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"timestamp": "2009-12-01_13:09:04", "remote_domain": "", "page": 1, "is_moderator": false, "display_username": "", "points": null, "subscribe_on_post": 2, "moderator_can_edit": false, "is_remote": false, "is_verified": false, "missing_perm": null}, "realtime_paused": false, "posts": {"1788345": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "To those that read this particular article---this is a telling comment from John Robb who has been psuhing the concept of Open Source Warfare as a core element as to why the speed factor in the Iraq insurgency occurred and why the Army did not see it coming. The comment that the Army is both fighting the insurgency and leading the counter insurgency fight should wake a few people up but I doubt it will.<br><br><br><br>Thursday, 07 February 2008<br><br>OPEN SOURCE COUNTER-INSURGENCY?<br><br>What's left (as an option for the US in Iraq)? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting IBM's embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using (Shiite and Kurdish) militias as a counterinsurgency.<br><br><br><br>John Robb, October 2005, in a New York Times Op-Ed. (if you add Sunni militias to the mix, a gross oversight on my part but implied in the approach, it is spot-on analysis).<br><br>The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than &quot;the surge&quot;) has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That's a good thing, but the Awakening has been wrongly attributed to a new (resurrected) counter-insurgency doctrine (COIN). Here's why. The main objective of United States COIN doctrine is to enhance/extend the sovereignty and legitimacy of the host nation. Everything that is done is slaved to this top level goal. Unfortunately, the development of legitimacy is a long and slow process that takes decades of effort (if it can be accomplished at all). In contrast, everything about the Tribal Awakening is diametrically opposed to this. It arms and trains militias and groups that aren't loyal to the host nation and thereby diminishes the host nation's legitimacy by undercutting its monopoly on violence and its control over sovereign territory.<br><br><br><br>What did happen with the Awakening, and the speed of the transition should be a clue to this, is that the US military opportunistically embraced the insurgency (in a move akin to IBMs embrace of open source development in the 90's). This embrace showered autonomy, weapons, money ($300 per month x 60,000 participants), protection (from Shiite militias and the Iraqi government), and training on insurgent groups. By doing so, it replaced the ISI (Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate) as the leading participant in the insurgency. The only &quot;cost&quot; to these insurgent groups, which were under extreme pressure from Shiite militias due to overreaching by the ISI, was to sacrifice the ISI. They rapidly complied.<br><br><br><br>Where this goes from here is problematic since (and I say this to get you thinking and not to shock you) the US is now leading both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency in Iraq.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-08_20:04:44", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788346": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Clint,<br><br><br><br>I've spent way too much time in the GWOT to believe those numbers are an actual reflection of support for militant jihad. The VAST majority of the &quot;jihadists&quot; I have met and interrogated were not particularly religious--no more so than the average non-radical muslim--but they were politically disenfranchised. In the dictatorships of the Middle East, there is no viable political resistance. The Mubareks and Assads and Husseins (to bring in Richard's conjecture about Saddam's Salafi problem) simply won't allow political opposition to grow. Which leaves religion as the only outlet for the frustrated poor and powerless. Scratch a jihadist and you'll find a garden-variety revolutionary. So I don't believe for a second that those big, scary hoardes of Muslim soldiers marching off to war.<br><br><br><br>I especially don't see the logic of thinking that Putin, Ahmedinejad and Chavez are going to join forces to wage war against China. Did I misunderstand what you were saying?<br><br><br><br>To get to what I think was your main point, I never said that high-tech listening devices aren't crucial to the national security. I merely said that increased spending on technology solutions drove the mission in ways that were counterproductive to the HUMINT mission. So enamored was our intel service of their technology, in fact, that we had <i>nobody</i> on the ground feeding us information from Saddam's Iraq. That's my conjecture as to how the CIA lost the ability to tell good interrogation methods from bad: they were too busy playing with their expensive toys to remember how to do the more stone-age stuff.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-05_08:04:51", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788347": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean<br>Per your comment &quot;but new high-tech listening devices generate lots of revenue.&quot;<br>     With US population at around 5% to 6% of the worlds population, an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims and 1% (equals 12,000,000) embracing the Jihadist philosophy with 20% of that Muslim population willing to support a Jihadist  -what do you purpose as the combat multipliers.  Even excluding the potential of a Chinese conflict with the Ruskies, Iran, and Hugo C. as partners in that effort.  It seems to me that you avoid the obvious necessity for combat/Intel multipliers, the lack thereof creating the issue of multiple deployments to support the war on terror..  The efficient management of and interfacing those high-tech listening devices with human resources seems to be the necessary method/tact to pursue.  The past inclination was to only depend on these resources but/is the CIA so hamstrung or without a mission intent for how long to enable this efficient method...  My personal issue with some of the modern combat multipliers is that they enabled a process that removed from the trigger puller too much of the decision to pull the trigger..", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-04_18:56:30", "killed": false, "user_key": "62b4a3d22b09498a5df53b5c95644a4c", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788348": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean---will shift to your email for the other documents---will send them over the coming week or so. Sorry for not responding by have been busy writing templates.<br><br><br><br>The development speed that the insurgency had from the year 2003 to mid 2005 is an interesting one. Just how could relatively untrained, and seemingly disconnected groups of fighters be able to actually take on the only superpower left in an organized way.<br><br><br><br>I spoke with a Sunni fighter (cell leader) that we captured in late December 2005 who had been wearing a blast belt and who claimed that he had actually been recruited by an IIS officer into a Salafi movement in late 1996 in Amarra. They had prayed regularly (no hint of jihad) until the US arrived and then their conversations before and after prayer turned to jihad. The IIS officer had been based in Amarra and then with the US arrival he disappears to Baghdad but maintains close ties to the cell leader and still comes on occassions after 2003 to pray in Amarra. Then he calls in mid 2005 to see if the cell leader was ready to conduct jihad-- the cell leader immediately answers the call and is into the fight after a two week indoctrination period with 30 others in Baghdad.<br><br><br><br>I would suggest that in fact Saddam and the IIS knew of and had a serious internal Salafi movement problem that we knew nothing about prior to 2003--probably a spin off of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Iraq. I would further suggest that the very same IIS officers who were tasked to watch the Salafi movement are the same ones who later setup the various insurgent groups and were the driving force behind the various groups thus shortening the lead time needed to launch an organized full blown insurgency.<br><br><br><br>The US military in Iraq spends way to much time focused on al Qaida and not the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) which has historically spun off six different Sunni insurgent groups and was in fact founded by former IIS officers and Iraqi Army officers.<br><br><br><br>Couple the existence of well organized small groups that had learned to survive in the underground being hunted by the IIs to the concept of &quot;open source warfare&quot; then the critical mass is reached far faster than ever thought possible in the realm of unconventional warfare.<br><br><br><br>If you are interersted in the concept of &quot;open source warfare&quot; as the key in the evoluntionary speed of the Iraqi insurgency here is an interesting link run by John robb who has written the Brave New War.<br><br><br><br><a href=\"http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerr...</a>", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-04_18:37:58", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788349": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean, R Paul, and Richard<br>     Good discussion.  I am elated to discover there really are healthy intellectual discussions seeking battlefield solutions.  Glad someone is discussing the battle (including intel gathering) everywhere unlike the early pundits comments who believe and implied that the only battle is with the politicos here in the US and only with Bush.  Most of your tactical issues are the result of countless years of complacency exacerbated by the DC retreat from difficult discussions seeking real solutions for real places/events.  Thanks for serving.  Stay safe..", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-04_17:29:06", "killed": false, "user_key": "62b4a3d22b09498a5df53b5c95644a4c", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788350": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "I'm not sure I follow you here. My take is that we're not in Phase Three (Conventional Military Tactics) and never have been, which is to say that the Iraqi insurgents (and the Jihadists in general) aren't following Mao's doctrine too closely. Mao himself acknowledged that slipping between the three phases was likely to occur, so even he didn't see his plan all that strictly.<br><br><br><br>If you're asking why the insurgency is so popular or has so many adherents, I'd venture to guess that's because they don't want an outside country, especially us, running their country for them.<br><br><br><br>If you're asking how they got so powerful so fast, I'd cite the general speeding-up of change in the world and increased access to newer, deadlier technologies. Nothing takes as long as it used to, it seems.<br><br><br><br>I'm curious what your simple answer is; this was just me trying to guess.<br><br><br><br>Please send along your articles -- seannelson, gmail, you know where to put the periods and funny symbols. We'll continue this discussion elsewhere.