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My Imaginary GF posted:Yes, he certainly acts like it, and it seems counter to coalition interests in the region. What alternatives would you suggest to watch for? Unfortunately, between Turkey and ISIS, there isn't much to do in those enclaves, you could hit ISIS forces with airstrikes but it may only slow them. I suspect part of the reason ISIS is attacking that region is it is a relative soft-target compared to other areas around them, especially considering airstrikes in Iraq. However, the US may be caught in a game of whack a mole as ISIS probes in different eras before US airpower can stop them.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:28
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Ardennes posted:Unfortunately, between Turkey and ISIS, there isn't much to do in those enclaves, you could hit ISIS forces with airstrikes but it may only slow them. And if Turkey allows a porous border, what are the chances US forces miss ISIS targets and an attack is carried out elsewhere? I agree the region is relatively soft; one would expect Turkey to protect all Turkish citizens. If they refuse to protect Kurdish citizens, perhaps its time to recognize an independent Kurdistan and supply improved intelligence to their border security forces.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:33
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The original organizational referent can be safely argued to be a tribe, and there are undeniable tribal interactions present in the Iraqi north, but in their subsequent development ISIS itself has resembled nothing so much as a franchise, down to competing with lame 'ol Zawahiri's Al Qaeda down the way (so tacky, we stopped going there when we were 8! their site is made in geocities and has a link to their ICQ contact!) They have a logo, they have pretty consistent, concisely and pointedly edited copy written by captors and read by hostages and uploaded in a timely fashion. They update their Youtube and social media regularly with consistent bumpers and lower thirds. I did this same goddamned work for years. If they're a tribe, realize they're a tribe with brand management skills. Their brand is murder. Their brand is "hot" right now. My Imaginary GF posted:I will not say this so bluntly elsewhere, for I am a diplomatic individual and will deal with civil manners in civil society. No you won't, you and I both will continue posting thoughts and observations about it on the internet just like everyone else ITT. You'll probably muse about it offhandedly to a few collegues while shooting the breeze and if you're very lucky indeed be able to have a nice, meaty brass-tacks talk about it with a good friend or two. But neither of us will actually *do* anything. Civil society will do nothing. Near-omniscient robots with laser guided bombs will do something, special forces ninja men from an unknown and unknowable branch of the Army with a three-letter-acronym deployed as advisors will do something, but those are under the purview of the president alone with minimal oversight thanks in large part to "civil society" chewing itself down to the last bite post 9-11. Congress recently approved aid to the FSA which is sorta civil society-ish, but that was mostly about not being late to the party on killing ISIS while its still in fashion and coincidentally quietly passing a budget in the meantime so that was really just a domestic placebo to keep the lights on. You should say it bluntly, if you feel it. You should discard this false veil if it isn't what you're feeling, because if you don't feel it then it's bullshit, and it can be hard to forget in a hypermediated world removed from the Lacanian Real, but generally speaking IRL notbullshit will win out over bullshit every time once it hits the fan. This--all of this!--is ISIS' point. quote:They are a synthesis of classic fundamentalist tribalism with new media technology and can only be destroyed by state power operating in the region. I have no illusion as to what this call for destruction will entail and I am not proud of the fact that I am making it. However, I sleep better at night knowing ISIS will be eradicated. Don't you? For truly, what is the alternative? We could not oblige them. Generally speaking, in some strategic game or scenario or ~thing~ where you need to guess intent it helps to look at moves and patterns and think "what is my opponent moving toward, what is that getting them?" It is my assumption from how they invaded Iraq as quickly and thoroughly as they did, then tried inciting global outrage wiping out an ethnic group or three, then just obliterated all possible subtext and killed some Americans and taunted the viewers about it, that they're trying to elicit some kind of reaction or something. Some kind of response maybe? Doing *nothing* is not an option, but any response has got to be calculated against how this is exactly what they're explicitly asking for. That should be worrying because ISIS isn't Al Qaeda, they don't make the kind of amateur hour mistakes Al Qaeda does, the dudes who did make those mistakes got killed off by the SAA. The man has pissed me off and back on again, but in not rising too quickly to that bait Obama might just have won back a little respect in my eyes after two unbelievably hosed up terms in office. As I go to bed entirely too late my nightmare vision is that ISIS advances just far enough to irrevocably destabilize Assad, so that when a coalition of concerned nations finally wraps it all up its a whole lot of devastation and rubble and civilians and instability all at the doorsteps of Turkey, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. And so we gotta count on those guys working together to maintain a long term peace. And it'll be too late when we look back and realize that all the beheadings and scriptural chanting and veneration of the individual martyr were data points in the plot of ISIS the orgainization's ultimate ~~martyrdom operation~~: The suicide bombing of 20th Century geopolitics. Generally speaking, I would like to avoid that endgame. meristem posted:I mostly agree with you, but I don't think you should phrase it as "ISIS 'doesn't give a poo poo'" and 'obsessively documents everything'". As I posted upthread, if it were so, if they genuinely, nihilistically didn't give a poo poo and documented everything, then where are the rape videos? This is a good point! Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 11:38
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And please, please, for all that is left sacred in this world, do NOT invade Turkey as delicious as it may sound. Thank you all for your time and God bless.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:42
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America will scold Erdogan privately but they ain't going to do anything to undermine him publicaly. He's still locked in a feud with Gulen's Hizmet and America have made it clear in the last few months that they support Erdogan over Gulen, there's not much they can do beyond tut-tutting and finger wagging.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:45
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kustomkarkommando posted:America will scold Erdogan privately but they ain't going to do anything to undermine him publicaly. He's still locked in a feud with Gulen's Hizmet and America have made it clear in the last few months that they support Erdogan over Gulen, there's not much they can do beyond tut-tutting and finger wagging. Did they? I missed it. The conventional wisdom here is Hizmet being a pro-US organization with links to American intelligence. Erdogan wants Gulen's extradition and haven't heard a pip from the White House about that. Not saying you're wrong, just asking...
