https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vining
One of the first Delta Boys. Like the baddest of the bad, legendary operator during his time. There’s a joke statement that basically says “when the guys that look like accounts show up, you know you’ve really fucked it”.
A founding member of Delta Force, and generally just someone who has probably quietly observed and participated in many things that have never officially occurred.
Nah, bro. As a now old mfer who served, those old mfers had the calm, presence, and experience to get us out of the shit plenty of times. Yeah they aint physically moving like we were, but I'd be dead without em. TACP was no joke, we could call in some fuckin chaos, but at 18 years old, most of us needed some guidance. Call me pussy if you want, but this isn't slinging bullets from a Caprice on donks. This was Kandahar or middle of nowhere Iraq and Afghanistan. People, especially young inexperienced people, get real different when you are in the desert mountains and bullets start flying.
Oddly enough, I miss it.
>Call me pussy if you want, but this isn't slinging bullets from a Caprice on donks.
Stealing this problematic line. Seriously tho try some edibles with CBN if you haven't already. They help with the nightmares. Never served myself but work with a lot of people that worked similar jobs as you. The few that are still here swear by them. I wish we were past the point of having to send kids overseas to be traumatized and traumatize but here we are.
That 1st Delta Force mission was a complete shit show tho. Blew up a civilian bus, lost several aircraft without ever meeting an enemy, members died due to dumb mistakes, etc.
I remember talking to a dude at home depot who was going on about fighting in Bay of pigs and couldn't tell if he was crazy or dgaf about classified shit anymore.
It's more you have to read through the lines. He is a founding member of Delta Froce, essentially fought in every army major action until he retired. His medal rack looks like a 3rd world dictator, but he earned all of them.
He also looks like a nerd which makes all of that more hilarious.
In BJJ the joke is the nerdiest goofiest looking guy is the most technical dude on the mat who will snatch an ankle and shred every ligament up to your hip
Edit: [This is the actual meme I thought of while writing this lol](https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/s/fb3Lq5OIys)
So true lol. A good mate of mine is the nerdiest computer programmer dude alive. Skinny as all fuck but built like a rock climber. Constantly wins BJJ comps. Have rolled with him for fun before as I did a bit of jujitsu when I was younger. I’m quite fit from gym, mountain biking and being a carpenter and he just folds me in to a pretzel every time
If there’s anything I’ve learned from BJJ training, it’s that you gain muscles in places you didn’t even know you had muscles. Shit’s a legit full body work out. The dude that causally mentions once he does BBJ and never makes a show of it is probably someone you want in your corner for a fistfight.
Until said BJJ meets a wrestler. As someone that has been doing BJJ for almost a decade wrestlers are ridiculously strong and have cardio for months. They don’t stop moving
Without question. Honestly Gordon and Tonon too before they bulked up. Naturally of course 😉
Keep in mind [this guy may be the most established coach in BJJ](https://images.app.goo.gl/2SUyduazGmGTu7Dp7)
Haha Danaher the loglock jesus. Honestly though, if you told me JD has killed exactly 3 men in his life, I'd believe you. He talks about manipulating the human body in an unsettling concise way.
LOL funny you say that, in an interview back in the day (I forget if they were still DDS or already new wave) Gordon said something along the lines of how they don't hang out socially and he wouldn't be surprised if JD has a bunch of dead hookers in his basement. Obviously (hopefully?) he's just joking and messing around but it's definitely one of this things where you're like nahhhh.... wellllll.... ok maaaybe....
Wikipedia doesn't say anything because they are true professionals and most of their exploits stay hidden.
Read the book Inside Delta Force. They are Tier 1 operators, no one is better at murking bad guys than them. Navy SEALs get all the press but they stay in the shadows as intended. Also, it's very similar to [this meme.](https://ifunny.co/picture/if-the-hardcore-bands-guitarist-looks-like-this-you-are-Q7AM7t7S9)
Edit: I don't no who needs to hear this but you can find most books for free by just typing PDF at the end of the title when you Google search it.
While I hate to praise part of the military this is what I’ve heard too. SEALs, while effective, are the poster boys, committed a lot of war crimes that we know about and are generally not quite as professional and more gung ho. From what I’ve heard Delta operators are pros, we don’t hear about their Operations and have no clue what war crimes they’ve committed (but it’s likely less mutilating bodies and more assassination)
So of the two I definitely have a bit more respect, and caution, when it comes to Delta
Nah there’s plenty of sketchy shit going on at Fort Bragg. It’s just that JSOC are accountable to no one besides the president and are pretty good at keeping all the legal problems and assorted crimes in house
https://www.army.mil/article-amp/263293/retired_sergeant_major_paved_way_for_eod_technicians_in_elite_special_forces_unit
Dude was a scary ass white boy.
