Threat to America? maybe, even though he was battling in the front line against the ISIS. (maybe that made U.S. upset too?)
Threat to the Iranian people? not really, this guy was a general of the army responsible for activities outside of Iranian borders.

There are far worse officials out there U.S. could get rid of, IF they were truly looking out for the Iranian people. Saying U.S. did this in support of Iranians protesting is in fact, a joke.

Why do I have to explain to you that sometimes things are mutually beneficial two different groups.

And if you don't think Soleimani was a threat to the Iranian people (not people in his government, but actual real people) then why am I bothering at all? They've been protesting against his regime since November. 1500 people killed in 3 months. 7000 imprisoned. Yeah, what a great fucking guy. Really looking out for the welfare of Iran FailFish

Read a bit more about him here, from like 6 years ago when not many people were talking about him yet. Or not, just stick with the "Trump is bad WW3 lol" rhetoric. Dude is pure evil.

I don't want to be rude, but what happened to the decent discourse that used to take place here? Now it's nothing but fucking logical fallacies thrown up any time a point is made.

And right next to Iran is Saudi Arabia a country that beheads protesters.

This kid was arrested at 13 for protesting. Now that he is 18 they want to chop his head off.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rtaja-qureiris

Report from human rights watch
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/201...s/saudi-arabia


More info on protests: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...f07_story.html

Let's not forget the killing of reporter Jamal Khashoggi.

But trump will not do anything about be he is best buds with Saudi Arabia and his son in law has a direct line to the king.

The topic here is Iran

Unfortunately too many people state their opinion while having little to no knowledge on the subject. People who pay attention to world events know about the long history of protests against the Iranian regime by its citizens over the years, and that the IRGC acts as the equivalent of both the FBI and CIA and takes heavy-handed action against dissent within its own country. When it comes to people like Manic as an example he can never admit he's wrong and will religiously ignore relevant points and derail the topic away from anything proving he's wrong. He's doing exactly that right now in this thread. He's also been caught posting fraudulent opinion as fact on multiple occasions to try and save face (a LOT in the Canadian politics thread). It's not even trolling, it's willful ignorance and an online forum gives anyone and everyone a megaphone.

I just like to clear up that within the past two years, I spent over 14 months in Iran. I'm not your typical guy here watching fox or cnn, or reading another American written media coverage.

This guy, Soleimani, was frankly blown a bit out of proportion. In Iran and out of Iran. And that's what the system does in iran. They make idols out of their own people and the west noticed this particular guy, because : 1) he was boots on the ground and in the front lines killing the ISIS, 2) his activities were outside of Iranian borders. Now, saying this one single guy is the regime, is just plain wrong. Removing the number one guy, supreme leader, might do some serious damage, but even then everyone is replaceable, just as they already put another commander in Soleimani's place. My point is, Trump doesn't want to change the system in Iran. And killing this soleimani guy did not really change anything in the system; everyone already forgot about him, seems like he was expired anyway.
As for the protests, those numbers are not official, definitely not 1500 dead or that many imprisoned. The protests weren't that long, lasted less than a week; around 400 dead and less than 1000 imprisoned.

The topic is why trump killed him and escalated tensions in the middle east causing the death of over 170 people. Every day the story changes from the Whitehouse.

I'm glad you're able to offer a unique perspective on all this, especially presumably hearing a lot of propaganda from the Iranian side.

You question the death toll of 1500 people, provided by Reuters citing Iranian insiders. You refute that number based on what?

Reuters has come up with some fascinating leaks in China and HK, which end up being proven later, so I tend to believe what they say.

As far as saying "this one guy is the whole regime", I admit I haven't read every post in this thread, but I don't know where you got that quote from. So I can't really respond any further. That would be an absolutely idiotic thing to say, to the point where I think whoever told you that may have brain damage, or they are just trolling you. Ignore people who are that stupid. I had to do the same in the HK thread, and now it's dead unfortunately.

It's interesting.

A friend of mine who I debate quite often with and is a market trader, fully believes that Iran and the US coordinated the attack Soleimani together, and that the Iranian government "wanted" to get rid of him.

He claims this is the case because the oil markets moved heavily after the assassination, and a bunch of folks made quite a lot of money as a result.

I have not heard such theory before, and I disagree with him, but it's fascinating that some people are coming to that conclusion.

I dunno about that.

The oil market always move bigly whenever destablization happens in the middle east. Let not kid ourselves, The world superpower's interest in the middle east is based on the oil reserve NOT humanitarian crisis.
It doesn't neccesary point to a conspiracy.

Those that seriously believe America/Trump killed Soleimani to "liberate" the Iranian people need to check themselves.

There is always a reason the State intervene or not intervene in another nation's business. its always to its own interest and all the bullshit about "saving the people" is just that, bullshit and propganda.

USA can easily top Soleimani's 1500 death highscore in a matter of minutes.

New video shows the launching of the two missiles was 30 seconds apart. This is no longer an accident.

https://nypost.com/2020/01/14/iran-p...ukraine-plane/

Aren't sams normally fired in salvos of 2 brotha.

Well, you mentioned in your earlier post that protests have been going on for 3 months, which is inaccurate. Media (including Reuters) exaggerate the numbers here and there; the reality is protests were only in a few big cities and didn't last too long. There are a few outlets here and there (BBC) suggesting 400 were dead which is closer to the reality. (I really hope it isn't 1500) Obviously none of the sources are from the regime side. They never admitted killing anyone and no numbers are coming from them. There was a bigger protest exactly two years ago in January, that one had more casualties unfortunately.

