President Donald Trump's allies are scrambling to justify an airstrike that killed top 7 General Qasem Soleimani.
The move escalated the growing tensions between the United States and Iran overnight, with some even claiming the strike put the U.S. on track for yet another war in the Middle East.
Among those defending the President's actions are his Vice President, Mike Pence, who falsely claimed in a Twitter thread that Soleimani played a part in transporting the hijackers behind the September 11 attacks.
Read the tweet below.
The comment was in a litany of offenses against Americans committed by Soleimani.
While no one disputes the actions Soleimani took against American service members in Iraq, many agree that foreign policy and potential acts of war shouldn't be based on revenge. Especially when hasty retaliations could result in the loss of even more American lives.
There is no evidence that Iran or Soleimani played any role in facilitating the 9/11 attacks.
While the 9/11 Commission found that some of the attacks' orchestrators passed through Iran to Afghanistan, none of the report's findings concluded that Soleimani was involved with their passage or any other actions involving the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in history. Trump allies Saudi Arabia did not fare as well.
What's more, Pence didn't even get the number of hijackers correct. There were 19, not 12.
People weren't about to let Pence's lie go unchecked.
The claim reminded some of the George W. Bush administration's lies to tie Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
Iran has vowed revenge for the killing of Soleimani, leading Trump to threaten Iraqi cultural sites with attacks. Some of the cultural sites of Iraq are part of world history, dating back many thousands of years.
The threat is like vowing to bomb the Smithsonian, the Statue of Liberty or the Louvre or the Great Pyramids. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail before irreplaceable historical sites are wiped off the map.
The book Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House is available here.
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