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https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/995763141173743616 The Taliban's spring offensive is in full swing. Bal Chiragh and Tala Wa Barfak districts fell last week, Bal Chiragh was reclaimed by Afghan Special Forces, but the Taliban are still holding Tala Wa Barfak. The complaint among the locals is the central government isn't giving or doesn't have the resources to combat the surge in attacks across the country. edit: spelling OhFunny fucked around with this message at 00:33 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 13, 2018 22:54
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Does the Afghan military ever go on the offensive? As in into areas the Taliban is known to be? It just always seems like they are fighting off a Taliban attack or struggling to retake a town the Taliban just took. The Taliban seem to dictate when and where the fighting will take place.
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May 13, 2018 23:29
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How do you go on an offensive against people you have no idea what they look like, in an area where nobody likes you and most people hate you? You're literally asking why is rooting out an insurgency a bit difficult sometimes.
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May 13, 2018 23:37
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Volkerball posted:Jannati is having fun. eugh
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May 13, 2018 23:43
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Iraqi politics just got a lot more interesting. https://twitter.com/SaadAbedine/status/995794275555250176?s=20 https://twitter.com/yeh1a/status/995795544332292099?s=19 I have no idea how this is going to pan out as far as coalitions go. Sadr said he would be forming a coalition with Abadi, but he was also supposed to come in 3rd so who knows where he goes from here.
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May 14, 2018 00:06
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Volkerball posted:Iraqi politics just got a lot more interesting. he's going to do everything short of driving a tank through Abadi's house to get him and his broke rear end sycophants out if this pans out, the unity talk was entirely 'I'm expecting good not great showings'. It's gonna be fuckin nuts.
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May 14, 2018 00:13
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Sadr good.
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May 14, 2018 00:30
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Yeah, Hadi Amiri also did pretty well, it is going to be interesting to see actually if this means for Iranian influence.
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May 14, 2018 00:33
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OhFunny posted:The Taliban's spring offensive is in full swing. Related: https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-bombs-falling-record-pace/4361432.html quote:The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan dropped more bombs during the first quarter of 2018 than it has in the same period in any of the last 15 years, according to Pentagon data. This is not surprising to me, I think the current plan is to fight the Taliban the way the US fought ISIS, that is by using American airsupport to assist local forces on the ground. The strategy sort of hinges on our local allies being at least somewhat competent though, so who knows if it can work.
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May 14, 2018 01:06
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It seems like Sadr winning is unambiguously good? Reports are that participation is bad in this election with only 45% of eligible voters participating. Here's hoping if there's a government transition it can all proceed in an orderly fashion without any dirty tricks or chicanery by either side.
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May 14, 2018 01:15
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Squalid posted:It seems like Sadr winning is unambiguously good? Reports are that participation is bad in this election with only 45% of eligible voters participating. Here's hoping if there's a government transition it can all proceed in an orderly fashion without any dirty tricks or chicanery by either side. Pretty much, shockingly like basically everyone with political influence in the area he has some parts of his past that aren't great but 90% of his history has been just being anti-imperialist and against the corruption currently gripping the country, hence the turnout sinking like a rock.
