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Antifa or Al Qaeda? We may never "get to the bottom" of 9/11, but for those who believe Al Qaeda directly responsible,
the death of OBL's right hand man will be some comfort. Expect more "good" news from A-stan as new variations of Al Qaeda there expand and the U.S. attempts to stem that growth with "over the horizon" methods.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/01/ayman-al-zawahiri-al-qaeda-dead/
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader, killed at 71
Zawahiri, 71, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul over the weekend, according to officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. In an address to the nation, President Biden confirmed the death and called the attack a “precision strike” that did not cause civilian casualties.
Zawahiri had led his own militant group and pioneered a brand of terrorism that prized spectacular attacks and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. When he formally merged his group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s, he brought along those tactics as well as an expanded vision for attacking the West.
It was Zawahiri who postulated that defeating the “far enemy” — the United States — was an essential precursor to taking on al-Qaeda’s “near enemy,” the pro-Western Arab regimes that stood in the way of the group’s dream of uniting all Muslims under a global caliphate.
“To kill Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 manifesto. Three years later, he would put words into action by helping to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.. . . .
As the Sept. 11 hijackers were dispatched to begin training in U.S. cities, Zawahiri was put in charge of planning follow-on waves of terrorist attacks intended to further weaken America’s economy and resolve. He launched an ambitious biological weapons program, establishing a laboratory in Afghanistan and dispatching disciples to search for sympathetic scientists as well as lethal strains of anthrax bacteria.
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Zawahiri’s efforts might well have succeeded, had he not run out of time. Within weeks of the collapse of New York’s World Trade Center towers, a U.S.-backed military campaign drove al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies out of power in Afghanistan and forced Zawahiri to abandon his bioweapons lab.
U.S. bomber aircraft targeted al-Qaeda leaders’ offices and homes, including the compound where Zawahiri lived. His wife was trapped in rubble after the roof collapsed, but she reportedly refused to be rescued out of fear that men would see her without her veil. She was later found dead of hypothermia....
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Man. I guess geopolitics is just going to be large sighs of relief when people manage to kill or vote out dudes in their 70s that are getting ready to check out anyway.
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(08-02-2022, 11:45 AM)samhain Wrote: Man. I guess geopolitics is just going to be large sighs of relief when people manage to kill or vote out dudes in their 70s that are getting ready to check out anyway.
That Z was killed in a Haqqani owned safe house is rather troubling.
On the positive side, though, this is more than just killing a dude my age.
It also shows that the U.S. is still getting human intelligence on the ground and can strike targets with stiletto precision. And that our intel services have not forgotten.
So it will be interesting to see how the new Taliban gov. actually responds to this. They've already complained about the violation of sovereignty and U.S. not keeping to agreements. But Z's presence hurts their image, having themselves agreed they'd uncouple from Al Qaeda.
One concern I have is that a split may appear in the Taliban, as a fraction thinks, following Z, that their primary focus ought not to be on establishing an Islamic Republic in A-stan, but on the fight against the "far enemy." This strike lends that view credence; even if this remains a negligible view within the Taliban, it may make the Taliban in some regions less reticent to control other Salafist groups, even where their actions counter the interests of the Taliban state.
PS this is also a small positive for Biden. Could boost his support one or two percentage points for the next two weeks, before submerging into the usual social amnesia.
PPS Also huge visibility now for the R9X, which kills without a war head/explosion.
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2021/08/26/the-telltale-traces-of-the-us-militarys-new-bladed-missile-r9x/
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This just tightened some sphincters in Moscow and Beijing to send a message to quit the dumb moves and don't test Joe Biden's resolve to eliminate people now or any time in the future. US military might means business so keep those assholes tightened up permanently.. lol
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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(08-02-2022, 08:51 PM)GMDino Wrote:
No coincidence that the schmuck is in the middle..
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.
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(08-02-2022, 08:51 PM)GMDino Wrote:
Really?
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
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Good riddance. Seems he slithered away more than once.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
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(08-03-2022, 09:28 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Really?
Yep.
Look I've been totally honest about my desire to remind people until he leaves this mortal coil that Trump was a complete and utter failure and fool. So when there's a chance to do that it will be done. Feel free to ignore it. It won't stop.
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(08-03-2022, 09:53 AM)GMDino Wrote: Yep.
Look I've been totally honest about my desire to remind people until he leaves this mortal coil that Trump was a complete and utter failure and fool. So when there's a chance to do that it will be done. Feel free to ignore it. It won't stop.
That doesn't seem healthy even if declared.
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(08-03-2022, 09:54 AM)michaelsean Wrote: That doesn't seem healthy even if declared.
Totally healthy. No worse than those who still have Trump 2020 flags in their yard and are still wearing the red hats...lol.
