COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Islamenoma Report - British Visas, Turkey and Pakistan


Islamenoma Report tm
A public service of the EB


United Kingdom
Continuing it's pattern of denial, the British Foreign Office this past week registered its disdain of US plans to require Pakistani-Brits to have Visas before traveling to the US. Fortunately, not all British people are in denial about the nature and breadth of their terror problem. Melanie Phillips certainly isn't and she's got a good rant going about the PC lunacy.
The ending of the Al Qaeda fertiliser bomb plot trial has posed crucial questions about the competence of MI5. In particular, the assurances we were given after the 7/7 bombings, that the perpetrators had been unknown to the security service, have been shown to be utterly false.

Disturbing as that is by itself, the case also raises yet more pressing questions about whether Britain is even now acting effectively enough against the threat to this country from Islamist terrorism.

The fact is that Al Qaeda now sees Britain as both its principal target and its principal recruiting ground. By its own admission, MI5 is monitoring no fewer than 200 terrorist networks, 1,600 identified individual terrorists and 30 known terrorist plots. It says British Muslims are being indoctrinated with horrifying speed, and more terrorists are being recruited every day.

In truth, as our leading counter-terrorist police officer, Peter Clarke, said last week, this country is facing a terrorist threat of a nature and scale it has simply never seen before. This terrorism is part of a global holy war and the dreadful thing is that it is recruiting British-born boys as its foot-soldiers against their own fellow citizens.

Turkey
It appears to me that the clash of militant Islam versus the world had not yet reached a crescendo. Pakistan and Turkey will serve as bell weathers. Coming events in these two countries will soon dominate the news as the conditions there continue to deteriorate. Ataturk's secular country is under attack by fundamentalist Muslims whose radical worldview insists on an Islamic government. It is beyond their rationale or reasoning to envision a separation of mosque and state. Fatwas will soon be issued declaring the people of Turkey as apostate and infidel. In other words, I expect to see "open season and no bag limit" as the Islamists declare a new front in their Borg-like mission for Allah.



Pakistan
The news is also not good for Musharraf and Pakistan. The BBC is reporting:
Pakistan's ousted chief justice has told a crowd of thousands in Lahore that dictatorships which ignore the rule of law face "destruction".

Iftikhar Chaudhry made no direct reference to President Pervez Musharraf who suspended him in March over allegations of abuse of office.

Anger over his sacking poses the biggest challenge to Gen Musharraf's rule since he seized power in 1999.

Supporters waved flags and shouted slogans against the president.

Mr Chaudhry says he is fighting for the independence of the judiciary but the protests in his favour have turned into a broader campaign against military rule, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

Calls for the end of Musharraf's military rule are in effect calls for Islamist rule. Just as democratically elected Hamas is bad news for Palestine and the middle east, the end of Musharraf's rule in Pakistan will usher in an escalation in the spread of the lunacy. If Musharraf is forced out, the United States will also be shown the door . The jihadists will once again have the whole of Pakistan as a base camp from which to wage their Afghan campaign. Today, south Asia, tomorrow; the world.



For some good news about our efforts in Iraq listen to Brigadier General David Phillips on Hugh Hewitt's show.

Tony Blankley writing in his May 2 column , A Rising Tide of Fury. says that a recent poll shows that a quarter of the world's one billion Muslims "may approve, under some circumstances, of terrorism attacks on civilians generally." It may be the RoP but its adherents are not.

Things are going to get worse before they get better.

61 comments:

  1. Fortunately, not all British people are in denial about the nature and breadth of their terror problem.

    Unfortunately, too many are.

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  2. The denial of the Pakistan Challenge is the greatest threat.

    On every level.
    A country growing ever more similar to a talabanic Afghanistan, but with a modern Army and nuclear weapons, to boot.

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  3. And more people going to more Madrassas.
    30-50k as I recall.

