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Situation in Iraq not as bad as being made out

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Praxus

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These Iraqis apparently did not learn the lessons of Vietnam; as soon as you begin conventional engagements against the US you lose. The NVA and the VC after the Tet offensive was virtually destroyed and we had a clear route straight to Hanoi, the war was ours to win (politicians because of public opinion didn’t allow our military finish the war).

Now look at what the Iraqis are doing, they are forming Militias and are beginning direct engagements with the United States Military. This certainly gives us an advantage militarily. Just look at these attacks killed only 30 coalition soldiers over the past week; we counter-attacked and killed over 500 of them and those are just the ones we know about, the numbers are probably much (and I mean much) higher.

We need to hope that they try even larger engagements, get them out into the open so we can pounce on them with our fire support (which we can't do when they do these Guerilla attacks).

I'm just afraid we will not take advantage of this like in Vietnam. Which is looking to be the case with this "temporary peace" crap they had today.

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These are all very good points, Praxus.

Comparisons made between the Vietnam war and the current situation in Iraq are totally absurd and do nothing but demonstrate the complete lack of historical knowledge possessed by certain hacks on the left. For starters, the Vietnamese insurgents, unlike the Iraqi's, had been involved in a guerrilla war with the French for decades before the American's arrived and were thus experts in the field. Furthermore they were a unified force led by possibly the best military tactician of the 20th century in the form of General Giap. Yet perhaps the most significant difference is the fact that the Viet Cong were backed by North Vietnam, China and the USSR, while the Iraqi's are getting only cautious support from the insecure regimes of Iran and Syria.

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This is from a Scottish Newspaper usally pro-American but featuring many different political viewpoints:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opini...fm?id=409612004

US must apply Vietnam lessons to Iraq

Gerard DeGroot

IN CAMP Pendleton, California, home of the US Marines, residents have added the names Fallujah and al Ramadi to the lexicon of places where their beloved sons went to die. Dying in combat is part of the natural order at the camp; the marines have always been given the nastiest, most dangerous assignments in their nation’s defence.

But old marines must this week be feeling an uneasy sense of déjà vu. Fallujah and al Ramadi are a painful reminder of Pleiku in 1965, when a lightning raid by Vietcong guerrillas killed seven soldiers. The marines were the first combat troops ashore in Vietnam, the first to die in that confusing war. In the beginning, the deaths seemed manageable, part of the righteous purpose of ridding South Vietnam of the Communist menace. But ahead lay a quagmire, a demoralising contest in which progress was unmeasurable and victory unattainable.

Vietnam was at first a popular war. Today we remember angry protesters, but for most of the war they were an insignificant minority. From 1965-69, a sizeable majority of the American people championed the war effort. The American mission was also supported by the ordinary people of South Vietnam. The war would not have lasted as long as it did if it had not had widespread backing at the grassroots level.

In order to understand Vietnam, and to learn lessons from it, we must rid ourselves of the romantic notions prevalent after 1975, when the communist victory seemed miraculous and noble and the American mission seemed corrupt. The Vietcong (and their North Vietnamese allies) were thoroughly nasty thugs who ruled by fear. For them, terror was an art form. Their unpopularity can be measured by the incredible urbanisation which occurred in Vietnam after 1965. Peasants flooded to the American-controlled cities to flee communist intimidation. After the communist victory in 1975, millions risked their lives to escape.

The communists nevertheless demonstrated a painful fact of insurgency war: a movement does not need to be popular in order to succeed. It only needs to be persistent and organised. It does not need to win battles; it only needs to keep fighting. Long after the war, a prominent American general travelled to Vietnam to see the Vietnamese supreme commander Vo Nguyen Giap. "General Giap", he remarked, "you realise you never defeated us in battle." Giap concluded that, despite eight years of fighting, the American commander never understood the war. The communists succeeded by fighting a protracted war which gradually became intolerable for the American people. They determined the pace of the war - when battles were fought, what nature they assumed, when they were over. When the Americans launched major offensives to root out their enemy, communists simply disappeared into the countryside.