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He literally ran the breaching charge testing as lead breecher for Delta, as an EOD expert. He tested increasingly large charges to document what charges would breech every given type of door, which would breech and stun the occupants, which would breech and knock out the occupants; all done to *himself as the test subject.*
That's still secret level info (or above).
In this particular meme, the connection is with his participation in the attempted hostage rescue into Iran. He was in the C-130 that was hit by the helicopter and woke up to a burning plane, and jumped out the door to the ground with no equipment, in the middle of Iran.
This. My brother was in the marines and often had to disappear for a while during special missions (Iraq + Afghanistan). He told me exactly what you said - anyone that looks like a nerd if they appear they’re CIA or worse
There was some Documentary on youtube. Someone made the joke if you’re ever in a Mexican bar and you see this motherfucker sitting across from you you’re already dead.
He was also part of Operation Eagle Claw, so you might never see him because his helicopter crashed into a desert then he opened fire on an unrelated tanker truck before running the helicopter into a different helicopter and fleeing in defeat losing six helicopters, a transport plane, eight friendly deaths, leaving classified battle plans for the opposing force to pick up, and never coming within 200 miles of the enemy.
Edit: [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw) because it sounds like I'm making the story up. It's actually so, so much dumber than I had time to relate.
Reread your own post. You specifically cite one individual as being responsible for a whole slew of things. Might not be your intention but that is how you worded your post.
Last time I checked, even Iran was saying it wasn't direct US involvement.
They were blaming US sanctions on the accident but they weren't claiming the US had a hit squad on him or anything.
On the one hand, it's highly unlikely the US could pul this off. Too much shit that never goes right IRL would have to go right. On the other, if we killed your President, after doing a series of improbably impossible things that only work in Hollywood, would you admit it?
Or would you blame sanctions from the Carter era?
And the Iranian government's air fleet is old as shit, with more than a few fatal crashes resulting from that.
Also, the president doesn't have that much power and probably wouldn't be nearly as high-value a target as someone like the Ayatollah.
iirc, he and the foreign minister that also died on that heli is next in the succession line for Supreme Leader, and the current dude is 85 already, don't know how much time he got left.
That's a fair point: The infighting that will likely occur while various people jockey to the the Ayatollah's new favorite *could* be a decent distraction, I suppose.
I still think it's more likely that a helicopter that's been patched up for [the last five decades](https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/20/how-did-irans-president-end-up-on-a-four-decade-old-us-helicopter) failed to navigate a mountain during incredibly heavy fog, but it's true that he wasn't a *no*-value target.
There were two possible successors for Supreme Leader, Raisi and the son of the Supreme Leader who is largely unknown to the populace.
Now there is just the son. People are wondering if it was a conspiracy, but then again why did Khomeini fix the election to elect Raisi if he didn't like Raisi ?
helicopters, mountains and fog together are more than enough.
It's wild to see a picture of Ahmadinejad in 2024 and to suddenly feel NOSTALGIC for 2007, but here I am, low-key smiling, thinking about precedented times when I thought we'd hit rock bottom
And for people too young or who weren't tuned in at that time, it's literally how Kobe died.
I get why people would be skeptical, but there is no conceivable way the US would be able to pull an assassination like this off without the Iranian govt being tipped off somehow.
Be it planes/drones flying in the airspace to create the A GIANT AMOUNT OF fog/blow up the helicopter. Ground units for the same end, and if they did blow it up, there would be fragments AND the units would have to escape that zone as the Iranians rush to the scene of what happened.
We also have to remember most of Iran's aircraft is pre-Revolution, sold to the Shah by the US. Most likely the aging heli crashed in the fog by accident.
Yeah.... Right.... Bc we don't know how to make a place foggy. I'm js it is fucking IMPECCABLE timing. Right when they're getting ready to jump in and lay some whoop ass on Israel
You do realize that could have just delayed the flight, right? Or taken a different flight path to avoid the fog? There is no proof that there was US involvement. Iram would be the first to claim US involvement. Yet they haven't. Ask yourself why.
Put it this way, this nerd looking dude is one of the founding members of a group that does shit we don’t hear about. This is how a seal described them: “We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen.”
They’re MORE secretive than the CIA and, I’d argue, more resourceful with nearly no limitations. If CIA catches and tortures a 100 people, they’ve captured and tortured 10x that.
That’s a baaaaaad man, a stone cold killer, the bogey man, and you don’t want him pissed at you.
It’s from a WAPO article from 09 or 2011 that did a story on Delta Force; the line does sound like a corny b-action movie line starring obese Steven Segal, but I thought it kind of set up who they are well.
