Bottom line: 2,500 troops remain in each country.
This is consistent with our established plans and strategic objectives... and does not equate to a change in US policy or objectives.
Originally Posted by Swordsmyth
controlled oppo.
its Fox.. I am not watching anything Fox.
anything they say is fraudulent, reeks dishonesty and propaganda against Trump.
Trump's hand-picked defense secretary that he placed into the position of SecDef last week is controlled oppo against Trump?
you are.
I don't know. I didn't watch the video. Its Fox. Fox is $#@!ed.
Trump promoted OANN on Facebook.
No more Fox. Ever. Starve the beast.
False. That is the estimated troop level by January 15, 2021 and they have orders to continue to withdrawal unless the next president $#@!s it up. A single battalion each. And he stated this announcement is not a "change in policy" because President Trump ordered the withdrawal plans years ago.
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
C'mon. Really? We know what's going to happen.
It's easy for the next president to increase troop numbers from 2,500 to any other number.
It's hard for the next president to increase troop numbers from 0 to any other number.
That's why it is significant that Trump is not withdrawing from these countries. It's the difference between something which is easily undone and something which is difficult to undo.
Trump Orders Thousands Of US Troops To Withdraw From Iraq And Afghanistan
https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/17/t...T2M1Rf5RmXmIRe
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
Ignore this SOB
He is a miserable POS.
Low life MoFos - DEEP STATE bureaucrats - can ignore and lie to the president with impunity
Retiring diplomat says defense officials misled Trump on troop count in Syria
WASHINGTON — US defense officials routinely misled President Trump into believing the American troop count in Syria was a lot lower than it actually is, a retiring US diplomat said in a bombshell interview this week.
“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” James Jeffrey, US special representative for Syria engagement, said in an interview with Defense One.
.
.
.DON'T TAX ME BRO!!!
.
.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
That's because Americans are dumb as sticks - they are f u c k i n g narcotized
At war with the truth
U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.
A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
.
.
.DON'T TAX ME BRO!!!
.
.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
OANN said the same damn thing @TheCount is saying.
https://www.oann.com/trump-cuts-troo...ll-withdrawal/
Trump To Cut Troop Levels In Afghanistan But Stops Short Of Full Withdrawal
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Marine talks with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training in Helmand province
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Marine(C) talks with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2017.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/File Photo
November 17, 2020
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will sharply reduce the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by mid-January, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, stopping short of a full withdrawal from America’s longest war.
Trump’s decision to limit himself to a partial withdrawal was first reported by Reuters on Monday and triggered a rebuke from senior Republicans who fear it will undermine security and hurt fragile peace talks with the Taliban.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who Trump installed last week after abruptly firing Mark Esper, confirmed the Afghan drawdown and also outlined a modest withdrawal of forces from Iraq that will reduce troop levels there from 3,000 to 2,500.
“By Jan. 15, 2021, our forces, their size in Afghanistan, will be 2,500 troops. Our force size in Iraq will also be 2,500 by that same date,” Miller told reporters.
“This is consistent with our established plans and strategic objectives, supported by the American people, and does not equate to a change in U.S. policy or objectives.”
Moments later, the top Republican in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, warned against any major changes in U.S. defense or foreign policy in the next couple of months – including any precipitous troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It is extremely important here in the next couple of months not to have any earthshaking changes in regard to defense or foreign policy,” McConnell told reporters.
Trump is due to leave office on Jan. 20 after losing this month’s presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. He has launched legal challenges to vote counts in some swing states which he says were fraudulent but legal experts give him little chance of success.
The top Republican on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry also slammed the troop cut as a “mistake.”
“Further reductions in Afghanistan will also undercut negotiations there; the Taliban has done nothing – met no condition – that would justify this cut,” Thornberry said.
U.S. and Afghan officials are warning of troubling levels of violence by Taliban insurgents and persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda.
It was those ties that triggered U.S. military intervention in 2001 following the al Qaeda Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Thousands of American and allied troops have died in fighting in Afghanistan.