Casualty figures did not matter. Ho Chi Minh once said: "You can kill 10 of my men for every one of yours, but I will still win. You can kill 100 of my soldiers for every one of yours. But I will still win." The Americans never figured out how to defeat a force which placed so little value on human life. Winning territory was not important, nor was the issue of ‘hearts and minds’. The only significant statistic in this war was the will of the American people, and that was in terminal decline.

Between May 1965 and February 1969, support for the war fell on average by 1% per month. The American effort slowly bled to death. Does any of this sound familiar? It does to me. The events of the past week suggest that the insurgents in Iraq are much better students of history than are George Bush and his team. The American administration has, over the past few months, repeatedly stressed that their mission has the overwhelming support of the Iraqi people, whose lives have improved immensely since the defeat of Saddam. I have no doubt that that is true, but unfortunately it’s not remotely important.

Muqtada al Sadr and his mob are not going to give up simply because they’re unpopular. This week, Bush’s only significant response to Sadr’s offensive in the Sunni triangle was to remark that "Sadr hates freedom. We love freedom." Sorry, George, that’s not the issue. The Vietnam War demonstrated that insurgents are self-replicating.

The process of rooting them out inevitably results in ‘collateral damage’ - the innocent die and sacred sites are destroyed. This alienates the local population, providing fresh recruits for the insurgency. The US has decided that the key to the current crisis is to eliminate al Sadr. Toward this end, they’ve bombed a mosque in which he might have been hiding, an act sure to inflame local passions. But removing al Sadr won’t make a bit of difference. Hundreds of similarly minded thugs are lining up to take his place.

The most worrying development of the past week was not the death of a few dozen American soldiers, but rather the fact that, in some cities, Sunni and Shiite groups, which are supposed to despise each other, have banded together to fight the Americans.

The allied effort was always dependent on the principle of divide and conquer, something the British have achieved rather well in their sector.

Lately, however, the Americans have created the conditions for a frightening unity among the Iraqi people.

Donald Rumsfeld has responded by promising that American commanders will get whatever they need to finish the job in Iraq. We’ve heard that refrain before. The American effort in Vietnam started with 500 soldiers and peaked in 1969 with 650,000. Every setback prompted Lyndon Johnson to promise his commanders that they would get what they needed to achieve victory. But each injection of fresh troops made no difference to the progress of the war.

So what’s the solution? Quite frankly I don’t know. History, unfortunately, only provides lessons on how to fail in such a contest; it offers little guidance on how to succeed. But I would nevertheless make two suggestions.

First, the Americans and their allies must realise that this is not a war which can be won by military means alone. Efforts to improve the lives of the Iraqi people must proceed apace, so that they continue to support the American mission.

Secondly, something must be done to buttress the will of the American people, which is haemorrhaging badly.

According to one poll, support for the war has fallen by 20% over the past month. In the end, the deciding factor in this war will be American resolve. I did not originally support this war. I was opposed not because I rejected the mission, but rather because I doubted the possibility of success. Those doubts are more significant this week than they were a year ago.

But the context has changed, and so has my view. Having started this war, the Americans must finish it. Defeat would render Iraq a far more dangerous place than it ever was under Saddam. It might have been a haven for terrorism before the war. It certainly would become one if the Americans leave with tails between their legs.

As the Vietnam veteran Senator John McCain pronounced last week, defeat is not an option. Being in, the Americans must win.

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Yet perhaps the most significant difference is the fact that the Viet Cong were backed by North Vietnam, China and the USSR, while the Iraqi's are getting only cautious support from the insecure regimes of Iran and Syria.

Iran is the leading sponsor of terrorism against the West--and has been for years. It should be no surprise that this country is sending people into Iraq to kill our soldiers.

