Talked to friend still in loop (Afghanistan affairs), he says "ISIS-K" is a known smokescreen. The group (also called IS-KP) is made up of ISI supported Taliban & Haqqani elements using name to carry out attacks to not deteriorate the "image" of the Taliban with Afghan public.
This may well explain, at least in-part, why the Taliban not only condemned the drone strike against "ISIS-K", but were so fast in doing so. If they are enemies, as is being pushed by government and media, they wouldn't have condemned that strike.
But more importantly, Afghan Forces had arrested members of "ISIS-K" and their biometric data was already in the system, they were previously arrested as Taliban or Haqqani. And of course it is well established in intel circles that Haqqani operates under the direction of ISI.
That said, there are ISIS elements in country who do disagree with Taliban on certain things and they fight. But, Taliban uses this to their advantage to conduct high casualty attacks in the name "ISIS-K", so ISIS gets the blame and they get what they want.
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Colombia found relative peace when they made a deal with the FARC and allowed them to participate in gov. There are still drug cartels, but violence is nowhere close to what it was. Trump's Taliban agreement just gave a country to a cartel with a grave worshipping paramilitary.
That agreement completely delegitimized the Afghan Government. Of course the Army laid down, they saw the USA wouldn't even acknowledge the government, that's a massive morale killer! That agreement should have been invalidated and renegotiated with Afghan Gov + Taliban at table.
If that had happened, perhaps the Taliban takes over after we left. But, we could have declared victory and evacuated while the country had military stability. This whole ordeal has been a giant clusterfuck of a nightmare. It should not have happened!
The IPCC report is dire. We need to do something immediately that can make a big impact and there are few things that can be as immediate as solar because there are lot of panels sitting in warehouses that could be on rooftops next week lessening our demand on the grid. Plan...
The Fed Gov should buy those panels and create a loan program for qualifying homeowners to install them with a no cash down loan that would be paid off by utility companies using the excess energy created by the homeowner's panels. Once loan is paid, excess payments to owners.
This would mean that homeowners could get into solar with no cash down and their only obligation is to maintain panels during the life of loan, no more than 6-years. Which is about what it would take to pay off a 7kW system. That immediately lessens demand on grid power!
My brother lost half his face in Iraq. When he came home, he was still having medical probs (physically) and I called EMS one night. A police car arrived first, officers let themselves in and came upstairs where we were.. The first thing I saw was Officer was holding sidearm.
I immediately told him there was no threat here and this was purely an emergency medical issue. I kept very calm because we were waiting on ambulance, but I was pissed beyond words. As EMS was loading my brother, I motioned for one of the officers to come over.
Our dad was fmr sheriff, so I had that "going for" me. But, asked if he noted the fireplace mantel. There are some flags and medals there. After he said yes (hard to miss), I calmly told him if he responded to that house again for a med emerg in that matter, he would eat his gun.
When people say the vaccine was developed in a short amount of time, that isn't technically correct. This is a novel virus, but the vaccine was years in the making. The tech behind these vaccines started development for SARS/MERS, but fell flat because those threats diminished.
When SARS-CoV2 came along, scientists already had a blueprint on how to develop a vaccine for it, using over a decade of research. All these viruses are Bat-CoVs. They just had to make it specific for SARS-2 and go to trials, then solve mass production. This wasn't a fast fix.
So many people say it takes over a decade to develop a vaccine. And that decade was spent on this one as well. Further, consider the flu vaccines are modified year to year, it doesn't take decades to do that.
Dr. Redfield is entitled to his professional opinion, but his professional opinion is in a minority amongst professional opinions. In fact, we can almost call it it a solo minority. Viruses mutate in nature. HIV started in wildlife and jumped to humans. So did SARS-CoV2.
30 years ago in Australia a new virus began infecting horses (Hendra virus), it crossed to humans and infected 4 people who came in contact with the horses and all 4 died. In 2012, 3 men who worked in a copper mine died after being infected with a new bat virus. Stuff happens.
New viruses that jump species are not unusual. There is even a journal dedicated to it: Emerging Infectious Diseases. The entire point of the discipline is to find and isolate new viruses to prevent a global pandemic. Virologists have warned about it for decades.