Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate

Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives for a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Airport on September 07, 2024 in Mosinee, Wisconsin. (AFP)
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Updated 08 September 2024
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Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate

Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate
  • Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term
  • Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement
  • Trump also warned, as he has in previous rallies, that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last

MOSINEE, Wisconsin: With just days to go before his first — and likely only — debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, which he said would be under intense scrutiny.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote, again sowing doubt about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.
“Please beware,” he went on, “that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.
Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “lost by a whisker.”
While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.
On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.
Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.
“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bullet-proof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.
There’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.
Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to holding rallies and events while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.
Harris has agreed so far to a single debate, which will be hosted by ABC.
At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “Drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to “cast out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years.”
As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission” headed by Elon Musk that will be charged with conducting “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” to root out waste.
After again maligning the Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s capitol by his supporters after his election loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.
Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement.
And he said he would “completely overhaul” what he labeled “Kamala’s corrupt Department of Injustice.”
“Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.

Harris honored by support from disgruntled Republicans

Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.”
Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.
Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.
As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”
Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.
“People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.
“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”
Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.

Senseless ramblings

During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”
Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet.”
Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the US dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.
He dismissed warnings from US officials about ongoing Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of November’s election, including an indictment this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.
“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”
Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th birthday Saturday at his first ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will take on “cancel culture” and bring the country back to its “foundational past.
“We’ve had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”
Many supporters embarked on hours-long drives from across Wisconsin to see Trump speak. Some came from even further.
Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the stage name, “King Bullethead,” blasted his songs from a truck in the event parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of a raucous concert.
“Trump is a rockstar,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see he represents them and the deep state trying to kill him and take him out. But he’s standing strong, and he stands for the normal person.”
Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.
Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.


North Korea set to blow up cross-border roads with South amid drone row, Seoul says

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North Korea set to blow up cross-border roads with South amid drone row, Seoul says

North Korea set to blow up cross-border roads with South amid drone row, Seoul says
  • North Korean troops were working under camouflage on the roads on its side of the border near the west and east coasts
SEOUL: North Korea is getting ready to blow up roads that cross the heavily militarised border with South Korea, Seoul said on Monday, amid an escalating war of words after the North accused its rival of sending drones over its capital Pyongyang.
North Korean troops were working under camouflage on the roads on its side of the border near the west and east coasts that are likely preparations to blow up the roads, possibly as early as on Monday, South Korea’s military spokesman said.
Last week, North Korea’s Army said it would completely cut roads and railways connected to South Korea and fortify the areas on its side of the border, state media KCNA reported.
Separately, North Korea on Friday accused South Korea of sending drones to scatter a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets over Pyongyang, in what it called a political and military provocation that could lead to armed conflict.
Lee Sung-jun, a spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined on Monday to answer questions over whether the South Korean military or civilians flew the drones.
In further statements over the weekend, North Korea warned of a “horrible disaster” if South Korean drones were again found to be flying over Pyongyang. On Sunday, it said it has put eight fully armed artillery units at the border “on standby to open fire.”
South Korea’s military has said its refusal to answer questions on the drones is because addressing what the North has alleged would be to get drawn into a tactic by Pyongyang to fabricate excuses for provocations.
South Korea has sought to boost its anti-drone defenses since 2022, Lee said, when five North Korean drones entered its airspace and flew over the capital Seoul for several hours.
Lee Kyoung-haing, an expert in military drone operations at Jungwon University, said civilians would have no trouble getting drones with ranges of 300 km, the round trip from the South to Pyongyang, with light payloads such as leaflets.
On Sunday, North Korea’s defense ministry said the drones, which it said were detected over Pyongyang on three days earlier this month, were the kind that required a special launcher or a runway and it was impossible a civilian group could launch them.
The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The cross-border links are remnants of periods of rapprochement between the countries including a 2018 summit between the leaders when they declared there would be no more war and a new era of peace had opened.
North Korea has reintroduced heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone border buffer and restored guard posts, after the two sides declared a 2018 military agreement aimed at easing tensions no longer valid.

Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine

Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine
Updated 38 min 35 sec ago
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Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine

Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine
  • Ukrainian forces turned the tables against aggressor Russia by launching an incursion into the Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since

KYIV: Some 30,415 people including nearly 8,000 children have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine due to shelling and attacks, Russia’s human rights commissioner said in remarks published on Monday.
Tatyana Moskalkova, the commissioner, told news outlet Argumenty I Fakty in an interview that the evacuees have been placed in nearly 1,000 temporary accommodation centers across Russia.
Ukraine, subjected to an invasion from Russia since February 2022, has retaliated with shelling and other attacks on Russia’s border regions, with the military saying the strikes target infrastructure key to Moscow’s war effort.
Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since.
Moskalkova said she had received appeals regarding more than 1,000 Russian citizens from Kursk, whose whereabouts are unknown and who were said to have been taken by Ukrainian forces.
Reuters could not independently verify Moskalkova’s reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Both sides deny targeting or imprisoning civilians but thousands have died in the war, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Moskalkova also told the news outlet that she has visited more than 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia and that similar visits with Russian prisoners have been conducted by her counterpart in Ukraine.


Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives
Updated 14 October 2024
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Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

SEMPORNA, Malaysia: Patches of palm thatch entwined with a few forlorn stilts sticking out of the emerald waters in a Malaysian marine park off the island of Borneo are the only traces remaining of the homes of hundreds of sea nomads.
Robin, one of those left homeless among a community that inspired the fictional ‘Metkayina’ tribe in the 2022 film ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’, took to a boat with his children to flee the Malaysian officials who razed their home.
“I don’t know where to go now,” he told Reuters from the deck of a wooden houseboat festooned with drying clothes, where he lives with a cousin and their eight children after the demolition drive razed structures deemed illegal.
His indigenous sea-faring community, known as the Bajau Laut, is famed for the ability to dive underwater for lengthy periods unassisted by equipment.

Three generations of an indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community family spend their evening together at their stilt house built over the sea in Semporna, Malaysia, on August 20, 2024. (REUTERS)

They have lived in the area for centuries, but are still seen as migrants by the authorities, since most of them lack basic paperwork to prove their names, ages and nationality.
Sometimes known as Sama Bajau elsewhere in Southeast Asia, many face impoverished, precarious lives and are denied access to health, education or financial services without such documents.
“We can’t buy food because our gold pawn tickets were damaged during the demolition,” said Robin’s cousin, Indasaini. “We have no money. The children are sick and we don’t have money to buy medicine.”
Malaysian authorities must take a more compassionate approach and consult the community before evictions or resettlements, said Vilashini Somiah, an anthropologist at the University of Malaya.
“These programs do not work because there’s no consultation with them in which you recognize the community as people,” she said, referring to previous efforts.
Many sea nomads settled around islands in the Tun Sakaran Marine Park, popular with divers and tourists off Malaysia’s eastern state of Sabah, but a crackdown on cross-border crime since June has demolished hundreds of homes.

A general view of stilt houses of the indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community in Semporna, Malaysia. (Reuters)

Another reason for the drive was national security concerns, as the waters of the Sulu archipelago between Sabah and the southern Philippines are a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf, a militant group notorious for piracy and kidnapping that is linked to Islamic State.
Like many undocumented Bajau Laut, Robin goes by one name and does not know his exact age. But he said he can trace his family’s history in the area, with his grandparents buried on an islet in the government-protected park.
To earn his livelihood, Robin said he used to fish and gather wood from the islands to sell on the mainland, but has been unable to do so since he was evicted.

Growing scrutiny
Reuters was unable to verify Robin’s account, but state officials confirmed the campaign to remove intruders from protected areas of the park in the Semporna district.
“The Sabah government will take all necessary action to help,” Hajjiji Noor, the state’s chief minister, told Reuters, adding that authorities had found another coastal area in Semporna to resettle the community.