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May 14, 2018 01:42
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There was a pretty large boycott of the election from people frustrated with the lack of change and the corruption within the Iraqi system. Sadr benefited from that. It's kinda funny, people were comparing him to Donald Trump even before this election. Now it couldn't be more fitting. The jury is still out on whether this is going to be a positive thing moving forward. I'd like to get some definitive numbers on how Sunni's turned out to shed more light on it. Some reports are saying Sadr's anti-sectarian rhetoric largely won them over, others are saying Abadi got the seats he did from Sunni's. I'm hoping it's the former, because if that's the case, the people who know the most are buying into Sadr's vision of non-sectarian Iraqi nationalism. If it's the latter, and Sadr is only winning over Shia nationalists, then something is scaring Sunni's away from Sadr. It could be that he simply doesn't have the credibility to be the figurehead of a new Iraqi nationalism due to his sectarian history. If that's the case, then there could yet be hope for him to prove it's not just rhetoric. The alternate is that with the full context of the election, people think he's got ulterior motives. A Ronald Reagan talking about how he loves the blacks type deal. If that's the case, sectarianism in the Iraqi system may not be going away any time soon. That doesn't bode well when the protections within the system for Iraqi minorities may not be around in the future as part of Sadr's vision. There's an argument that those protections have really crippled the Iraqi government when it comes to all these restrictions on who gets how many seats and that sort of thing, but without them, the system could be ripe for exploitation, and Sunni's and Kurds stand to be victimized by it. The ball is in Sadr's court in that regard. All we can really do now is hope for good news and progress. At the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic. Sadr hasn't hosed me yet, so if he's playing the long con, he's done it masterfully.
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May 14, 2018 01:57
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Squalid posted:Reports are that participation is bad in this election with only 45% of eligible voters participating. Iraq has finally completed it's transformation to a liberal democracy! just a lurker checking in to say this is a Good Thread, keep it up people who know more than I
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May 14, 2018 02:25
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Yeah I'm not optimistic about anything regarding Muqtada al-Sadr winning.
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May 14, 2018 03:37
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I dunno about 'optimistic' but I have more positive feelings about him than what's already there. I'm also very curious to see the breakdowns of those that did vote for him, though. If he won on purely religious lines it's less of a good omen, but if there actually was a feeling of disaffected Sunnis putting their trust in him maybe he will have a real mandate.
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May 14, 2018 04:02
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Squalid posted:Related: Ah so I see we are in the "Operation Linebacker" phase of the Afghan war.
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May 14, 2018 06:16
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Squalid posted:Related: This feels more Vietnam than Syria.
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May 14, 2018 06:39
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Ahahahaha I saw he was running but this I did not expect. https://twitter.com/Josiensor/status/995971703896408064?s=20 
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May 14, 2018 11:33
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BTW Volkerball (and others I guess), how do you think Sadr winning will go down in America/ the US bipartisan foreign policy establishment? I can't imagine many will be happy that the most effective Iraqi resistance leader will be either prime minister or the dominant political force in Iraq, even if he will (probably) reduce Iran's influence.
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May 14, 2018 11:36
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There's been a lot of different arguments made so far. A lot of wonk types are hyping him up as an anti-Iranian figure who is what Iraq needs. If you remember, a while back he went on a big tour of Saudi Arabia and met with MBS. A lot of these analysts seem to be reading awfully deep into that in forming their opinions. As you would expect, some others are saying he's pro-Iran and a troop killing anti-American and this is a disaster. That these are completely incompatible views, and not really the truth in either case, shows how difficult this is going to be to navigate from a policy perspective. I doubt a consensus is going to emerge. I think he's got a relatively clean slate to work with. Reactions seem mostly positive or neutral, with a lot of people just thinking it's refreshing to have a middle eastern election where the results were surprising. I think the biggest variable is whether or not Sadr starts to throw his weight around in an attempt to push the US out of Iraq entirely, immediately, when Iraq remains an important piece for the US in targeting what's left of ISIS. That would definitely create a consensus. But he may not have the clout to do that even if he wanted to. We'll see what happens.
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 12:21 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 12:12
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So a video is making some facebook rounds saying Israel has used a tactical nuclear weapon in Yemen. That's almost certainly bunk, right?
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May 14, 2018 13:29
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The odds of it not being bunk approach statistical insignificance.
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May 14, 2018 13:32
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1700 people shot so far
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May 14, 2018 13:34
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I've checked all the news sites, and yeah, it would have appeared at least somewhere if it wasn't bullshit.
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May 14, 2018 13:34
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Volkerball posted:Ahahahaha I saw he was running but this I did not expect. I'm okay with this. Frankly, we should chip in for some new shoes for him.