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  4. "There are an approximate 28,000 madrassas in Pakistan with only 8000 of them registered. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) 2002 report, by March 2002, there were around 600,000 students in 6000 registered madrassas with more than 250,000 students in Punjab alone. The proliferation of madrassas began in the 1980s and continued in the 1990s. Compared to their number in 1979, when there were less than 2000 madrassas, their growth has been tremendous. They are now seen and portrayed as fundamentalist institutions and breeding grounds for militants to wage a jihad all over the world. From being established centers of learning in the middle-ages, they have traveled a long way. How did this change come about and what can Pakistan do about it? "

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  5. Doug's madrassa link to the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies gives recommendations about the madrassas.

    1. Regulate the Curriculum.
    2. Reform State Education.
    3. Regulate the Funding.
    4. Prevent Military training and remove the weapons.
    5. Initiate a dialogue with the religious parties and groups.

    God Bless the Peaceniks. Don't you love them?

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  6. When one looks to the Peace and Conflicts agenda, on e wonders why the General President does not institute it, if he could.

    The fact that this particularly promised course, to US, is beyond his power or control, in Pakistan.

    One coup after another in Pakistan, still we deal with the Generals, instead of the democrats.
    Even when the Generals built the bombs, empowered Dr Kahn's network and founded and still fund the Taliban.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Local immigration laws bring high costs

    More than 90 cities or counties around the country have proposed, passed or rejected laws prohibiting landlords from leasing to illegal immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ undocumented workers or training police to enforce immigration laws.

    Approval of these anti-illegal immigration ordinances has generated criticism, demonstrations and lawsuits in Valley Park, Mo.; Riverside, N.J.; Escondido, Calif.; Hazleton, Pa., and the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch.

    Escondido abandoned an ordinance that would punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants after it discovered the legal bills could top $1 million. By the time the city council agreed in December to settle a lawsuit challenging the ordinance, Escondido had spent $200,000, said spokeswoman Joyce Masterson.

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  9. "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

    (applause)

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  10. "This nation has been put on notice.

    We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism."

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  11. So Escondido opts for Houses with 5 "families" of illegals, sleeping in shifts, in the future.
    Some of said "families" not ever sleeping there, using it only as a convenient place to deal drugs.

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  12. At least they won't have to bother with a black working class anymore.

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  13. Illegals, Cho, Islamists - they all have legal statuses.

    While the War on Terror sought to blur or remove these legal statuses from the threats we face, they've now re-acquired them.

    Could the lesson be that you cannot always rely on special legal statuses to help you defend against threats? What we need and what we haven't seen much of are "good guy" lawyers, lawsuits etc.

    One of the conclusions to the book, Unrestricted Warfare:

    Instead, the authors advocate forming a "composite force in all aspects related to national interest. Moreover, given this type of composite force, it is also necessary to have this type of composite force to become the means which can be utilized for actual operations. This should be a "grand warfare method" which combines all of the dimensions and methods in the two major areas of military and non-military affairs so as to carry out warfare. This is opposite of the formula for warfare methods brought forth in past wars."

    Its not just propaganda that we lack; we lack a 21st Century group of lawyers willing to dish it right back to CAIR, illegal immigrant groups etc.

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  14. We cannot cede the courts to Moussaoui or CAIR etc, thinking the "battle" is only abroad, or lurking in the future in the form of a bomb.

    If neighborhood-watches become an integral part of our security, you'll still need to rely on courts - civil and legal.

    Its another case where you have to ask, "are we even on the playing field?"

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  15. "So Steve, your conscience should be clear. I don’t see that we had a lot of choice back then given the political realities."

    Feedback by: Tom the Redhunter | May 5, 2007 3:03 PM

    Lots of "Hawks" these days pay homage to "political realities," since there is a revered Pub in the Big House.

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  16. "While the War on Terror sought to blur or remove these legal statuses from the threats we face, they've now re-acquired them"
    ---
    They only re-acquired them some time after we adopted a defensive posture.
    Had we remained on offense, the results would have kept the public onboard.

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  17. When CAIR is welcomed with open arms by the Whitehouse, ACLU Lawyers have no fear.