Iran is not "cautiously" or "insecurely" supporting our enemies. It _is_ the enemy. It is our greatest enemy. And now it is spreading its Islamic fundamentalism into Iraq, which used to be a primarily secular state.

Iran is on the offensive, whether we acknowledge it or not.

The degree of horror that exists in Iraq is irrelevant compared to the fact that American soldiers are dying unnecessarily in Iraq, when they should be marching on Tehran.

Conservatives seem to be playing the "mollifying" game. They are struggling to keep Americans content with the "progress" of the war. But they are losing public confidence because the war in Iraq is dragging on. And this is happening because Bush refuses to identify and fight the real enemy.

We still have not gone into Iran. So Iran continues to come at us.

Conservatives want us to believe that they have things under control, when in actuality they have no clue what they are doing, except that they are trying to bring "democracy" to the Iraqi people.

We are losing this war. We are losing because our government has failed to properly identify and engage the enemy. Our soldiers die by the dozens in Iraq, chasing around individual "evil-doers" and comparing their faces to those in a deck of cards, when we should be launching missiles to evaporate terror-sponsoring regimes like Iran.

The whole of Iran is not worth the life of one American soldier. We need to bomb Iran into submission, like we did with Japan.

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You can't fight a war with no ground troops, it's like trying to take an Island without the Marine Corps. Sure you can blast a bunch of holes with a very big series of flashy explosions. But what good can it do if you can not directly control the territory.

Infantry and Armored forces don't simply exsist to save the lives of the civilians, they exsist because they are required to win a war. You have to close in with and destroy the enemy.

Our Regular Army is 400,000 men, only 1.2 Million when all reserves are activated including National Gaurd. We need to add at least a half million to this. Wouldn't hurt to pull out forces out of South Korea(37,000) and station them back in the states or somewhere in the Pacific.

Other then this I am in complete agreement. We need to wage unrestricted warfare against the state of Iran. If there are cities that want to resist US forces we should burn them to the ground. World War 2, the American Civil War, etc have shown the only way you win a war is to wage it with no remorse and no restrictions.

Images of US Air Strikes during WW2:

http://history.independence.co.jp/ww2/raid/g02.jpg

http://history.independence.co.jp/ww2/raid/ca02.jpg

http://history.independence.co.jp/ww2/raid/ca01.jpg

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Iran is not "cautiously" or "insecurely" supporting our enemies.
My point was that, in comparison to the foreign support received by the Viet Cong, the aid sent to Iraqi insurgents is miniscule. I never said that that they were insecurely supporting "our enemies", I said only that the regimes themselves were insecure.

The whole of Iran is not worth the life of one American soldier.

This is lunacy.

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70 million people in Iran. You cannot possibly justify killing all of them to save a single American soldier, nor can you say that any one American is of greater worth than any one Iranian. The United States of America is not Nazi Germany.

Translation:

"You cannot possibly justify killing one man to save another."

Actually, Objectivism quite explicitly states otherwise. Do you disagree with objectivism on this point? Why? On what basis?

(You may complain that you were not talking about a 1 to 1 comparison. Two things:

- with the other half of the sentence, you DO state that it is a 1 to 1 comparison which is the fundamental premise underlying any statement here.

- morality is not a matter of numbers. )

"nor can you say that one life is of greater worth than any other."

Again, objectivism quite explicitly states otherwise. Do you disagree with objectivism on this point? Why? On what basis?

"The United States of America is not Nazi Germany."

This is quite true. The United States is not a collectivist dictatorship. Nor is it a libertarian regime. It is properly a capitalist nation. As such, it may rightfully pursue its defensive ends by the means mentioned.

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You can't fight a war with no ground troops, it's like trying to take an Island without the Marine Corps.

That is exactly the problem. We are more interested in "fighting" a war, than we are in _winning_ one.

History has proven that you don't need thousands of footsoldiers to win a war. You merely need superior firepower, which we have.

We should bomb them into submission, then walk into their cities, take their guns, execute their leaders, thoroughly explain why we did what we did, and walk away.

