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1st August 2022, 03:03 PM | #1 |
Penultimate Amazing
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US had just conducted a military operation in Afghanistan...
WHite house will release details this evening.
I am not surprised; was pretty sure this would happen. What has been stated it it was against Al Qaida; remember that promise the Taliban made about not letting Al Qaida type terroist group return to Afganistan? You just cannot trust the Taliban. Period, end of discussion. Breaking news: It's Ayman al-Zawahiri. He has beeen #1 on the target lest since Bin Ladin got his. He basically was Bin Laden Chief Of Staff, and was in charge of the detailed planning of 9/11. Won't see any tears from be on his sudden demise. More just it; It was a Drone Strike in Kabul. which once agianst leads one to question how much we should trust the Taliban Goverment. |
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1st August 2022, 03:20 PM | #2 |
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Where was the operation staged from? Somewhere in Afghanistan?
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1st August 2022, 03:30 PM | #3 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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1st August 2022, 03:49 PM | #4 |
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He's one of those guys that's been off the media's radar for some time (at least, my media's). If I thought about it I'd think he was killed some time ago. But the way Wolf Blitzer is bloviating about it, it seems like it's a pretty big deal.
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1st August 2022, 04:04 PM | #5 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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1st August 2022, 04:05 PM | #6 |
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
This man, alongside some other immensely privileged, bright, talented men (Osama bin Laden, to name one example) in the Arab world spent most of his life using his resources, gifts, and skills not improving the lives of his community, his co-religionists--to say nothing of the broader world--but instead, threw it all away on a lost cause of jihadist death and destruction. In his case, he spent nearly 60 years of his life dedicated to this foolish, violent, nihilistic cause. And he lost control of his jihad, Exhibit A being ISIS. It is a bitter, infuriating tragedy that such people who have been given so much and who are so capable in many ways choose such a horrifying, shameful path. Zawahiri's and his cohorts' actions directly and indirectly brought so much ruin to the Islamic world they claimed to be fighting for. That is his "legacy." |
1st August 2022, 04:32 PM | #7 |
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And the Taliban has some 'splanin to do with thier repeated promise they would not let groups like Al Qaida back into Afghanistan.
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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1st August 2022, 07:27 PM | #8 |
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1st August 2022, 07:53 PM | #9 |
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1st August 2022, 08:17 PM | #10 |
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Ashley Babbit was a good start. |
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1st August 2022, 08:24 PM | #11 |
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Knowledge is good.... Emil Faber |
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1st August 2022, 08:38 PM | #12 |
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1st August 2022, 09:33 PM | #13 |
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Yes, let's just call it a 'tragedy' and ascribe it to 'shameful' behavior. That way we don't have to look too closely at how these people came to choose this path.
A Lesson In Hate
Quote:
This isn't a 'tragedy' so much as the expected result of a culture clash. These people didn't become radicalized in spite of their privilege, but because of it. It is the privilege itself that you should be blaming, and the jihadists are victims of it. |
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1st August 2022, 11:23 PM | #14 |
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No. I’m not going to have this conversation.
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2nd August 2022, 12:46 AM | #15 |
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https://www.state.gov/wp-content/upl...eclaration.pdf
This is a three-page PDF, so here is the key bit... PART ONE Did that jog your memory? NOTE: * "The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" is the Taliban NOTE: This was February 29, 2020 when The Fat Orange Turd was still president. He got suckered, as expected. |
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2nd August 2022, 10:05 AM | #16 |
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Qutb saw what he wanted to see and believed what he wanted to believe, including the hateful fantasies he made up for himself. Yes, he and others were privileged, but were they really so gifted? (It's a mistake to expect the wealthy to be educated, or educable.) And if he thought the folks in Greely, Colorado were brutish, what would he think of, say, ISIS if he could see them today? And if he inspired Zawahiri, he'd have a lot of brutishness to explain for himself. Probably with a ream of Koranic blather and plenty of suras too.
Culture clash? More like the cultural insolence of a handful of puffed-up rich boys with ugly imaginations. |
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2nd August 2022, 10:53 AM | #17 |
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I always find Qutb fascinating because I grew up in Greeley and most of my relatives still live there - and it is very conservative. It's not like the guy was stuck in a hippy counter-culture place, or a hotbed of sin and debauchery. He was instead in a very conservative small town. Very, very conservative. Sometimes his history comes up on Greeley-related social media, and locals are shocked and surprised. Then a few years later it pops up again and they are shocked and surprised again, like they've got some sort of odd amnesia on the subject.
