General David Petraeus: we have two weeks to save Pakistan from Taliban - Telegraph »
Posted By pc25 6 months, 1 week ago in NewsGeneral David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command, has reportedly told American officials that the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive.
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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The Taliban's Atomic Threat
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The extremists who harbored al Qaeda could get control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124121967978578985...-
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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Ah, the israel-firsters on their "new" campaign for more wars against moslem countries to "protect" zionist crimes against humanity. Just like the run-up to the disastrous Iraq war. What else is new.
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The myth of Talibanistan
Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.
But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won't fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces - amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class - are an infinitesimal minority.
The Pakistan-based Taliban - subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles - are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.
To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition. -
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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Ah my, zionist traitor to america John Bolton again preaching for the israeli government! Why would any patriotic American give this fool and the rest of the zioncons any credibility? In this thread we will see all those israel-firsters whose loyalty to America is questionable. We should invite them to move to their country of primary loyalty.
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Avigdor Lieberman injects truth into Israeli foreign policy
... Now, suddenly, he has relegated Iran to second place, instead promoting "Afpak" -- Afghanistan and Pakistan -- to first place. "Pakistan is nuclear and unstable, and Afghanistan is faced with a potential Taliban takeover," he told Alexander Rosensaft, the Israeli correspondent of Moskovskiy Komsomolets, "and the combination form a contiguous area of radicalism ruled in the spirit of bin Laden.
"I do not think this makes anyone in China, Russia or the US happy," Lieberman continued... "These countries [Pakistan and Afghanistan] are a threat not only to Israel, but to the global order as a whole."
This is hogwash, because neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan is currently "ruled in the spirit of bin Laden." Afghanistan is governed by President Hamid Karzai, chosen for the job by the United States after the 2001 invasion (although much of the Pashtun-populated south and south-east is controlled by the Taliban-led insurgency) Pakistan has a democratically elected civilian government (although the war in Afghanistan has radicalised the Pashtun-majority regions of Pakistan as well, and Pakistan's government is making highly controversial concessions to the "Pakistani Taliban.")
...It is doubly interesting because it tells us what Israeli strategists are thinking. Why has Avigdor Lieberman just changed his position on the most important strategic threat to Israel? Because he has just become foreign minister, and had all the strategic briefings that incoming foreign ministers get. So now he knows what the general staff and the professional diplomats really think....
http://www.straight.com/article-216140/gwynne-dyer...
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nostalgia6 months, 1 week ago
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fiftynine6 months, 1 week ago
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Call and ask..Geez...They are probably doing something which would be a hell of a lot more than bushboy did..!
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Oop's,i'm sorry..he did do something.He gave a military dictator billions of dollars of tax payers money while letting the situation in Afghanistan get out of control,which is why we have the problem in Pakistan now.He did that while Petraeus and other brass told him that we needed more troops..
The lemmings cheered the entire time this was happening and are now going to try to blame Obama for bushboys arrogance and stupidity. -
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CaptainLucid6 months, 1 week ago
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"And what exactly is the administration doing to address this?"
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I prefer he keeps it secret. You wouldn't want a newscaster broadcasting a SWAT leader telling his team where to enter live. I would rather hear it like the pirate rescue. He let the experts do their thing and after it is done they announce it.
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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As the U.S. Retreats, Iran Fills the Void
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124139838660282045...
Convinced that the Obama administration is preparing to retreat from the Middle East, Iran's Khomeinist regime is intensifying its goal of regional domination. It has targeted six close allies of the U.S.: Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Morocco, Kuwait and Jordan, all of which are experiencing economic and/or political crises.
Obama's middle east policy is destabilizing the region-
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fiftynine6 months, 1 week ago
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"Obama's middle east policy is destabilizing the region"
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Hey pc 2.5,in case you were asleep..THAT REGION WAS NOT STABLE TO START WITH !!!
You can thank your hero bushboy for that. It was his war for oil and profit that has brought this on.
Why do you think the American public put Obama in office ??They knew that with mclame and caribou barbie it would be more of the same old thing which would destabilize it even further. -
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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Amer Taheri!!! A zioncon traitor to America and outright liar! Why does the Wall Street Journal publish such despicable liars? Why would any patriotic American believe lies designed to keep Americans dying for zionist crimes against humanity? Why does PC keep posting stories from such sources. Is PC's first loyalty to America?