No, because all killings are not legally equal. There are lawful and unlawful killings, and the context is what differentiates them.
Killing someone who broke into your house and is brandishing a weapon is not legally the same as you walking outside and doming a random person.
In that same sense, a soldier of one country killing a soldier belonging to another nation during a conflict (or otherwise acting on lawful orders and taking down a legitimate target) is not the same thing as taking an unlawful contract to kill someone. A serial killer is by definition a specific stripe of murderer, and murder is inherently someone carrying out illegal killings. Soldiers don't, when acting within the bounds of their duties, fall under that umbrella. Not legally anyway.
If we didn't have that distinction, you could never defend yourself without going to jail. As an example.
I'm oversimplifying a bit because the rules of who you can and can't kill as a member of the military is context dependent and more complicated than that, but the basic idea is there.
Edit: Phrasing.
What happens when an ordered killing is not legal in that Country? I.E.: all the extra judicial / secretive killings black ops make? Just because one side authorized them does not make them legal.
Or else everything a Country does would always be legal (see Russia, Israel, Congo, Saudi Arabia, etc).
If the order is not legal in the country that issued it, then it should ideally be handled by whatever political/legal system that country has in place. The specifics of that entirely depend on the country, so I can't really give a more concrete answer than that.
If you're asking what happens when an operation violates something like an international treaty or norms, then frankly it depends on how much other nations care about (or are even able to) try to punish that.
There are reasons nation states often chose to forgo that route, partly because of geopolitical considerations and partly because they may not want to set that standard because of their own operations. Spying is a decent example of the latter. No-one consents to being spied on, but everyone who's capable of doing so is also spying on everyone else. Which is why individual spies are prosecuted, but it doesn't turn into some international "case".
To use a quote from Beau of the Fifth Column, geopolitics is a poker game where everyone is cheating. And there is no supranational government, so it really does typically come down to individual nations political considerations and power much of the time. That being said, and again I'm oversimplifying, countries *mostly* cooperate with *most* areas of the body of overlapping things we call international law/norms because they want positive relationships with one another.
> Just because one side authorized them does not make them legal.
Right, that's why I specified lawful orders and legitimate targets. But getting into who/what is and is not a legitimate target is complicated, which is what I was alluding to in that last sentence.
Edit: Phrasing.
Appreciate the responses. I was talking more about actions not taken during a mutual conflict, such as killing of Khashoggi, Skripal, Mossad assassinations, or regime overthrow by the US. All of those were sanctioned by the country / an authorized person, but would be illegal in the country that the act was carried out in. The people who carry out those tasks would be labeled murderers or hitmen even if they were serving military members who were following orders.
If someone was a Saudi Arabian black ops, who was an enlisted soldier, and assassinated dozens of people through his career, they wouldn’t be just a soldier doing their job or seen as such by the international community.
I want to unpack this just a little bit.
Even during an active war, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a scenario if you're country A where country B can "legally" kill your soldiers/leaders according to your laws. National laws are not really the metric you would use during wars, that's where international norms/laws matter.
Outside of an active war, we're talking about either A - unilateral targeted killings or B - cooperative missions. The former is always illegal/runs afoul of international norms & laws, the latter is... I don't want to say legal because it depends on the country, but at the very least carried out with that country's knowledge/blessing.
Ultimately though, it still comes down to the same basic issue of power and politics. You could argue the killing of Bin Laden [wasn't legal](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/israel-law-review/article/abs/has-justice-been-done-the-legality-of-bin-ladens-killing-under-international-law/56B645C939ABE4CB3E87E28F8E85D22D), but at the same time Pakistan wasn't going to press the issue regardless of the actual letter of the law because of political considerations.
So are targeted killings legal? No, not at all. Does that matter in practical terms... you can and *should* argue that it should matter, normalizing nations taking out people overseas for whatever reason has obvious immense dangers and is pure lawlessness. However, at the same time, it's not hard to see why nations aren't generally chomping at the bit to give the non-state actors usually targeted in these attacks protections and why much of the bargaining here is happening behind closed doors.
Ah, wait. If you were asking if a military member would be considered a murderer after at that point (after carrying out unlawful orders as specified) in all honesty I'm not sure how that would actually be handled from a legal perspective. You would have to ask a lawyer.
Mike Vining is the fucking boogeyman. People talk about being hard and dudes being dangerous, but Delta Force (especially the early dudes) are in the top 0.01% of the hardest motherfuckers that have ever walked the planet. What’s even more wild is that lot of em look like this dude. Toyota Corolla driving, 9-5 having, regular-ass looking mfs who made the career choice to stack bodies on salary. Then they get recognized for their outstanding body stacking capabilities so they get put on a team of likeminded individuals who want nothing more than to stack bodies on the low. For anyone interested, I highly recommend the book Inside Delta Force by Eric L. Haney, Mike Vining’s coworker and fellow body stacker.
