Trump says he stopped airstrike on Iran because 150 would have died

The Guardian ^ | 6/21/19 | Patrick Wintour

[hardspunned]

Donald Trump has said the US air force was “cocked and loaded” to attack three Iranian targets on Friday morning, but he called off the strike with 10 minutes to spare after being told that the airstrike might kill as many as 150 people. Trump said in a series of morning tweets that he decided late on Thursday that the death toll was not a proportionate response to the Iranian shooting down of a US spy drone off the Iranian coast 24 hours earlier.

The tweets revealed how close the world may have come to a Middle East conflagration, and raised questions over why the commander-in-chief was told so late in the planning of a military operation about the predicted loss of life involved. It would be routine for a president to be informed of the likely civilian casualties when the options are first presented. Trump tweeted: “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, ‘How many will die?’ ‘150 people, sir’, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. “I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!”

[hardspunned]

It is also reported by Doug Macgregor, who was there, that Trump asked what would happen next? He was told basically we’re off to war. He vetoed the action. He told the same Pentagon usurpers to bring these very same troops who are being attacked now home. The neocon/globalists kept them there for this opportunity. No Trump this time.

[Alberta's Child]

I said at the time that the incident reported there was the defining moment of the Trump administration -- and set him apart from any of his predecessors in the last 100+ years, along with anyone else in that bucket of warmongering globalist @ssholes in the U.S. government.

I honestly think the Beltway was shocked that a U.S. president would be so prudent and morally discerning that he'd even consider the human cost of a U.S. military campaign. They despise Trump for this ... and I have said for more than four years now that it's no coincidence that the original "Ukraine hoax" impeachment debacle began shortly after that momentous day in June 2019.

[hardspunned]

Well said.

[Leaning Right]

Bill Clinton once said that his biggest regret was that he was not a war president. All the great presidents (Washington, Lincoln, FDR) ran wars, and Clinton regretted that he wasn’t able to join that group.

Clinton did order the bombing of Kosovo. But I guess Kosovo wasn’t a big enough war for him.

Anyway, only one recent president didn’t aspire to be a great “war president”. And that president was of course Donald Trump.

[hardspunned]

He was the greatest peacemaking president in history. He will do it again if he’s not assassinated.

[riverrunner]

All depends who the 150 were.

We were not concerned about a 150 Nazi’s.

Or 10’s of thousands of Japanize.

[Jim W N]

Compare Trump’s prudent and moral discernment here to Bush Jr.’s moral turpitude in his careless and unjust invasion of Iraq to avenge his dad at the cost of so many brave lives.

[Lurker]

“ Clinton did order the bombing of Kosovo.”

There was a blue dress involved in that decision.

L

[dfwgator]

[Lurker]

Yep.

L

[Alberta's Child]

We were not concerned about a 150 Nazi’s. Or 10’s of thousands of Japanize.

In some cases, maybe we should have been.

[vortigern]

A US drone was shot down. No human life was lost. In my view, Trump made a courageous decision not to kill 150 people over one unmanned drone.

[bgill]

None of the bs would be happening today if the demonrats hadn’t cheated.

[Alberta's Child]

At the time, I suspected there was more to it than that.

The media reported that the drone was shot down in international airspace, but I assumed from the start that it was shot down either over Iran's territorial waters, or over the part of the Strait of Hormuz where the legal status (international waters vs. Iran's territorial waters) is in dispute.

[Paul R.]

What you are leaving out is that Iran kept misbehaving so then we knocked off Soleimani (which Trump brags about.) And Iran stepped back for a bit.

[Lurker]

“In some cases, maybe we should have been.”

Which cases do you have in mind? Just curious.

L

[Alberta's Child]

Like Dresden and Tokyo, for example. Targeting civilians in an indiscriminate bombing campaign is morally reprehensible.

[Lurker]

Both Dresden and Tokyo were legitimate military targets. Dresden was a major rail yard and Tokyo was the nerve center of Japanese military and political leadership.

The bombings weren’t indiscriminate given the available technology of the time.

L

[Bratch]

It's all a scam.

The MIC funds both sides via cryptocurrency.

After everything gets blown up, the Blackrock types come in and rebuild the infrastructure.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Everybody wins. Except us.

[exDemMom]

That’s one of the things I loved about President Trump.

He recognized that the military is composed of living human beings and that any strikes against another country are against living human beings. That is so different from the liberal politician attitude that the military are just fodder to be thrown around on a whim.