Some U.S. military officials had been urging Trump to keep U.S. troop levels at around 4,500 for now.
But the withdrawal stops short of his pledge on Oct. 7, when Trump said on Twitter https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...hristmas.html: “We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!”
Rick Olson, a former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that the remaining 2,500 troops still give the United States some leverage in advancing the peace process, but “it would have been better to have left them at 4,500.”
“Zero would have been truly awful, while 2,500 is maybe okay, but it’s probably not very stable,” he said. “I would say 2,500 is probably stable as long as the U.S.-Taliban peace holds. But that may not happen because the Taliban have not done a reduction in violence, as they committed to do.”
Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, cautioned that “if we are pulling out faster than the withdrawal schedule, there’s no incentive for the Taliban to negotiate.”
The withdrawals could hand Biden a new set of challenges when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Taliban militants, fighting against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, have called on the United States to stick to a February agreement with the Trump administration to withdraw U.S. troops by May, subject to certain security guarantees.
Violence has been rising throughout Afghanistan, with the Taliban attacking provincial capitals, in some case prompting U.S. airstrikes.
In Iraq, four rockets fell in the Green Zone in Baghdad on Tuesday, an Iraqi military statement said. The fortified zone houses government buildings and foreign missions.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Richard Cowan, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller and Alistair Bell)
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
Well that's the "glass half empty" assessment. Here's the "glass half full" assessment. Current troop levels in Afghanistan are 8,500. Some Pentagon officials are balking at the idea of troop levels below 4,500. So 2,500 is well below what others are even willing to contemplate. And a lot of this depends on cooperation from the Taliban.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5...n-troop-levels
So...the Taliban has to decide if they really want all of the U.S. troops out or not.
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
Once again they the west have been doing this for the past 20 years and still have achieved nothing.
https://www.oann.com/trump-cuts-troo...ll-withdrawal/
Trump To Cut Troop Levels In Afghanistan But Stops Short Of Full Withdrawal
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Marine talks with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training in Helmand province
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Marine(C) talks with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2017.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/File Photo
November 17, 2020
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will sharply reduce the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by mid-January, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, stopping short of a full withdrawal from America’s longest war.
Trump’s decision to limit himself to a partial withdrawal was first reported by Reuters on Monday and triggered a rebuke from senior Republicans who fear it will undermine security and hurt fragile peace talks with the Taliban.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who Trump installed last week after abruptly firing Mark Esper, confirmed the Afghan drawdown and also outlined a modest withdrawal of forces from Iraq that will reduce troop levels there from 3,000 to 2,500.
“By Jan. 15, 2021, our forces, their size in Afghanistan, will be 2,500 troops. Our force size in Iraq will also be 2,500 by that same date,” Miller told reporters.
“This is consistent with our established plans and strategic objectives, supported by the American people, and does not equate to a change in U.S. policy or objectives.”
Moments later, the top Republican in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, warned against any major changes in U.S. defense or foreign policy in the next couple of months – including any precipitous troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It is extremely important here in the next couple of months not to have any earthshaking changes in regard to defense or foreign policy,” McConnell told reporters.
Trump is due to leave office on Jan. 20 after losing this month’s presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. He has launched legal challenges to vote counts in some swing states which he says were fraudulent but legal experts give him little chance of success.
The top Republican on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry also slammed the troop cut as a “mistake.”
“Further reductions in Afghanistan will also undercut negotiations there; the Taliban has done nothing – met no condition – that would justify this cut,” Thornberry said.
U.S. and Afghan officials are warning of troubling levels of violence by Taliban insurgents and persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda.
It was those ties that triggered U.S. military intervention in 2001 following the al Qaeda Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Thousands of American and allied troops have died in fighting in Afghanistan.
Some U.S. military officials had been urging Trump to keep U.S. troop levels at around 4,500 for now.