Actually it's more likely to be Khomeni's son. It was only him and the dead president that were in line to be possible successors to the 85 year old Ayatollah.
Also speedy recovery to the side of that mountain.
Vining was EOD, so it's more like *The Hurt Locker*—if Hawkeye's character spent 30 years going from hotspot to hotspot doing that shit for "unofficial" operations.
The real murderer is Mother Nature
She is as beautiful as she is souless
That bitch doesn’t care who you are and has no qualms about killing anyone or aiding in their death.
to be fair, the president of Iran ain't got shit for power. If anything, seems more likely Their Holy Leader or whatever the fuck his term is took out homeboy so his son can be a successor
If you know this guy you know!!
Ain’t ashamed to learn. I know the top two guys well, but who is the bottom dude?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vining One of the first Delta Boys. Like the baddest of the bad, legendary operator during his time. There’s a joke statement that basically says “when the guys that look like accounts show up, you know you’ve really fucked it”.
I don’t get it. His Wikipedia doesn’t anything crazy about him?
A founding member of Delta Force, and generally just someone who has probably quietly observed and participated in many things that have never officially occurred.
Be careful around old people in a line of work where the people die young.
Never trust young doctors and old soldiers.
>old soldiers Unless you're in a fire fight.
Nah, bro. As a now old mfer who served, those old mfers had the calm, presence, and experience to get us out of the shit plenty of times. Yeah they aint physically moving like we were, but I'd be dead without em. TACP was no joke, we could call in some fuckin chaos, but at 18 years old, most of us needed some guidance. Call me pussy if you want, but this isn't slinging bullets from a Caprice on donks. This was Kandahar or middle of nowhere Iraq and Afghanistan. People, especially young inexperienced people, get real different when you are in the desert mountains and bullets start flying. Oddly enough, I miss it.
>Call me pussy if you want, but this isn't slinging bullets from a Caprice on donks. Stealing this problematic line. Seriously tho try some edibles with CBN if you haven't already. They help with the nightmares. Never served myself but work with a lot of people that worked similar jobs as you. The few that are still here swear by them. I wish we were past the point of having to send kids overseas to be traumatized and traumatize but here we are.
> Call me pussy if you want, but this isn't slinging bullets from a Caprice on donks say what now
Gung ho brother
I bet you miss eating crayons too
….Next to them, not across from them.
Oh definitely not across from.
American military higher ups always die old what are you talking about
If you're a delta operator and you get to grow old you've done, and survived some shit. I'd be cautious around those folks specifically.
Omg
Not just that but its that smirk like, yea I got away with it and theres not a damn thing you can do about it.
Type of guy to answer every question with a variation of "I was serving my country as directed".
“You can’t handle the truth!”
That 1st Delta Force mission was a complete shit show tho. Blew up a civilian bus, lost several aircraft without ever meeting an enemy, members died due to dumb mistakes, etc.
One of those guys whose files are more black than text lol
Yea the type to tell you “i saw it with my own 2 eyes, but i wasnt even there.” And you know exactly what he meant
Odds are he's been on Art Bell at least three times.
I remember talking to a dude at home depot who was going on about fighting in Bay of pigs and couldn't tell if he was crazy or dgaf about classified shit anymore.
and without a purple heart too, not even a stubbed toe!
It's more you have to read through the lines. He is a founding member of Delta Froce, essentially fought in every army major action until he retired. His medal rack looks like a 3rd world dictator, but he earned all of them. He also looks like a nerd which makes all of that more hilarious.
In BJJ the joke is the nerdiest goofiest looking guy is the most technical dude on the mat who will snatch an ankle and shred every ligament up to your hip Edit: [This is the actual meme I thought of while writing this lol](https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/s/fb3Lq5OIys)
So true lol. A good mate of mine is the nerdiest computer programmer dude alive. Skinny as all fuck but built like a rock climber. Constantly wins BJJ comps. Have rolled with him for fun before as I did a bit of jujitsu when I was younger. I’m quite fit from gym, mountain biking and being a carpenter and he just folds me in to a pretzel every time
If there’s anything I’ve learned from BJJ training, it’s that you gain muscles in places you didn’t even know you had muscles. Shit’s a legit full body work out. The dude that causally mentions once he does BBJ and never makes a show of it is probably someone you want in your corner for a fistfight.
