Trump tells supporters in Wisconsin that Democrats ‘cannot protect your family’ by

Trump use of doctored Pelosi-Schumer photo draws Muslim ire by Associated Press•
Scroll back up to restore default view.NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump circulated a fake image on Monday depicting congressional Democrats’ top-ranked leaders in traditional Muslim attire in front of the Iranian flag, drawing criticism that he was promoting Islamophobic tropes.The manipulated photo retweeted by Trump showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Muslim garb with the caption: “The corrupted Dems trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue #NancyPelosiFakeNews.” Trump, a Republican, had previously faulted Democrats for criticizing his administration’s targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, but his use of Muslim imagery as part of that effort drew pushback from Muslim American advocates.“The image is a hodgepodge of anti-Muslim tropes and garb from many traditions including some that are frequently used to stereotype and attack Muslims,” Madihha Ahussain, special counsel at the nonprofit group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement. “It’s disappointing but not surprising that the president would use his massive Twitter platform to spread this kind of harmful, ignorant, anti-Muslim bigotry.” Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of the Muslim American group Emgage Action — named for its mission to engage Muslim Americans — also criticized Trump’s decision to amplify the doctored photo of Pelosi and Schumer. “There’s no place for it, irrespective of political differences,” he said in an interview.Schumer tweeted his own pushback to Trump, asking: “How low can you go?”The image that Trump retweeted has been circulating on the internet for a few days. The Twitter account that Trump got it from has a history of tweeting in both English and Persian about Iranian issues, promoting pro-Trump content and criticizing U.S. Democrats.White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham defended Trump’s retweet of the image, telling Fox News on Monday that the tweet was intended to show Democrats “have been parroting Iranian talking points, and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill the Americans.”Democrats have raised questions about the Trump administration’s rationale for ordering the Soleimani killing, warning about the resulting heightened tensions with Iran. But no Democrats have praised Soleimani, and Pelosi herself described him last week as a “terrible person” who “did bad things.”_Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in New York contributed to this report.
Democratic candidates debate who should be next commander in chief — and attack the current one by Dylan Stableford Senior Writer,Yahoo News•Former Vice President Joe Biden, left, watches as Sen. Bernie Sanders answers a question during Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)Foreign and military policy, mostly absent from the Democratic debates so far, were on the minds of the moderators — and candidates — Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa. Six candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination spent the first 30 minutes of the debate defending their positions on foreign policy and explaining to voters why they are best qualified to be the next commander in chief.Mostly, they sought to differentiate themselves from President Trump.Sen. Bernie Sanders began by highlighting his 2002 vote against the war in Iraq — which former Vice President Joe Biden, then a senator, supported.The Vermont senator called it „the worst foreign policy blunder” in modern U.S. history.”As Joe well knows, we lost 4,500 brave troops. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died,” Sanders said. „We have spent trillions on this endless war — money that should’ve gone into health care and education.”Biden acknowledged that his vote was a mistake, but also said he led the effort to end the war as vice president.”I know what it’s like to send a son or daughter to war, like our colleague on this stage,” Biden said, nodding to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve in Afghanistan.Sanders and Biden both attacked President Trump over his decision to authorize the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The White House initially said that there was an imminent threat to American lives, but the administration has not publicly disclosed intelligence supporting that assertion. Over the weekend, Trump claimed that Soleimani was planning to attack four U.S. embassies, but Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that he had not seen such evidence.Biden said that Trump „flat out lied” about the threat to U.S. embassies. Sanders compared it to the events that led to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.”Both of those wars were based on lies,” Sanders said. „Right now, what I fear very much, is we have a president who is lying again and could drag us into a war that is even worse.”Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she believes the United States should pull its troops out of the Middle East.”We have to stop this mindset that we can do everything with combat troops,” she said.Buttigieg criticized Trump, who campaigned on ending „endless wars,” over his decision to send nearly 3,000 more troops to the Middle East in the wake of Soleimani’s killing. And he put it in personal terms.”Whenever I see that happen, I think about the day we shipped out and the time that was set aside to say goodbye to family members,” Buttigieg said. I remember walking with a friend of mine, another lieutenant I trained with, as we walked away and his 1 1/2-year-old boy was toddling after him, not understanding why his father wasn’t turning back to scoop him up. And it took all the strength he had not to turn around and look at his boy one more time.”Tom Steyer, the billionaire activist and long-shot presidential candidate, was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, one of the co-moderators, under what circumstances a President Steyer would take military action.”I would take military action to protect the lives and safety of American citizens,” Steyer said. „But what we can see in the Middle East and what this conversation shows is that there is no real strategy in what we’re trying to accomplish in the Middle East. Obviously Mr. Trump has no strategy.”In the same answer, Steyer pivoted from the conflict in the Middle East to wildfires in Australia.”We’re confronted by this issue everyone’s talking about,” Steyer said. „But at the same time there’s the gigantic climate issue in Australia which also requires the same kind of value-driven colation buildig that we actually should be using in the Middle East.”