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-03_00:34:34", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788351": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean---here is something to think about while you are there.<br><br><br><br>If Mao is the theorist behind the three phase insurgency concept-just how did we go from a phase one in 2003 to a full blown phase three in mid 2005 when Mao himself envisioned the phase three itself taking upwards of 10-15 years to develop?<br><br><br><br>The answer is actually simple it is just that we still today are not willing to see the answer.<br><br><br><br>It goes to the heart of how the insurgency is able to evolve their TTPs so fast.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-02_17:15:55", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788352": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean---then stay safe for the remaining time there---I have about several more trips to Iraq and a handfull of rotations then it is off to southern France where I can finally forget COIN after 40 plus years.<br><br><br><br>Just finished up my book Drinkiing Tea in Iraq-War of Perception and have finished the Sprial Questioning Article for CALL with one to follow on Tactical Questioning. Will send you the electronic copies if you are interested---it summarizaes alot of what we had spoken about over the last few years.<br><br><br><br>Have a number of articles in the pipeline concerning the global Salafi movement and the global jihad coming out in the next few months on a global security site that has a large number of influencers.<br><br><br><br><br><br>Stay safe----", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-02_07:17:46", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788353": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Richard,<br><br><br><br>I didn't know that the Army had abandoned rapport in favor of letting the ISF do it from now on, but that doesn't surprise me. The military is really good at taking the easy way out when what is required isn't technology but competence. I doubt they'll ever teach spiral questioning--given the acumen of most of the instructors at Ft. H I've known, I don't think there's enough institutional knowledge to make it doctrine.<br><br><br><br>Of course one of the major roadblocks to ensuring that the Army is well-versed in 4G warfare is the fact that they're just not as picky about recruiting as they used to be, nor are they as picky about who gets into certain career fields. So just when what we need is smarter soldiers, we're dumbing down the force. This is true everywhere, but the situation in HUMINT is more dire, because we've always needed the interrogators to be smarter than the average bear.<br><br><br><br>I agree withn you about the additional troops thing, but I wonder how much of the decline in violence wasn't due to the ethnic cleansing actually having worked? Any way you slice it, mass slaughter eventually results in something calmer than what was there before. Maybe we just hung around while they finished. It's a grisly thought, but worth pondering. (No idea where it is online, but a historical comparison of the ethnic/sectarian map of Baghdad supports this theory.)<br><br><br><br>As for Diyala, yes, it's important, and yes, QJBR hangs their hat there, but that's because they're not hanging their hat in Fallujah, Ramadi or Al Qaim anymore. I submit that the battle has always been over Baghdad, and that the Shia have won. Which is not to say that the Sunni will just roll over, but the Iraqi state is in the hands of the Shia. (We gave it to them, incidentally, but that's not quite germane here.) The fact that QJBR is operating much more in Diyala than they were (I covered Diyala and Salahadin at the Div level back in 2004-early 2005) just means that they don't get to operate in Baghdad as much as they would like. Focusing too closely on QJBR ignores the Shia elephant in the room, which is exactly what we did for the first 3 or so years of this war.<br><br><br><br>I'm in Fallujah, but I travel a lot and I'm only working tangentially with HUMINT these days. I plan to leave the military contracting biz for good in a month--grad school in ME Studies is calling.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-01_21:32:23", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788354": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean---could give you an equally long email on why the Marines are ahead of the Army in COIN---maybe they learned some important lessons during Fulluja 1 and 2 and Ramadi 1 and 2. Could be they learned that the insurgency was just as good at counter sniper and hunting down Marine sniper teams. Maybe they learned to understand the deep Anbar tribal culture for which a US Army LTC who became the world's leading SME on Anbar Tribal culure could never get promoted past LTC due to  his years of intensive research which are still not part an parcel of USA tribal culture training (many did not like his messaging).<br><br><br><br>Key though was their shift to company level operations---the theoritical debate had been lead by a retired USMC LTC Michael Poole with his books on Battle Tactics of the Cresent Moon--or the theories put forth by another USMC retired LTC on 4G warfare. The theoritical debate has taken most of their rotations in Iraq to get correct---but they rotate every 7 months not 12 or now 15 months on the USA side so maybe it is easier to discuss and decide if one is not gone for a total of 39 months out of 56.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-01_18:23:16", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788355": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean---good to see that you are back into the fight at Fulluja-hope things have changed there a bit from 2005--to answer some of your questions.<br><br><br><br>I have had the opportunity to observe the MI effort for 16 BCT rotations and everything that you and I ever complained about at Ft. H is still going on in Humint and MI with no improvement. Still hundreds of young interrogators coming out of Ft. H with little or no understanding of 1) what the heck is a phase three insurgency or war of movement or what are the insurgency battle tactics or how many insurgents are on a mortar team and what are their functions during an attack or what is a swarm attack, 2) or what the heck is spiral questioning and let's not tell them about it because they are to young and inexperienced to handle it and 3) let's not teach it to the combat arms as a way of lowering the over all number of detainees as we are at what number in the TF 134 system--33, 34 or 35K which is up from the number of 13K prior to the surge. And by the way the concept of JUMPs does not get it and is a total failure, but what the heck let's continue to teach it anyway because someday we might be fight a HIC not LIC.<br><br><br><br>Oh by the way the EAIT side finally opened up some class seats for BCT interrogators---it does make a difference---spiral questioning the Tiger Team concept is what they take back with them as the two most important things they learned there.<br><br><br><br>Reference the Marines---they have undergone their own long internal discusssion of driving all COIN combat operations in an insurgency environment at the company level with the company being the tip of the spear, the spear itself and the thrower of the spear. Try to bring that conversation to a BCT Cmdr at the O6 level. I have spent the better part of a year in getting via straight personal influence and based on my long years of experience a total of seven BCTs to devolve MI to the company level and the message is taking hold. The Ft. H solution is 260M dollars and the first gradute of the IST concept is FY11--does not help the BCTs going now in the least bit.<br><br><br><br>The concept of teaching spiral questioning which you know all to well yourself--- Ft. H does not like me teaching it to the combat arms-why because the standard answer is that it is a difficult concept for young soldiers to grasp, but quess what they get it in a big way and the 3 ID has been using it well in southern Baghdad.<br><br><br><br>Rapport building may have been a thing in 2004 and 2005, but it disappeared from all BCTs in 2006 and 2007 because we were to be transitioning Iraq to the ISF so why did we need it--- until the surge BCTs got there it had all but disappeared.<br><br><br><br>The additional troops had two impacts that are vastly underdiscussed 1) they provided a limiting factor on the unimpeded movement of the insurgency groups---which until the surge came they could move at will---it is harder now to dodge the countless TCPs and flash TCPs and 2)they allowed a certain amount of &quot;balanced&quot; fairness in keeping the Sunni and Shiite apart in basically what was Shiite cleansing of all Sunni districts in Baghdad in the drive to make Baghdad the capital of a democratically elected Shiite State.<br><br><br><br>The fight is not in Baghdad, nor Fulluja or Ramadi---it has been and always will be in Diyala Provence especially Baqubah which is the stated capital of the ISI and QJBR. So goes Diyala so goes the war---after countless largescale 10K plus operations in Diyala (in 2007 and 08) and it is still not under control.<br><br><br><br>Sean-good to hear from you, stay safe, will be in country for a Humint visit in the coming months-let me know where you are exactly.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-01_18:09:28", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788356": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "The masters of Bait and Switch, ye old Shell Game, and Let", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-01_09:34:02", "killed": false, "user_key": "349fc7449123273a81bc53895aed61e0", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788357": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Richard,<br><br>You've brought up too many points to deal with effectively, so I'm going to focus on two of them: your contention that rapport building is a surge &quot;byproduct&quot; and your misunderstanding regarding engagement &amp; reconciliation.<br><br>You are simply mistaken to say that &quot;not a single soldier nor a single BCT ever attempted to use rapport in the desert&quot; prior to the surge. I certainly did in 2004-2005, and I know that many of my colleagues did as well. You were one of them, for God's sake. Just because the BCTs were taught rapport-building before coming out here (I'm in Fallujah now) doesn't mean that they weren't taught it before. I know this because I was one of the many who taught them. I recall seeing your face in some of those classes and around those halls during that period as well. For all I know you disagreed with the manner in which we taught rapport-building, but we did it, almost to the point of overkill if you ask some students. Reporting back from the field, those students cited our schoolhouse emphasis on rapport building, particularly the long-term approach strategy, as crucial to their success. And this all happened back when the Administration was tarring and feathering people who suggested our pre-surge troop levels were insufficient.<br><br>As for Engagement &amp; Reconciliation--first, who said we &quot;forced&quot; anyone into the Awakening movement? I certainly didn't, and I don't see what it would have had to do with anything had I said it. Second, of course they are rebuilding their organizations. I think we're in agreement on the potential for a lull in the fighting to benefit all sides in their efforts to rebuild, and QJBR is indeed making more noise lately.