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Sep 19, 2014 12:22
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Syrian refugee in Turkey tried to escape the country by crawling into the landing gear of a jet. Always hate hearing stories like this. Think 2 people have ever survived trying to do it. If you don't get crushed by the landing gear, which is near impossible, the cold and lack of oxygen will get you. http://www.todayszaman.com/national_syrian-man-dies-in-attempt-to-fly-hidden-inside-plane-wheel_359184.html
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Sep 19, 2014 12:31
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What's Turkey's motivation for being buddy-buddy with ISIS anyway? The enemy of Kurds is my friend or what? Some serious pressure (!invasion) ought to be put on Erdogan to get his poo poo together, because either actively or through inaction undermining the goals of his allies isn't cool. Not to mention his population, which while becoming more islamist recently, is nowhere near ISIS-level nuts.
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Sep 19, 2014 12:50
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Willie Tomg posted:As I go to bed entirely too late my nightmare vision is that ISIS advances just far enough to irrevocably destabilize Assad, so that when a coalition of concerned nations finally wraps it all up its a whole lot of devastation and rubble and civilians and instability all at the doorsteps of Turkey, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. And so we gotta count on those guys working together to maintain a long term peace. First, I really liked your post about their PR - and I think this fear is valid. Unless the region's states can come to the table the region will continue to become like Afghanistan, while 'optimists' who think yesterday is irrelevant to today will keep thinking we are a few more aid drops and bombs away from a functional state. The US should be either stop taking direct action and put alot.more pressure on local actors, or we should treat the cancer with heat and radiation and force the endgame.
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Sep 19, 2014 12:56
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fspades posted:Did they? I missed it. The conventional wisdom here is Hizmet being a pro-US organization with links to American intelligence. Erdogan wants Gulen's extradition and haven't heard a pip from the White House about that. Not saying you're wrong, just asking... The White House has reacted cooly to extradition requests because they still see Gulen as an asset but his organization has definitely overreached in their recent struggle with Erdogan, the last thing America wants at the moment is a destabilized Turkey. The FBI has launched a series of investigations into Gulen affiliated charter schools across the US since December of last year to investigate allegations relation to white-collar corruption, this may just be a coincidence but I find the timing a little bit to convenient (the first raids occurred literally days after the initial leaks started coming out). I may be over-interpreting this but to me this was a clear sign of US displeasure with the Hizmet's decision to declare all out war on Erdogan, they may not be ready to drop Gulen all together but they seem to be keen to give him a hard poke in the ribs to get him to settle down.
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Sep 19, 2014 13:11
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ISIS now 15km from Kobane in a village named Kharab Nas. Basically a straight shot to Kobane from there. Hope the evacuation is going smoothly. 
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Sep 19, 2014 13:18
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mobby_6kl posted:What's Turkey's motivation for being buddy-buddy with ISIS anyway? The enemy of Kurds is my friend or what? Some serious pressure (!invasion) ought to be put on Erdogan to get his poo poo together, because either actively or through inaction undermining the goals of his allies isn't cool. Not to mention his population, which while becoming more islamist recently, is nowhere near ISIS-level nuts. We are a convenient scapegoat, and we are reluctant to risk the lives of Turkish hostages in ISIS hands. Our allies sat on their hands for the last two years while we were burdened with millions of syrian refugees. USA policies created the ideal breeding ground for ISIS assholes through debaathification and letting Maliki and Assad run wild. Suddenly it is all our fault. Who would want unstable unpredictable heavily armed zealots right at their border? Today's Zaman is a Gulenist mouthpiece by the way. Their nurse story is very funny because their Turkish narrative for trying to overthrow Erdogan is "Erdogan=Iranian spy", while their American narrative is "Erdogan=ISIS collaborator".
