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Tags afghanistan war , donald trump , US-Afghanistan relations

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Old 14th April 2017, 12:22 PM   #81
TraneWreck
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
We picked sides in an internal dispute. You can object to our having done so, but the sides were already there, we didn't create them.
First, this is what Skeptic Ginger said;

Quote:
Iran on the other hand had it's own revolution, throwing out the dictator we installed after we crushed their democratically elected leader.
This is true. Also, at no point is it even implied that the US created the Shah, or whatever you were swinging at. Taking sides in an internal dispute is perfectly consistent with what SG said.

Second, your statement is deeply misleading.

The British were largely responsible for generating the anti-Mossadegh sentiment after Iran nationalized their oil resources. It did not begin as an internal struggle. Absent the influence of Britain, there would have been no serious effort to depose Mossadegh.

When Truman was in charge, the US offered broad support to Mossadegh. Eisenhower and the Republicans take over and Britain realizes that they have a nice paranoid, over-reacting toy to play with so they begin sponsoring pro-communist activism in Iran and linking it to Mossadegh.

That's when our dumbasses get seriously involved. The Shah, as I said, wasn't our first choice, and, in fact, a General was installed after the second, successful coup on Mossadegh.

That is far more than choosing sides. Britain and the US created and funded the opposition then picked the successor.

None of this is controversial.

Quote:
Oh, and Mossadegh was no democrat either.
He was legally elected by the rules Iran operated under. In the elections he called for in '51, he won a majority of seats before halting the count, a tricky move to disenfranchise rural areas, no doubt, but he had already won that election.

Not unlike a certain leader of the most powerful Democracy on the planet who manages to hold the presidency while receiving 3 million fewer votes...
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:25 PM   #82
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Originally Posted by Jim_MDP View Post
I came back in specifically because that MOAB unit price just seemed impossible to me as well...
And in any case it's irrelevant. That was a sunk cost already. What's the point of having all these cool toys if we can't use them to blow stuff up?

BTW we also have 4,500 nukes...
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:26 PM   #83
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Originally Posted by Roger Ramjets View Post
And in any case it's irrelevant. That was a sunk cost already. What's the point of having all these cool toys if we can't use them to blow stuff up?

BTW we also have 4,500 nukes...
I wish I could laugh at that, very clever. But ************....
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:32 PM   #84
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
This is true.
No, it isn't. We didn't install him.
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:34 PM   #85
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Originally Posted by Roger Ramjets View Post
What's the point of having all these cool toys if we can't use them to blow stuff up?
"Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, mankind should be thinking about getting more use out of the weapons we already have." - Jack Handy
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:36 PM   #86
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
No, it isn't. We didn't install him.
...Is this some semantic technicality? If so, fine. I'll know to stop arguing.

Absent US and British involvement, the Shah of Iran would not have been the sole political power center in the nation. He would have continued to be like the royal family in England with respect to the Prime Minister and Parliament.

A phrase used throughout history when a more powerful nation ensures that an ally or puppet rules another is "installed in power." If you would like another word or phrase, please offer suggestions.
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:44 PM   #87
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
...Is this some semantic technicality?
There is a difference between saying we installed a dictator and saying that we prevented him from being deposed. In both cases, you could say that the dictator wouldn't be there but for us, but the starting conditions are radically different for the two cases. Saying we installed the Shah is to lie about those starting conditions.
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:46 PM   #88
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
There is a difference between saying we installed a dictator and saying that we prevented him from being deposed.
I would say going from not in power ----> power = installed.

Quote:
In both cases, you could say that the dictator wouldn't be there but for us, but the starting conditions are radically different for the two cases. Saying we installed the Shah is to lie about those starting conditions.
The starting condition was Mossadegh as the most powerful political figure in the country, not the Shah. We get involved, Shah has the power.
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Old 14th April 2017, 12:59 PM   #89
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
The starting condition was Mossadegh as the most powerful political figure in the country, not the Shah. We get involved, Shah has the power.
Depends when you want to "start" things. And it ignores what power Mossadegh had gained, and how he had gained them. Mossadegh had become a de facto dictator by undemocratic means, seizing power that even the Shah had not had. It's more accurate to say we deposed a dictator than to say we installed one, since post-coup the Shah had nothing like the dictatorial powers that Mossadegh had claimed.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:10 PM   #90
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
Depends when you want to "start" things. And it ignores what power Mossadegh had gained, and how he had gained them. Mossadegh had become a de facto dictator by undemocratic means, seizing power that even the Shah had not had. It's more accurate to say we deposed a dictator than to say we installed one, since post-coup the Shah had nothing like the dictatorial powers that Mossadegh had claimed.
Oh god...

