Shek and Bluesman,
Thanks for pointing out my own mistake in reading my own post. For what ever reason the second time I read it, my mind placed ALL in the front of the sentence for some odd reason after reading wabpilot's. Silly me...but hey, most of the time I'm at work, I'm trying to conduct a war and contribute here at the same time so I'm jumping from this back to this and so forth.
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“We know that. And we also know that the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. That’s a known. What we don’t know is whether or not head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did.”
and neither is gen. pace.
“It is clear that materials from Iran are involved...But I would not say, based on what I know, that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”
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Like I said, I think it'll be tricky to obtain 'solid' proof. I have no doubt in my mind that the Iranian leadership can't be completely clueless on what's going on. I think the White House has started it's trail of evidence from last week and there is more to come. But I also believe that there could be plausibile deniability involved here also.
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Point #1: Arming the Shias is NOT a stupid idea, nor a waste of money, from the Iranians' point-of-view. That's how you buy influence in the region; that's how you insert yourself into the affairs of a neighboring state, and co-opt what might have otherwise been a strictly Arabist/nationalist strain on Shiism. It has worked, too: the Mahdi Army and the Qods Force are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Tehran.
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Very valid point. Who know's where Al Sadr is but from last weeks MSM posts, it seems he's ran off to Iran, go figure. Regardless if he has family or not there, that's his most likely course of action from fleeing Iraq. Hmmm...I wonder why???
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(Leaving aside, for the moment, that NO war effort EVER goes so smoothly that some criticism isn't possible, but one must have some historical perspective to understand that if the citizenry's expectation is a flawless and perfect war effort, we'll defeat ourselves every single time...and that's a LOT of what's going on right now.)
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Bluesman, excellent point. This is why I don't like public opinion at all on wars. Unless, something seriously ethicially wrong starts happening. Like we just start using tactical or full scale nukes or NBC warfare for no purpose or wipping out whole villages for no reason, the public should keep it's mouth shut but this is their freedom. What does the general public know about warfare or statecraft? Most people are honestly ignorant of the facts. There is a command structure inside the military and the government. I don't think that this structure as a whole is so inherently flawed when it comes to warfare, that public opinion really shouldn't hold much sway. But that is the choice of the leaders to hear that voice should they choose to. And Bluesman is right, that's what is going on right now whether you like to admit it or not. That is who the insurgents really target, the people of America. The 'Voice' that the Democrats are jumping behind.
Another point I want to make is that when we go to war, we hold the military and the nation to such a high moral and ethicnical standard that I fear it hinders are ability to conduct war properly in a war like Iraq. For example, rules of engagement here in Iraq are so stringent, that many soldiers hesitate to fire because they fear the consqeunces of their action by their leadership. In which case the enemy has no rules of engagement and plays right off this. You can't be the lesser of two evils when the other evil has no moral equivalency. We will defeat ourselves in wars like this based on our own rule sets.
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Here's the truth about Iran: far more than any other single entity on the planet, that government in Iran is THE foremost sponsor of terrorism throughout the world.
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Bluesman, I do disagree on this one at least partly, they could be, I'll give you that. Don't forget Saudi Arabi, Pakistan, or Syria though.
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Originally Posted by wabpilot
You read it again. The author admitted his mistake. Now you need to.
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No wabpilot, I misread my own post. I meant what I said. In my area of operations at least, the majority of the weapons used against us or captured are from Iran. This information has been provided from multiple sources to include individuals detained, crater analysis and referencing of lots numbers from IDF, and individuals exploited by HMNINT, aka, Human intel.
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It is obviously to Iran's advantage if the Sunnis are eliminated or made moribund. It will allow the spread of the Shia Crescent of which much has been said on various threads and requires no emphasis.
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I once again believe what Ray states here.
And that is why everybody should try to contribute to this post....
http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/int...ning-rift.html