Some years later Anwar al-Awlaki attended Colorado State University, not so far away. (I was a student there at the same time.) Northern Colorado is clearly a hotbed of Islamic extremism. |
2nd August 2022, 11:46 AM | #18 |
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2nd August 2022, 11:54 AM | #19 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd August 2022, 12:00 PM | #20 |
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I don't think the US has any carrier-based armed drones in inventory right now.
Also, don't you still need someone on the ground, confirming in near-realtime that the targeted location still has the target? Whether it's a Navy SEAL in the bushes with a 3000x scope and a laser pointer, or an informant with a burner phone swearing to the target's location, some part of this operation must have been on the ground in Afghanistan, right? |
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2nd August 2022, 12:45 PM | #21 |
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As pointed out, they also promised to respect the rights of WOmen.
(In rest Captain Renault in "Casaclanca voice) I am shockee....SHOCKED...to find out that relgious fanatics actually lie..... I am soo puzzles as to why some "Progressives" are apologist for these right wing Islamic regimes . And please don't come back with the "Some Christians are just as bad" whatabout response. Both are bad. |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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2nd August 2022, 12:51 PM | #22 |
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I believe you are correct. I've seen a bunch of stories about a naval MQ-25 drone in the testing stage, but that's for areal refueling, not for missile strikes, so it wouldn't work for this mission even if you wanted to use a prototype.
Quote:
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd August 2022, 02:21 PM | #23 |
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3rd August 2022, 04:49 AM | #24 |
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You asked for a cite, and I supplied one in post #15. Seems you forgot (or ignored) it.
"1. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan* reaffirms its continued commitment not to cooperate with or permit international terrorist groups or individuals to recruit, train, raise funds (including through the production or distribution of narcotics), transit Afghanistan or misuse its internationally-recognized travel documents, or conduct other support activities in Afghanistan, and will not host them."The Taliban has breached the terms of an agreement it signed up to - so that voids the agreement, and its now open season on any terrorist leaders in Afghanistan. |
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3rd August 2022, 04:58 AM | #25 |
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I'm not sure the agreement has been breached. The presence of a terrorist is not itself a breach. There was a terrorist present. The Taliban consents to the US going after terrorists. The US went after the terrorist that was present. All according to Hoyle, Queensberry, and, as far as I can tell, the agreement in question.
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3rd August 2022, 10:21 AM | #26 |
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3rd August 2022, 10:53 AM | #27 |
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It was already open season, under the terms of the agreement. The Taliban agreed not to host any terrorists, and also agreed that the US could hunt any terrorists that ended up in there in spite of the Taliban not hosting them. The US agreed to go ahead any terrorists that ended up there.
Where did the Taliban breach the agreement? Were they hosting this guy? Or was he there in spite of them? |
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3rd August 2022, 12:37 PM | #28 |
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He was being hosted in a house located in the Sherpur neighbourhood of Kabul, part of the former "Green Zone". All of those houses (which once belonged to Afghani Government ministers) were confiscated by the Taliban and are now owned by members of the Haqqani Network, a political faction within the Taliban with strong ties to the Pakistani intelligence community. That makes it a direct breach of the Doha Agreement, which all of the Taliban, including the Haqqani, signed up to.
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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3rd August 2022, 12:48 PM | #29 |
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Unless the Hqqqani tipped us off.
Which I doubt, but I can't disprove either. In any case, either they breached the agreement and we aren't bound to it either, or both parties acted within the agreement. So in that sense it kind of doesn't matter: in no case did we do anything wrong by carrying out this strike (assuming that the target was correctly identified, which I'm still waiting for confirmation of). |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd August 2022, 02:03 PM | #30 |
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Haqqani tip-off, or a rival faction? You could write a decent spy thriller about this kind of thing. Maybe the Haqs wanted Z gone, so they promised him sanctuary and then turned him in. Get rid of a pest and score some points with the Big Bad at the same time...
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3rd August 2022, 06:56 PM | #31 |
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3rd August 2022, 09:38 PM | #32 |
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I think this is a reasonable view given the very muted public response of the Taliban leadership. I mean, in the past, after something like this, the usual response would be the declaration of Jihad, and fatwā against those involved. Instead, they call it a "violation of international principles" and make statement to the effect that it might close the door on future co-operation. Compared with their previous form, this is a veritable "Tsk tsk, that was very naughty of you"
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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17th August 2022, 06:01 PM | #33 |
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Meanwhile a mosque is Kabul was bombed today; apparently ISIS is now operating in Afghanistan.
Oh, the irony. |
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