Houseboats of the indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community anchor in the waters of Semporna, Malaysia, on August 20, 2024. (REUTERS)

A fifth of the roughly 28,000 Bajau Laut identified by the government in Sabah are Malaysian citizens, though analysts believe the figure could be higher.
The state has an estimated 1 million undocumented residents, including stateless indigenous communities and economic migrants from neighboring Philippines and Indonesia.
The evictions of the Bajau Laut come amid growing scrutiny of Malaysia’s treatment of migrants. In March, New York-based Human Rights Watch said authorities had detained about 45,000 undocumented people since May 2020.
The move has sparked outrage and debate in Malaysia, with some activists calling for citizenship for the community to ensure better protection, though some voiced concern over national security.
Bilkuin Jimi Salih, 20, a Bajau Laut youth born in Sabah, said a Malaysian identity document was key to securing better education and job opportunities.
“I had many ambitions ... to become a policeman, a soldier, but I can’t because I don’t have documents,” said Bilkuin, who now teaches at Iskul Sama DiLaut, a non-government body that educates stateless children.
His efforts to build a career were hampered by the lack of a birth certificate and identity card, he added.
“It’s costly to take a pregnant woman to hospital, and that’s how I realized why I wasn’t born in a hospital,” he added. “My family was too poor to afford it.”
Winning citizenship may be difficult, however, Vilashini said, in view of the community’s disputed origins and a lengthy history of squabbles over resources between undocumented people and the residents of one of Malaysia’s poorest states.
She urged the authorities to better engage with the community to resolve the issue, adding, “It has to be consensual, it has to be respectable.”
Without documents, life feels truly unfair, Bilkuin said. “We want to have documents so that ... our children won’t experience what we’ve been through.”


China starts new round of war games near Taiwan, offers no end date

China starts new round of war games near Taiwan, offers no end date
Updated 14 October 2024
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China starts new round of war games near Taiwan, offers no end date

China starts new round of war games near Taiwan, offers no end date
  • Chinese military says the drills are a “stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces.”
  • Refusing to be cowed, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had dispatched its own forces

TAIPEI: China’s military started a new round of war games near Taiwan on Monday, saying it was a warning to the “separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces,” and offered no date for when they may conclude, drawing condemnation from Taipei’s government.
Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, had been on alert for more war games since last week’s national day speech by President Lai Ching-te, an address Beijing condemned after Lai said China had no right to represent Taiwan even as he offered to cooperate with Beijing.
The Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command said the “Joint Sword-2024B” drills were taking place in the Taiwan Strait and areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan.
“The drill also serves as a stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces. It is a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding state sovereignty and national unity,” it said in a statement carried both in Chinese and English.
The command published a map showing nine areas around Taiwan where the drills were taking place — two on the island’s east coast, three on the west coast, one to the north and three around Taiwan-controlled islands next to the Chinese coast.
Chinese ships and aircraft are approaching Taiwan in “close proximity from different directions,” focusing on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, blockading key ports and areas, assaulting maritime and ground targets and “joint seizure of comprehensive superiority,” the command said.
However, it did not announce any live-fire exercises or any no fly areas. In 2022, shortly after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, China fired missiles over the island.

Map of Taiwan showing zones identified in Chinese military exercises around the island, according to mainland media. (AFP Illustration/File)

In rare operations, China’s coast guard circled Taiwan and staged “law enforcement” patrols close to Taiwan’s offshore islands, according to Chinese state media.
Taiwan’s China policy making Mainland Affairs Council said that China’s latest war games and refusal to renounce the use of force were “blatant provocations” that seriously undermined regional peace and stability.
In the face of the further political, military and economic threats posed by China to Taiwan in recent days, Taiwan would not back down, Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.
“President Lai has already expressed his goodwill in his national day speech and is willing to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait together with the Chinese communists,” it added.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had dispatched its own forces.
Lai’s national day speech highlighted the current state of cross-strait relations and the firm will to safeguard peace and stability and advocated future cooperation in coping with challenges like climate change, the ministry added.
“The Chinese communists’ claim of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ is a complete departure from the truth,” it added.
A senior Taiwan security official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation, said they believed China was practicing blockading Taiwanese ports to the north and south of the island and international shipping lanes as well as repelling the arrival of foreign forces.
Taiwan on Sunday had reported a Chinese aircraft carrier group sailing to the island’s south through the strategic Bashi Channel which separates Taiwan from the Philippines and connects the South China Sea to the Pacific.
Chinese state media has since Thursday run a series of stories and commentaries denouncing Lai’s speech, and on Sunday the Eastern Theatre Command released a video saying it was “prepared for battle.”
The PLA’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper wrote on Monday that “those who play with fire get burned!.”
“As long as the ‘Taiwan independence’ provocations continue, the PLA’s actions to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity will not stop,” the paper said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the war games. The US last week said China had no justification for using Lai’s national day speech as a pretext for military pressure.
China held the “Joint Sword-2024A” drills for two days around Taiwan in May shortly after Lai took office, saying they were “punishment” for separatist content in his inauguration speech.
Lai has repeatedly offered talks with China but has been rebuffed. He says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future and rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.