But the withdrawal stops short of his pledge on Oct. 7, when Trump said on Twitter https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...hristmas.html: “We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!”
Rick Olson, a former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that the remaining 2,500 troops still give the United States some leverage in advancing the peace process, but “it would have been better to have left them at 4,500.”
“Zero would have been truly awful, while 2,500 is maybe okay, but it’s probably not very stable,” he said. “I would say 2,500 is probably stable as long as the U.S.-Taliban peace holds. But that may not happen because the Taliban have not done a reduction in violence, as they committed to do.”
Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, cautioned that “if we are pulling out faster than the withdrawal schedule, there’s no incentive for the Taliban to negotiate.”
The withdrawals could hand Biden a new set of challenges when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Taliban militants, fighting against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, have called on the United States to stick to a February agreement with the Trump administration to withdraw U.S. troops by May, subject to certain security guarantees.
Violence has been rising throughout Afghanistan, with the Taliban attacking provincial capitals, in some case prompting U.S. airstrikes.
In Iraq, four rockets fell in the Green Zone in Baghdad on Tuesday, an Iraqi military statement said. The fortified zone houses government buildings and foreign missions.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Richard Cowan, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller and Alistair Bell)
This was a great chance he had to make history but he opted not to. Granted his top donor American-Israeli couple is neocon, at this point does he still have to appease/pander to any lobbies or justify political funding he received?
So his legacy would be he left office with more troops around the world for global interventions machine when he left office than there were when he came to office.
Trump has deployed 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East since May 2019
Iraq's Parliament votes to expel U.S. military
6 January 2020
Trump threatens Iraq with crippling sanctions if US troops are expelled
Donald Trump has threatened Iraq with "sanctions like they've never seen before" President Trump has threatened severe sanctions against Iraq after its parliament called on US troops to leave the country.
Speaking from the presidential plane, Mr Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to depart on an unfriendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before, ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Still he should be given some credit, something is better than nothing.
Also in his defense, some recent presidents have faced all sorts of reasonable as well as very unreasonable scummy pressures from various pro wars interests, early on he had appeared to be strong leade less likely to be pressured compared to others.
This may also explain why former never-Trumper neocons like Dennis "Immorality of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan" Prager had lately become his strong defender post 2016 election.
MAGA Allies: 'Bully Israel with undeclared nukes steals land'
Dangerous conspiracy theories on Right claim MAGA fake frontgroup
Poll: Should US apologize for financing radicalization of Afghan children in 80s?
Obama-Clinton Years: A Violent Chapter in World History
Trump: If (Neocon) Adelson Backs Rubio "He'll Have Total Control" Over Him
Delta variant, death of 9 Chinese engineers in terror attack led to airport chaos & quick Kabul fall?
@ this moment in time, with Presidency still uncertain, think it’s a good move reducing troops.
Trump should have pulled all out damn the consequences awhile back
No he couldn't
GD senators are owned by the warmongers / war profiteers - none of his nominations would have been confirmed and they probably would have voted for impeachment.
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.DON'T TAX ME BRO!!!
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"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
Well Biden was going to send those troops back to Afghanistan anyway.
"Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."
Calvin Coolidge
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
When you've lost Mother Jones and Senator Tammy "Bring'em Home" Duckworth, you have entered the Twilight Zone. Pretty par for the course in 2020. The bots and talking heads don't know which way to spin so they flail wildly.
Trump Wants to Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan. The Antiwar Movement Is Cheering Him On.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics...eering-him-on/
The small "p" grassroots liberal organizations will lose to the Monde Uni neo-feudalist Progressives on this.A complicating factor for progressives intent on bringing US troops home is the looming Biden presidency and the likely selection of Michèle Flournoy as Defense secretary. In a 2017 interview, Flournoy said the events following the exit of US forces in Iraq showed “the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal” and argued that “we don’t want to see a repeat of that in Afghanistan.” Her opinion aligns with the other candidates for major national security roles in a Biden administration, including Susan Rice and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who said Monday on CNN that an immediate drawdown during the transition period “is just prime ground for our adversaries to look and see what they can get away with while we’re distracted.”