<br><br>But to get to my earlier point about the E&amp;R, and not the surge, being responsible for the turn to rapport-building, could you please then explain to me why the Marines have employed rapport-building as a central component of their HUMINT strategy? No Marines ever &quot;surged,&quot; that was all an Army thing. The crucial switch happened when some of us realized that this was an insurgency and that the only battle worth fighting for was the battle for hearts and minds. The surge was just extra people.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-02-01_00:28:23", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788358": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Rapport building was in fact a surge by product as it was being taught to the surge BCTs extensively both during LTP and in the desert in intensive sessions prior to the troops hitting the desert rotations.<br><br><br><br>As the trigger pullers while understanding maybe the high side of the concept pulled into their JSSs and COPs in Iraq and were running their 5 day dismounted patrols the concept seemed to take off on it's own. Coupled with a new form of cultural training not seen in the rest of the CTCs or for that matter Ft. H we have in fact been able to send BCTs into Iraq that are performing at a level which has caused the IRC to recently voice their wonder at the sudden shift in the Army---we have seen a definite improvement in EOF incidents and in detainee handling causing the IRC to wonder just what we changed.<br><br><br><br>Our surge BCTs now understand what wearing sunglasses while speaking with Iraqi's now culturally means or that there are deep cultural items that have to be respected even during detainee operations that affect the overall Iraqi perspectives of Americans. They now understand that the concept of Iraqi silence was getting them killed-once they understood that everything else fell into place.<br><br><br><br>HUMINT still has not taken off for a long number of reasons-internal to the MI as a whole and issues out of Ft. H. We still are facing the massive belief that hey if we can just throw more technology and more analysis at the problem and everything will work.<br><br><br><br>Regardless of what one thinks or for that matter does not think of the surge--we have a massive increase of Iraqi's willing to talk to us for the first time in 5 years which is in fact point 8 of the MNF-I Patreaus letter. Get the Iraqi's off the fence.<br><br><br><br>We are still struggling to get BCTs to understand point 5 of his MNF-I letter which is that all intel is driven bottom up not top down which is where most of the technology being fielded today is sitting.<br><br><br><br>A bulk of the successes which are in fact there are being driven by rapport building with both the local Sunni and Shiite sides and a solid amount of long hours at what I would call &quot;community policing&quot;.<br><br><br><br>Again based on long conversations with the surge BCTs they are rating rapport building as the single key to a lot of their captures and the calming of their JSS neighborhoods.<br><br><br><br>As to the Engagement and Reconciliation side of the problem---we did not force anyone into the &quot;awakening&quot; movement---think about it the Sunni insurgency was by mid 2007 fighting a three front war---1) with us, 2) with QJBR, and 3) with the Shiite militias. If you are a Sunni fighter offered 300USD to patrol your area to keep it quiet and you are the problem then in fact your neighborhood is going to be quiet and you can sleep at night knowing you will not be raided by the US. Secondly you can rebuild your own organization knowing the final Shiite fight is coming and lastly if QJBR is not having the perception that they &quot;won&quot; the war then you will not have to send your fighters to Afghanistan or Algeria as a &quot;blood debt&quot; payment for their winning your war.<br><br><br><br>There are solid recent developments that in fact the surge phase has allowed for a total reconstituion of all Sunni insurgent groups and in fact the battle tempo is slowly but steadily climbing again. QJBR is again in full IO glory on the jihadi websites and a recent battle video that was released was lead off by QJBR and as the last insurgent group on the video IAI-now what does that say.<br><br><br><br>But to get back to the rapport building comments---from Oct 2007 through to the initial surge BCTs in March not a single soldier nor a single BCT ever attempted to use rapport in the desert. Again only after extensive training and deep cultural training --rapport is understood by even the junior LT as the inherent part of every conversation they carry out with Iraqi's---what we refer to as the Love Bank and is the corner stone to the COIN COG process.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-31_12:19:17", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788359": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "&quot;This whole debate has sidetracked the one main concept that has come out of the Iraq", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-31_06:46:38", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788360": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Concerning SAVAK---ask any Iranian student studying in Germany at the height of the Shahs' rule what they thought of SAVAK. While SAVAK was well known in European political circles there was little or no reporting on them here in the US during the same timeframe.<br><br><br><br>The irony of SAVAK was that for some strange reason they overlooked a little known Shiite Mullah during his Friday prayers in Paris, France. Even the CIA somehow felt that this particular Mullah was not a threat to Iran and for that we can thank the CIA for getting into the current Iranian mess.<br><br><br><br>Even the Europeans knew that the CIA was training their little brother and that torture was in play then with reports that CIA operatives were at least watching key SAVAK &quot;interviews&quot; with Iranian dissidents.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-30_16:30:19", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788361": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "To all--what is getting lost in the debate is that torture gets one absolutely nowhere on the Humint side of the house. In the world of Humint collection and all source fusion it is amazing to stop and think that after a waterboarding session the CIA interrogator would even trust the gained information unless confirmed by other sources.<br><br><br><br>So if they had other sources of information why turn to waterboarding?<br><br><br><br>This whole debate has sidetracked the one main concept that has come out of the Iraq &quot;surge&quot;---a new style of tactical questioning that educes information via rapport building. Nothing fancy but for those that understand this field the term cognitive dissonance is the key and this is where the CIA always goes astray.<br><br><br><br>To drive cognitive dissonance one has to understand the culture of the individual and we Americans tend to not want to do that as it takes to much time or we simply do not know the culture or we feel that knowing the culture makes you one of the &quot;enemy&quot;.<br><br><br><br>We are in a few more weeks into the fifth year of the Iraq war and I sense that even after five years the intel community still does not understand the global Sunni jihad.<br><br><br><br>For those that really want to gain some insight into a number of interesting items that get little or no coverage checkout the book Brave New War.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-30_16:15:59", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788362": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Ed:<br><br><br><br>The thing is, the intelligence community has been in a frenzy over new technologies for years, to the detriment of its HUMINT programs. (A lot of that has to do with contracting: Northrup Grumman doesn't make a killing on programs involving mere people; but new high-tech listening devices generate lots of revenue. The agencies then set their priorities based partially on what they spend their money on, and HUMINT gets pushed further down the list of priorities.) Everyone thinking they know how to interrogate helps push it down the list as well.<br><br><br><br>I probably should have written that I don't believe that no one asked the Israelis, et al about interrogation. But with even a basic institutional knowledge the CIA would have been able to see past the sexiness of breaking the law for the good of the many. The fact that they didn't tells me that they weren't real interested in interrogations prior to getting the order to start conducting them.<br><br><br><br>I should also caveat that with the acknowledgement that they did conduct a lot of debriefings during the cold war, but a debriefing is a radically different animal than an interrogation, something that interrogators know but debriefers quite often don't. As someone who has lived in both of those worlds, I've seen that phenomenon a lot.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-29_09:36:08", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788363": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Richard, feel like dropping me a line at sackerman-at-washingtonindependent-dot-com?", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-29_07:14:10", "killed": false, "user_key": "64742a1aaab6d5013401acd5e405d644", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788364": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sean:<br><br><br><br>Appreciate your comments.  However I find it hard to believe the CIA had no interrogation program, official or otherwise, prior to the years before 9/11, and would find it easier to believe the CIA advised Egypt and Saudi Arabia on interrogation methods rather than what the article suggested.  I believe Isreal would support that opinion since they themselves are a benefactor of certain CIA interrogation methods.  Or am I presumptious to think that is also common knowledge?<br><br><br><br>The sad irony of the waterboarding issue, or any discussion of torture, is that it is an issue.  And as AJ Hill expressed, we will pay for this for a very long time indeed.<br><br><br><br>Ed", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-29_06:56:04", "killed": false, "user_key": "3a931321c2db0642747fbdc1c577e8d3", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788365": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Ed,<br><br><br><br>The SAVAK stuff is unfortunately not common knowledge.<br><br><br><br>I think the point is not that the CIA had never known of this sort of thing, it's that they hadn't, as an agency, had an actual interrogation program for years before 9/11.<br><br><br><br>I doubt that their use torture as an interrogation technique was as influenced by their consultation with Egypt, et al as this article suggests. The fact is that everyone who has ever seen a movie where the interrogator &quot;does what has to be done&quot; thinks they know what they're doing. I've been an interrogator for almost 15 years, and I would say that a good 50% of the people I meet who learn that about me immediately imagine they know how I do my job. I've seen many, many completely untrained people go into the booth or offer their two cents, and that advice is always, EVERY TIME, to get vicious.