We should not stick around and rebuild their nation for them. Let them rebuild their own nation. Let them think about why they got annihilated. And let them decide whether they want to prevent it from happening again.

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There are 70 million people in Iran. You cannot possibly justify killing all of them to save a single American soldier, nor can you say that any one American is of greater worth than any one Iranian.

Okay, Invictus. What should the kill ratio be?

Can we kill 10 Iranians for every 1 American that they kill? Is that acceptable?

I basically agree with the response given by "y_feldblum".

I suggest you read "The Objectivist Ethics" by Ayn Rand, in the book The Virtue of Selfishness. Objectivism does not support anything near to what you are saying. And I think it is best if you read Ayn Rand yourself, rather than me taking the time to repeat her arguments for objective (versus intrinsic and subjective) values.

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"nor can you say that one life is of greater worth than any other."

Again, objectivism quite explicitly states otherwise.  Do you disagree with objectivism on this point?  Why?  On what basis?

You have deliberately misquoted me! My actual words were, "nor can you say that any one American is of greater worth than any one Iranian".

By this I meant quite clearly that the idea that the worth of an individual can be measured by the circumstances of their birth and the characteristics of their ancestors, rather than by their own personal attributes, is absurd.

It has never been even remotely proven that occurrences of people with potentially superior abilities are greater among one particular group than they are among others. But even if this were the case it would reveal nothing about a particular person. A brilliant individual would not be made any less brilliant if the number of mediocre individuals that may come from the same race were high. Similarly, the achievements of particular members of a race say nothing about whether a different member will reach similar heights.

Ancestors, genes and chemistry are no way to judge the worth of a person. People can only be objectively judged as independent and sovereign beings that are in absolute control of their own lives. Groups, races, collectives and even families are non-factors - the individual is all that matters.

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I suggest you read "The Objectivist Ethics" by Ayn Rand, in the book The Virtue of Selfishness. Objectivism does not support anything near to what you are saying. And I think it is best if you read Ayn Rand yourself, rather than me taking the time to repeat her arguments for objective (versus intrinsic and subjective) values.

Find me a quote from The Objectivist Ethics that justifies one nation moving into another and killing everyone in it.

The Iranian Government has no right to exist but the Iranian people do.

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Race is not the issue here, Invictus... nobody has suggested that Iranians are worse than Americans because they were born in Iran. In fact, up to now, you are the only one who has even mentioned race in any way.

However, there are other reasons why one may say that anyone living in Iran is less valuable than someone living in America.

"nor can you say that any one American is of greater worth than any one Iranian".

I can and do... I say that the life of each and every American troop is worth more than all the Iranians, whose deaths I may be held accountable for, put together.

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However, there are other reasons why one may say that anyone living in Iran is less valuable than someone living in America.

What are these?

It is true that the primary obligation of the American government is to defend its people and it thus has an obligation, as well as a right, to invade Iran. But this does not means that Iranians have no right to life. Read The "Inexplicable personality alchemy", an article Rand wrote about dissenters within the Soviet Union.

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Actually, I did not "deliberately misquote" you. That was supposed to be the "Translation" - ie my identification of the abstract principle contained in the assertions you make - as I did with the previous part of your post. However I forgot to include that identifier. My bad.

My identification of that abstract principle remains however - and remains accurate.

"By this I meant quite clearly that the idea that the worth of an individual can be measured by the circumstances of their birth and the characteristics of their ancestors, rather than by their own personal attributes, is absurd."

The race, ethnicity, or geographic location is not and has not been the subject of this conversation. The subject - ie CONTEXT - of the discussion is what the United States should do to an enemy nation. PERIOD.

As such your ENTIRE post is one VERY BIG straw man.

Three principles were contained in your arguments:

1a - that it is "lunacy" to justify killing one man in order to save another

1b - that it is "lunacy" to justify saving one man's life at the cost of x number of others

2 - that it is "lunacy" to say the life of a citizen in a free country is worth more than the life of a citizen in the country which is an enemy of that free country.

