Belmont Club

April 25th, 2009 5:47 pm

Baghdadi

The BBC asks whether Iraq is sliding into possible civil war again. “The sudden upsurge of violence in Iraq has set the alarm bells ringing and raised many disturbing questions. Does it mean the situation is sliding back out of control, as US troops prepare to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June and quit Iraq as a whole by 2011?” In order to answer that question there are two pieces of information that would be nice to have.

The most important question is whether enemy morale, after having been broken or severely degraded by the Surge, is now back up again because they feel that victory will eventually be theirs because they calculate that new administration can be hustled out. In other words, have the signals sent by the Obama administration breathed new life into enemy calculations? This possibility was indirectly given credence by the statements of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The BBC says, “During her visit to Iraq on Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US troop drawdown would be carried out “responsibly and carefully”, and that Washington would ensure that the Iraqis had the tools they needed to ensure they had a secure country.” Then having taken care of that problem, Clinton turned around and sent another signal. “But she made it clear that the US remained committed to having its troops out of the country altogether in the next two years. In other words, the strategic goal remains the same, but withdrawal tactics might be flexible to ensure no dangerous vacuums were left and that Iraqi forces were up to the task.”

Even without the realistic expectation that they could reverse events, it would be natural for the enemy, like a boxer who has been beaten to a pulp, to finish with a flurry near the closing bell to plausibly claim victory. After all, if the US is certain to leave in 2 years there would be every incentive to chain up suicide attacks on innocent civilians to the limit of their capabilities. That would have no military significance, but it would enable al-Qaeda in Iraq to claim that they “drove out” the hated Americans.

The second question which we might someday be able to answer is whether the Obama administration policies have materially reduced the flow of intelligence, upon which the prevention of suicide attacks depends. The problem goes beyond specific policies about what might or might not be eavesdropped upon; or what interrogation techniques are allowable. The number of informants is positively correlated with the perception of eventual victory because everybody wants to join the winning side. Few will be motivated to remain with a side which can hardly bring themselves to utter the word “victory” and only reluctantly and churlishly accepts successes which they have spent the last four years denigrating. An informer (I mean intelligence asset) bets his life on who he thinks will remain in power to protect him. Create doubt about the outcome and you will probably reduce the motivation to inform.

A recent news report shows how both questions are intertwined. It also shows the context in which the Clinton promise not to abandon Iraq was made.

“Iraqi forces who arrested him based on an intelligence tipoff,” Iraq Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta said. Al Baghdadi, not believed to be his real name, has issued audio and video statements in support of Al Qaida and an Islamic state in Iraq. In March 2009, Al Baghdadi issued a 17-minute audio message in which he declared U.S. plans to withdraw from Iraq as the mark of defeat.

Abu Omar Al Baghdadi’s recent capture creates the occasion for a thought experiment, which I would like to leave to readers in an open thread. If given the choice, would you want Baghdadi interrogated by US personnel, or left to be questioned by the Iraqis? One reason why intelligence officers wanted to create a facility to interrogate enemy captives under American custody after 9/11 was because they felt that a) American interrogation would result in more reliable intelligence than provided by foreign intelligence agencies; b) American interrogation even taken to the coercive limits now being denounced by Obama, would fall far short of the “treatment” the enemy would receive under “rendition”.  But since it is now conventional wisdom that Guantanamo Bay is the American Gulag and that this approach might have been a war crime, is it not better to leave Baghdadi to the Iraqis because he will be spared maltreatment?  But if you think that is ludicrous and have reason to suspect that  Baghdadi will be ill-used by Shi’ite interrogators, wouldn’t it be better to keep him in American custody anyway? That way he would be entitled to all the protection lawyers have argued he deserves. What would you do to Baghdadi? Doubtless Hillary would have no problem answering that question in a way that is sufficiently ambiguous; but if you were to answer it definitively, how would you? And what value would you assign any possible lost intelligence? If a number of suicide bombings are likely to occur in the next few weeks, which threaten to kill hundreds, restart a civil war or spark violence which would kill American troops, should we not ask Abu Omar Al Baghdadi about that? Or is that something Americans don’t do?

I think you can make arguments for either case. It’s important to think about the problem because it can’t so easily be solved with generalizations.

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29 Comments

1. Willie G:

How do you define victory? “We win, they lose.” was the reply.

It stands to reason that if you do not know how to solve a problem you are in worse shape than someone who knows how, but fails to get the right answer.

Even worse, though is to misidentify the problem itself, which then doubles the magnitude of error.