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  18. We increase the budget for border security greatly, but now we prosecute border agents when the try to apprehend drug dealers.
    Then we seek them out in Mexico, give them immunity, and pay them to testify against OUR Agents!

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  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  20. So as things come our way in Germany and now France they seem to be fading in Trukey and Pakistan

    As pointed out somewhere in the neightborhood of 22-25% of Mussulmen world wide favor killing infidels in great numbers.

    So I harken back to my call to decimate Islam before it does the same to Christianity. Sure it's a big number but I'm confident each and every Mussulman is up to the dying they so willfully embrace.

    Are we up to the killing necessary?
    I think when we are faced with the very very real prospect of a fundamentalist Islamic Pakistan armed with nuclear weapons we will answer in the affirmative.

    So it does come down to what was defined in the early days following 9-11. It's either us or them.

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  21. "So as things come our way in Germany and now France they seem to be fading in Trukey and Pakistan"

    Don't underestimate the anti-American feeling of the Continent. It was there before 9-11. It hasn't gotten better.

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  22. Habu,

    You're just ahead of your time with your pronouncements.

    America is slow to rile. Europe and Asia were almost completely overrun but it took the destruction of our Pacific fleet to get Americans interested in a fight.

    Apparently 911 wasn't enough. Nor is the unprecedented Mexican invasion of every city in America. Nope. Americans are gonna have to have bands of muck savages running through our neighborhoods rapin and murderin before John Smith says "hey. we need to do sumthin bout this crap".

    Must be the 'merican way.

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  24. Clash of Civilizations, if you will, but I can't get over the thought that the danger to the West/Israel is borne of Bureaucratic Failure.
    Politicians aren't politicians any longer.
    They do not seek to be Leaders.

    They are elected bureaucrats...and nothing more.
    They fat their installed bureaucracies, their families and themselves and leave behind their duties to the people who elected them and from whom they (the bureaucrats) fat themselves.
    All is cloaked in interlocking morasses of legislation and regulation, which lead to endless quibbling over form.

    It used to be understood that there were situations where you threw out the rulebook. When FDR wanted to start a covert operations service, he ignored the established bureaucracy and turned instead to "Wild Bill" Donovan, a Manhattan businessman (and Republican to boot). The result was the Office of Strategic Services , a ripe gaggle of New York socialites, lawyers, communists, homosexuals, and adventurers who got the job done while breaking every rule in existence.
    As soon as the war was over, the OSS was rolled up - there was never any hope it would fit in with a peacetime bureaucracy.

    It appears that we've lost that capacity. As a society, we seem content to believe that bureaucracy is the only possible method of doing things, at least as far as governments go. And that could be fatal.
    American Thinker, via
    3 Case

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  25. The fellow is just trying to help spur the "counter migration", doug.

    There is a lot to be said for it.

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  26. Trust in government, doug, allen does.

    There are many like him, out there. They don't trust people they cannot command, or worse, that are outside the command structure.

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  27. Trish,

    I would never underestimate the haughty psuedo superiority and vitriol the Continent holds for the greatest power the world has ever seen.
    One is hard pressed to name a field, physical or metaphysical in which the United States since it's founding has not excelled.
    Coming as it were a bit after the words of our founding documents we even fought involutary servitutde for universal manumission. For that we bleed this nation horribly but it was the right thing to do and in the end we got it right.
    Although I have not roamed the Continent since the days of Black September, the Red Army Faction, and the Beider-Meinhof Gang I am aware of the numerous powerful factions constantly fomenting the cause du jour.
    But now Germany and France have leaders who embrace us more than their predecessor did and their populations are awakening. Perhaps, just maybe, the leaders can bring focus to the peril Islam is to their freedoms right now,...but at least it's a wee bit brighter that it was before Merkel and Sarkozy.

    It has come at a propitious time given that Turkey and Pakistan are being pulled in the undertow of fanatical Islam.