Lessons from Iran missile attacks for defending against China’s advanced arsenal

Lessons from Iran missile attacks for defending against China’s advanced arsenal
Updated 14 October 2024
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Lessons from Iran missile attacks for defending against China’s advanced arsenal

Lessons from Iran missile attacks for defending against China’s advanced arsenal
  • Middle East, Indo-Pacific differ, but Iran strikes offer clues
  • US may need ‘deterrence by punishment’ to counter China’s missiles — analyst

SINGAPORE: Iran’s missile barrage this month against Israel, after a similar large-scale attack in April, shows the value, as well as the shortcomings, of US and allied missile defenses in a potential Indo-Pacific conflict with China, analysts say.
Although differences between the two scenarios limit the lessons that can be learnt, the nearly 400 missiles of different types that Iran has fired at Israel this year offer the United States and China some idea of what works and what does not.
For Washington, the main takeaway from Iran’s Oct. 1 attacks — the largest sample yet of ballistic missiles fired against modern defenses — could be that Beijing’s missiles would be more difficult to intercept than Iran’s and that the ability to strike back would be needed to deter a mass attack, said Collin Koh of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
“If we look purely through the lenses of deterrence, no longer can one pin hopes on deterrence by denial only — that is, the hope that effective defenses can blunt the efficacy of missile strikes,” Koh said. “Deterrence by punishment might have to become normative going forward.”
There is no immediate threat of missile conflict in the Indo-Pacific region. The distances, thousands of kilometers, are greater than in the Middle East. China’s weapons are more advanced, including manoeuvring warheads and precision guidance. And the target areas are scattered across the region, making a massed attack more difficult.
The United States has developed and deployed new weapons in the region this year to counter China, including the AIM-174B air-to-air missile and the ground-based Typhon missile battery in the Philippines, which can launch SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles.
The US Indo-Pacific Command and China’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s missiles longer-range, less accurate
On the other hand, simply being better informed about how offensive and defensive systems perform after Iran’s missile fusillades — many were intercepted — may reduce the chance of conflict, said Ankit Panda of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Any military force planning long-range missile strikes will need to plan around the possible effects of missile defenses,” Panda said. “Of course, without clarity on how well a given missile defense system might perform, this could lead to massive escalation.”
Israel’s layered air and missile defenses — from its long-range Arrow systems to the Iron Dome shield meant to handle slower, less complex threats — are tailored to the threats it faces: guided ballistic missiles from powers such as Iran mixed with unguided rockets launched from just over Israel’s borders.
The picture is much different in the Indo-Pacific region for the US and its allies, which use the Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Patriot, THAAD and sea-based Aegis systems for missile defense.
The accuracy of China’s DF-26, its most numerous conventional intermediate-range ballistic missile, is estimated to be as good as 150 meters (500 feet), according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project. Its DF-21 is shorter-ranged, though some variants have an accuracy of 50 m.
Both can hit most US and allied targets in the region. The DF-26 can reach Guam, the site of major US military facilities. The Pentagon has estimated that China may have several hundred of the missiles.
By contrast, Iran’s missiles such as the Fattah-1 are theoretically more accurate — within tens of meters — but are much shorter-ranged. The number of these newer missiles is not public, but US Air Force General Kenneth McKenzie told Congress last year that Iran had more than 3,000 ballistic missiles of all types.
China’s capabilities outstrip Iran’s in other ways, said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Missile attacks would most likely be coordinated with anti-satellite strikes and cyberwarfare, both designed to complicate defense.
“Western (integrated air and missile defense) systems in the Indo-Pacific would have a much tougher time defeating a large Chinese missile strike, comprising hundreds or even thousands of missiles, compared to what the Iranians are capable of,” Davis said.