Qassem Soleimani's killing brings with it important questions. Did President Trump act lawfully? How will Iran respond?

These concerns are worthy of serious debate. Unfortunately, Soleimani's departure has also triggered some rather idiotic tweets. Here are my top three. Note that Ben Rhodes is not listed here because his statements deserve special attention in a different post.

Winning the just-plain-ignorant stakes is the liberal commentator, Kyle Kulinski.

How the fuck do you even begin to sell the idea of assassinating the front line leaders against ISIS to the American public? — Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) January 3, 2020

Kulinski should have avoided the over-earnest profanity here because his tweet illustrates the great challenge of media pundits talking about foreign policy when they actually know very little about it.

How do you sell the idea, Kyle? Well, you might simply reference Soleimani's decadeslong effort to murder and maim American civilians, as in the 2011 Washington, D.C., bomb plot. Or you might direct readers to David Finkel's book, The Good Soldiers. Documenting the 2007-2008 deployment of a U.S. Army unit in Baghdad, Finkel records memories of what happened when Soleimani's explosively formed penetrator attack cells struck Army convoys. The result was soldiers opening Humvee doors to find their friends reduced to a tidal wave of limbs and blood.

Does that help, Kyle?

Next up, taking the no-self-awareness-bureaucratic-obsession stakes, is President Barack Obama's United Nations ambassador, Samantha Power.

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A flag is not a strategy.



Trump is surrounded by sycophants (having fired those who’ve dissented). He has purged Iran specialists. He has abolished NSC processes to review contingencies. He is seen as a liar around the world.



This is likely to get very ugly very quickly. https://t.co/UV4o0uWVfe — Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) January 3, 2020

Quite a few folks are referencing this National Security Council process stuff. I'm not buying it. The NSC has an important role, but can create great lethargy if unbound from time-sensitive directives (as was the case under the Obama administration). Trump has the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department. He has the options and advice he needs.

But I'm especially not buying Samantha Power's commentary here. Power is the queen of foreign policy ironies. Power spent her academic career writing about the need for American leadership to stop humanitarian catastrophes. Whatever you think of those views and her books on the subject, Power at least stood for something. Unfortunately, Power then shredded this work as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. There, Power was the face of the Obama administration policy to do nothing in the face of Bashar Assad, Russia, and Iran's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians.

Finally, winning the why-Americans-don't-like-the-U.N. stakes, we wave U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions Agnes Callamard.

4. The statement fails to mention the other individuals killed alongside Suleimani. Collateral? Probably. Unlawful. Absolutely. — Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 3, 2020

The arrogance here is defining in its casual European anti-Americanism. Callamard might find the decision to evaporate Soleimani "curious" and "absolutely" unlawful, but in doing so, she proves her willful disregard for that individual's nature. After all, Soleimani's entire job was to plot hostilities against the United States. And he was very good at it. That alone provides legal authority for Trump's action. Moreover, that Soleimani was killed alongside other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials and the terrorist Abu Mahdi al Muhandis does not detract from the legitimacy of this strike, it adds to it. Thanks to Callamard, the U.N. has again proved its defining absurdity.

There are, of course, many other silly takes percolating their way through Twitter. But these three stand out to me as encapsulating the variety of ridiculousness with which Soleimani's death is being met in some quarters.