Interesting, but if it wasn't an accident, then why would they deliberately do such a thing, knowing the truth would eventually come out and make them look like idiots?
And it's not like there were any American/military/or person of interest on that flight, just a bunch of ordinary citizens of other counties, and students and families from Iran..

It's because the government is fucked. They cannot be trusted. They are corrupt, they don't give two shits about the people of Iran, They do whatever they want all in the name of religion and then enforce whatever they want in the name of religion. Mixing religion and politics is never a good idea. The Shah needs to take over, I don't care how it happens but until it happens the people will never be free.

They fired those missiles for a reason that we don't know about. It could have been a person of interest, they could have just been flexing for America but who knows. I can bet money that it was a reason to somehow to benefit the government.


I'm Persian/Canadian btw. Born and raised here however I've travelled to Iran a couple of times and hated every second. Will never go back until the mullahs are out.

This is my last contribution to the thread because it makes my blood boil reading about the dumb shit this government does.

Rest in Peace to the people on the flight and my condolences to all those affected by the loss of a loved one.

Hmmm, I'm not so convinced about that one

Not always, myriad of factors. In this case the airliner was close to the battery which is designed for short range intercepts. They should have been able to visually ID the target as the TOR M1 has an optical tracking IR camera. The first missile struck the target and another was fired a full ten seconds after the threat was neutralized. A second missile CAN fire automatically if the onboard computers determine the threat remains based on telemetry or it can be engaged again manually; but they also have the ability to kill the launches. They shot the airliner, would have been able to visually see it as an airliner and not a missile (not to mention its known track, climb, airspeed, altitude, and obvious size before the first shot), and shot it again. Why is anyone's guess. EW could be a factor.

The Commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Amir-Ali Hajizadeh stated publicly that they were at Alert Level III and ordered the air space to be closed to all civilian traffic and that it was ignored. The number keeps changing but there were 6-9 departures out of Tehran prior to PS752, all but one of which flew the same departure route and they were not engaged. The IRGC were informed of PS752's delayed departure by airport authorities. The Commander states that the AA operator didn't confirm the target or ask for permission to fire because "his communication system was apparently disrupted – whether because of jamming systems or the high traffic. For that reason, he fails to contact [his commanders]".

I commend the IRGC and Iranian government for coming clean on it being shot down, but I don't think we're being told the whole story. You'll note in his debrief he never mentions the second missile. I stress again the fault of the airline and the civilian airspace controllers for putting this aircraft in this position. It could have happened to any of the flights that departed before, and stunningly AFTER PS752 was shot down.

The newb recruit working his 1st shift at the SAM control probably wanted to make sure that the "F18" was neutralized. Or he played too many video games and got trigger happy.

Not seeing the big deal whether it was one missile or a 2nd missile whatever 10 or 30 seconds apart. Doesn't really change much about the narrative. For all we know, the guy was shitting his pants after the first and he accidentally pressed the green button a 2nd time instead of powering down.

What I'm not buying is that Iran wanted that plane downed because there is some super agent on board. I would believe that other wacky theory about both Iran and US wanting the general dead over that theory of Iran taking out someone on the plane and having 175 other casualty. it's still a tragic accident whether it was 1 or 2 missiles.

if it wasn't hit by a 2nd missile was there any chance it could've returned to the airport, saving some lives?

or it could miss and hit the terminal killing even more...

I just looked this up on open source and the system houses the SA-N-9 which is supersonic at terminal velocity so yeah definitely short range. I don't know what their dated system is like but I've had the opportunity to use IR tracking on a learjet before and you can easily identify it apart from a fighter jet based on its silhouette and heat signature let alone a commercial airliner. The operator "should" have been able to ID the target, but I can imagine someone dropping the ball when you factor in environmental stressors at the time. Although you'd think the order to fire still has to be given to the operator from their CoC or officer in charge with them, you're not allowed to just pop shit off when you want...its what SOP's are for.

But yeah I know there's built in redundancys to kill launches based on the type of system this is, operator error?

I'll watch the debrief in a bit man.

I read that the Iranians said the SAM operator had a 10 sec window to decide whether it was a civilian aircraft or an American warplane and decided to take the shot.

That said, I don't know how you can't determine that the target wasn't a jet with the speed that it was flying at...

But it does change the narrative because it helps deductively figure out whether it was intentional or unintentional if you are familiar with how the system works. With the optical tracking IR feature you can visually confirm whether its a hit or miss on the target, and like JD¹³ said there are built in redundancy's to avoid a negligent discharge in these systems. I mentioned earlier this is a command guidance based system which means the missile requires continuous targeting data to be fed to it until it reaches it's target, otherwise it will not know where to go. I'm interested to see what this investigation will uncover in due time.

Bro ... it was unintentionally intentional. By that I mean, they wanted to shoot it down (intentionally) because they thought it was a US fighter but they obviously made a friggin huge (unintentional) mistake. Isn't that enough?

So 2 missiles = they wanted to intentionally shoot down a passenger plane to take out 1 guy ... no, not buying that theory. Sorry. I know there is evil in the world but not stupidity to that degree. If, in the end, there is evidence to corroborate this proposterous theory, then those who are responsible should get a 'pass go and go straight to hell' card.