AFP•

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the first major leader to publicly state Iran could be to blame for the plane crash Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the first major leader to publicly state Iran could be to blame for the plane crash (AFP Photo/Dave Chan)Ottawa (AFP) – Victims of an Iran-downed jetliner would still be alive if not for a recent escalation of tensions partly triggered by the United States, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.”I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” Trudeau said in an interview with Global television, according to a transcript shared with other media.He added that the international community has been „very, very clear about needing to have a non-nuclear Iran” but also in „managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well.”The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 was shot down by a missile shortly after taking off from Tehran before dawn last Wednesday, killing all 176 on board.By Ottawa’s count, 57 of the passengers were Canadian citizens, many of them dual Iranian nationals.Longstanding US-Iran tensions have soared since January 3 when missiles fired from a US drone killed a top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad’s airport.Iran responded with a barrage of missiles at two US bases in Iraq, inflicting no casualties in what was seen as an attempt to prevent a spiral of escalation.But hours later, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet, in what Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called a „human error.”Trudeau also said he would have „obviously” liked a heads-up from Washington about the drone strike on Soleimani.- ‘Somebody’s responsible’ -Over the weekend, Trudeau demanded that Iran provide Canada with „full clarity” on the airliner shootdown.The prime minister said he made the demand in a call with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who admitted earlier Saturday that the airliner was mistakenly shot down by Iranian missiles.At a televised press conference on Saturday, Trudeau said he told Rouhani the admission was „an important step” but „many more steps must be taken.””A full and complete investigation must be conducted,” he said. „We need full clarity on how such a horrific tragedy could have occurred.”
„Iran must take full responsibility,” Trudeau said.
A Toronto law student who lost his mother in the crash echoed Trudeau’s statement in an interview with AFP.
„Once you start to cope with the sorrow a little bit, then came the tragic news that it was downed by a missile, and it was almost as if she died again,” Amirali Alavi said.
The 27-year-old said that „thinking how it could have been avoided, how somebody’s responsible for it” made him furious and inconsolable.
The accident was a deep blow to the Iranian community in Canada, which is home to North America’s largest Iranian diaspora. According to the last census, there were 210,000 Canadians of Iranian origin living in this country in 2016.
„I am, of course, outraged and furious that families across this country are grieving the loss of their loved ones, that the Iranian-Canadian community is suffering so greatly, that all Canadians are shocked and appalled at the senseless loss of life,” Trudeau said Saturday.
„It’s a huge tragedy for the entire country and not just for the Iranian community.”
Asked whether Ottawa would demand that Tehran pay financial compensation to the families of Canadian victims, Trudeau indicated that it would.
The prime minister also said he insisted to Rouhani that Canada be allowed to participate in the investigation.
Three members of a Canadian rapid deployment team flying to Tehran will have access to the plane’s wreckage and blackboxes, Iranian officials confirmed Monday.