<br><br><br><br>These CIA agents were given the green light to do anything they wanted, and they licked their lips at the opportunity to play vigilante. They knew they could do some research into best methods, but that isn't nearly as fun as shaking your head as you lament that &quot;desperate times call for desperate measures,&quot; is it?", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-29_02:18:43", "killed": false, "user_key": "eeb8d8075ad0e130a07bde4f5c62932f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788366": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "One of the most amazing things about the current administration is how quickly and thoroughly one man has been able to imbue an entire government with his own characteristic  ignorance, incompetence, and disregard for the truth. With the help of a complicit media, it's likely that George W. Bush will escape prosecution for the crimes that have been committed on his order. Without the purgative of a Nuremberg style hearing, we as a nation will be tarred with those crimes long after Bush himself has faded into well deserved obscurity.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-29_00:34:24", "killed": false, "user_key": "6172a76745f3cda3b4a5b6cc6074a00e", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788367": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Sorry about that link.  Try this...<br><br><br><br><a href=\"http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8310\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Ite...</a>", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_18:49:09", "killed": false, "user_key": "3a931321c2db0642747fbdc1c577e8d3", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788368": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "I find the idea that the CIA knew so little about torture that they turned to Egypt, Saudia Arabia, et al, to learn torture methods to be totally baseless.  I refer you to:<br><br><br><br> <a href=\"http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8310\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Ite...</a><br><br><br><br>...whereby the CIA trained SAVAK agents of the Shah of Iran on torture methods they themselves learned from the Nazis.  I thought this was common knowledge.  You don't suppose whatever methods were presented to the SAVAK agents 30 years ago have since been improved and refined, do you?  Maybe something worse than waterboarding?<br><br><br><br>I suspect the CIA and the Bush administration are at this point willing to try anything to divert attention and cause confusion as to what the truth is.  No Tenet interviews?  Who'd a thunk it.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_18:44:48", "killed": false, "user_key": "3a931321c2db0642747fbdc1c577e8d3", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788369": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Torture DOES work.<br>During the Middle Ages Christendom was only saved from Satanic witchcraft by its use.<br>Through torture, witches would not only confess but also identify other witches including the most difficult to find &quot;sleeper witches&quot;.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_18:11:41", "killed": false, "user_key": "f1410cd9d0b022b11d0cad521a85b23d", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788370": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "This is an interesting article as the Intelligence Science Board's recommendations were first presented to Congress and then to the Ft. Hauchuca Intelligence Training Center in 2007. There has been no attempt on the part of the Ft. H Interrogator Training Center to incorporate those recommendations.<br><br><br><br>There is though a questioning technique called spiral questioning that if used as the basis for interrogations or tactical questioning goes to the heart of the &quot;educing information&quot; concepts presented by the ISB. This concept was originally developed in the early 70s and used daily at the Joint Refugee Operations Center Berling with great success---and never once do you have to use force or the threat of force.<br><br><br><br>I have used it extensively at Abu Ghraib and in Diyala in 2005 and 2006 and the results as the young generation says were &quot;massive&quot; when compared to a young Army trained interrogator relying on the school house doctrine.<br><br><br><br>I was taught years ago and still teach two things 1) treat detainees the way you would want to be treated in the same situation, and 2) rapport, rapport, rapport.<br><br><br><br>We older generation interrogators take our jobs seriously--- the issues of Abu Ghraib and the CIA black interrogation centers has damaged the US and interrogators in the eyes of the Muslim world to such a degree that our jobs are now 20 times harder. Even the CIA new generation interrogators in Iraq are no comparison to even young Army interrogators just out of school.<br><br><br><br>Perception is everything---the CIA never got it nor will they ever get it.<br><br><br><br>Kleinman is correct no one really wants &quot;educing information&quot; as the new generational form of interrogation---there are to many defense dollars going to several key defense contractors who if they had to change to the &quot;educing information&quot; concept would be out of a job as it is easy to teach and highly effective. Retired DEA and ATFE agents after being show the concept of spiral questioning were totally surprised and stated that was in fact what they had been doing for years, but did not know the name for the technique.<br><br><br><br>When you are an interrogator in Iraq you are in fact the defense lawyer, judge, jury, and DA all roled into one person---humanity is the only thing you have hold on to if you are true to yourself and want to see yourself in the mirror in the mornings.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_16:54:15", "killed": false, "user_key": "f70cd0bf8e83ef3f29f10c6218e3a616", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788371": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "Very good, informational post. It again shows that the Bush-Cheney Administration doesn't know shit about anything -- except where the oil is. These torture clowns should be put up before an International War Tribunal -- not only for their crimes, but also for their stupidity.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_13:53:17", "killed": false, "user_key": "f99bf6ff28c03de46e79eaa7132c41a6", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788372": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "There is at least one other part of the federal government that has experience with interrogations: I was an interrogator for the US Army in Vienam.  The army intrrogation course in 1969 emphasized that we did not use coercive techniques because 1) they produce very poor quality information and 2) a surprising portion of prople can't be broken that way.  We didn't believe it and argued with the instructors over &quot;real life&quot; practices.  But a year's experience with prisoners convinced me that my instructors told the truth.  I had the (appalling) experience of trying to get information from someone who had previously been beaten for it.  Unless you know the exact right question and you know that he knows the answer, that is pretty near hopeless.  He is so focused on not going through that again that you can't get any sort of spontaeity or consideration from him.<br><br><br><br>As for the term &quot;broken&quot;, it does not mean physically broken.  It is a technical term that just means that you have overcome his resistance.  This usually just means that you asked some questions, he answered, and you got a conversation going.  Getting a conversation going is about 90% of the trick.  You have all the advantages and can take the discussion where you want it.  Lies are easier to detect than you would think.  Failure is not getting lied to so much as not getting responses.", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_08:55:23", "killed": false, "user_key": "a93435ec8d562822530fdfc1176c1473", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788373": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "I have never heard or read, anyone making a good case for torture. Evidently this point is lost on the employees of BushCo?", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_06:06:15", "killed": false, "user_key": "890d0a820084bf759a92fb1932ec2c9f", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}, "1788374": {"up_voted": false, "ip": "", "has_replies": false, "message": "&quot;But FBI agents familiar with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah have claimed that the waterboarding was worthless", "is_last_child": false, "can_reply": true, "down_voted": false, "real_date": "2008-01-28_04:14:05", "killed": false, "user_key": "d1316857592860ffff54d47b107cd080", "has_been_anonymized": false, "edited": false, "author_is_moderator": false, "from_request_user": null, "votable": true, "date": "1 year ago", "approved": true, "num_replies": 0, "is_first_child": false, "email": "", "parent_post_id": null, "depth": 0, "points": 0, "author_is_creator": false, "is_realtime": false}}, "integration": {"receiver_url": "", "theme": 1, "reply_position": false, "disqus_logo": false}, "timer": {"timer_url": "http://localhost:8005", "thread_id": "3616940", "user_id": "anonymous", "forum_id": "34441", "hash": 7029684935655488342}, "thread": {"days_alive": 0, "slug": "cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics", "paginate": true, "num_pages": 1, "num_posts": 30, "per_page": 50, "total_posts": 30, "realtime_paused": true, "id": 3616940, "queued": false}, "reactions_limit": 10, "context": {"show_reply": true, "use_fb_connect": false, "forum_facebook_key": "", "use_yahoo": false, "subscribed": false, "use_twitter_signin": false, "use_openid": false, "realtime_speed": 5000}, "reactions_start": 0, "settings": {"debug": false, "disqus_url": "http://disqus.com", "media_url": "http://media.disqus.com"}, "media_url": "http://media.disqus.com"};
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/**
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Dsq.FmtStrings = new function() {
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Dsq.CSRF_TOKEN = '4f0bfca82e06c976a1efdd7c783a5fd0';
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Dsq.POST_RE = /(<div.*?id="?dsq-comment-header-(\d+)"?.*?>)((?:.|\s)*?)(<\/div>)\s*(<div.*?class="?dsq-comment-body"?.*?>)((?:.|\s)*)(<\/div>)/gim;
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// TODO: It might be faster to use string methods to find all <li (...) </li> blocks and pass to Dsq.PostHandler manually.
Dsq.CommentsHandler = function(str, head, post_id, content, tail, offset, s) {
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Dsq.$ = function(element) { return document.getElementById(element); };
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/**
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Dsq.Debug = new function() {this.log=function(s){};this.profile=function(f){if(typeof f == 'function')return f();else return eval(f);};};