The current administration falls in the latter category. They do not recognize that the rest of the world isn’t necessarily looking for a “friend” but rather a strong horse. The touchy-feely emotive approach does not convey the “strong horse” message. The Iraqis do not want us to leave immediately but rather to finish the job and then go.

Likewise, as Habu as repeatedly said, our intellegence community is reeling from the anticipated pogrom and therfore fast losing whatever utility they may have had.

Matters will continue to slide downhill, both in Iraq and Pakistan and N. Korea, as long as the inmates run the asylum.

Elections most assuredly have consequences.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:06 pm 2. blert:

It’s high time to take the training wheels off: the capture was by the Iraqis — thus it is up to them to exploit the tender asset.

It’s too late to run interference for the terrorists.

To be seen as shielding a Sunni fanatic from justice…

It’s a complete non-starter.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:27 pm 3. 49erDweet:

Leave it to the Beeb to “raise a question” that reflects their desired agenda. They would dearly love to chortle with superiority if the Iraqis once more were to sink into warfare. #1 Willie G’s last line is spot on.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:33 pm 4. amy lounsbury:

Boy, this really is the rub, isn’t it? I think it’s simply the general public’s loss as to have elected a President who is now stuck having to do what he said he would do. The real question is, what will it take before we, as a nation, take this seriously? All that “Never Forget” stuff was forgotten so soon after. Very sad indeed. We are back to making the CIA even MORE inept, and possibly far more so, than they were September 10th. Yet, if we are attacked again in the next 4 or 8 (God forbid) years, this administration could go down as the worst in recent memory. I truly believe, like Reagan, Bush’s reputation, as well as his administration, will only get better as the years go by….

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:38 pm 5. Nomenklatura:

The core issue was captured in a nutshell within the military, by the common perception that ‘if the Democrats win the election then we will have to come back here in a few years and do this all over again’.

The Democrats are always going to reject an American military victory achieved under Republican leadership, and are very likely to give the benefits away, supposedly because of some quibble about whether it was achieved in a sufficiently moral way to suit their preferences, but in fact because Republicans might otherwise get credit for it.

The actual moral characteristics of this behavior, the baseness of the repeated betrayals of both American soldiers (alive and dead) and of millions of real people in Iraq (and Cambodia, Vietnam, etc., etc.) are staggering. Nevertheless, they reflect a durable and by now predictable reality we all need to understand.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:44 pm 6. winslow:

It seems that Iraq is already under the bus and any intelligence from Baghdadi will be irrelevant. It boggles my mind that there are still intelligent people who doubt that Obama is pleased with the prospect of the coming debacl, not only in the Mideast.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:44 pm 7. Rob:

As with Bill Clinton, the question is always which lie will he stick to and which will he throw under the bus.

Crippling the CIA would seem to be an epic fail; but that is just what The Oman has done.
And why?? Its all political.

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:00 pm 8. Lifeofthemind:

Tonight’s movie is Run Silent Run Deep. You take a risk, you make a decision, and above all you stick to it. Everything in war is simple but the simplest thing is very difficult. Gee, with insight like that I should be famous.

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:26 pm 9. whiskey:

Obama wants a crippled CIA and a loss in Iraq because he is a Muslim. A Muslim who it seems more and more likely, participated in the Summer Jihad during his trip to Pakistan while a student at Columbia.

He wants America to be destroyed, because he is a Muslim. And a Jihadi. It’s as simple as that. Not even having power as President can or will change his mind. Witness his groveling to the Saudi King, Chavez, Ortega, etc.

The real question is knowing all this, as everyone really did, why did the majority vote for Obama?

The answer is that most HATE America and ordinary Americans as much as he does. This is particularly true of SWPL yuppies and women, neither of which participate or help create victory in any meaningful way and thus long for defeat. Since to their minds, defeat will empower them and allow them to get rid of the hated enemy: Joe Average and the Military.

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:39 pm 10. veracious:

Wh,

Real Jahadi’s want to conquer, absorb; more than destroy. Destroy implies they don’t want the great things we’ve created, the roads, waterways and electrical system. The things we didn’t create: beautiful countryside and vast array of scenery.

They’ve one prophet who made the goals quite clear.

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:21 pm 11. MG:

Were it up to me, Al-Baghdadi would encounter a “good cop, bad cop” routine with American and Iraqi interrogators. He would remain in Iraqi custody, and be questioned in an Iraqi facility.

But it isn’t up to me, so Al-Baghdadi will become a pawn of the Iraqi gov’t, to be exchanged with his tribe for something.

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:41 pm 12. Elijah:

“Iraq is sliding into possible civil war again.”

Civil war between Shia and Sunni that may reverberate across the Middle East.
Is this beneficial or detrimental to the Persians?

