them. I won't. Ever.

Of all the people I speak with who are rational, I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't think this was a bad man and needed to be dealt with. The problem is where it was done and seemingly no attempt at understanding what may come next.

Devildog said:

Of all the people I speak with who are rational, I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't think this was a bad man and needed to be dealt with. The problem is where it was done and seemingly no attempt at understanding what may come next.

Click to expand...

Good points, I think you are right in that it seems pretty clear from reporting that the decision was hasty and the administration has no plan for how to avoid a tit for tat escalation that could lead to direct and protracted conflict. And that is very concerning. However, there is one part I have to disagree with a little bit.

The two prior administrations both had every opportunity to assassinate Soleimani and chose not to do it. Not because he wasn’t a bad guy or they didn’t think he deserved it, but because according to former military and intelligence officers under both prior presidents, assassinating an Iranian head of state is both enormously escalatory(in that it barrels past the lines we have respected for 40 years) and the cost/benefit analysis just doesn’t make sense.

Which I would speculate the Trump administration is aware of as well and that is partly why they felt the need to seemingly lie and exacerbate the danger he posed, by claiming an imminent threat, in order to buff up the justification for taking this action.

N.O.Bronco said:

Good points, I think you are right in that it seems pretty clear from reporting that the decision was hasty and the administration has no plan for how to avoid a tit for tat escalation that could lead to direct and protracted conflict. And that is very concerning. However, there is one part I have to disagree with a little bit.

The two prior administrations both had every opportunity to assassinate Soleimani and chose not to do it. Not because he wasn’t a bad guy or they didn’t think he deserved it, but because according to former military and intelligence officers under both prior presidents, assassinating an Iranian head of state is both enormously escalatory(in that it barrels past the lines we have respected for 40 years) and the cost/benefit analysis just doesn’t make sense.

Which I would speculate the Trump administration is aware of as well and that is partly why they felt the need to seemingly lie and exacerbate the danger he posed, by claiming an imminent threat, in order to buff up the justification for taking this action.

Click to expand...

All they did is make a dangerous man a bunch of dangerous men because he is now a martyr.

That is real problem for other nations now.

Ok, so an Iranian general bebops around Iraq like he owns the place and the Iraqis do nothing.
Iranian militiamen attack our embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqis don't stop it.
Can we stand back a minute and reflect on what an utter failure the Iraq War turned out to be?
Can we at last admit that every American, every Iraqi who died in that war died for nothing.
Trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives and we accomplished exactly dick.
And Trump wants to do it all again.

Jesus H Christ

Dadsdream said:

But, you don't know.

She's quoted in an article with a picture from the Los Angeles protest. Please feel free to look up The New York Times, if you wish.

Protests were initially planned in 10 to 15 cities and the number grew to 30 by Thursday. When the general was killed near the Baghdad airport early on Friday, the number of participating cities more than doubled, Mr. Becker said.

As of Saturday afternoon, more than 80 protests were organized, Medea Benjamin, a director of Code Pink, said.

She said she had not seen numbers like this since 2003.

“One thing that’s very different this time is that more young people and people of color came out to protest,” Ms. Benjamin added.

Ms. Benjamin said the surge of protesters reflected a momentum and energy that she hoped would be seen and heard by lawmaker

Antiwar Protesters Across U.S. Condemn Killing of Suleimani (Published 2020)

Demonstrations in more than 80 communities were organized to call attention to rising tensions in the Middle East.

www.nytimes.com

I first became interested in Ms. Benjamin and Code Pink when they started harassing wounded warriors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, waving "No Blood For Oil" signs, chanting Viet Nam era "baby killers" chants and junk like that.

If they're supporting these new protests, others can go right ahead and back them. I won't. Ever.

Click to expand...

I think it’s extremely irresponsible to speculate on the identity of the woman in Intense’s photo and irresponsible of him to think he can tell what she is thinking. All we know is that she is holding a photo of the assassinated general that illustrates how is he now viewed as martyred by Iranians. We don’t know why she is holding the photo nor what her thoughts are on the general.

Devildog said:

Of all the people I speak with who are rational, I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't think this was a bad man and needed to be dealt with. The problem is where it was done and seemingly no attempt at understanding what may come next.

Click to expand...

Its also problematic that Trump claims responsibility, IMO. We hit a general of a sovereign state that we aren’t at war with in another country we aren’t at war with. Openly. How many thousands of young men are now going to martyr themselves to avenge this death?

The only place I ever see code pink given meaningful airtime is Foxnews..

They are more a favorite conservative straw man than protesters.

Devildog said:

Of all the people I speak with who are rational, I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't think this was a bad man and needed to be dealt with. The problem is where it was done and seemingly no attempt at understanding what may come next.

Click to expand...

The exact reason for the where and why it was done now will never be known to us. I am sure timing (do it now or loose the chance) had something to do with it. But no matter why or how it was done the Democrats will always disagree with it if Trump was involved in getting it done.

samiam5211 said:

The only place I ever see code pink given meaningful airtime is Foxnews..

They are more a favorite conservative straw man than protesters.

Click to expand...

Watch a lot of Fox?

Archies Ghost said:

Watch a lot of Fox?

Click to expand...

Yes.

If my TV was on from 2000-2010, it was on Foxnews.

If I’m at my parents house the TV is in Foxnews.

reubenray said:

The exact reason for the where and why it was done now will never be known to us. I am sure timing (do it now or loose the chance) had something to do with it. But no matter why or how it was done the Democrats will always disagree with it if Trump was involved in getting it done.

Click to expand...

This is a totally unfair attitude for you to take. You act like there is no reason to think Trump might not be on the up and up, which just ignores reality.

The administration says there was a plot which spelled imminent danger that necessitated the strike. Most people are waiting for them to provide evidence of some sort. It was a bold move that the US hasn’t done since World War II, to assassinate this man. Nobody who is sane want the US to go to war with Iraq. It’s proper to be skeptical about this move.

To add to the general skepticism, we also have the SOS saying that this assassination has made US citizens in the region safer, at the same exact time his own department was issuing warnings for all US citizens to evacuate Iraq immediately. To do so by air, but if unable to do so by ground (!), and to not approach the US embassy (!).

And this morning we hear the Iraqi parliament has voted to expel US forces from their country.

I was also reading that in Iran, which was noted to be undergoing some internal unrest, the people are now uniting against the US who they are seeing as a common enemy no matter which side of the political unrest they were on before the assassination.

To paint people who oppose this move as simply being against it because “Trump” is both overly simplistic and insulting at the same time. There were valid reasons that both the Obama and Bush administrations never felt it was a good move to assassinate this man. We have a current president who has poor impulse control, and who watches way too much tv.

And Trump is now tweeting threats to destroy Iran’s cultural sites, which if carried out would most probably be considered a war crime. There’s some question about what he could possibly mean, but bombing historical and or religious sites is what most people are taking from it, and certainly what Iranians are taking him to mean.