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  28. Even folks like rufus. Just a few weeks ago, he was sure that the US would have to be leaving Iraq. That the Iraqi were not stepping up. Well the Iraqi are still in their chairs, the US talks of either extending the surge until '08, or start leaving in October.

    The fun never stops

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  29. Here's a Plan: Let's Cool the Planet!

    The Kennedy School is spending $1.5 million over two years to study why governments across the world have failed to act on threats such as heat waves and hurricanes, even when they know they are coming.

    From looking back at Hurricane Katrina and forward to the absence of firm plans to cool the planet or stem malaria, some of the school's top researchers will study the roots of government inaction.

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  30. Habu -

    From the link below (of course we should also...), i think you will find the "Hama model" interesting

    Of course, we can also exploit our opponents' disharmonies. For example, let us say that one
    of our opponents is a religious grouping. In a town where we have a presence, a local feud results
    in the killing of a clergyman by members of the same grouping. In itself, this is a minor tactical
    event. But if we use our own information warfare to focus the public's attention on it, pointing
    out how the. tenets of the religion are not being observed by those who claim to speak for it, we
    might create a “moral bomb.” A physical action would play on the moral level, just as a tactical
    action would play on a strategic level. Here we see how the classical and new levels of war
    intersect.


    hmmm...
    Iraq Report: Al Qaeda leaders targeted, Anbar tribe turns against al Qaeda

    DR -

    From the link above, "War always changes. Our enemies learn and adapt, and we must do the same or lose. But today, war is changing faster and on a larger scale than at any time in the last 350 years. Not only are we facing rapid change in how war is fought, we are facing radical changes in who fights and what they are fighting for. All over the world, state militaries, including our own, find themselves fighting non-state opponents. This kind of war, which we call Fourth Generation war, is a very difficult challenge.
    Almost always, state militaries have vast superiority over their non-state opponents in most of
    what we call "combat power:" technology, weapons, techniques, training, etc. Despite these
    superiorities, more often than not, state militaries end up losing."

    ppab -
    if you like Unrestricted Warfare you should read Transformation of War by Martin Van Creveld (think Gaza and Lebanon)

    Chapter 7 from the web
    Future war

    there is agreement that if the Hama model is employed it must be done quickly and decisively

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  31. "But today, war is changing faster and on a larger scale than at any time in the last 350 years. Not only are we facing rapid change in how war is fought, we are facing radical changes in who fights and what they are fighting for."
    ---
    To whatever degree that is true, they leave out an even bigger factor:
    WE don't fight wars like we used to.
    Put today's ROE's in place, and there's NO WAY we would have won WWII.

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  32. Clinton added:
    "He said the next president should solve the "biggest, baddest problems"; take small action when the whole problem cannot be addressed;
    never appoint incompetent political allies to positions of disaster response;
    never let political ideology blur scientific evidence; and cooperate nationally and internationally.
    "
    ---
    "We are the World,
    We are the Children..."

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  33. DR,
    You couldn't be more right. The fun never stops and it never will.

    Every generation has filled the pages of history with what we talk about daily. Just different times.

    Versailles, the Washington Conference, any of the big WWII get togethers of the big powers.

    Like in the movie Zulu when one of the rankers asked the Color Sergeant why them?...remember his reply?
    "Cause we're here son, because we're here"

    Basically the same thing Tony Blair said in his address to the Joint Session of Congress.

    "I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, "Why me? And why us? And why America?"

    And the only answer is,
    "Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do."

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  34. The biggest baddest Global Warming Boggieman is Gonna Get Us!

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  35. I think we should forget about the so-called WOT until we cool the planet.
    First things first,
    I always say.

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  36. Christopher Stone, a Kennedy School professor and head of the initiative said,

    "Each of these are threats that we know are going to happen. This is not like saying, 'What do we do if the president of China is kidnapped tomorrow,'" Stone said.
    *"It's not even that there is really technical disagreement about these things.*
    It's just a matter of figuring how we can get governments to act."