He became Prime Minister when Parliament voted for him 79-12. He tried to pass a bill to greatly expand suffrage in Iran. It was blocked by conservatives, which is why he called for elections - which he won (but, as I mentioned, pulled a little maneuver to make his margin larger). If everyone in Iran had been allowed to vote, he probably wouldn't have needed the strategy.

Furthermore, the British had been flooding money into Iran for that election trying to buy off the military, religious leaders, the press, street gangs...Mossadegh called off the election due to this foreign interference (again, waiting until he had secured the necessary majority).

Complaining about Mossadegh's role without acknowledging the undermining of the election by Britain is ridiculous. Hold an open, free, and fair election by modern standards, it's pretty clear Mossadegh wins easily - he won even with the British influence.

He made obvious democratic reforms: took power from the crown and gave it to the people; put the military under civilian control; introduced land reforms; tried to expand suffrage...

He was absolutely not a dictator. He was in the process of removing more power from the Shah when our little coup interrupted.

It's just historically insulting to claim he was a dictator. It's the sort of a-historical nonsense that gets us into trouble in the Middle East over and over and over...
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:33 PM   #91
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
He was absolutely not a dictator.
He gave himself the power to simply declare laws as he saw fit. Then he dissolved Parliament using an "election" where you had to go to a different location if you wanted to vote against it. I'm sure you understand the implications of that.

Quote:
He was in the process of removing more power from the Shah when our little coup interrupted.
He was also in the process of consolidating his own dictatorial powers, and doing away with Parliament. Funny how you didn't mention that.

Quote:
It's just historically insulting to claim he was a dictator.
No. It's historically accurate. There is no other accurate term for a leader who can simply declare laws whenever he wants. It's historically insulting to ignore that.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:39 PM   #92
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
It's just historically insulting to claim he was a dictator. It's the sort of a-historical nonsense that gets us into trouble in the Middle East over and over and over...
Exactly.

Don't underestimate the influence of the US in creating rent-a-mob street action to create the appearance of a crisis. One Kermit Roosevelt is someone to look out for there. Of course something not dissimilar occurred later in Chile.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:42 PM   #93
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
He was also in the process of consolidating his own dictatorial powers, and doing away with Parliament. Funny how you didn't mention that.
Not really, since it isn't true.

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No. It's historically accurate. There is no other accurate term for a leader who can simply declare laws whenever he wants. It's historically insulting to ignore that.
I'm afraid the story you've been sold is an insult to history, and an insult to you really.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:46 PM   #94
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
He gave himself the power to simply declare laws as he saw fit. Then he dissolved Parliament using an "election" where you had to go to a different location if you wanted to vote against it. I'm sure you understand the implications of that.
The order is wrong, but again, that election was marred by MASSIVE interference from foreign agents. There was no possible way for that election to have been fair and free.

It's bizarre to blame Mossadegh for his desperate actions taken under duress from two world powers.

Quote:
He was also in the process of consolidating his own dictatorial powers, and doing away with Parliament. Funny how you didn't mention that.
I did mention what he was doing. He was removing responsibilities from A ROYAL FAMILY and moving them to the leader of a parliamentary system. It's just sort of perverse to say, "What? This guy took authority from a King? How undemocratic."

It doesn't even make sense, and, again, when he was taking this action it was as the US and Britain were directly engaged in a coup to depose him. His choices were constrained.


Quote:
No. It's historically accurate. There is no other accurate term for a leader who can simply declare laws whenever he wants. It's historically insulting to ignore that.
Right, so Lincoln was a dictator. FDR, dictator. George Dubya Bush, dictator. All because they declared laws during their administration, including the violation of constitutional rights.

Who knows what Mossadegh would have done without the aggression of the US and Britain, but the notion that he was a dictator is, again, just incorrect. When you are under attack, sometimes you behave in a way you otherwise would not have.

