The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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Neutral said:
the Saudi govt doesn't sponsor terror/terrorists
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That completely depends on how you want to define terrorism.

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Surely the US has been the biggest state sponsor of terror in the middle East?

I mean, they created and sponsored the taliban themselves ffs. Ban all US citizens from the US I say!
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As above, depends on your definition.

However the US didn't create the Taliban, and whatever support it gave them in the first two or three years of existence was non-material and extremely vague and indirect (via Pakistan) - it basically amounted to the US waiting to see what happened next in the Afghan Civil War without openly denouncing the Taliban. It is however true to say that the US made a major contribution to creating the conditions in Afghanistan from which the Taliban ultimately emerged.
 
Pexbo said:
They know all the buttons to press. It's actually very clever satire. SNL of all things is managing to get into their heads and effect their thinking.
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That opinion was shared yesterday by a guy on CNN. He's convinced because SNL know that Trump is watching the show, they are conveying their messages directly to him.
 
2cents said:
That completely depends on how you want to define terrorism.



As above, depends on your definition.

However the US didn't create the Taliban, and whatever support it gave them in the first two or three years of existence was non-material and extremely vague and indirect (via Pakistan) - it basically amounted to the US waiting to see what happened next in the Afghan Civil War without openly denouncing the Taliban. It is however true to say that the US made a major contribution to creating the conditions in Afghanistan from which the Taliban ultimately emerged.
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All the weaponry the taliban had were supplied down from the US back when the Russians had ground forces in the middle east. Like always they were arming the "moderate" rebels, thinking that there is degrees to insanity, which obviously isn't true. A power vacuum is the worst thing you can create in a volatile region and the US has been guilty of that plenty of times.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
All the weaponry the taliban had were supplied down from the US back when the Russians had ground forces in the middle east. Like always they were arming the "moderate" rebels, thinking that there is degrees to insanity, which obviously isn't true. A power vacuum is the worst thing you can create in a volatile region and the US has been guilty of that plenty of times.
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The Taliban didn't exist until 1993/94, well after the Russians had left the region.
 
2cents said:
That completely depends on how you want to define terrorism.
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The same definition by which I think Iran is unfairly scapegoated. Saudis and Iranians have been running militias/groups in the region for years. But, you know very well - no one in the west gives a fcuk about muslims killing muslims.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
All the weaponry the taliban had were supplied down from the US back when the Russians had ground forces in the middle east. Like always they were arming the "moderate" rebels, thinking that there is degrees to insanity, which obviously isn't true. A power vacuum is the worst thing you can create in a volatile region and the US has been guilty of that plenty of times.
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Not all the mujaheddin became the Taliban. And this is me being a prick but, Afghanistan is not the Middle East.
 
Neutral said:
I am one of the biggest House of Saud haters alive - but, the Saudi govt doesn't sponsor terror/terrorists - it is f-ing scared that the terrorists will burn their precious palaces down. What it has done is export wahhabism...which in turn radicalized hundreds of thousands of poor muslim youth all across the world. It is guilty of that - and a lot more should have been done against it.
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I agree on the part that I deleted (the game has changed). You might be right that the Saudi government does not sponsor terror as extensively as previously, however, wealthy people of Saudi citizenship still do.
 
2cents said:
The Taliban didn't exist until 1993/94, well after the Russians had left the region.
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Neither did a lot of terrorist groups because they were characterized as "martyrs" fighting communism in the Western media and Rambo movies.

Neutral said:
Not all the mujaheddin became the Taliban. And this is me being a prick but, Afghanistan is not the Middle East.
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They didn't just spring up, acquire weaponry and start hijacking aircrafts out of nowhere. Some of the major operatives were trained by the US military.
 
Crossie said:
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2016. During Trump's first visit to meet President Obama.