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:44 pm 13. Storm-Rider:

“The touchy-feely emotive approach does not convey the “strong horse” message.”

I believe the Democratic Party leadership is Marxist in philosophy. In this they believe that no nation, i.e.: The United States, should be allowed to excessively prosper, to achieve military superiority, or to achieve greatness in general; that we must not be allowed to be the “strong horse.” The greatness of our nation is being redistributed to other nations, i.e.: The United States is being degraded; and other nations, particularly Marxist and Islamist nations, must be upgraded in order to fulfill this perverted notion of “equality” by Marxists. This is known as the “New World Order;” and it is the ultimate goal of the United Nations, the new big boy on the block. The New World Order, run through the UN, is now the object of loyalty, as opposed to the United States and our Constitution, for our new leader and his Party.

In former times this would be seen for what it is: treason, but those were times when ordinary Americans could grapple with the real world using reason and common sense. Under our current leaders the New World Order is bearing down upon us, and I believe their goal is to defeat the ideology of our American Revolution; they wish an end to government of the people, by the people, for the people; i.e.: majority rule through a representative system under a Constitution which limits federal government power.

Engineering American defeat in the war on terror, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, must be seen within the context of this New World Order.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:00 pm 14. Robohobo:

From this piece which I like to quote as the scenario is just so…… fitting:

“December 7, 2008″ by Raymond Kraft:http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/kraft/2006/10242006.htm

“The Galaxy’s wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq.”

Now to what to do with Baghdadi: Let the Iraqis deal with him while we have an ‘observer’ in the room. I am reminded of the scene in Syriana where the Clooney character is under the control of the terrorist he has been hunting. The Clooney character tells him that of course torture does not work. The bad guy says he does not care for getting information, this is about something else. He pulls one of the Clooney character’s fingernails out by the roots and says, “You know what torture really is? Waiting for me to pull out the NEXT one.” I love that.

Look, who cares what is done to bad guys who would cut off your head for the fun of it or because they are told it is demanded by the religion? If you do, Gosh, I have all sorts of respect for you and will be really, really sad at your funeral. Me, I want to win this battle. Knowing that some things may have to be done that are not too savory to ensure our victory, well, I promise I’ll have some sleepless nights later. Really. Promise.

Nomenklatura said: ‘if the Democrats win the election then we will have to come back here in a few years and do this all over again’

Nope. When The Won is through there will not be enough real military to fight a one front war.

As Whiskey says, The Won wants the CIA, the Armed Services and the Republic crippled. He is either so much an amateur that he is incompetent or so malicious that he is actively trying for the crippling of the same. Either answer does not bode well.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:07 pm 15. hdgreene:

Nibras Kazimi at Talisman Gate throws a bit of cold water the the Baghdadi claim. He writes:

The first problem with this is that this man would not be able to claim a lineage from Quraysh, let alone descent from Hussein bin Ali, as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi does, which is a very big part of his appeal as “Prince of the Faithful” to the jihadists.

Would the guy really lie about his lineage? And also:

it should be noted that there is a denial of the arrest posted on the Al-Faloja jihadist forum that other forum members are taking seriously. It is attributed to “Muharib al-Ansari” whose claims to be reporting from inside Iraq.

I wonder if the recent suicide attacks could be the work of Iran and Syria. The Iraqi security services have the identity of much of the former Sunni insurgency that joined the awakening movement. So I suspect they would be reluctant to restart the insurgency without being pushed to the wall. These attacks could be an attempt to do just that.

Or maybe it is because President Obama didn’t apologize to anyone in Iraq when he was there. He apologized everywhere else he went, but seemed to keep his trap shut in Iraq. This probably upset the Jihadist and they are now trying to get his attention so he’ll apologize to them, too.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:12 pm 16. hdgreene:

Nibras Kazimi also links to The Big Sleep by Nir Rosen. The tease:

The Sunni militiamen of the Awakening movement have outlived their usefulness to American forces and the Iraqi government. Some worry these unemployed fighters will relaunch the insurgency they left behind – but they don’t stand a chance.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:26 pm 17. solovyev:

I used to think the big difference between left and right was that the left believed in progress while the right believed in the ineradicability of evil. Now I think another big difference is the understanding of incentives. Those on the left really seem to have no ability to see that changing the incentive structure changes results. It should be obvious that demoralizing the CIA will lead to fewer intelligence assets, just certain facts about taxes that continually escape Democrats should be obvious … yet to many in charge they are not. Incentives matter. A lot.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:30 pm 18. twobyfour:

Whiskey,

In 0’s world, there can be only “one”. He has mild hots for Islam (he stated so), but not if it would interfere with his own “vision”.