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Sep 19, 2014 14:12
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Volkerball posted:ISIS now 15km from Kobane in a village named Kharab Nas. Basically a straight shot to Kobane from there. Hope the evacuation is going smoothly. How come they're not being heavily bombed by Western forces?
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Sep 19, 2014 14:19
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Zengi posted:We are a convenient scapegoat, and we are reluctant to risk the lives of Turkish hostages in ISIS hands. Our allies sat on their hands for the last two years while we were burdened with millions of syrian refugees. USA policies created the ideal breeding ground for ISIS assholes through debaathification and letting Maliki and Assad run wild. Suddenly it is all our fault. Who would want unstable unpredictable heavily armed zealots right at their border? I added a couple disclaimers. There's another video floating around of a train with tanks on it, and people are sharing it around claiming that it was heading from Turkey to ISIS, which is clearly ridiculous. So there's obviously a lot of people out there who want to make it seem like Turkey and ISIS are best friends without any evidence. The border security is pretty awful though.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:21
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Exioce posted:How come they're not being heavily bombed by Western forces? It's a bunch of communists. Who cares?
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Sep 19, 2014 14:22
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fspades posted:It's a bunch of communists. Who cares? I... kinda care 
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Sep 19, 2014 14:23
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Sergg posted:Why are ISIS hitting the Kurds so hard? They have nothing to strategically gain there except a hostile population they will have to give shiny new nape piercings to and some slave concubines. Do they actually think the Kurds will join them once occupied? I might be wrong about this, but from what I've heard Kobane is the only major roadblock on the northern road between firmly held ISIS territory in the East and Aleppo. Taking it would open up a major, much safer supply line to Aleppo, basically.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:28
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Exioce posted:How come they're not being heavily bombed by Western forces? The YPG are really supportive of the PKK and Ocalan, so the US looks at them as a terrorist group. The US has only aided the peshmerga, not the YPG, and there's no peshmerga in northern Syria.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:30
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fspades posted:It's a bunch of communists. Who cares? The civilians in the area are already reporting Bad Things.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:45
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Torpor posted:The civilians in the area are already reporting Bad Things. Should have throw their lot with the nice chaps in FSA then. That's when we care.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:51
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They're only bombing in Iraq.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:54
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Back To 99 posted:They're only bombing in Iraq. They've approved strikes in Syria, so it's only a matter of time. Kobane's prime minister is a baaaad man. 
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Sep 19, 2014 14:55
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Volkerball posted:They've approved strikes in Syria, so it's only a matter of time. He's not Dealing With It very well.
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Sep 19, 2014 15:08
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Volkerball posted:ISIS dude suggesting to me that maybe the Kurds should just give up and help in the fight against kuffar. Yeah, I'm sure that would end real well. ISIS are well known for letting bygones be bygones. Pretty sure that video is a airsoft game at night with glow in the dark pellets.