Obama: "...and finally, here's the Oval Office."
Trump: "I'm going to be a better President than you. The best President."
Obama: "Uh huh. Anyway; this is where-"
Trump: "-what's that thing?"
Obama: "That? That's a map."
Trump: "And what does it do?"
Obama: "...it shows all of the places in the world..."
Trump: "Wow, modern computers are amazing, aren't they? My son can probably work one of these, maybe we should let him see it?"
Obama: "Well, sure we can but this isn't a computer, it's only a piece of paper."
Trump: "So....... what are all of these weird middle places with Eastern sounding name?"
 
Crossie said:
That opinion was shared yesterday by a guy on CNN. He's convinced because SNL know that Trump is watching the show, they are conveying their messages directly to him.
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Trump in the situation room: "Shit guys, SNL is starting, let's switch this over".
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
They didn't just spring up, acquire weaponry and start hijacking aircrafts out of nowhere. Some of the major operatives were trained by the US military.
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You're arguing a general argument vs. a specific one. There are precise people involved, and it doesn't boil down to "America did it". Some Mujaheddin went back to where they came from, some were already from the region, some formed the Taliban, some resisted the Taliban (And the Taliban didn't hijack aircraft). You're also going with the usual trap of disregarding the agency of local parties, imagining that a disinterested US is still a more relevant actor than an interested Pakistan and the Afghans.
 
Seems Trump is visiting our hellhole (Brussels) in May. After the attacks in Brussels he was shouting things which were flagrant lies. Already big protests being organized. Belgium has been one of the biggest (and earliest) defenders of abortion, gay marriage etc. Hell, we had a gay, immigrant prime minister! Feck him, I hope a lot of people join the protests.

https://www.facebook.com/events/144150509422343/
 
So the VP to push DeVos over the line - 1st time ever for a cabinet nominee. Real shame they couldn't get another republican to see the light...then again, all those donations have to count for something.
 
onemanarmy said:
Seems Trump is visiting our hellhole (Brussels) in May. After the attacks in Brussels he was shouting things which were flagrant lies. Already big protests being organized. Belgium has been one of the biggest (and earliest) defenders of abortion, gay marriage etc. Hell, we had a gay, immigrant prime minister! Feck him, I hope a lot of people join the protests.

https://www.facebook.com/events/144150509422343/
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I hope whereever he goes, people give him a good run.
 
Bernie Sanders v Lyin' Ted Cruz

Sanders_vs_Cruz_Debate.jpg


http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...ers-will-win-his-cnn-obamacare-debate-vs-cruz
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Neither did a lot of terrorist groups because they were characterized as "martyrs" fighting communism in the Western media and Rambo movies.



They didn't just spring up, acquire weaponry and start hijacking aircrafts out of nowhere. Some of the major operatives were trained by the US military.
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You don't seem to distinguish between the anti-Soviet mujahidin, the Taliban, and al Qaeda.

The mujahidin - armed and trained during the 1980s directly by Pakistan with full support of the US, Saudi Arabia, and others. Included an obscure fighter called Muhammad Omar who would go on to found the Taliban in 1993/94, five years after the Soviet withdrawal and subsequent loss of US interest in Afghanistan. Also included guys like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaludin Haqqani (famously described by Charlie Wilson as "goodness personified") who would go on to loosely ally themselves to the Taliban after 9/11. But most mujahidin factions, while certainly Islamist in orientation, fought against the Taliban when they emerged in 1994.

The Taliban - founded by Mullah Omar in the midst of the civil war of the 90s, supported by the ISI as a reliably Pakhtun, anti-Indian force for 'stability', and largely drawn from Deobandi-run, Saudi-funded madrasas along the Af-Pak frontier. Initially the US believed they might be a force for stability in the country, but the US had little interest in them until bin Ladin turned up again nd declared war on them in 1996. For his part, bin Ladin is said to have known nothing about the Taliban when he first returned to Afghanistan, but suspected they might be communists.