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Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri, an Iranian-born journalist, was educated in Tehran, London and Paris. [1] A "prominent Iranian journalist under the Shah", Taheri "now advocates regime change in Iran. [2]
"A Colour Code for Iran's Infidels" written by Taheri, a "prominent U.S. neo-conservative" [3], was published May 19, 2006, by Canada's National Post. The story "regarding new legislation in Iran allegedly requiring Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive colour badges circulated around the world this weekend before it was exposed as false," Jim Lobe wrote May 22, 2006, for Inter Press Service.
"The National Post retracted the article hours after it was posted to their site, and blamed Taheri for the bad info." [4] Eleana Benador later admitted that her PR firm, Benador Associates, had planted the false story. ....
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amir_Ta... -
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Klarissa6 months, 1 week ago
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timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article59894...
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March 28, 2009, Barack Obama offers new strategy to tame Pakistan
More than seven years after America declared war on the Taleban, Afghanistan still stands on the brink of disaster, President Obama declared yesterday as he unveiled a new regional strategy to win the war in South Asia. An additional 21,000 US troops will be sent to Afghanistan and civilian aid to neighbouring Pakistan will be trebled, Mr Obama said in a speech that showed his desire to take full US ownership of the deepening conflict.
He warned both governments that they had to take far greater responsibility in tackling their own corruption and the lethal insurgency that is threatening their survival.
Mr Obama spoke only hours after a suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers in the tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 50 people. It was the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year.
The Khyber tribal region, where the bombing took place, is the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan and has become a prime target for the Taleban. The militants have regularly attacked convoys. Pakistani security forces have started a campaign to clear the area of them and a senior Pakistani official said that the attack could be revenge for local support for the operation. An Afghan soldier later shot dead two US troops in northern Afghanistan.
. . . (read the full article)
He said that other terror attacks, including the London 7/7 bombings, were tied to al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and that “the safety of people around the world is at stake”.
Mr Obama announced no grand vision of a democratic Afghanistan, or a timeline for withdrawal from a war that his advisers say will be long and hard. Instead, in a radical downgrade of the more lofty objectives set by President Bush, he said the mission was “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat” alQaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet one ambitious element of Mr Obama's plan is to recast the war as a regional conflict involving Pakistan, Russia, Iran, India, China and the Central Asian states. He said he wanted to forge a new “Contact Group” of all the nations to help to address the conflict.-
pc25Comment removed: Spam
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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Obama should get rid of the old military imperial baggage left over from the Bush administration and simply get out of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our 50 years of meddling in Pakistan and 30 years of meddling in Afghanistan have simply made matters worse. Continuing the same old failures will simply multiply the blowback that average Americans suffer for the imperialistic ambitions of our corrupt politicians. Above all, we must free ourselves from israel-first control of our foreign policy in the mideast (in both parties).
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Clinton’s unpromising start in the Mideast
Incongruous. One can hardly think of a more suited term to describe the new US administration’s approach to peacemaking in the Middle East. Though there is little evidence that previous US administrations had genuinely attempted to play a balanced role in forging a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, many hoped -- and a few still hope -- that Barack Obama’s administration would bring about new standards.
However, if recent comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suffice as a general indication of the administration’s Middle East policy, then little change is on the horizon....
... it seems that the new US administration with all the gutsy talk of boldness, daring and audacity is still unwilling or unable to confront Israel’s chaotic and destructive behaviour in Palestine and in the Middle East at large.
Clinton should have used entirely different language and adopted a wholly different approach if she and her administration were keenly interested in investing in a just peace, and not mere “discussions.” Instead of trying to entice Israel to engage the Palestinians long enough to deceive the Arabs and alienate Iran, she should have dealt -- and strongly so -- with the provocative politics disseminated by Israel’s new right-wing government....
...Lieberman, on the other hand, has dashed any hopes that Israel might find the Arab peace initiative a common ground for peacemaking, according to Haaretz, reporting on 24 April. He rejected it, in part, because it stipulates a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with international law. Moreover, he called on the international community to stop pushing for a Palestinian state.
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Klarissa6 months, 1 week ago
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cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/29/obama.pakistan/
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updated 2:01 p.m. EDT, Sun March 29, 2009
Obama: U.S. prepared to pursue targets in Pakistan
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama said Sunday that his administration remains prepared to order strikes against "high-value" targets within Pakistan.
Obama reiterated a previous assertion that the U.S. military would pursue extremists within Pakistan's borders after consulting with the Pakistani government.
The U.S. policy doesn't change American recognition of Pakistan's "sovereign government," Obama said during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation." But the United States needs to hold that government "more accountable."
"This is going to be hard," he added. "I'm under no illusions."
