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    jezbannedBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:04pm

    He’s senile, right? I mean, the rambling nonsense interspersed with facts everyone has known for years (that Iraq wasn’t involved in 9/11). What is he even saying?

    Or....is he perpetually drunk. On second thought, that sounds like me when I’m very very drunk and think I’m saying very very important things.

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      Sohrabjezbanned
      2/18/16 8:12pm

      Listen, he’s a whacko but in this.... He’s pretty much correct. The Saudis have funded Wahhabism forever. It’s the basis of their country. An agreement between the house of Saud and the Wahhabis allowed the country to exist. They still fund Sunni extremism, ISIS, and other groups! Saudi Arabia has funded Sunni extremism to the extent that it may even hurt them one day. Anyway, Trump is a whacko and an idiot but here he is correct.

      Those first two paragraphs sound like a direct quote from a foreign policy expert.

      And now I hate you because I’ve defended Donald fucking Trump.

      EDIT: I mistook Bob Graham's quote as a Trump quote. Now I understand why I thought it sounded like a foreign policy expert quote.

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      XrdsAlumjezbanned
      2/18/16 8:15pm

      He's banking on many of his supporters being so stupid that they still believe Saddam was responsible.

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    Sean BrodyBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:08pm

    At a campaign event in Bluffton, South Carolina, on Wednesday morning

    Next stop Shamville? Fraudburg?

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      Breaking BattmanSean Brody
      2/18/16 8:12pm

      I read it as Buffoon, South Carolina

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      NefertittiesSean Brody
      2/18/16 8:17pm

      Next up: The reveal about Bigfoot. (Turns out it’s just a very large foot.)

      Also, Don Quixote was just a donkey named Xote.

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    XrdsAlumBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:10pm

    Putting aside Trump’s bloviating, I’d love to see Bob Graham in a foreign policy position in a Sanders or Clinton administration. I’m sure he’s enjoying a well-deserved semi-retirement, but that statement is an excellent summation of why the House of Saud is a plague on the globe.


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      H.H. JonesXrdsAlum
      2/18/16 8:18pm

      Here’s a question I like to ponder now and then to torture myself: How many extra states would Al Gore have won in the 2000 election with Graham as his running mate instead of that useless sack of shit Lieberman? Certainly Florida, for starters.

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      skiwiXrdsAlum
      2/18/16 8:19pm

      Some schadenfreude in Yemen though, after the wahabi sect Saudis allowed and indeed funded sh*t next door...

      Obama did the right thing in deflecting the Saudis request for any ‘US boots on the ground’ there, would have loved to been in the Oval Office when he got that call, his eye roll would have been pronounced!

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    The Devil Drives a Mustang (Rotary Pending)Brendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:29pm

    Donald Trump: “You Will Find Out Who Really Knocked Down the World Trade Center”

    That 50+ years of haphazard US foreign policy in the middle east was an indirect and contributing factor in the September 11th attacks? Could have told you that.

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      DavidHHThe Devil Drives a Mustang (Rotary Pending)
      2/18/16 8:32pm

      Supporting both sides in the Iran Iraq war was bound to make enemies and lose friends.

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      The Devil Drives a Mustang (Rotary Pending)DavidHH
      2/18/16 8:39pm

      Oh, our missteps and blunders run much older. Our overthrow of Mosaddegh, blindly taking the Israeli side in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, you could go on for awhile with all the missteps.

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    crouching tigerBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:54pm

    Bluffton has a sweet diner called the Squat n’ Gobble. For a while there it was a blend of southern greasy spoon and Greek.

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      Hawkeye-15crouching tiger
      2/18/16 10:58pm

      I don’t think the word “squat” belongs in a restaurant name.

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      ExtraExtracrouching tiger
      2/19/16 10:18am

      That name is a joke right? It should be Squat & Pinch a Loaf

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    EldritchBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:08pm

    I just... I’m done. I give up. I didn’t think I even had a soul to break, but here we are. At this point I’d rather throw myself off a bridge than deal with a single minute more of this election.

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      El GiganteEldritch
      2/18/16 8:23pm

      Seriously, wake me when it’s over. Or, depending on the outcome, pull the plug.

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    potahhhtoBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:08pm

    No one mention Wahhabism to Trump, or he’ll try to ban sushi.