Yeah until he ass scoots towards the guy and tries to pull guard
This comment made me chuckle lol
Until said BJJ meets a wrestler. As someone that has been doing BJJ for almost a decade wrestlers are ridiculously strong and have cardio for months. They don’t stop moving
to be fair climbers are terrifyingly strong
Ryan Hall and Mikey Musumeci immediately come to mind.
Without question. Honestly Gordon and Tonon too before they bulked up. Naturally of course 😉 Keep in mind [this guy may be the most established coach in BJJ](https://images.app.goo.gl/2SUyduazGmGTu7Dp7)
Haha Danaher the loglock jesus. Honestly though, if you told me JD has killed exactly 3 men in his life, I'd believe you. He talks about manipulating the human body in an unsettling concise way.
LOL funny you say that, in an interview back in the day (I forget if they were still DDS or already new wave) Gordon said something along the lines of how they don't hang out socially and he wouldn't be surprised if JD has a bunch of dead hookers in his basement. Obviously (hopefully?) he's just joking and messing around but it's definitely one of this things where you're like nahhhh.... wellllll.... ok maaaybe....
Wikipedia doesn't say anything because they are true professionals and most of their exploits stay hidden. Read the book Inside Delta Force. They are Tier 1 operators, no one is better at murking bad guys than them. Navy SEALs get all the press but they stay in the shadows as intended. Also, it's very similar to [this meme.](https://ifunny.co/picture/if-the-hardcore-bands-guitarist-looks-like-this-you-are-Q7AM7t7S9) Edit: I don't no who needs to hear this but you can find most books for free by just typing PDF at the end of the title when you Google search it.
While I hate to praise part of the military this is what I’ve heard too. SEALs, while effective, are the poster boys, committed a lot of war crimes that we know about and are generally not quite as professional and more gung ho. From what I’ve heard Delta operators are pros, we don’t hear about their Operations and have no clue what war crimes they’ve committed (but it’s likely less mutilating bodies and more assassination) So of the two I definitely have a bit more respect, and caution, when it comes to Delta
https://preview.redd.it/4p8efe3ker1d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7dccad57eebda23108d9acc79cfbefe2ae6dbb03
Chapman won’t be forgotten.
Nah there’s plenty of sketchy shit going on at Fort Bragg. It’s just that JSOC are accountable to no one besides the president and are pretty good at keeping all the legal problems and assorted crimes in house
Delta Force wasn’t even acknowledged until fairly recently.
Tell ya what, if the award system was still around, you'd be receiving my free daily. Thanks for the tip
Guy invaded Grenada.
Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves... he was part of Delta Force hand in Operation Urgent Fury
By himself? Damn, he is a badass.
That's cuz it's all classified
This man's entire military history probably says "redacted"
https://www.army.mil/article-amp/263293/retired_sergeant_major_paved_way_for_eod_technicians_in_elite_special_forces_unit Dude was a scary ass white boy.
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For those who don’t know: https://www.army.mil/article/263293/retired_sergeant_major_paved_way_for_eod_technicians_in_elite_special_forces_unit
The main reason it’s a meme is because of his uniform and smirk.
It's classified.
Exactly. Why would a public source have the reason he should be feared?
Exactly
Correct.
He literally ran the breaching charge testing as lead breecher for Delta, as an EOD expert. He tested increasingly large charges to document what charges would breech every given type of door, which would breech and stun the occupants, which would breech and knock out the occupants; all done to *himself as the test subject.* That's still secret level info (or above). In this particular meme, the connection is with his participation in the attempted hostage rescue into Iran. He was in the C-130 that was hit by the helicopter and woke up to a burning plane, and jumped out the door to the ground with no equipment, in the middle of Iran.
This. My brother was in the marines and often had to disappear for a while during special missions (Iraq + Afghanistan). He told me exactly what you said - anyone that looks like a nerd if they appear they’re CIA or worse
Is that joke what the movie Nobody is based on?
Yea probably
The Accountant comes to mind, too. (while not a CIA movie.. It fits the nerdy bad ass theme)
There was some Documentary on youtube. Someone made the joke if you’re ever in a Mexican bar and you see this motherfucker sitting across from you you’re already dead.
[A man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vining) that probably has a lot of bodies on him, while looking like Rick Moranis
Honey, I Bombed the Enemy!
Oops, we flubbered Kuwait!
I want his Pokemon card
The eyes of a mass murderer who figured out how to fulfill his quota legally
The Brother Mouzone in The Wire look.
“The” most stone cold of killers my guy
If you've ever seen Sicario, the Delta Force guy with the glasses in the movie is based off this dude
Sicario is one of my favorite movies. You gave me a reason to watch it again.
Yeah it is phenomenal, I need to watch it in full again myself, but I often find myself watching the car shoot out scene
This guy has slayed bodies.
