Hard to see how that wouldn’t start a war.
It doesn’t, no doubt about it. Didn’t serve the US interests to invade Iraq, but we did it anyway. Shit happens. No doubt you’ve heard the rumors suggesting that Iran conducted a plan of misinformation regarding Iraq and WMD? A war between the US and Iraq would have been totally in Irans interest, with a cherry on top. Question remains, are they that smart?
Maybe not, but are they this dumb?
PBS is showing a report on this as I type, takeaway is: man, what a stupid plot! He was whispering in The Man’s ear the whole time.
Maybe that’s significant . . . Who else, I wonder, has interests that might be served right now by stirring up even-more-than-usual trouble between Iran and the U.S./SA?
Well, clearly, the Dutch!
“Did Iran Almost/Actually Commit An Act of War Against The USA?”
Did the USA commit “an act of war” against Pakistan when we took out Bin Hiding?
How about against Yemen when we took out Al-Awlaki?
We’ve got pretty much NO moral high ground left to stand on anymore. And it’s our own fault.
If I rip off Al Capone’s house, I’m still a burglar.
It’s an act of war in my opinion. Congress isn’t going to declare war over it. The Saudi govt is not going to do nothing. But we may never hear about what it does.
I’d be nervous if I was an Iranian spook.
. . . It’s a plot to take back Indonesia somehow, it’s got to be . . .
Arguably it did, and you might have noticed that parts of the Pakistani government were very unhappy about it and they have responded by cutting off some cooperation with the U.S. and charging some people with treason. Of course it’s also true that Bin Laden’s organization committed crimes against Pakistan.
Since the President of Yemen gave permission for the drone strikes, I’m going to say no.
What is the price of tea in China these days?
I have long suspected, BG, due to the intelligence of your opinions, that you might well be a fellow stalwart member of Americans United to Beat the Dutch.
Not unless you think Bin Laden was an agent of the Pakistan government.
Certainly not.
And not just any old Americans. The BBC was saying this morning that one of those arrested had told an FBI undercover agent agent to kill the ambassador outside the restaurant if possible, but inside the restaurant if need be. The undercover agent reportedly pointed out that this was a restaurant frequented by US senators and that there would be many senators there, and the plotter reportedly responded: “That’s okay, no problem.”
I thought conducting military operations on foreign soil without permission could be interpreted as an act of war. Why couldn’t Pakistan call the op to get Bin Ladin an act of war?
What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think the operation to kill Bin Laden was an act of war against Pakistan?
Perhaps it was. OTOH, harboring Bin Laden on its soil could also be considered an act of war by Pakistan against the U.S.
I was under the impression that under international law proper cause for war was unauthorized military actions on the soil of another. So, yes, attacking Bin Ladin in Pakistan could be cause for war if they wished. Harboring a known declared enemy is a little less clear, but it seems it could.
:mad: Don’t get me started! Not without a slug of “Dutch courage” first . . .
I don’t see how “harboring a known enemy” could be an act of war. IANAL, but it seems that every country in the world has some sort of defectors from other countries living there. Defectors who could easily be classified as “known enemies”, making dozens or hundreds of acts of war being committed yearly. That wouldn’t seem to be a very operable definition of the term.
Certainly the air raid to kill ObL was an act of war, assuming we didn’t have a secret OK from the Pakistani government.
From what I’ve read, they (whoever ‘they’ turns out to be) were planning to kill him via a bomb in a crowded restaurant…which would mean that while the Saudis would certainly be pissed off, I doubt the US would have been too happy having a bunch of our citizens killed in the process.
From some of the things I’ve read there is some skepticism that Iran was behind this, since their usual MO seems to be to use outside terror groups to do their dirty work that are ‘in the family’, so to speak…i.e. terror organizations that are Muslim and that have been vetted by Iranian covert groups. This plot seemed to involve the use of a Mexican drug cartel to do the dirty work, which would be a pretty large departure from what Iran normally does. That said, they might have thought it would sufficiently confuse the situation to be able to skate.
To answer your question here though (I haven’t read through the whole thread, so it might have been answered already…sorry if it has), Ahmadinejad might not (probably didn’t) know anything about it if Qud’s force was behind it.
-XT