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  37. elijah,
    Thank you for the information. I brought up to the group the book Unrestricted Warfare, about a year ago but no one ever commented on it although it is informative.
    Transformation of War will go on my list. I am now reading Power, Faith, and Fantasy (Micheal B. Oren, 2007) which covers Americas involvement in the ME beginning with our very beginning as a nation up to today. It is very readable, unlike Unrstricted Warfare which wasn't a gread read but rather an interesting view.

    Although it has been widely discussed that Plato never said, Only the dead have seen the end of war he sure should have if he didn't.

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  38. I thot it was SHARON Stone, when I read the quote!
    Sheryl Suzanne Crow sounds like that, too.

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  39. doug,
    As you are aware the House Intel Committee is diverting money from hard intel today to research into when we'll all be able to swim in the Sahara Desert.
    I mean the chairman may not know a Shia from a Sunni but he knows an immient threat when he sees it.

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  40. The Dems certainly can divert money away from intel to the perils of global warming. But I'd remind the Dems that the priority target of opportunity of our enemies is ....drumroll...Washington DC.

    Chairman Reyes is a chimp!

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  41. Paris:

    300 anti-Sarkozy anarchists riot at the Bastille this evening. Let the jackassery begin!

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  42. Ooh!
    Touchy Feely Anarchists!

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  43. Habu,
    Hard to believe Rudy muffed the Sunni, Shia.
    Although I haven't heard his answer yet, so not sure he really did.

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  44. "the priority target of opportunity of our enemies is ....drumroll...Washington DC"
    ---
    Good to know there's still SOME Justice in this PC Madhouse.

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  45. Oh! The Humanity!

    At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.

    In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

    At that point Mr. Rove apparently decided he had had enough. Like a groundhog fearful of his own shadow, he scurried to his table in an attempt to hibernate for another year from his responsibility to address global warming.
    ---
    G_d, how did he tear himself away?

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  46. elijah,
    I certain;y understand fourth genration war, even understand the fifth.

    The Battle of Iraq started as a 2nd generation US war, we have not adapted nearly as fast as the enemy.

    The operation in Iraq as far from the Imperial Grunt model as one can get and still be in the same Army.

    Someone still has to kill the bad guys, before the balance of them prefer negotiation to futher killing. Especially when it's not their guys that are getting killed.

    What your past links describe as fifth generation war is just Pablo, writ a bit larger. Los Pepes can handle it, if they are allowed to.

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  47. "How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? "

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  48. What if we just scare them really really bad before we release them?

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  49. He then called on the United States "not to impede" in the fight against global warming.
    "On the contrary, they must lead this fight because humanity's fate is at stake here."
    Watch Sarkozy's victory speech

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  50. "Even folks like rufus. Just a few weeks ago, he was sure that the US would have to be leaving Iraq. That the Iraqi were not stepping up. Well the Iraqi are still in their chairs, the US talks of either extending the surge until '08, or start leaving in October."

    Remember all the public fuss and bother over our raid of the disputed Iranian consular office in Iraq - as well as the awkward EFP/IED presentation by civilian officials in Baghdad? We wondered at the time what the object might be, because it certainly wasn't Iran.

    How did we manage in the end to bring those Sunni tribes over? In part by setting ourselves up as the anti-Iran, anti-Iranian-proxy agent. It's something we could offer those who have lost much since the end of Sunni dominance in Iraq.

    As a bit of information ops, it was apparently quite effective.

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  51. But it had nothing to do with the surge.

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  52. US or them, as it were.

    Them finally became a burden, to the natives.

    But that does not make those natives allies of the other natives, whom are Iranian proxies.

    No advancement to reconciliation, really.

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  53. "Los Pepes can handle it, if they are allowed to."

    Amen brother.

    It's going to be a hot summer.

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  54. "But that does not make those natives allies of the other natives, whom are Iranian proxies."

    No, it doesn't. We can make a show of some things, promise without sincerity or hope some things. But we cannot undo what's done, and so Iraq will continue to be a collection of peoples without a nation.

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  55. Oh, Bother!
    Thought someone would take me off the hook with a master plan by now.

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