Al Qaeda - founded at the tail-end of the anti-Soviet war as a conglomeration of Arab and other foreign volunteers. Never had any significant impact on the conflict but used the space provided by the instability to train for coming wars against their own governments. People like Michael Moore have claimed that the US "created" bin Ladin, but the main studies of al Qaeda by Steve Coll, Jason Burke and Lawrence Wright conclude that bin Ladin worked independently of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
 
Crossie said:
That opinion was shared yesterday by a guy on CNN. He's convinced because SNL know that Trump is watching the show, they are conveying their messages directly to him.
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I reckon when profiling them for writing each character they said "how about rather than writing a joke about him hating, why don't we actually portray him in that way
Raoul said:
Bernie Sanders v Lyin' Ted Cruz

Sanders_vs_Cruz_Debate.jpg


http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...ers-will-win-his-cnn-obamacare-debate-vs-cruz
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Bernie is going to be on the cover of Time magazine before the end of Trump's reign (if he's not impeached).
 
2cents said:
You don't seem to distinguish between the anti-Soviet mujahidin, the Taliban, and al Qaeda.

The mujahidin - armed and trained during the 1980s directly by Pakistan with full support of the US, Saudi Arabia, and others. Included an obscure fighter called Muhammad Omar who would go on to found the Taliban in 1993/94, five years after the Soviet withdrawal and subsequent loss of US interest in Afghanistan. Also included guys like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaludin Haqqani (famously described by Charlie Wilson as "goodness personified") who would go on to loosely ally themselves to the Taliban after 9/11. But most mujahidin factions, while certainly Islamist in orientation, fought against the Taliban when they emerged in 1994.

The Taliban - founded by Mullah Omar in the midst of the civil war of the 90s, supported by the ISI as a reliably Pakhtun, anti-Indian force for 'stability', and largely drawn from Deobandi-run, Saudi-funded madrasas along the Af-Pak frontier. Initially the US believed they might be a force for stability in the country, but the US had little interest in them until bin Ladin turned up again nd declared war on them in 1996. For his part, bin Ladin is said to have known nothing about the Taliban when he first returned to Afghanistan, but suspected they might be communists.

Al Qaeda - founded at the tail-end of the anti-Soviet war as a conglomeration of Arab and other foreign volunteers. Never had any significant impact on the conflict but used the space provided by the instability to train for coming wars against their own governments. People like Michael Moore have claimed that the US "created" bin Ladin, but the main studies of al Qaeda by Steve Coll, Jason Burke and Lawrence Wright conclude that bin Ladin worked independently of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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Give this man a cookie!
 
Raoul said:
Bernie Sanders v Lyin' Ted Cruz

Sanders_vs_Cruz_Debate.jpg


http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...ers-will-win-his-cnn-obamacare-debate-vs-cruz
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Even looks like they're going to have a weigh-in.

What's the purpose of the debate? Is Cruz being sent out by the Republicans to try and silence the biggest critic, is this a personal mission to move on from being an also-ran, or what? If it's the second, Rubio looks to have done better than him since then, and Cruz would do well to walk away from this looking any better. Bernie's like the guy knocking everyone out but didn't get his deserved title shot.
 
Fener1907 said:
Even looks like they're going to have a weigh-in.

What's the purpose of the debate? Is Cruz being sent out by the Republicans to try and silence the biggest critic, is this a personal mission to move on from being an also-ran, or what? If it's the second, Rubio looks to have done better than him since then, and Cruz would do well to walk away from this looking any better. Bernie's like the guy knocking everyone out but didn't get his deserved title shot.
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They're debating healthcare. This is the night Ted reaffirms his full name of Lyin' Ted Cruz. Bernie is going to slaughter him with facts.
 
Raoul said:
They're debating healthcare. This is the night Ted reaffirms his full name of Lyin' Ted Cruz. Bernie is going to slaughter him with facts.
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I see what's on the agenda. I was just wondering why it came about. I don't recall seeing something like this before.
 
Fener1907 said:
I see what's on the agenda. I was just wondering why it came about. I don't recall seeing something like this before.
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Its part of CNN's new townhall programming. They did one with Ryan a couple of weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi last week, this one tonight, as well as Van Jones' town halls.
 
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