You were called to defend EACH of those assertions. You did NOT.

Instead, you tried to divert attention AWAY from those positions in order to AVOID defending them. Sorry, but most here are not so EASILY diverted by such irrational tactics.

--

"The Iranian Government has no right to exist but the Iranian people do."

This is a false statement on two grounds:

A) As citizens of an enemy nation, Iranians do NOT have the right to exist.

B) No "group" of people has the right to exist at all. Only individuals have the right to exist.

Interestingly, the implication of your statement is that a country cannot kill the citizens of an enemy nation, but can only kill the government officials of that enemy nation. While those government officials do not have a "right to exist", the citizens do have a "right to exist".

In other words, war is immoral. It is immoral because BOTH citizens AND government officials are killed.

This is now a FOURTH departure from Objectivism.

You are not an objectivist, are you? You are a libertarian. Right? Or are you a TOC 'objectivist'?

Translation of your assertion: "You don't kill the innocent. You only kill the guilty."

Objectivism quite explicitly states otherwise. Do you disagree with objectivism on this point? Why? On what basis?

--

"Find me a quote from The Objectivist Ethics that justifies one nation moving into another and killing everyone in it."

This is an invalid demand. I do not have to 'quote scripture'. That is the purpose of ABSTRACTION. All I have to do is provide the proper principle - and defend it if so inclined. I do not have to dig up a specific CONCRETE example as justification for an action. I do not have to refer to some set of commandments to determine right and wrong.

Objectivism is NOT concrete-bound.

The principle is that the individual has the right to defend himself. It does not matter if that defense costs the life of one person or one million people (again numbers are irrelevant when it comes to morality).

As to 'support' for this principle when it comes to war, I can provide you a quote which is appropriate to the context of the discussion. In her 1972 For Hall discussion AR was asked:

"What should be done about the killing of innocent people in war?"

AR replied:

" This is a major reason people should be concerned about the nature of their government. If by neglect, ignorance, or helplessness, they couldn't overturn their bad government and choose a better one, then they have to pay the price for the sins of their government—as all of us are paying for the sins of ours.

That's why we have to be interested in the philosophy of government and in seeing, to the extent we can, that we have a good government. A government is not an independent entity: it's supposed to represent the people of a nation.

If some people put up with dictatorship—as some do in Soviet Russia and as they did in Germany—they deserve whatever their government deserves.

The only thing to be concerned with is: who started that war? And once you can establish that it is a given country, there is no such thing as consideration for the "rights" of that country, because it has initiated the use of force, and therefore stepped outside the principle of rights"

Additionally, Ms. Rand once said if the US had decided to attack the USSR while she had still been living there, and she had been killed in such attacks, her death would have been justified - justified by the principle of self-defense on the part of the US. And the responsibility for her death would have been that of the USSR, not the US.

(Perhaps someone else can site the exact source for me).

--

So - now that your questions are answered, I await the answers to the 4 points you assert (three from your previous post, one from here) and on which you have been challenged.

Please address those questions directly this time. No more straw men.

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RadCap,

Let’s just make things clear. I think the United States should invade Iran. I think my country (Australia) should offer assistance. I think the U.S. government should do whatever it can to ensure the security of Americans. I do not think that killing everyone in Iran is necessary to ensure the security of Americans. It is for this reason alone that it would be unjustified. If, for some reason, killing everyone one in Iran were necessary to defend Americans then it would be justified. But it is not necessary, and probably never will be. I apologise for not clarifying this earlier.

1a - that it is "lunacy" to justify killing one man in order to save another

1b - that it is "lunacy" to justify saving one man's life at the cost of x number of others

I never said this. If I did it was not my intention to give this message.

2 - that it is "lunacy" to say the life of a citizen in a free country is worth more than the life of a citizen in the country which is an enemy of that free country.