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		var windowWidth = -1;
		var windowHeight = -1;

		if(typeof(window.innerWidth) == 'number') { //Non-IE
			windowWidth = window.innerWidth;
			windowHeight = window.innerHeight;
		} else if(document.documentElement) { // IE 6+ in 'standards compliant mode'
			windowWidth = document.documentElement.clientWidth || document.body.clientWidth;
			windowHeight = document.documentElement.clientHeight || document.body.clientHeight;
		}

		return [windowWidth, windowHeight];
	}

	this.getScrollPos = function() {
		var scrollWidth, scrollTop;

		if(document.documentElement && (document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollWidth)) {
			scrollWidth = document.documentElement.scrollWidth;
			// IE is weird here.  If no doctype is provided, document.body.scrollTop is 0,
			// otherwise document.documentElement.scrollTop is 0.
			scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.body.scrollTop;
		} else if(document.body.scrollTop && document.body.scrollWidth) {
			scrollWidth = document.body.scrollWidth;
			scrollTop = document.body.scrollTop;
		}

		return [scrollWidth, scrollTop];
	}

	this.addEventListener = function(instance, eventName, listener) {
		var listenerFn = listener;
		if (instance.addEventListener) {
			instance.addEventListener(eventName, listenerFn, false);
		} else if (instance.attachEvent) {
			listenerFn = function() {
				listener(window.event);
			};
			instance.attachEvent("on" + eventName, listenerFn);
		} else {
			throw new Error("Event registration not supported");
		}
		return {
			instance: instance,
			name: eventName,
			listener: listenerFn
		};
	};

	this.removeEventListener = function(event) {
		var instance = event.instance;
		if (instance.removeEventListener) {
			instance.removeEventListener(event.name, event.listener, false);
		} else if (instance.detachEvent) {
			instance.detachEvent("on" + event.name, event.listener);
		}
	};

	this.fixIframesIE = function(id) {
		var disqusThread = Dsq.$(disqus_container_id);
		var iframes = disqusThread.getElementsByTagName('iframe');

		if(id) {
			var container = Dsq.$(id);
		} else {
			var container = Dsq.$('dsq-content');
		}

		for(i = 0; i < iframes.length; i++) {
			if (container) {
				iframes[i].style.width = container.offsetWidth;
			}
		}
	};

	this.getElementsByClassName = function(oElm, strTagName, strClassName) {
	/* Credit: Jonathan Snook [http://www.snook.ca/jonathan], Robert Nyman [http://www.robertnyman.com] */
		var arrElements = (strTagName == "*" && oElm.all)? oElm.all : oElm.getElementsByTagName(strTagName);
		var arrReturnElements = new Array();
		strClassName = strClassName.replace(/\-/g, "\\-");
		var oRegExp = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + strClassName + "(\\s|$)");
		var oElement;
		for(var i = 0; i < arrElements.length; i++) {
			oElement = arrElements[i];
			if(oRegExp.test(oElement.className)) {
				arrReturnElements.push(oElement);
			}
		}
		return (arrReturnElements);
	};

	this.postToUrl = function(url, post_data, opt_redirect) {
		var form = document.createElement('form');
		var iframe_container = document.createElement('div');
		var id = 'dsq-temp-iframe-' + (new Date()).getTime();

		form.method = 'POST';
		form.action = url;
		if (!opt_redirect) {
			form.target = id;
		}
		iframe_container.innerHTML = '<iframe style="display:none" name="' + id + '" id="' + id + '"></iframe>';

		for(var key in post_data) {
			if(post_data.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
				var input = document.createElement('input');
				input.name = key;
				input.type = 'hidden';
				input.value = post_data[key];

				form.appendChild(input);
			}
		}

		Dsq.$b.appendChild(iframe_container);
		Dsq.$b.appendChild(form);
		form.submit();
	};