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May 14, 2018 13:48
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Tias posted:So a video is making some facebook rounds saying Israel has used a tactical nuclear weapon in Yemen. That's almost certainly bunk, right? Is this supposed to be a recent occurrence? Israel has actually been accused of nuking Yemen before because a mushroom shaped cloud=nuke. Ikasuhito fucked around with this message at 14:08 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 14:04
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Ikasuhito posted:Is this supposed to be a recent occurrence? Israel has actually been accused of nuking Yemen before because a mushroom shaped cloud=nuke. Maybe it's the same incident hitting the rounds late, then.
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May 14, 2018 14:26
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Someone in the Infowars webring claims a tactical nuke was used any time there's a big explosion, it's a really good way to harvest clicks from gullible people
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May 14, 2018 15:28
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Tias posted:So a video is making some facebook rounds saying Israel has used a tactical nuclear weapon in Yemen. That's almost certainly bunk, right?
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May 14, 2018 15:45
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Flavahbeast posted:Someone in the Infowars webring claims a tactical nuke was used any time there's a big explosion, it's a really good way to harvest clicks from gullible people
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May 14, 2018 15:46
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Blaming anything and everything on Israel is also par for the course. To be fair, when I think of someone massacring civilians, they’re one of the first to come to mind
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May 14, 2018 16:16
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Thump! posted:To be fair, when I think of someone massacring civilians, they’re one of the first to come to mind *Syrian gov't guns down civilians protesting the government* "Wow, look at that, we should support the rebels with arms and tactics. Assad is a monster and must be stopped." *Israeli gov't guns down civilians protesting the government* "Hey check out our new Embassy"
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May 14, 2018 16:20
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$10 says your friend's video is from the SCUD base lighting off
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May 14, 2018 16:20
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You know the Onion parody article about the US having no way to prevent gun violence? The one that gets repeated every few months after the latest big shooting? We may as well have a similar article from the Onion about Israel having no choice but to kill Palestinians whenever the Palestinians protest about being murdered.
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May 14, 2018 16:27
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Tias posted:So a video is making some facebook rounds saying Israel has used a tactical nuclear weapon in Yemen. That's almost certainly bunk, right? Facebook really needs to be dissolved for the good of society
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May 14, 2018 16:37
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https://twitter.com/AP/status/996055770058969088?s=19 Holy poo poo  This is not ok. Edit: oh right we have a thread for I/P discussion. OhFunny fucked around with this message at 17:19 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 17:09
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theyre using the US logic of earthquakes = nuke tests in north korea to say that a 2.6 earthquake could be a nuke. Counter argument to this is that NK may have detonated explosive to create an earthquake and shore up their display of nuclear cpaabilitity. Israel blew up a missile factory creating a small mushroom cloud. One fake news to cover a real negative propaganda piece about iran losing a missile dump.
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May 15, 2018 06:05
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Flayer posted:If this was real this wouldn't just be on Facebook. Only 2 nuclear bombs have ever been used in anger - a third would be breaking news everywhere on the planet. That, and there's a whole bunch of satellite stuff specifically designed to detect nuclear explosions aboveground. And being as nearly all tactical nukes manufactured for historical use by militaries in the past were still multiples of the power of the bombs used on Japan, everyone would notice that sort of thing.
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May 15, 2018 06:18
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I once was set up on a blind date with a female engineer from Lebanon, who swore that Israel had used nuclear weapons in the 1982 invasion, that she had seen the explosions and mushroom clouds with her own eyes as a girl. My response was if she had looked directly at a nuclear explosion she would be blind, and that any large explosion will produce a mushroom cloud. She wasn't changing her mind... short date.
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May 15, 2018 08:41
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There's a long history of misattributing large explosions to nuclear weapons, we did a piece on it on Bellingcat: https://www.bellingcat.com/resource...ar-detonations/
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May 15, 2018 08:49
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