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Sep 19, 2014 15:58
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Getting ready to press play on the new IS video, "Flames of War", which is now out. Probably going to suck to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDf7rDIR_k edit: ahhhh the Mission Accomplished banner, that never gets old swizz fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 16:08
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GlassElephant posted:Pretty sure that video is a airsoft game at night with glow in the dark pellets. Also a rererepost.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:19
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swizz posted:Getting ready to press play on the new IS video, "Flames of War", which is now out. Probably going to suck to watch Mostly flashy IS onanism, interesting the executioner at 54min appears to be north american.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:21
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Brown Moses posted:Mostly flashy IS onanism, interesting the executioner at 54min appears to be north american. Don't give onanism a bad name! Edit: What is a Lame of Fwar? Torpor fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 16:23
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I am bad at videos.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:27
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It was pretty jarring to have the Flames of War video preempted by an ad for the newly relaunched Surge.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:37
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IS should produce a FPS video game at this rate.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:39
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euphronius posted:IS should produce a FPS video game at this rate. Al-Qaeda already set the bar for that one, and fortunately for IS, the bar is pretty low: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSMjRFZ8Eq8
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Sep 19, 2014 16:42
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By the way, speaking about jihadis entering through Turkey (a couple of pages back), I watched the interview with that American from Florida that blew himself up in Syria, Moner Mohammad Abusalha, he stated that he simply took a flight to Istanbul and it took him less than a day to make contact with someone that had formerly been in Al-Qaeda that was willing to help him out. This is without ever having been to Turkey before. He was eventually able to make contact with people that could take him across the border with basically no troubleBrown Moses posted:Mostly flashy IS onanism, interesting the executioner at 54min appears to be north american. Yeah, seems to be basically a propagandist recap of the last year, total self-gratification. More bullshit narrative. A lot less substance and new footage than I anticipated although I hadn't seen that night raid footage before. The production value remains quite good. You're right that the executioner at Division 17 definitely sounds like a North American, deep-voiced motherfucker that he is, as does the narrator. suboptimal posted:Al-Qaeda already set the bar for that one, and fortunately for IS, the bar is pretty low: lmao going to watch this to cleanse the palette suboptimal posted:It was pretty jarring to have the Flames of War video preempted by an ad for the newly relaunched Surge. SURGE is back! Buy yours now! swizz fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 17:30
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Volkerball posted:I added a couple disclaimers. There's another video floating around of a train with tanks on it, and people are sharing it around claiming that it was heading from Turkey to ISIS, which is clearly ridiculous. So there's obviously a lot of people out there who want to make it seem like Turkey and ISIS are best friends without any evidence. The border security is pretty awful though. Of course, did not mean to jab at you personally. Just that journalistic integrity is a bit lacking in Turkey right now, and poo poo-flinging is the name of the game.
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Sep 19, 2014 19:39
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You know Volkerball as much as you hate Codepinkers and anti-war leftists you sound just like every belligerent 20 year old anarchist I've ever met: "People Are Suffering so let's engage in violence and topple the bad guys. People who oppose my plans for deadly violence are cowards. The fact that I don't really have any plan except throwing bombs at the problem until We Win isn't really a problem because things will work out." To be fair, though, most of the black-flaggers didn't expect other people to do all the fighting, and may have been a tad naive but were certainly not so naive as to believe in the goodness and competence of the US foreign policy community and military.
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Sep 19, 2014 19:49
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swizz posted:SURGE is back! Buys yours now! First Obama voted AGAINST the SURGE drink. Now he's for it. Which is it, Mr. President?
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Sep 19, 2014 19:50
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SedanChair posted:From the people who say everything is fake. Xandu posted:Al Jazeera had some bullshit article alleging it was fake last week, though they finally pulled it. And then some radical Egyptian cleric that Qatar had been hosting for years until recently gave some talk today about how those videos were photoshopped, and that while had had his "disagreements" with ISIS, he was against the "Crusader" war. Qaradawi, another Islamist living in Qatar, had a similar reaction, opposing ISIS's methods, but also opposing attacking them. I figured it's all bullshit by the usual crazies. I was just trying to find out what specific claims that they were making. I have a friend that found this and wanted to have something to show her.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:06
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Tezzor posted:You know Volkerball as much as you hate Codepinkers and anti-war leftists Aww, what is wrong with CodePink? It's anti-war, feminist as hell and allows dudes to join - what the gently caress more could anyone ask? So, I am about to interrupt you guys actually talking about important poo poo for a plea for...help? Some kind of idea? My friend has a weird situation and won't talk online about it for obvious reasons but I wondered if anyone had something similar happen or for a direction to go in: My friend was in the military for a year before he washed out at about 19-20. He's lived in CA since and is now 22. He's, uh, typical for his age: pro-weed, anti-GMO, anti-vaxxer, anti-pc, anti-racism (as in quit talking about it). He's got a lot to sort out. He also completely believes 100% that ISIS is out to get him. He's been getting out of country phone calls this week. It's always the same Iranian dude, saying 'hello? Hello?' And then trying to speak in Farsi. He hangs up. Gets the same dude from a wildly different but foreign number a half hour later. He hangs up, gets a call from a CALIFORNIA number and...it's the same guy. He then started texting in Farsi to him. So...I have a weird little white guy who has no idea what to do about any of this and is, frankly, scared to loving death. Me saying, "Settle down, dude" doesn't help so, thoughts? He's ready to send all of his shirt to Homeland Security despite...not believing in politics or American governments but, hey. Thanks for uh, any help I guess. It's a loving weird thing to deal with offline. His military was loving atrocious to him concerning the welfare of non-white people so he's kind of a paranoid little ball right of FFFFFFUUUUUU now. Armani fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 20:30
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Tell your friend to see a loving psychiatrist.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:32
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Caro Reincarnated?Rent-A-Cop posted:Tell your friend to see a loving psychiatrist.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:34
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