	// Strips integer id from id of element in the form ('some-id-###')
	this.extractId = function(e) {
		var chunks = e.id.split('-');
		if(chunks.length <= 1) {
			return 0;
		} else {
			return parseInt(chunks[chunks.length-1]);
		}
	};

	this.getStyle = function(el, styleProp) {
		if(el.currentStyle) {
			var y = el.currentStyle[styleProp];
		} else if(window.getComputedStyle) {
			var y = document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(el, null).getPropertyValue(styleProp);
		}

		if(y == 'transparent' || y == '') {
			this.getStyle(el.parentNode, styleProp);
		} else {
			return y;
		}
	};

	this.execScript = function(url, append_qs, container) {
		var script = document.createElement('script');
		append_qs = typeof append_qs == 'undefined' ? true : append_qs;
		container = container || Dsq.container;

		if(append_qs) {
			var j = (url.indexOf('?') >= 0) ? '&' : '?';
			url += j + (new Date()).getTime();
		}
		script.type = 'text/javascript';
		script.charset = 'UTF-8';
		script.src = url;
		container.appendChild(script);
		return script;
	};

	this.pluralize = function(num, singular, plural) {
		return (num != 1) ? plural || 's' : singular || '';
	};

	this.getRequestParams = function(queryString /* optional */) {
		var pairs, tuple;
		var params = {};

		queryString = queryString || window.location.search.substring(1);
		pairs = queryString.split('&');

		for (var i = 0, pair; pair = pairs[i]; i++) {
			tuple = pair.split('=');
			params[tuple[0]] = (tuple[1] || true);
		}

		return params;
	};

	this.addCssRule = function(selector, styleText, index) {
		var stylesheet;
		index = index || 0;

		if(!this._styleSheet) {
			var styleEl = document.createElement('style');
			document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(styleEl);
			this._styleSheet = styleEl.sheet;
			if(!this._styleSheet) {
				// IE does not like our newly created stylesheet.
				this._styleSheet = document.styleSheets[document.styleSheets.length-1];
			}
		}
		stylesheet = this._styleSheet;

		if(stylesheet.insertRule) {
			var ruleText = selector + ' { ' + styleText + ' }';
			if(index == -1) {
				index = stylesheet.cssRules.length;
			}
			stylesheet.insertRule(ruleText, index);
		} else if(stylesheet.addRule) {
			stylesheet.addRule(selector, styleText, index);
		}
	};

	this.forEachIn = function(obj, callback) {
		for(var key in obj) {
			if(obj.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
				callback(key, obj[key]);
			}
		}
	};

	this._interpolateGlobalContext = {
		// values that get used a lot and are global to the request
		'profile_url': Dsq.Urls.REQUEST_USER_PROFILE,

		'disqus_url': Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url,
		'media_url': Dsq.jsonData.settings.media_url,
		'request_username': Dsq.jsonData.request.username,
		'request_display_username': Dsq.jsonData.request.display_username,
		'forum_name': Dsq.jsonData.forum.name
	};

	this.renderFromContextStack = function(key, contexts) {
		// Returns the first instance of `key` in the array of objects `contexts` or else ''
		for (var i=0; i<contexts.length; i++) {
			if (contexts[i][key] !== undefined) {
				return String(contexts[i][key]);
			}
		}
		throw new Error('key ' + key + ' not found in context');
	};

	var that = this;
	this.interpolate = function(fmt, opt_localContext) {
		// Interpolate `fmt` named-format string with an assumed global context.
		// Based on `interpolate` in django.views.i18n
		var contextStack = [opt_localContext || {}, that._interpolateGlobalContext];
		return fmt.replace(/%\(\w+\)s/g, function(match){
			return that.renderFromContextStack(match.slice(2,-2), contextStack);
		});
	};

	this.stripTags = function(s) {
		// Removes HTML tags from `s`
		return s.replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/g,"");

	};

	this.assert = function(b) {
		if (!b) {
			throw new Error('Assertion error.');
		}
	};

};
// Dsq.Utils

/**
 * Dsq.Popup: Popup helper functions.
 */
Dsq.Popup = new function() {
	this.timeHide = new Array();
	this.timeShow = new Array();
	this.activePopup = {};
	this.profileCache = {};
	this.statusCache = {};

	this.showTimer = function(post_id) {
		// clear the hide timer
		clearTimeout(this.timeHide[post_id]);

		// start the timer
		if(!Dsq.Popup.profileIsOn && !Dsq.Thread.adminIsOn) {
			this.timeShow[post_id] = setTimeout("Dsq.Popup.popProfile(\"" + post_id + "\")", 400);
		}
	};

	this.hideTimer = function(post_id) {
		// clear the show timer
		clearTimeout(this.timeShow[post_id]);
	};

	this.updateProfile = function(username) {
		// Callback from /embed/profile.js
		if (this.statusCache[username]) {
			var statusEl = Dsq.$('dsq-profile-status-' + username);
			statusEl.innerHTML = this.statusCache[username];
			statusEl.style.display = 'block';
		}

		if (this.profileCache[username]) {
			var _cache = this.profileCache[username];

			var _genhtml = function(text) { return '<span><big>' + text + '</big></span>'; };
			var _no_comments = _genhtml(Dsq.FmtStrings.NUMBER_OF_COMMENTS(_cache.comments_count));
			var _no_likes = _genhtml(Dsq.FmtStrings.NUMBER_OF_LIKES(_cache.likes_count));
			var _no_points = _genhtml(Dsq.FmtStrings.NUMBER_OF_POINTS(_cache.points));

			var statsEl = Dsq.$('dsq-popup-profile-user-stats-' + username);
			statsEl.innerHTML = '';

			if (Dsq.jsonData.users[username].registered) {
				statsEl.innerHTML = _no_comments + _no_likes;
			}
			statsEl.innerHTML += _no_points;

			var activeSites = '';
			for (var i = 0; i < _cache.active_sites.length; i++) {
				var site = _cache.active_sites[i];
				activeSites += '<li><a href="' + site.url + '"> \
					<img src="' + site.favicon + '"/ width="16" height="16"/></a>\
					<a href="' + site.url + '">' + site.name + '</a></li>';
			}
			if (activeSites !== '') {
				Dsq.$('dsq-popup-profile-active-sites-' + username).innerHTML = activeSites;
			} else {
				Dsq.$('dsq-popup-profile-active-sites-' + username).innerHTML = 'This site.';
			}

			var moderatedSites = '';
			for (var i = 0; i < _cache.moderated_sites.length; i++) {
				var site = _cache.moderated_sites[i];
				moderatedSites += '<li><a href="' + site.url + '"> \
					<img src="' + site.favicon + '"/ width="16" height="16"/></a>\
					<a href="' + site.url + '">' + site.name + '</a></li>';
			}
			if (moderatedSites !== '') {
				Dsq.$('dsq-popup-profile-moderated-' + username).innerHTML = moderatedSites;
			} else {
				Dsq.$('dsq-popup-profile-moderated-wrapper-' + username).innerHTML = '';
			}
		}

