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June 21, 2005

Blame Bush: Indigenous Iraqi Rebels Battle Foreign Al Qaeda Terrorists

The enemy of my enemy is my friend... kinda-sorta.

Now this is the sort of realpolitik that really gives me a chubby.

From Winds of Change's quote of the New York Times:

Late Sunday night, American marines watching the skyline from their second-story perch in an abandoned house here saw a curious thing: in the distance, mortar and gunfire popped, but the volleys did not seem to be aimed at them. In the dark, one spoke in hushed code words on a radio, and after a minute found the answer. "Red on red," he said, using a military term for enemy-on-enemy fire. Marines patrolling this desert region near the Syrian border have for months been seeing a strange new trend in the already complex Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents, they say, have been fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba, on the border, to Qaim, farther west. The observations offer a new clue in the hidden world of the insurgency and suggest that there may have been, as American commanders suggest, a split between Islamic militants and local rebels. A United Nations official who served in Iraq last year and who consulted widely with militant groups said in a telephone interview that there has been a split for some time.
"There is a rift," said the official, who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks he had held. "I'm certain that the nationalist Iraqi part of the insurgency is very much fed up with the Jihadists grabbing the headlines and carrying out the sort of violence that they don't want against innocent civilians."

Best. Story. Ever.

There are Sunnis who resent being pushed out of power by the Americans; their motivations for committing murder might be partially mitigated by the understandable objection to being invaded by a hostile foreign power.

On the other hand, there is the nihilistic murder-cult called Al Qaeda, which kills just to express its disatisfaction with the sorry state of much of the Islamic world.

It is good that the not-so-crazies are turning on the batshit-crazies. That's the key to political victory, after all-- co-opting the only-partially-crazy and turning them against the certifiable psychopaths.

posted by Ace at 03:03 PM

Comments

First comes red-on-red. Then before you know it, WHAMMO!!! Girl-in-Girl.

And for that day, I will weep happy tears.

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble on June 21, 2005 03:14 PM

Actually, I weep for Girl-ON-Girl, but 'in' kinda works too.

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble on June 21, 2005 03:15 PM

Karl Rove is the devil!

Posted by: Iblis on June 21, 2005 03:26 PM

The nationalist insurgent groups, "are giving a lot of signals implying that there should be a settlement with the Americans," while the Jihadists have a purely ideological agenda, he added.

Whoa.

(1) As recently pointed out here, you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. Not the first time we've heard that nativist Sunni fighters would be willing to negotiate, but certainly it takes on a new dimension in light of this internecine warfare.

(2) The NYT describes them as "Jihadists." Without ironic quotation marks.

To recap: Whoa.

Posted by: Pompous on June 21, 2005 03:34 PM

To quote Pompous: Whoa.

I think we need a little Kim Richards for this one.

Posted by: See-Dubya on June 21, 2005 04:02 PM

See-Dub, that wasn't Pompous, that was Joey Lawrence. Anyways, Red on Red means enemy dead, which is outstanding.

Posted by: El Capitan on June 21, 2005 04:38 PM

What about this anonymous UN official who "consulted widely with militant groups." That's the first I've heard about this, and I don't like the sound of it. Maybe it's much less ominous than it sounds like trying to get them to surrender, but I would like to know more.

Posted by: on June 21, 2005 05:38 PM

Hah!
Don't listen to them!

We're still losing I tells ya. Losing.

Its a QUA- (cough)
QUA-aaa (ahem)
Q- Q- (ack)

You know.

Posted by: lauraw on June 21, 2005 05:42 PM

This may be a stupid question, but what is a "chubby"?

Posted by: tinkerbelle on June 21, 2005 05:42 PM

This may be a stupid question, but what is a "chubby"?

Its what a lot of us guys get after looking at the t-shirt girl.

Posted by: Dman on June 21, 2005 05:48 PM

eh- thanks dman. learn something new everyday here at the headquarters of the Ace of Spades.

Posted by: tinkerbelle on June 21, 2005 06:33 PM

Don't feel bad tinkerbelle, yesterday I learned something new when someone said he wanted to put a "map of Hawaii" on the stomach of the t-shirt girl.

Had to think about it a second, then enlightenment dawned.

Yep, it's an ongoing education here....

Posted by: Lipstick on June 21, 2005 07:09 PM

So, would any of you girls like a pearl necklace?

Posted by: Dogstar on June 21, 2005 07:30 PM

"So, would any of you girls like a pearl necklace?"

Ah, you're just offering cause "it really doesn't cost that much".

Posted by: Lipstick on June 21, 2005 07:39 PM

So, would any of you girls like a pearl necklace?

Sure, son.

Posted by: Dogstar's Mom on June 21, 2005 07:51 PM

"co-opting the only-partially-crazy and turning them against the certifiable psychopaths"

Gee, now if we could only do that more reliably here at home....although Daley on Durbin is a good omen.

Posted by: cthulhu on June 21, 2005 11:30 PM

Reminds me of the good old days of the Iran-Iraq war, when we had the Islamic Fascists and Saddam's Sadists slaughtering each other, while all we had to do was cheer them both on!

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA!

Posted by: BattleofthePyramids on June 22, 2005 02:09 AM

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Top Headlines

"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

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TJM definitively ranks the films of Billy Wilder, like Some Like It Hot

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Democrat Congresswoman Sara Jacobs cites Me-Again Kelly, Cavernous Nostrils, Alex Jones and Tuq'r Qarlson as proof that concerns about Trump's mental health are "bipartisan"
As Bonchie from Red State says: Know the op when you see it.

Leftists who have been drawing Frankendistricts for decades are suddenly upset about Republican line-drawing
Socialist usurper Obama cut commercials urging Virginians to vote for the bizarre "lobster" gerrymander -- but now says gerrymanders are so racist you guys
Obama is complaining about the new Louisiana map -- but here's the thing, the new map has much more compact and rational borders than the old racial gerrymander map
Pete Bootyjudge is whining too. But here's the Illinois gerrymander he supports.

Big Bonus! Under the new Florida congressional map, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will probably lose her seat
And she can't even go on The View because she's ugly a clump of stranger's hair in the bath-drain

Podcast: CBD and Sefton Charge the Democrats with fomenting violence against the nation with their rhetoric, Virginia redistricting going down the tubes? Trump's bully pulpit is not censorship, Lee Zeldin is a star, J.B. Pritzker is an idiot, and more!