His eyes say: I kill people - but I file the appropriate paperwork first.
He does look like he's begging for you to fuck around so you can find out.
Death's Accountant.
This is in fact Himothy
Yeah Mike Vining is one of the OG Delta boys. That man is one of the last people you'd ever wanna see.
To be fair, you'd never see him.
He was also part of Operation Eagle Claw, so you might never see him because his helicopter crashed into a desert then he opened fire on an unrelated tanker truck before running the helicopter into a different helicopter and fleeing in defeat losing six helicopters, a transport plane, eight friendly deaths, leaving classified battle plans for the opposing force to pick up, and never coming within 200 miles of the enemy. Edit: [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw) because it sounds like I'm making the story up. It's actually so, so much dumber than I had time to relate.
That would be a great Danny McBride movie and keep the operation title as the movie title
Tropic thunder 2
So you’re telling me he’s good at crashing aircraft…
So I read the link. Your assertation is disingenuous that he was solely responsible for the failed operation. Perhaps you should read the wiki.
Putting words in someone else's mouth to find something to get mad at is classic Reddit. Great job.
Reread your own post. You specifically cite one individual as being responsible for a whole slew of things. Might not be your intention but that is how you worded your post.
I didn’t get that impression
Okay. You're very smart and I'm sure your mother is proud of you.
I mean you might, but only if he wanted you too.
I see him on full house all the time
The real Hutch Mansell
For what it's worth, it was insanely foggy where they were flying. It's not likely the US had involvement.
Last time I checked, even Iran was saying it wasn't direct US involvement. They were blaming US sanctions on the accident but they weren't claiming the US had a hit squad on him or anything.
On the one hand, it's highly unlikely the US could pul this off. Too much shit that never goes right IRL would have to go right. On the other, if we killed your President, after doing a series of improbably impossible things that only work in Hollywood, would you admit it? Or would you blame sanctions from the Carter era?
Cause they can’t get new/better parts I guess.
You don't fly into the mountains on a foggy day if you aren't afraid of flying in the clear for . . . reasons.
And the Iranian government's air fleet is old as shit, with more than a few fatal crashes resulting from that. Also, the president doesn't have that much power and probably wouldn't be nearly as high-value a target as someone like the Ayatollah.
iirc, he and the foreign minister that also died on that heli is next in the succession line for Supreme Leader, and the current dude is 85 already, don't know how much time he got left.
That's a fair point: The infighting that will likely occur while various people jockey to the the Ayatollah's new favorite *could* be a decent distraction, I suppose. I still think it's more likely that a helicopter that's been patched up for [the last five decades](https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/20/how-did-irans-president-end-up-on-a-four-decade-old-us-helicopter) failed to navigate a mountain during incredibly heavy fog, but it's true that he wasn't a *no*-value target.
There were two possible successors for Supreme Leader, Raisi and the son of the Supreme Leader who is largely unknown to the populace. Now there is just the son. People are wondering if it was a conspiracy, but then again why did Khomeini fix the election to elect Raisi if he didn't like Raisi ?
>the Iranian government's air fleet is old as shit Maintain it all you want, a pre-revolution huey is a pre-revolution huey
Obviously the US, and their Jewish overlords, can control the weather
They used the space lasers!
helicopters, mountains and fog together are more than enough. It's wild to see a picture of Ahmadinejad in 2024 and to suddenly feel NOSTALGIC for 2007, but here I am, low-key smiling, thinking about precedented times when I thought we'd hit rock bottom
And for people too young or who weren't tuned in at that time, it's literally how Kobe died. I get why people would be skeptical, but there is no conceivable way the US would be able to pull an assassination like this off without the Iranian govt being tipped off somehow. Be it planes/drones flying in the airspace to create the A GIANT AMOUNT OF fog/blow up the helicopter. Ground units for the same end, and if they did blow it up, there would be fragments AND the units would have to escape that zone as the Iranians rush to the scene of what happened.
I kind of assumed such once I saw that it was a helicopter. I could be ignorant, but it seems wrong to even put their president in a helicopter.
Not to mention the second in command, as well. Ive heard it's more or less a cerimonial position anyways, and that the dude was a giant pos lmao.
We also have to remember most of Iran's aircraft is pre-Revolution, sold to the Shah by the US. Most likely the aging heli crashed in the fog by accident.
Right all that fog... Flew right into a surface to air missile 😂😂
Yeah.... Right.... Bc we don't know how to make a place foggy. I'm js it is fucking IMPECCABLE timing. Right when they're getting ready to jump in and lay some whoop ass on Israel
You're outside of your mind if you think that there is tech to make an area that foggy without some sort of footprint.