		// Reposition popup after full HTML is rendered
		if(Dsq.Popup.activePopup && Dsq.Popup.activePopup.el) {
			Dsq.Popup.initPopup(Dsq.Popup.activePopup.el, Dsq.Popup.activePopup.id, Dsq.Popup.activePopup.type);
		}

	};

	this.showCookieMsgs = function() {
		var title = '';
		var message = '';
		var numAlerts = 0;

		Dsq.Utils.forEachIn(Dsq.jsonData.cookie_messages, function(k, v) {
			if (!v) return;

			switch(k) {
				// Cookie: Twitter
				case 'post_twitter':
					if (v === 'error') {
						title = 'Twitter Error!';
						message += '<li id="dsq-msg-twitter-error">Oops, we couldn\'t tweet this comment. Please check your <a href="http://disqus.com/account/services">account settings</a>.</li>';
					} else {
						var _msg = v.split(':');
						title = 'Tweeted!';
						message += '<li id="dsq-msg-twitter-success">Your comment was successfully tweeted. <a href="http://twitter.com/' + _msg[0] + '/status/' + _msg[1] + '">Click here to view the tweet</a>.</li>';
					}
					break;
				// Cookie: Unapproved Post
				case 'post_not_approved':
					title = 'Comment awaiting approval by a moderator';
					message += '<li id="dsq-msg-post-not-approved">Your comment must be approved by a moderator before appearing here.</li>';
					break;
				// Cookie: Profile Found
				case 'post_has_profile':
					title = 'Use your existing commenter profile';
					message += '<li id="dsq-msg-post-has-profile">You have just posted your commment as a <span class="dsq-badge-guest">Guest</span>, but you may already have a <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span> Profile.<br /><br /><a href="http://disqus.com/claim">Log in and claim this comment!</a></li>';
					break;
				case 'user_created':
					var _data = v.split(':');
					title = 'Profile created!';
					message += '<li id="dsq-msg-user-created">You have just created a <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span> Profile, the best way to claim, manage, and track your comments all over the web. \
					<br /><br />A confirmation is being sent to <strong>' + _data[1] + '</strong>. Please check for this email in order to verify your profile. \
					<ul class="dsq-list-tick"> \
						<li>Your username is <strong>' + _data[0] +'</strong>. <a href="http://disqus.com/people/' + _data[0] + '/" target="_blank">Click here to view your public profile</a>.</li> \
						<li>Be sure to set your profile picture, as well as connect your <span class="dsq-badge-facebook">Facebook</span> and <span class="dsq-badge-twitter">Twitter</span> accounts. <a href="http://disqus.com/account/" target="_blank">Click here for account settings</a>.</li> \
					</ul> \
					</li>'
					break;
				default:
					break;
			}
			numAlerts++;
		});

		if(numAlerts > 1) {
			message = '<ul class="dsq-list-bluebullet">' + message;
			message += '</ul>';
			title = 'Thanks for posting!';
		}
		if(numAlerts > 0) {
			if(typeof(disqus_cookie_msgs) == 'function') {
				disqus_cookie_msgs(message, title);
			} else {
				Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title);
			}
		}
	};

	this.helpBadges = function(post_id) {
		var html = ' \
			<ul class="dsq-popup-help"> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-verified">Verified</span> has a <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span> Profile with a confirmed email address.</li> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-registered">Registered</span> has a <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span> Profile, but has not yet confirmed his or her email address.</li> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-guest">Guest</span> is not logged in with any account and has not claimed his or her comments.</li> \
				<li class="dsq-help-otheraccts">Other accounts</li> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-facebook">Facebook</span> is using his or her Facebook profile via Facebook Connect.</li> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-twitter">Twitter</span> is using his or her Twitter profile via Twitter Sign-in.</li> \
				<li><span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-openid">OpenID</span> is using his or her OpenID.</li> \
			</ul> \
		';

		this.popModal(html, 'Help: Types of Commenters', post_id);
		return;
	};

	this.permalink = function(post_id) {
		var header = 'Link to this comment';
		var body = '<strong>You are anchored to</strong>:<br />' + document.location.protocol + '//' + document.location.host + document.location.pathname + document.location.search + '#comment-' + post_id;

		this.popModal(body, header, post_id);
	};

	this.login = function(header, body) {
		var h = header || 'Login or Register';
		var b = body || '';
		b += Dsq.Templates.frameLogin({id: 'dsq-popup-login'});
		b += '</iframe>'; // HACK: Sometimes there is something funky with the IFRAME SRC that causes no end tag
		this.popModal(b, h, null, true, 'dsq-popup-login');
	};

	this.blacklist = function(id) {
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[id];
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][_meta.user_key];
		var title = 'Add to Blacklist';
		var message = ' \
		Adding this person to the blacklist will block him or her from commenting on this site. Check the following types that you would like to add to the blacklist:'
		+ (userData['registered'] ?
			'<div class="dsq-blacklist-option"> \
				<input id="dsq-blacklist-username" type="checkbox" checked> \
				<label for="dsq-blacklist-username"><strong>Username</strong>: ' + userData['username'] + '</label> \
			</div>'
			: '')
		+ (_meta.email ?
			'<div class="dsq-blacklist-option"> \
				<input id="dsq-blacklist-email" type="checkbox" checked> \
				<label for="dsq-blacklist-email"><strong>Email address</strong>: ' + _meta.email + '</label> \
			</div>'
			: '')
		+ '<div class="dsq-blacklist-option"> \
			<input id="dsq-blacklist-ip" type="checkbox" onclick="Dsq.$(\'dsq-blacklist-ip-warning\').style.display=\'block\'"> \
			<label for="dsq-blacklist-ip"><strong>IP address</strong>: ' + _meta.ip + '</label> \
		</div> \
		';

		message += ' \
			<p id="dsq-blacklist-ip-warning" style="display:none">	\
				Note: Blocking this person\'s IP address may also unintentionally prevent others, who share his/her IP address, from commenting on this site. \
				This may include people who are sharing the same computer, living in the same house, or using the same Internet provider. Only block an IP address as a last resort. \
			</p> \
		';

		message += ' \
			<p style="text-align:center"><button onclick="Dsq.Post.blockUser(' + id + '); this.disabled=true; this.innerHTML=\'Just one moment...\'">Add to Blacklist</button></p> \
		';

		Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title);
	};

	this.remoteAccountSettings = function() {
		var body = '';
		// Set up IFrame.
		var params = {};
		var base_url = 'http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/_auth/embed/remote_settings/';
		var attributes = {id: 'dsq-popup-account-settings'};
		if (typeof disqus_frame_theme != 'undefined') {
			params['theme'] = disqus_frame_theme;
		}

		body = Dsq.Templates._frameGeneric(base_url, params, attributes);
		this.popModal(body, 'Account Settings', null, true, 'dsq-popup-account-settings');
	};

	this.popModal = function(message, title, post_id, use_listener, extra_classes) {
		var container = document.createElement('div');
		var header, body;