That man deserves every bit of criticism anyone can give him.
Nonetheless I don't even seek these things out. I'm not scouring the internet for things to make DJT look bad. But when I see them they will be shared. Here and elsewhere.
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(08-03-2022, 09:54 AM)michaelsean Wrote: That doesn't seem healthy even if declared.
Normally I'd agree, but I'm seeing Trump endorsed candidates still winning their primaries,
and he is still the Republican front runner--after directing a failed and clumsy autogolpe.
Nothing like this in U.S. history,
but millions of "independents" still aren't sure whether Obama, Hillary or Biden would make a better president than Trump.
THAT's what, to me, doesn't seem healthy.
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(08-02-2022, 08:51 PM)GMDino Wrote:
One presentation is definitely different.
Teachers could use something like this in speech class.
Each speaker is imagining a different kind of audience and
adjusting emphases accordingly.
Obama seems most out of touch with Trump's audience.
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(08-03-2022, 12:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Obama seems most out of touch with Trump's audience.
Is it the eloquence and annunciation? Or is it something else?
Because I'm willing to bet it's a bit of both.
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(08-03-2022, 12:21 PM)Dill Wrote: but millions of "independents" still aren't sure whether Obama, Hillary or Biden would make a better president than Trump.
THAT's what, to me, doesn't seem healthy.
Hell, I'd say a lot of people would put Trump above every democrat and every republican who wasn't Reagan (because he's too dead to disagree with Trump) or Abraham Lincoln (because they don't look being him beyond him a "republican" and he's also dead and he'd probably love their confederate flag décor) and George Washington because he was like...the first to do it.
Every living president is anti-Trump, so Trump fans can only believe that specific dead presidents would love him and are therefore awesome themselves. I guess that's sort of like people who long for America to return to the "good old days" which almost certainly took place before they existed. Bit of a self-own there, eh?
Side note, you have to wonder how much there is to the murmurs that Trump didn't think going after this guy was a priority because he didn't recognize him. I could see Trump thinking if he doesn't know the guy he can't possibly be important, but I can also see people saying "We'll just go after him for you, don't worry...just get ready to tell America that he died like a cowardly dawg and no one but you could have killed him."
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(08-04-2022, 10:38 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Hell, I'd say a lot of people would put Trump above every democrat and every republican who wasn't Reagan (because he's too dead to disagree with Trump) or Abraham Lincoln (because they don't look being him beyond him a "republican" and he's also dead and he'd probably love their confederate flag décor) and George Washington because he was like...the first to do it.
Every living president is anti-Trump, so Trump fans can only believe that specific dead presidents would love him and are therefore awesome themselves. I guess that's sort of like people who long for America to return to the "good old days" which almost certainly took place before they existed. Bit of a self-own there, eh?
Side note, you have to wonder how much there is to the murmurs that Trump didn't think going after this guy was a priority because he didn't recognize him. I could see Trump thinking if he doesn't know the guy he can't possibly be important, but I can also see people saying "We'll just go after him for you, don't worry...just get ready to tell America that he died like a cowardly dawg and no one but you could have killed him."
In the DeSantis 2024 thread I posted a tweet and in those responses you can see the great debate between Trump "finishing his job" and DeSantis being better to handle it.
Some feel Trump 2024 and DeSantis 2028-2036 is the best thing for the country.
That's the subset who would never vote Democrat for any reason ever at any level.
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(08-02-2022, 08:51 PM)GMDino Wrote:
The guy in the middle does great if you want a religious war
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(08-05-2022, 10:09 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: The guy in the middle does great if you want a religious war
Bold of you to assume the Christian Right doesn't already think they're at war.
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(08-05-2022, 10:25 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Bold of you to assume the Christian Right doesn't already think they're at war.
I just moved from Lancaster, Ohio to Columbus about a year and a half ago. There are well over 50 churches in that small city. When I would scan for on air channels, I would get half Christian channels. But yeah.....lots of folks down there think they are being persecuted by the left and are at war. You can't make this up in the Alex Jones world we live in today. I
I used to be jmccracky. Or Cracky for short.
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(08-05-2022, 12:26 PM)jmccracky Wrote: I just moved from Lancaster, Ohio to Columbus about a year and a half ago. There are well over 50 churches in that small city. When I would scan for on air channels, I would get half Christian channels. But yeah.....lots of folks down there think they are being persecuted by the left and are at war. You can't make this up in the Alex Jones world we live in today. I
wrong. Christians on the right are fighting for the heart an soul of this country. to return it to a better time. when God was important and families stayed together and kids didnt see naked and sex everywere. the left acts like those are bad things which is creepy. if the Christian right dont fight for morals and protecting our kids, who will.
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