The narrative being pushed justifying the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani is that he was planning to attack numerous American embassies. There was allegedly some sort of intelligence that proved this. But all this is highly questionable.
The Defense Secretary Mark Esper was on television earlier basically saying that this narrative was bullshit. He said bluntly that he hadn’t seen any evidence or intelligence corroborating these claims.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Sunday that he did not see intelligence that supported President Trump’s comments that the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike was plotting attacks against four U.S. embassies.
Esper said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he shared Trump’s view that planning was underway but did not cite intelligence information he saw to support the claims.
“What the president said was he believed there probably and could’ve been attacks against additional embassies. I shared that view. I know other members of the national security team shared that view. That’s why I deployed thousands of American paratroopers to the Middle East to reinforce our embassy in Baghdad and other sites throughout the region,” Esper said.
The whole situation is bizarre and crazy.
They are basically trying to con the public into thinking that the people rioting against the American embassy in Baghdad did so because of some sinister Iranian plot. They are expanding upon this lie by claiming that the General they killed was plotting multiple attacks on multiple American embassies.
Zero evidence has been provided proving any of this. And even if there was, is it justifiable or strategically smart to launch drone strikes against anybody who could be potentially planning something bad?
The only reason people rioted against the American embassy in Baghdad was because American forces launched attacks against pro-Iranian militiamen in Iraq which killed numerous people. These American strikes were in response to these militias allegedly killing an American contractor. Another claim that has not yet been proven.
Unfortunately, the American people are largely either uninformed or stupid, so they will be able to get away with these lies. Even if the Defense Secretary is directly contradicting those lies.
