5 Reasons We’ve Been Given for the Killing of Qassem Soleimani

US helicopters attacked a convoy carrying Qassim Soleimani Thursday.Abaca via ZUMA

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Here are the explanations so far for why we had to kill Qassim Soleimani:

Story #1: He was planning “imminent strikes” on American targets and we had to stop him.

Story #2: But we don’t know when or where.

Story #3: Wait, he was planning to bomb our embassy in Baghdad.

Story #4: Well, really, we killed him as revenge for the demonstration against our embassy in Baghdad.

Story #5: Hold on. He was planning to bomb four American embassies.

By no means do I think this covers all the explanations we’ve gotten. These are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. The last two are from President Trump himself.

It’s insane. And so far, the Trumpies have refused to provide even the slightest bit of evidence to back this up, even to the Gang of Eight in Congress.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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