AFP•US military bases in the Middle East Ain al-Asad Air Base (Iraq) (AFP) – Moments after volleys of Iranian missiles began to batter Iraq’s Ain al-Asad airbase, US soldiers at the desert facility lost contact with their ultra-powerful — and expensive — eyes in the sky.At the time the attack was launched at 1:35 am on January 8, the US army was flying seven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over Iraq to monitor bases where US-led coalition forces are deployed.They included MQ-1C Gray Eagles, advanced surveillance drones that can fly for as long as 27 hours and carry a payload of up to four Hellfire missiles.”We thought it may lead to a ground assault, so we kept the aircraft up,” said one of the pilots, 26-year-old Staff Sergeant Costin Herwig.Herwig was flying a Gray Eagle when the first Iranian missile struck the base, retaliation for the January 3 killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad.Most of the other 1,500 US soldiers had been tucked away in bunkers for two hours, after advance warning from superiors.But 14 pilots had stayed in dark containers-turned-cockpits to remotely fly the „birds” and monitor essential feeds from their high-powered cameras.
A US soldier walks past a drone at the Ain al-Asad airbase in the western Iraqi province of Anbar (AFP Photo/Ayman Henna)The first missile blasted dust into their shelter but the pilots stayed put, Herwig told AFP during a press tour of the base organised by the coalition.The next rounds came closer and closer, and the light-haired soldier recalled that he had „accepted fate”.”We thought we were basically done,” he said.- ‘There was no control’ -But the real crisis was yet to come.The volleys of missiles, which soldiers said lasted about three hours, slammed into sleeping quarters directly adjacent to the pilots’ operations rooms.”No more than a minute after the last round hit, I was heading over to the bunkers on the far back side and saw the fire was burning all through our fibre lines,” said First Sergeant Wesley Kilpatrick.
Extensive damage at Ain al-Asad military airbase used by US and other foreign troops in the western Iraqi province of Anbar after Iran last week launched a wave of missiles at the sprawling desert facility (AFP Photo/Ayman HENNA)Those lines link the virtual cockpits to antennas then satellites that send signals to the Gray Eagles and pull the cameras’ feeds back onto the screens at Ain al-Asad.”With the fibre lines burnt, there was no control,” said Kilpatrick.
The soldiers could no longer locate the drones and were left blind to events in the air — and on the ground.
If a drone had been shot down, for example, the besieged teams at Ain al-Asad could not have known.
„It’s a pretty big deal, because it’s so expensive and there’s a lot of stuff on them that we don’t want other people to have or the enemy to get,” said Herwig.
A single Gray Eagle costs around $7 million, according to 2019 army budget estimates.
They have been used in Iraq since at least 2017 by the coalition to help fight the Islamic State jihadist group.
The coalition is required to get a green light from the Iraqi government to fly drones and planes, but those permissions had expired several days before the Iran attacks.
The US army had kept the drones in the air anyway, a senior American defence official told reporters, after months of rocket attacks on Iraqi bases where their forces are based.
– Beat the clock –
As the bombs crashed closer on January 8 and with the drones unaccounted for, the pilots finally clambered into bunkers.
But as soon as the blasts stopped, they rushed back out, now facing a race against time to get their signals up and running so they could find — and land — the Gray Eagles.
As dawn started to break, soldiers scrambled to replace 500 metres (yards) of melted fibre cables and reprogramme satellites so they could reconnect to the UAVs.
Last step? Land the „birds.”
The Iranian ballistic missiles had punched holes across Ain al-Asad’s airfield and the control tower was empty.
„The airfield was shut down so we had to land without talking to anybody. We didn’t know where any (other) aircraft was. That part was pretty stressful,” said Herwig.
The priority was one Grey Eagle that had been scheduled to land just as the missile attack began, and which stayed flying throughout until it was worryingly low on fuel.
The pilots worked for hours to land each drone one by one, their adrenaline pumping even as other soldiers were recovering, showering and assessing the damage.
At around 9:00 am, the final drone was brought down to earth.
„We landed all our own birds back on site,” said Kilpatrick, smiling in relief and pride.
„It was quite a feat.”
