Soleimani and the "Imminent Threat" Furor: Usual Nonsense from the Anti-Trumpers

OK. Qasim Soleimani is dead as dead can be--and that is a very good thing. As noted here and many other places, ol' QS was both a serial and a mass murderer on an international scale. He took particular "joy" in plotting and executing the death and maiming of Americans. He was a brutal fanatic who did not hesitate to murder his own countrymen, as well. He had risen to the near top of the Iranian gangster state and was the architect behind that state's campaign of international terror. Shed no tears for QS.

Well, shed no tears for QS unless, it seems, you're a member of the Trump Derangement Syndrome Squad (TDSS) and just can't see that President Trump was absolutely within his rights as President, absolutely right as a matter of principle, and absolutely required by his oath of office to protect and defend the United States in ordering the lethal attack on QS. He violated no laws; he acted in the best interests of the United States and the civilized world.

In fact, Trump likely did Iran a favor by removing the malignant QS tumor from the Iranian body politic, thus allowing the other gangsters in Tehran the opportunity to reassess their current path to total destruction. We see some preliminary reports--unverified, so far--of a mini-purge within the ranks of QS's old outfit, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. I hope that's true, and results from the Tehran Dons trying to make some course adjustments. The belated admission by the Tehran gangsters that, yes, indeed, they accidentally shot down the Ukrainian civilian jet over Tehran would seem an indication of possibly some change underway. Perhaps. Let's not be too optimistic, but . . . well, we'll see.

I don't understand the furor coming mostly from the TDSS over the "imminent threat" piece of the rationale to hit QS. That comprises a minor factor, an almost irrelevant one. "Imminent," of course, is a judgment call. Did we have to know with 99.99% certainty that QS and his band of merry thugs planned to hit US targets within a day, a week, a month, a year? Who cares? Why had QS gone to Baghdad to meet the leadership of the proxy Iranian militia that had just assaulted the US Embassy and previously killed a US civilian? They had future attacks in mind, and of that we can have no doubt.

The police do not have to show that a known murderer presents an "imminent" threat to others to take that murderer off the streets. They can remove him for actions already committed. Reasonable people could see a murderer who has killed multiple times over many years, bragged about it, and vowed to continue, as posing an "imminent" threat to the community--however you define "imminent."

I have worked a great deal with the product of US and other intelligence agencies. Some of it proves good; some not so good, to say the least. In this case, however, and again, there can exist no doubt--for reasonable people--that given QS's track record over the past nearly thirty years, that, at a minimum, he continued to pose a threat to Americans and others. Did Bin Laden or Al Baghdadi pose an "imminent" threat? I don't know, you don't know, none of us knows, and it's not relevant. What they already had done put them outside the boundaries of civilization. They deserved to die. Period.

Soleimani presented a proven, clear, and continuing lethal threat to American citizens. Period.

Soleimani deserved to die. Period.