And after our first failed coup and second successful coup, we did actually install a dictator. You're engaged in the same sad propaganda efforts the undermined Mossadegh in the first place.

Last edited by TraneWreck; 14th April 2017 at 02:06 PM.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:47 PM   #95
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US says the bomb killed 36, and ISIS says it didn't kill any of them.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/14/asia/a...omb/index.html
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:51 PM   #96
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Quit trying to confuse me with facts.
It would help if his facts were correct, they are not.

TraneWreck has addressed Zig's weird version of history that we didn't overthrow Mosaddegh and install the Shaw. My parents lived in Iran just before the Shaw was overthrown, BTW.

Only Three Students Actually Attend A Giant, US-Funded Afghan Girls School
Quote:
A government watchdog observed only three girls attending a U.S.-funded Afghan school that reportedly teaches 6,050 female students, and witnessed just one percent or less of the enrolled students at three smaller boys schools.

Only about 23 percent of the students reportedly enrolled in Afghan schools funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and 38 percent of those facilities’ teachers were observed during the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)’s site visits, the watchdog reported Thursday....
The rest of the article lists significant deficiencies from the buildings to the teachers.

Ghost Students Ghost Teachers Ghost Schools
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The United States trumpets education as one of its shining successes of the war in Afghanistan. But a BuzzFeed News investigation reveals U.S. claims were often outright lies, as the government peddled numbers it knew to be false and touted schools that have never seen a single student.

Independent Lens - The US funded the Laura Bush Maternity Hospital which ended up then having no staff and no supplies.


So yeah, your tax dollars at work, just a little blowback, nothing serious.


I wasn't talking about pouring millions into the country which ended up enriching corrupt players. I was talking about funding madrassas that fed kids and were taught by locals in the villages who were not brainwashing kids into Wahhabism.
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Old 14th April 2017, 01:55 PM   #97
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
US says the bomb killed 36, and ISIS says it didn't kill any of them.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/14/asia/a...omb/index.html
Still, it was a very nice bomb.
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Old 14th April 2017, 03:37 PM   #98
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Still, it was a very nice bomb.
Lovely color, and a very bomb-like shape. Painting it's name on the side was a nice touch. Made it seem more personable.
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Old 14th April 2017, 03:45 PM   #99
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Originally Posted by Steve View Post
Lovely color, and a very bomb-like shape. Painting it's name on the side was a nice touch. Made it seem more personable.
I bet all the other nations are going to want one now.

I say no. "NO! No bomb for you. Come back, one week."
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Old 14th April 2017, 03:54 PM   #100
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
I bet all the other nations are going to want one now.

I say no. "NO! No bomb for you. Come back, one week."
I think it would be ok for every nation to have one. The US could make a pile of money selling them and they would be perfectly safe. Very few nations have aircraft capable of carrying one. They could even make a little extra on the side by charging like car dealers do for custom colors. Think how proud the NK's would be to see one decked out in their favorite colors and hauled down the street in one of their military parades.
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Old 14th April 2017, 04:14 PM   #101
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So what's the next level, that PDJT is going to use on North Korea? The King of All Bombs?
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Old 14th April 2017, 04:24 PM   #102
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Every mother has a mother. So he'd use the Mother of the Mother of All Bombs.
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Old 14th April 2017, 04:51 PM   #103
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Granny of all bombs? I don't think you could sell that.
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Old 14th April 2017, 06:08 PM   #104
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Originally Posted by alfaniner View Post
So what's the next level, that PDJT is going to use on North Korea? The King of All Bombs?
That be the MFer of all bombs, if you know what I mean.
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Old 14th April 2017, 06:15 PM   #105
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I'm just waiting for him to drop the F-bomb, period. Preferably during a State of the Union address.
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Old 15th April 2017, 03:04 AM   #106
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The Milf of all bombs?
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Old 15th April 2017, 06:39 AM   #107
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Now local government is saying that over 90 were killed and that some homes were destroyed.
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Old 15th April 2017, 07:20 AM   #108
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
Now local government is saying that over 90 were killed and that some homes were destroyed.
Took a few days for the local meat heads to stage collateral damage.
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Old 15th April 2017, 12:22 PM   #109
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
Actually it's the other way around: Russia's cheap vodka smells like an air fuel bomb.
And rather goes down like one.
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Old 16th April 2017, 07:27 PM   #110
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Originally Posted by Mike! View Post
That be the MFer of all bombs, if you know what I mean.
And I think we do!!!!!!
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Old 16th April 2017, 07:35 PM   #111
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck View Post
The order is wrong, but again, that election was marred by MASSIVE interference from foreign agents. There was no possible way for that election to have been fair and free.