Obama said his administration remains determined to weaken or destroy al Qaeda until it no longer presents a threat to the United States.
He added that his administration is prepared to continually adjust its strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan as necessary.
On Friday, Obama announced a new plan for the region encompassing Pakistan and Afghanistan. It calls for, among other things, more U.S. troops, greater economic assistance, improved Afghan troop training, and added civilian expertise to defeat the "terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks."
. . . (read article)
Obama specifically announced plans to send another 4,000 troops to Afghanistan along with hundreds of civilian specialists, such as agricultural experts, educators and engineers.
The troops -- who are in addition to the 17,000 the president announced earlier would be sent to Afghanistan -- will be charged with training and building the Afghan army and police force.
Sunday, Obama warned that America's military commitment to Afghanistan would not be open-ended.
"It's not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources. We've just got to make sure that we are focused on achieving what we need," Obama said during the CBS interview.
"What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always results in an improved situation," the president said.
On Friday, Obama also called for legislation authorizing "$1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years -- resources that will build schools, roads and hospitals and strengthen Pakistan's democracy."
The president added that "we will ask our friends and allies to do their part," including at a donors' conference in Tokyo, Japan, next month.
He also said the United States would work with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and others to help Pakistan get through the economic crisis. -
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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I guess they are having trouble finding those moderate Taliban that Joe "THE" Biden was talking about............
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http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/taliban-...
Taliban to Obama & Biden: "We're Not Moderate"
Well, duh!... The Taliban told Barack Obama this week that a response to his "moderate Taliban" comments "would be illogical."
There is not such a thing.
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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there is a split in his administration on how to proceed in Afghanistan.
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http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conserva...
Wait a minute. Bush's whole problem was that he didn't keep enough troops in Afghanistan to literally scour the countryside for that evil bin laden because of Iraq, right?
Or not. Same as it ever was. Hopefully he has the sense to realize Afghanistan would make Iraq look like a cakewalk and his campaign rhetoric was "just words".
As he weighs his options, Obama will have to balance his calls during the campaign for intensified effort in Afghanistan against recent warnings by some of his senior advisers, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of the dangers of getting deeply engaged in a place that has a long and bloody history of resisting foreign occupations.
Obama has indicated in recent weeks that he favors the idea of setting limited objectives, including ensuring that Afghanistan "cannot be used as a base to launch attacks against the United States." He cited the need for "more effective military action" while warning of Afghan hostility to foreign troops. His "No. 1 goal" is to stop Al Qaida, he said.
Many in the Pentagon are wary of getting bogged down in Afghanistan like the Russians did. -
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18337.ht...
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Secret report urges new Afghan plan
The Pentagon’s top military officers are recommending to President Barack Obama that he shift U.S. strategy in Afghanistan — to focus on ensuring regional stability and eliminating Taliban and Al Qaida safe havens in Pakistan, rather than on achieving lasting democracy and a thriving Afghan economy, officials said.
The recommendations to narrow U.S. goals are contained in a classified report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that is likely to be shown soon to Obama as part of a review of Afghanistan strategy announced by the new administration.
Obama is expected to announce soon his decision on a request for additional forces from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan. Several officials said they believe the president will approve sending three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, totaling roughly 10,000 to 12,000 troops.-
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nostalgia6 months, 1 week ago
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10,000 to 12,000???
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How many troops is enough?
General David Petraeus is subtly challenging President Obama's views on the number of US troops needed in Afghanistan
In the weeks after Barack Obama's inauguration, there was a running battle within his administration over the president's foreign policy. General David Petraeus, the former commander of US forces in Iraq, now the head of the military's Central Command, was pressing – often publicly – for a slower drawdown of troops in Iraq and a larger surge of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
With the compromise over an Iraq timetable and Obama's recent announcement of the Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy consensus seemed to have emerged. In fact, Petraeus had won quiet victories. A loose definition of "non-combat forces" meant tens of thousands of American troops could remain in Iraq after September 2010. While headlines said Obama had approved an extra 17,000 troops in Afghanistan, the boost was actually 30,000, the amount that military commanders had been seeking.
Last week, Petraeus was back on the attack. He told congressmen on Capitol Hill that "American commanders have requested the deployment of an additional 10,000 US troops to Afghanistan next year, [although] the request awaits a final decision by President Obama this fall."
The general couldn't have been clearer: if you want his solution in Afghanistan, then the president's recent announcement was only an interim step. As Ann Scott Tyson put it in the Washington Post: "The ratio of coalition and Afghan security forces to the population is projected through 2011 to be significantly lower than the 20 troops per 1,000 people prescribed by the army counterinsurgency manual [Petraeus] helped write."