XNN
"They sell us the president the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us every thing from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars. I want to know who the men in the shadows are. I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but theyre never the ones to fight or to die." - Jackson Browne Lives In The Balance
Ya, but let's say he wins the election because Judges.
Then he pulls the troops out.
Would you really prefer he pulled the troops out, not put in the conservative Judges, maybe gotten impeached, or have the election stolen, then have Biden send more troops?
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
The judges are already there. The impeachment already happened. The election already happened.
What does any of that have to do with what he does now?
Trump has half-assed his way as Commander as Chief. Today's move is best described as too little too late. He could have been the guy to reverse 20 years of neocon foreign policy bankrupting our future. Now a few months from being replaced, he brings home a couple thousand troop. Trump has been bullied by the Taliban and lobbyist. I don't know if he lacks the courage of his convictions or he just doesn't care.
By the end of January, Biden will double troop size overseas and this will all be forgotten. But you gotta wonder what Trump would have done if he had the balls.
Let's see. If he pulled the troops out and skipped on the stupid Ukraine phone call, the impeachment chances would have been about zero. Yeah, yeah I know. Corruption investigation yada yada. The smart thing about Obama is that he didn't get his hands dirty. So no. I don't believe the nonsense that an Afgan pullout equaled automagic impeachment. And the "conservative judges" just gave us adding LGBTQ to the 1964 civil rights bill. I'm not impressed.
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
That would be true. @dannno post winning the impeachment vote the GOP senators couldn't turn around and say "We want to impeach him now over an Afghan pullout."
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
LOL, they didn't impeach him for the phone call, they impeached him because he was trying to pull troops out of the middle east and other anti-deep state activities. The phone call was just the excuse.
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
That's your opinion and you're certainly welcome too it. But once the impeachment was over they couldn't have impeached him a second time.
9/11 Thermate experiments
Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I
"I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"
"We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul
"It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
Yes sireee
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.DON'T TAX ME BRO!!!
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.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
ALL of the troops will leave, not only will Trump pull them all out in his second term but he may pull them out faster than this report.
Leave it to the trolls to make Trump pulling more troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan into a bad thing.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
good point. we easily forget Trump had to fight against everyone even his own party.
You can’t debate True Believers. It’s best to recognize them as religious zealots and just move along. It will save you hours of beating your head against a wall of logic and reason.
And yet, we are all True Believers in our own beliefs. It is human nature to only be convinced of those things we are unsure of.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/34/...ever_Revisited
Now, arrogance and self-righteousness are totally separate from true belief. All you need is a mis-wired insular cortex.Hoffer also offers some insight into why the September 11th terrorists committed such horrific acts. “All the true believers of our time”, he wrote in 1951, “communist, nazi, fascist … declaim volubly about the decadence of the West.” The weakness of the West, and its moral decay, were frequent themes of Osama Bin Laden’s recent video sermons. Ironically, views not dissimilar were expressed by the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson just days after the bombings, when the former stated that secularism, homosexuality, abortion and feminism had weakened the moral fiber of the nation and made it vulnerable to attack, as well as to God’s wrath. As Hoffer so well understood, True Believers think alike, regardless of the content of their thoughts.
https://medium.com/wholistique/the-n...m-5f094bf17d65
By nature, those traits are found in the actual climate deniers (not science manipulators for political gains) and therefore those individuals will poo-poo quantitative studies done in MRI's.fMRI Studies and the Brains of Narcissists
The anterior insula is not the only region of narcissist’s brains that are not normal as gray matter, in general, is affected. Gray matter consists of connective tissue that is covered with an insulator known as myelin and acts as the wiring connecting the brain so its structures can communicate.
XNN
"They sell us the president the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us every thing from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars. I want to know who the men in the shadows are. I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but theyre never the ones to fight or to die." - Jackson Browne Lives In The Balance
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