The bowing to the Soddy Royal Schmuck was rather reflective–a madrassa training at the young age kicked in and possibly also a gratitude for oodles of cash that helped throning him.

I don’t know what he was doing in Pakiland, but I doubt he was involved in jihad. He is too much of a coward for that.

He sees muslims as his allies. But that is all. He does not subscribe to the hardline Islamist brand of ideology. If it is Mohammed or him, Mohammed has to go.

That is not to say he is his own man. He can be manipulated, to a degree. And he is being manipulated. But it is an uncertain game, the handlers know he has an astronomical size of ego, but they may be underestimating it. He is useful as it is. The moment he ceases to be useful and interferes with The Plan due to his ego breaching acceptable bounds, his goose would be cooked. Perhaps sooner than anyone expects.

Actually, he lately pissed of a lot of people. He has this thing about whispering sweet words to an enemy ear and at the same time pissing on his ally. He thinks he is making new allies, but the fact is that the old enemies do not change spots and he is acquiring new ones at a fast pace. Gonnabe is written all over him.

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:32 pm 19. Baghdadi « ACT Northern Virginia/Richmond/DC Metro Chapter.:

[...] Source: Pajamas Media [...]

Apr 25, 2009 - 9:37 pm 20. Tcobb:

Wretchard writes:
But since it is now conventional wisdom that Guantanamo Bay is the American Gulag and that this approach might have been a war crime, is it not better to leave Baghdadi to the Iraqis because he will be spared maltreatment? But if you think that is ludicrous and have reason to suspect that Baghdadi will be ill-used by Shi’ite interrogators, wouldn’t it be better to keep him in American custody anyway?
The current political fashion in the US seems to be that an outward facade of moral righteousness is equivalent to actually being a moral person, no matter how rotten the thing beneath the facade is. Witness all the tax cheats that the Great One has chosen to help lead the country.
Since we must treat captured terrorists no worse than disobedient four-year olds who can’t be subjected to any worse treatment than being made to stand in the corner for a period of time not to exceed ten minutes, I don’t see that we have any other choice except to hand them over to the Iraqis.
But, as the saying goes, when life hands you lemons try to make lemonade from it. Perhaps we could just show them videos of people who are undergoing real torture after which they would be told that they could either give us verifiable information or, unfortunately, we would have to hand them over to the Iraqi government, in which case their fate would be totally out of our hands–just like the people in the videos who were having their eyes burned out with a blowtorch.
What other practical alternative do we have now?

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Apr 26, 2009 - 2:12 am 22. twobyfour:

solovyev/16

I used to think the big difference between left and right was that the left believed in progress while the right believed in the ineradicability of evil.

What bizarre notions you held!

The “progress” left believes in is not a progress, but a concept based on their basic notion that wealth is a zero sum game:

Since wealth is not created, but only acquired by some to the detriment of others, e.g. stealing, a “just” society would be where stealing would be concentrated in hands of ethical distributors (state apparatus) that would distribute it evenly. That is, there are two parts of the distribution process–one pile for ethical distrubutors, their reward for being ethical and as such they get to be rewarded according to their wishes. The other pile goes to everyone else that is not yet so highly evolved.

Currently, the left does not believe in absolute evil (except capitalism), as evil is only an expression of behavior based on different frames of reference. The standard leftist belief is that the behavioral patterns are modifiable by indoctrination. It does not mean that “bad” patterns would disappear, but that the state can provide enough corrective (or coercive) influence to discourage the undesirable behavior. So, in fact, the evil (though called different terms) is accepted as a basic human behavioral pattern, just the temptations are removed by the overseer. The hope is that in time, the social pressures and correction would encourage only the sanctioned patterns.

The relativistic modern leftist creed was actually not present in the past, the left in the commie countries held more traditional views, because it was apparent how corrosive the relativistic principles are. They were strictly reserved for western consumption. Notions of family coherence, patriotism (with a marxist coating) were upheld and things like homosexuality were considered very “incorrect”, and often a prison was considered a tool of correction for sexual deviants.
The Gramsci and followers were actually blacklisted there, so people would not absorb some stupid ideas. But that is gone and what is left is the branch of the left endowed by gramscian conmen.

Just to elucidate the gramscian gameplan, here is the basic tool kit of the Frankfurt School:

To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School recommended (among other things):

1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud’s idea of ‘pansexualism’ – the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: ‘We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.’

Quite a success, eh? Half a century and the stink is set in.