It's bizarre to blame Mossadegh for his desperate actions taken under duress from two world powers.
Your excuse for his dictatorial power grab is that he was justified in becoming a dictator?

Yeah, that's not gonna work.

Quote:
It's just sort of perverse to say, "What? This guy took authority from a King? How undemocratic."
That's not the undemocratic part. If straw is all you got... oh, who am I kidding. There's no "if" about it.

Quote:
Right, so Lincoln was a dictator. FDR, dictator. George Dubya Bush, dictator. All because they declared laws during their administration, including the violation of constitutional rights.
Bush declared laws?

Wow. The derangement is really strong here.

Quote:
And after our first failed coup and second successful coup, we did actually install a dictator.
Again, no. The Shah's power, after we helped depose Mossadegh, wasn't actually that strong. He consolidated more power over time, but he didn't have that much in '53, and far less than Mossadegh had acquired.

Quote:
You're engaged in the same sad propaganda efforts the undermined Mossadegh in the first place.
You're engaged in a sad propaganda effort to make him a martyr when he wasn't.
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Old 17th April 2017, 02:35 AM   #112
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Originally Posted by alfaniner View Post
So what's the next level, that PDJT is going to use on North Korea? The King of All Bombs?
Mother Superior of All Bombs
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Old 17th April 2017, 04:01 AM   #113
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Originally Posted by Darth Rotor View Post
Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB). the "Mother of all bombs" is slang that is a direct lampoon of Saddam Hussein's declaration before Operation Desert Storm (or Operation Kuwaiti Freedom, 1991 ish) that there would be "the mother of all battles" when the American led coalition crossed into Kuwait and Iraq when the attacked. As it worked out, it was MOAR, or, the Mother of All Routs.

If it was an FAE of that size, that would be a heck of a boom.

See above.

Analysis:
Someone was sending a real subtle message to the leader of North Korea.
A while back, when dealing with air ops and air strikes in Afghanistan was my daily lot, the RoE would never have allowed its use.
Things have changed.
Why? it was deployed and used entirely on the local level. Now local military commanders are setting foreign policy?

Trump and the white house had nothing to do with this unless the military is lying.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...cials-say.html
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Old 17th April 2017, 04:09 AM   #114
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Originally Posted by Jim_MDP View Post
I came back in specifically because that MOAB unit price just seemed impossible to me as well... and though I hadn't considered how much more the MOPs hardening could raise its' cost, I'm not sure it could be as costly as you seem to feel.

Just like you, I can't imagine a gravity bomb (MOAB) being several times the cost of the guided and rocket powered Tomahawk.

Interesting though that an in-house product is proving so hard to track down costs for. Anyway... thanks for posting what you had.
Depends on how they budget the development costs. You have a lot more missiles and such to spread those over. One offs like these are always much more expensive than something you can build an assembly line for.
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Old 17th April 2017, 06:23 PM   #115
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Depends on how they budget the development costs. You have a lot more missiles and such to spread those over. One offs like these are always much more expensive than something you can build an assembly line for.
They probably already have an assembly line for the only complicated parts (the electronics), which was probably just off-the-shelf for the military. The rest of it is so simple, the costs aren't likely to be high even for one-of-a-kind production. A big part of the cost would have been salaries. But since it was developed in-house, the military was going to be paying those salaries anyways.
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Old 21st April 2017, 07:55 PM   #116
Darth Rotor
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Why? it was deployed and used entirely on the local level.
I didn't have that tidbit when I posted that. That the RoE have changed / loosened significantly is true, but I see your point on the local commander making the choice.

It wasn't on the menu when I was involved with such things, and the use of that family of weapons is generally for psychological ops. (Maybe the doctrine on that has changed, but it would surprise me if it had).

I'll take the mil press release at face value.
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