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      Earl Hoffert, Esq.potahhhto
      2/18/16 8:11pm

      That’s more of a Ben Carson move, really. Hummus with a side of Wahhabi.

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      potahhhtoEarl Hoffert, Esq.
      2/18/16 8:26pm

      I love those Muslin dishes. Especially some faloofahs. Mmmm

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    RandyMagnumBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:23pm

    We can all sit back and laugh at professional wrestling when it’s on TV. But once you look around and realize you’re at WrestleMania, you may as well have a beer. Trump/Truckasaurus 2016.

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      ZabellaRandyMagnum
      2/18/16 10:03pm

      But it wasn’t the Iraqis, you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center.

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      RandyMagnumZabella
      2/18/16 10:33pm

      It's beautiful.

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    Fresh Courage TakeBrendan O'Connor
    2/18/16 8:14pm

    I honestly think he will pick both a TMZ-type celebrity veep choice and do something crazy before the general which would be the equivalent of Obama’s “We got him,” but with his plane and titled wings and Meatloaf playing in the background and shit. I do. There’s gonna’ be a big ass curtain, and he’s gonna’ march out Al Capone or Chapo or Marilyn Monroe. And everybody’s gonna’ think it’s just fuckin’ swell.

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      SulaymanFBrendan O'Connor
      2/19/16 12:00pm

      Once again, we know the hijackers were majority Saudi citizens, but the rest of the country condemned them. I never liked the undertone that implied Saudis in general consented to 9/11, as if they were all in on it or were happy about it. Talk to a Saudi, they view the fact that al Qaeda had some Saudis as members as their big shame.

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        GrungehamsterSulaymanF
        2/19/16 1:56pm

        Yeah, I really think the point is more nuanced than anything Trump is suggesting (and to “both sides bad” it I’ve heard similar glib answers from liberals too like Michael Moore).

        I am unaware of any serious scholar who believes the House of Saud was involved with the acts of Al Qaeda on 9/11/2001. Al Qaeda has a goal of restoring the caliphate, and doing this sets them in direct opposition to the royal family. If they genuinely wanted to bring the downfall of America the Saudi government has so many policy options at their disposal to deal a blow to us (transferring OPEC from the dollar standard to an index of currencies, not acting as our intermediary when trying to smooth tensions with their neighbors, etc.) that the benefits the US brings to the table don’t completely outweigh the headaches that they would save acting more distant.

        That said, Al Qaeda, ISIS, and various other Sunni extremists practice Wahhabism, a fundamentalist branch that is about returning to the cultural practices of 7-8th century Muslims, believe foreign ideas and influences are inherently morally corrupting, and believe the duty of Muslims is the spread of ideologically pure Islam throughout the world (though to be fair this comes in the form of charity work in many cases, but this is the justification used for militant groups for their noxious actions as well.) The patriarch of the Saud dynasty made a deal with the founder of the sect back in 1744 to secure the protection of the faith in exchange for the recognition and support of Muhammad ibn Saud’s political authority by his followers. That is the reason the House of Saud rules the Land of the Two Holy Mosques: their political ambitions synced up well with the desire to convert all other Muslims to the “true” path even by force of violence if necessary.

        The agreement still ostensibly holds. It’s known that Saudi Arabia still protects Wahhabi clergy and prominent cultural leaders even when it is apparent that they are offering aid to foreign militants. To do otherwise is a violation of their agreement where at least a quarter of their country might no longer consider their rule legitimate. Meanwhile plenty of these groups being funded see the Saudi royal family as illegitimate because they certainly are involved in plenty of intermingling with foreign thoughts and behavior even if they wear traditional garb. Add on that there is some evidence that some elements of the Saudi state have provided material aid to terrorist groups (much like Pakistan either out of support or in an attempt to curb domestic terrorism by getting them to focus elsewhere) and things get complicated.

        To give a (really strange) example, it’s like the Freedom Caucus: yeah, the RNC could make a convincing argument “look we had no idea they would resort to these extremes and if you haven’t noticed they hate our guts too.” I have no doubt the Republican Party machine hates what those guys are doing. That said they cultivated the “Tea Party” stuff in the hopes it would give them an impassioned voter base and now that they have it some of those voters are noticing that the rhetoric doesn’t match their actual policy goals and the political class has the choice to either grit their teeth and entertain the jerks or repudiate them and risk the voters who hadn’t really cared before having them in the cross hairs too.

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