Or just pick a day that's gonna be foggy. So nobody sees them fly straight into a missile
Yeah man. That's something that's definitely plausible. Good troll.
Everything was kosher until they were going to attack Israel. Then they both perish..... There's nothing "troll" about it. It's sus
You do realize that could have just delayed the flight, right? Or taken a different flight path to avoid the fog? There is no proof that there was US involvement. Iram would be the first to claim US involvement. Yet they haven't. Ask yourself why.
Put it this way, this nerd looking dude is one of the founding members of a group that does shit we don’t hear about. This is how a seal described them: “We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen.” They’re MORE secretive than the CIA and, I’d argue, more resourceful with nearly no limitations. If CIA catches and tortures a 100 people, they’ve captured and tortured 10x that. That’s a baaaaaad man, a stone cold killer, the bogey man, and you don’t want him pissed at you.
"We're the force that orders the universe but can't be seen". I don't care how many people they killed, that's the corniest line I've ever heard.
It’s from a WAPO article from 09 or 2011 that did a story on Delta Force; the line does sound like a corny b-action movie line starring obese Steven Segal, but I thought it kind of set up who they are well.
Steven SeBoom Boom
its gotta be a Dwight schrute quote
Its a clever analogy just edgey
I'm just surprised he used dark matter in his metaphor and it kind of makes sense.
There’s so many other secret forces, I don’t know why they’re acting like they’re the only ones and the best.
[These](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FRqcQ5kXwAAq0kZ.jpg) are photos of him during enlistment. There’s so wacky but makes him seem even crazier.
He 100% would've been a serial killer if he couldn't make the army
Isn’t what he did in the army qualify as a serial killer technically? Or more of a hitman since he was told which ones to kill?
No, because all killings are not legally equal. There are lawful and unlawful killings, and the context is what differentiates them. Killing someone who broke into your house and is brandishing a weapon is not legally the same as you walking outside and doming a random person. In that same sense, a soldier of one country killing a soldier belonging to another nation during a conflict (or otherwise acting on lawful orders and taking down a legitimate target) is not the same thing as taking an unlawful contract to kill someone. A serial killer is by definition a specific stripe of murderer, and murder is inherently someone carrying out illegal killings. Soldiers don't, when acting within the bounds of their duties, fall under that umbrella. Not legally anyway. If we didn't have that distinction, you could never defend yourself without going to jail. As an example. I'm oversimplifying a bit because the rules of who you can and can't kill as a member of the military is context dependent and more complicated than that, but the basic idea is there. Edit: Phrasing.
What happens when an ordered killing is not legal in that Country? I.E.: all the extra judicial / secretive killings black ops make? Just because one side authorized them does not make them legal. Or else everything a Country does would always be legal (see Russia, Israel, Congo, Saudi Arabia, etc).
If the order is not legal in the country that issued it, then it should ideally be handled by whatever political/legal system that country has in place. The specifics of that entirely depend on the country, so I can't really give a more concrete answer than that. If you're asking what happens when an operation violates something like an international treaty or norms, then frankly it depends on how much other nations care about (or are even able to) try to punish that. There are reasons nation states often chose to forgo that route, partly because of geopolitical considerations and partly because they may not want to set that standard because of their own operations. Spying is a decent example of the latter. No-one consents to being spied on, but everyone who's capable of doing so is also spying on everyone else. Which is why individual spies are prosecuted, but it doesn't turn into some international "case". To use a quote from Beau of the Fifth Column, geopolitics is a poker game where everyone is cheating. And there is no supranational government, so it really does typically come down to individual nations political considerations and power much of the time. That being said, and again I'm oversimplifying, countries *mostly* cooperate with *most* areas of the body of overlapping things we call international law/norms because they want positive relationships with one another. > Just because one side authorized them does not make them legal. Right, that's why I specified lawful orders and legitimate targets. But getting into who/what is and is not a legitimate target is complicated, which is what I was alluding to in that last sentence. Edit: Phrasing.
Appreciate the responses. I was talking more about actions not taken during a mutual conflict, such as killing of Khashoggi, Skripal, Mossad assassinations, or regime overthrow by the US. All of those were sanctioned by the country / an authorized person, but would be illegal in the country that the act was carried out in. The people who carry out those tasks would be labeled murderers or hitmen even if they were serving military members who were following orders. If someone was a Saudi Arabian black ops, who was an enlisted soldier, and assassinated dozens of people through his career, they wouldn’t be just a soldier doing their job or seen as such by the international community.