The right believes in absolute evil in contrast to the leftist relativistic views, and the evil is defined in rather specific terms. But the right also believes that the evil can be defeated, because if one knows what is its scope, one can fight it–not when fuzzy definitions and narratives are the norm. The quest of fighting the evil is defined in individualistic terms and tied to a concept of personal responsibility, as opposed to sublimation of the responsibility into hands of the state in leftist conceptual framework.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:11 am 23. twobyfour:

solovyev/16

I used to think the big difference between left and right was that the left believed in progress while the right believed in the ineradicability of evil.

What bizarre notions you held!

The “progress” left believes in is not a progress, but a concept based on their basic notion that wealth is a zero sum game:

Since wealth is not created, but only acquired by some to the detriment of others, e.g. stealing, a “just” society would be where stealing would be concentrated in hands of ethical distributors (state apparatus) that would distribute it evenly. That is, there are two parts of the distribution process–one pile for ethical distrubutors, their reward for being ethical and as such they get to be rewarded according to their wishes. The other pile goes to everyone else that is not yet so highly evolved.

Currently, the left does not believe in absolute evil (except capitalism), as evil is only an expression of behavior based on different frames of reference. The standard leftist belief is that the behavioral patterns are modifiable by indoctrination. It does not mean that “bad” patterns would disappear, but that the state can provide enough corrective (or coercive) influence to discourage the undesirable behavior. So, in fact, the evil (though called different terms) is accepted as a basic human behavioral pattern, just the temptations are removed by the overseer. The hope is that in time, the social pressures and correction would encourage only the sanctioned patterns.

The relativistic modern leftist creed was actually not present in the past, the left in the commie countries held more traditional views, because it was apparent how corrosive the relativistic principles are. They were strictly reserved for western consumption. Notions of family coherence, patriotism (with a marxist coating) were upheld and things like homosexuality were considered very “incorrect”, and often a prison was considered a tool of correction for sexual deviants.
The Gramsci and followers were actually blacklisted there, so people would not absorb some stupid ideas. But that is gone and what is left is the branch of the left endowed by gramscian conmen.

Just to elucidate the gramscian gameplan, here is the basic tool kit of the Frankfurt School:

To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School recommended (among other things):

1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud’s idea of ‘pansexualism’ – the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: ‘We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.’

Quite a success, eh? Half a century and the stink is set in.

The right believes in absolute evil in contrast to the leftist relativistic views, and the evil is defined in rather specific terms. But the right also believes that the evil can be defeated, because if one knows what is its scope, one can fight it–not when fuzzy definitions and narratives are the norm. The quest of fighting the evil is defined in individualistic terms and tied to a concept of personal responsibility, as opposed to sublimation of the responsibility into hands of the state in leftist conceptual framework.
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:43 am 24. Barry 0351:

1. Iraq was a shithole.
2. Iraq currently still is a shithole.
3. After we are gone Iraq will continue to be a shithole.
“What’s the point?”

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:58 am 25. NahnCee:

Barry, agree with your observation. The only ones I will enjoy more watching them shoot themselves in the foot than the Iraqi’s will be the Pakistani’s. None of them are worth our time and effort, and should just be quarantined off from everyone else and left to fight it out among themselves.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:39 am 26. buddy larsen:

“Progressives” like to think their movement is based on anti-racism and anti-fascism. However, the movement founder on the political front Woodrow Wilson was anti-negro (search him and DW Griffith’s film “Birth of a Nation”) and the founder on the socio-cultural front Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist whose philosophy of utopia-through-genetic control broke ground for Adolf Hitler.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:53 am 27. twobyfour:

@ 22. Barry 0351

1. Iraq was a shithole.

True. On the shithole scale it was about 9.5 out of 10.

2. Iraq currently still is a shithole.

True. However, it is now at about 5.5 on the shithole scale.

3. After we are gone Iraq will continue to be a shithole.

Likely. But one never knows. In 10 years, Iraq may move perhaps to 3, while Netherlands may be at 7 (elucidation).

What is the point? It is far better to have a country in the heart of ME with 5.5 on the shithole scale, rather than 9.5.

If you don’t understand the paragraph above, then you may be one of these people that see a glass with 1/3 filled in as a glass 1/3 full.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:55 am 28. twobyfour:

Note: I did not post the duplicate #21.

Warning: There can be only one twobyfour. Hot heeding this rule may result in twobyfuror!

Click on the nick link leads to a blog with a sexual content. Thus #21 is a spam.

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:07 pm 29. Wadeusaf:

According to the Long War Journal, the Mahdi is making for this mess with the help of Quds. Who’d a thunk, more Iranian subterfuge. The problem is some of the Iraqis are falling for it.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/04/us_breaks_up_mahdi_a.php

link here just in case

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:13 pm

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