This is not what I meant. My message was that an individual’s origin does not determine his worth.

In other words, war is immoral. It is immoral because BOTH citizens AND government officials are killed.
Why would I support war on Iraq, North Korea, Iran and various other states if I thought it was immoral?

Translation of your assertion: "You don't kill the innocent. You only kill the guilty."

You do not kill the innocent unless there is cause to do so.

Interestingly, the implication of your statement is that a country cannot kill the citizens of an enemy nation, but can only kill the government officials of that enemy nation.
I don’t think a country should kill, without cause, citizens of an enemy nation. If in the process of killing enemy soldiers and government figures civilians should die, or if killing civilians would enhance the security of a defending country, then it would be justified.

The principle is that the individual has the right to defend himself. It does not matter if that defense costs the life of one person or one million people (again numbers are irrelevant when it comes to morality).

I do not dispute this. I dispute the idea that killing everyone in Iran is necessary to defend America.

(Perhaps someone else can site the exact source for me).

I found it here:

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/arwarquotes.html

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Find me a quote from The Objectivist Ethics that justifies one nation moving into another and killing everyone in it.

The Iranian Government has no right to exist but the Iranian people do.

I don't think you understand the Objectivist ethics, which is why I suggested that you read Ayn Rand's work on the subject.

But, if you want to know Ayn Rand's view on killing the people of an enemy nation, you don't actually have to pick up a book. You can read it online.

Go here: http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/arwarquotes.html

Enjoy!

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I dispute the idea that killing everyone in Iran is necessary to defend America.

Fair enough.

I suggest that we begin by nuking Tehran. Then ask for their unconditional surrender.

Then we nuke another city--and ask again.

Continue this process until they say, "Okay, wait a second. We give up."

What do you suggest? And don't tell me that we should throw American lives into their terror traps. If that is what you want, then I'm done talking to you.

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First, a couple notes:

"Let’s just make things clear. I think the United States should invade Iran."

Your belief concerning whether Iran should or should not be invaded was never an issue.

"Why would I support war on Iraq, North Korea, Iran and various other states if I thought it was immoral? "

Actually I said this was the IMPLICATION of your statement. I never claimed it was a consciously held premise. And it was because this implication was in contradiction to your likely position that war on Iran would be morally correct, that I identified the implication as 'interesting'.

--

Now to the heart of the matter.

The original premise was: "The whole of Iran is not worth the life of one American soldier."

Your response was: "This is lunacy"

Now you appear to have revised this assesment into:

"I don’t think a country should kill, without cause, citizens of an enemy nation."

While this is certainly a defensible position, it does not address the original premise. That premise was whether it is moral for the US to sacrifice the life of one american soldier in order to spare the lives of enemy citizens. And in fact, it now appear you agree with this premise - that it is not "lunacy":

"I do not dispute this. I dispute the idea that killing everyone in Iran is necessary to defend America."

In other words, the premise is valid. You just question the *need* for killing everyone. Well, so do I. I think a few nukes would cow them into submission. No need to level the entire country. But, again, the effectiveness of a particular tactic was not the issue. The moral validity of them was the issue.

Since it now appears you do not to have any problem with the validity of such tactics, then there is nothing futher to debate here.

:)

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RadCap

Since it now appears you do not to have any problem with the validity of such tactics, then there is nothing futher to debate here.
I hope then that we can put this sordid little affair behind us. I apoplogise for any offensive comments I may have made prior to this post.

MisterSwig

What do you suggest?

I suggest politicians stop pulling the military's chain and let them do whatever they think is necessary to achieve the given objective.

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RadCap

I hope then that we can put this sordid little affair behind us. I apoplogise for any offensive comments I may have made prior to this post.

I don't consider this discussion being sordid in any way. Misunderstanding can occur between the best of individuals. Such conversations are the only means of resolving them. As such, they are quite valuable. That's the only reason I engage in them.

As to any potentially offensive comments, don't worry, I understand the heat of the moment.

:)

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