In contrast, the prospect of an increase of violence only reinforces Petraeus's rationale to put more soldiers into the conflict. The general's acolytes in counterinsurgency are already writing of up to 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan. An expansion of aerial and covert operations in northwest Pakistan is underway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica... -
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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We shouldn't forget that Petraeus was an appointment of the bushie zioncons and failed in Iraq. Indeed, it was the failure of bushie, the zioncons and Petraeus that led even bushie to give up on Iraq and buy his way out by paying off Iraqi freedom fighters. Obama would do well to get rid of Petraeus. He also needs to get rid of the rest of the military imperialism baggage left over in the Pentagon from the Bush administration. The sooner he liquidates all of the "strategies" and "blackholes" left over from the zioncons the better.
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Planning for Failure in Afghanistan
It's official. President Barack Obama now fully owns the war in Afghanistan. Standing alongside his military advisors and in front of the Washington press corps, he outlined a plan with "a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." While the goal and the five objectives to meet this goal are clear, they're also unattainable and will likely result in the U.S. (and NATO) being trapped in the region for decades to come.
.... Obama's plan, along with all eight strategy reviews, have missed the seven-plus years of our experience there. Red flags should have been raised as Obama outlined his five core objectives:
Security
Since the invasion began the Afghans haven't shown any propensity to take care of their own security. Even those military forces who have been trained by the United States and NATO freely allow Taliban to pass through their territory if they pay. The Afghan tradition of corruption is overwhelming. With the drug trade flourishing, there is little hope that these military forces could ever be paid enough to bring a stop to the temptations of corruption.
Rule of Law
The United States is responsible for a good portion of the lack of legitimacy for the Afghan government. .... And while often unspoken, the occupation itself is the largest contributor to undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan government. It certainly didn't help that once in power, Karzai gave senior police posts to former warlords and human rights abusers. Without a legitimate government, there is little hope for the rule of law to take effect.
Drug Trade
Afghanistan is overwhelmingly dependent on the drug trade for its economy. The dependency on military solutions from the United States, NATO, and the UN fails to offer a credible alternative to the drug economy. Moreover, the militarization of drug control has failed to win "hearts and minds," driving poor peasant farmers into the hands of the Taliban and the insurgency. Shifting away from dependency on the drug trade requires not only an economic transition plan for farmers but also a political plan for the elites who have gained power through the profitable trade. Obama's plan fails to deal directly with these central challenges.
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pc256 months, 1 week ago
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and my my what do we have here..........seems the libs were wrong on this also
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Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki: Captured Al Qaeda Leader Has Close Ties to Saddam Regime
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/ny-times...
Funny. This wasn't the headline in The New York Times.
It was buried down in the article.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has close ties to the Saddam regime.
Hmm. Maybe Iraq wasn't the wrong war then?
Undated handout released April 28, 2009, shows Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Iraq has confirmed the identity of a suspect captured last week as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, believed to be head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda-linked group, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. (REUTERS)
The New York Times published an article this week on the capture of Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. In the report Iraqi Prime Minister told reporters that Al-Baghdadi had close ties with the Saddam Hussei-
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hyperbola6 months, 1 week ago
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Well yes, the invasion of Iraq by bushie and the zioncons converted many moslems to freedom fighters willing to use terrorism to resist our israel-first military imperialism in the mideast.
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Good to see how easy it is to spot the israel-first propaganda sites you post PC. Is your first loyalty to America?
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Dionys6 months, 1 week ago
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Isn't it a shame we wasted nearing close to a decade on a war in a country that had no terrorists, nothing to do with 9/11 and a more liberal government with regards to religion and women than we do now when we could have been going after the perpetrators of 9/11, destroying the Taliban both through attrition and treating the root causes?
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THOMNH626 months ago
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your an idiot, the relationship with Saudi goes so far back that GWB has very little to do with it. Please provide a list of companies he is directly responsible for "running into the ground", and it goes back further than his father so don't even go there. Put the glass down and get with reality, get over your Bush obsession and take a look at what Obanus is doing to the military in Afghanistan, he is basically leaving them out to dry. With no idea what he is doing the next big challenge which will be a Bin Laden run nuclear power will be all his to deal with. It will not have been created by Bush but by the militant muslam who for generations have been growing stronger on one goal, kill anyone who is not a follower and Dionys that includes your stupid ass as well.
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