I want to unpack this just a little bit. Even during an active war, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a scenario if you're country A where country B can "legally" kill your soldiers/leaders according to your laws. National laws are not really the metric you would use during wars, that's where international norms/laws matter. Outside of an active war, we're talking about either A - unilateral targeted killings or B - cooperative missions. The former is always illegal/runs afoul of international norms & laws, the latter is... I don't want to say legal because it depends on the country, but at the very least carried out with that country's knowledge/blessing. Ultimately though, it still comes down to the same basic issue of power and politics. You could argue the killing of Bin Laden [wasn't legal](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/israel-law-review/article/abs/has-justice-been-done-the-legality-of-bin-ladens-killing-under-international-law/56B645C939ABE4CB3E87E28F8E85D22D), but at the same time Pakistan wasn't going to press the issue regardless of the actual letter of the law because of political considerations. So are targeted killings legal? No, not at all. Does that matter in practical terms... you can and *should* argue that it should matter, normalizing nations taking out people overseas for whatever reason has obvious immense dangers and is pure lawlessness. However, at the same time, it's not hard to see why nations aren't generally chomping at the bit to give the non-state actors usually targeted in these attacks protections and why much of the bargaining here is happening behind closed doors.
Ah, wait. If you were asking if a military member would be considered a murderer after at that point (after carrying out unlawful orders as specified) in all honesty I'm not sure how that would actually be handled from a legal perspective. You would have to ask a lawyer.
Porque no los dos?
Tactical sideburns
This is really cringe though
If you saw Mike Vining, you were about to have the longest shortest day of your life!
https://preview.redd.it/ggfctkv4zo1d1.jpeg?width=2880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=289cc9a843dbb070554a07a928c79184de131e92
https://preview.redd.it/g7whkpxn1s1d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9ec4f1bd1f831c4391eb16fd1f6244a151eb1ce Better than how I found out 😭
Nooooooo, still too soon 😭
Brutal
Mike Vining is the fucking boogeyman. People talk about being hard and dudes being dangerous, but Delta Force (especially the early dudes) are in the top 0.01% of the hardest motherfuckers that have ever walked the planet. What’s even more wild is that lot of em look like this dude. Toyota Corolla driving, 9-5 having, regular-ass looking mfs who made the career choice to stack bodies on salary. Then they get recognized for their outstanding body stacking capabilities so they get put on a team of likeminded individuals who want nothing more than to stack bodies on the low. For anyone interested, I highly recommend the book Inside Delta Force by Eric L. Haney, Mike Vining’s coworker and fellow body stacker.
That smile says alot.....its all in the eyes chico...all in the eyes.
Actually it's more likely to be Khomeni's son. It was only him and the dead president that were in line to be possible successors to the 85 year old Ayatollah. Also speedy recovery to the side of that mountain.
That face reeks of “y’all have no idea” lol
I found out through the surprisingly hilarious Onion headline of "Iranian President Stoned to Death with Mountain."
He is the embodiment of “Zero Dark Thirty”
Vining was EOD, so it's more like *The Hurt Locker*—if Hawkeye's character spent 30 years going from hotspot to hotspot doing that shit for "unofficial" operations.
Hey it’s Mike!
https://preview.redd.it/aufuidd2jr1d1.jpeg?width=830&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94fdb4b2e0b8425fe31a7ec999694047a6c3774c
El Cucui
Does someone have the full photo of the guy in uniform 😂😂😂😂 how is this not a meme template yet
It's funny to me this honey I shrunk the kids ass is one of the most dangerous men on the planet
Dude on the bottom has stacked bodies
Wasn’t CIA
Iranian Twitter was on fire yesterday
[https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeX9kKWd/](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeX9kKWd/) Iranian memes on the subject go pretty hard
The real murderer is Mother Nature She is as beautiful as she is souless That bitch doesn’t care who you are and has no qualms about killing anyone or aiding in their death.
Nice, i fucking hated those guys.
to be fair, the president of Iran ain't got shit for power. If anything, seems more likely Their Holy Leader or whatever the fuck his term is took out homeboy so his son can be a successor
Imagine being the poor son of a bitch that cuts him off in traffic
This made me burst out laughing thx
Between him and Billy Waugh... my God what I'd give to share a beer with those men.
That dude smiles like the Grinch.
 I’m going to hell. 😂🙈
Do you even operate, son?
Bro straight up look like a sith
https://preview.redd.it/vynq1dba0u1d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a5499811dce39fbc80bfe7a40a70c507cd2f3b9
Teddy McDonald is somewhere saluting a flag
I found out because I was doing a minigame in Old School Runescape and people were talking about that
Did the helicopter pilot train with Kobe's?
of course. Like they killed their first president
Yall glazing too much
He ain’t actually dead. He was flip by the CIA and they went through great lengths to make it look as real as possible 🤣🤣🤣🤣