		Dsq.Popup._closePopup(null, true);

		if(typeof(title) == 'undefined') { title = ''; }
		if(typeof(use_listener) == 'undefined') { use_listener = true; }

		if(post_id) {
			container.id = 'dsq-popup-message-' + post_id;
		} else {
			container.id = 'dsq-popup-message';
		}

		header = title;
		body = message;

		container.innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.popupModal(header, body);
		Dsq.Popup.initPopup(container, post_id, 'message', extra_classes);
		if(use_listener) {
			Dsq.Popup.popupListener = Dsq.Utils.addEventListener(document, 'mouseup', Dsq.Popup._closePopup);
		}
	};

	this.popAlert = this.popModal;

	this.loading = function(post_id) {
		var title = Dsq.Strings.JUST_A_MOMENT;
		var body = '<div style="text-align:center; padding: 5px 0 10px 0"><img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/loading.gif" alt="" /></div>'
		Dsq.Popup.lightbox(body, title, post_id);
	};

	this.lightbox = function(message, title, post_id) {
		// Wraps Dsq.Popup.popModal

		var overlay = document.createElement('div');
		overlay.id = 'dsq-overlay';
		overlay.className = 'dsq-overlay';
		Dsq.$b.appendChild(overlay);
		
		Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title, post_id, false, 'dsq-lightbox');
	};

	this.popProfile = function(post_id, userKey) {
		var post = Dsq.jsonData['posts'][post_id];
		if (post && post.has_been_anonymized) {
			Dsq.Popup.popModal('This message was anonymized by its previous owner.', 'Anonymized', post_id);
			return;
		}

		if(post_id) {
			userKey = Dsq.jsonData['posts'][post_id].user_key;	
		}
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][userKey];
		var elId = 'dsq-popup-profile-' + userKey;
		var container = document.createElement('div');

		if(this.activePopup.el) {
			this._closePopup(null, true);
			if(this.activePopup.linkClicked) {
				this.activePopup.linkClicked = false;
				return;
			}
		}

		container.id = elId;
		container.innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.popupProfile(userKey);

		this.initPopup(container, post_id, 'profile');
		this.popupListener = Dsq.Utils.addEventListener(document, 'mouseup', this._closePopup);

		if(!this.profileCache[userKey]) {
			Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/embed/profile.js'
				+ '?username=' + userKey
				+ '&anon=' + (userData['registered'] ? 0 : 1)
				+ '&f=' + Dsq.jsonData['request'].forum);
		} else {
			this.updateProfile(userKey);
		}
	};

	this._closePopup = function(e, force) {
		var activePopup = Dsq.Popup.activePopup.el;
		var id = Dsq.Popup.activePopup.id;
		var link = 'dsq-avatar-' + id; // HACK: Specific to profile toggle target

		// HACK: This event should be gone if there is no active popup.
		if(!activePopup) {
			return;
		}
		if(force || !Dsq.Popup.isClicked(e, activePopup.id)) {
			// TODO: This is breaking iE?
			if(Dsq.Popup.popupListener) {
				Dsq.Utils.removeEventListener(Dsq.Popup.popupListener);
			}
			
			// Kill overlay
			var overlay = Dsq.$('dsq-overlay');
			if(overlay) { Dsq.Utils.deleteNode(overlay); }
			
			try {
				Dsq.Utils.deleteNode(activePopup);
			} catch(e) {
				// HACK: IE6 throws an error when using deleteNode() with a node containing a <table> in the html.
				activePopup.parentNode.removeChild(activePopup);
			}
			Dsq.Popup.activePopup = {};
		}

		if(!force && Dsq.Popup.isClicked(e, link)) {
 			Dsq.Popup.activePopup.linkClicked = true;
		}

	};

	this.initPopup = function(popup, post_id, type, extra_classes) {
		popup.className = 'dsq-popup dsq-popup-' + type + ' ' + (extra_classes ? extra_classes : '');
		if(Dsq.Utils.ie6 || Dsq.Utils.ie7) {
			// HACK: We can't modify the body before it's ready, so we need
			//       to use an IE-safe "DOMReady" workaround before loading
			//       our popup.
			Dsq.Utils.execOnReady(function() {Dsq.$b.appendChild(popup); });
		} else {
			Dsq.$b.appendChild(popup);
		}

		popup.style.display = 'block';

		var xPos = (Dsq.Utils.getWindowSize()[0] - popup.offsetWidth) / 2;
		var yPos = (Dsq.Utils.getWindowSize()[1] - popup.offsetHeight) / 2;

		if(Dsq.Utils.ie6) {
			yPos += Dsq.Utils.getScrollPos()[1];
		}

		popup.style.left = xPos + 'px';
		popup.style.top = yPos + 'px';

		Dsq.Popup.activePopup = {
			'el' : popup,
			'id' : post_id,
			'type': type,
			'linkClicked' : false
		};
	};

	this.isClicked = function(e, id) {
		var t = e.target || e.srcElement;
		while(t && t.parentNode) {
			if(t.id == id) {
				return true;
			}

			t = t.parentNode;
		}
		return false;
	};
};
// Dsq.Popup

/**
 * Dsq.Templates
 */
Dsq.Templates = new function() {
	/*
	 * Counter keeping track of the number of posts iterated over.
	 */
	this.postLoopCounter = 0;
	this.filters = {};
	this.addPostContainer = 'dsq-post-add';
	this.textareaContainer = 'dsq-post-add';

	this.registerTemplate = function(name, func) {
		this['$$_' + name] = func;

		if(typeof DsqLocal.Filters != 'undefined'
		&& typeof DsqLocal.Filters[name] == 'function') {
			// Push filters to this.filters to unify code.
			this.filters[name] = this.filters[name] || [];
			this.filters[name].push(DsqLocal.Filters[name]);
		}

		this[name] = function() {
			var ret;

			if(typeof DsqLocal.Templates != 'undefined'
			&& typeof DsqLocal.Templates[name] == 'function') {
				ret = DsqLocal.Templates[name].apply(this, arguments);
			}

			if(ret === undefined) {
				ret = this['$$_' + name].apply(this, arguments);
			}

			if(this.filters[name]) {
				var args = [ret];

				args.push.apply(args, arguments);
				for(var i = 0; i < this.filters[name].length; i++) {
					ret = this.filters[name][i].apply(this, args);
				}
			}

			return ret;
		};
	};

	this.registerFilter = function(name, func) {
		this.filters[name] = this.filters[name] || [];
		this.filters[name].push(func);
	};

	/**
	 * Dsq.Templates.Filters
	 */
	this.Filters = new function() {
		this.commentContainer = function(post_id, s) {
			var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
			var classes = [];
			if(Dsq.jsonData.request.page > 1) {
				classes.push('dsq-append');
			}

			//
			// Extra classes used for custom themes
			//

			if(_meta.depth) {
				classes.push('dsq-comment-child', 'dsq-depth-' + _meta.depth, 'dsq-parent-is-' + _meta.parent_post_id);
			}


			//

			if(_meta.author_is_creator) {
				// TODO: We need to deprecate the "special" class since it is not properly prefixed.
				classes.push('special', 'dsq-special');
			}
			if(_meta.author_is_moderator) {
				classes.push('dsq-moderator');
			}
			classes.push(['dsq-odd', 'dsq-even'][Dsq.Templates.postLoopCounter % 2]);

			s = s.substring(0, s.lastIndexOf('>'));
			return s + ' class="dsq-comment ' + classes.join(' ') + '" style="margin-left:' + _meta.depth*30 + 'px">';
		};

		this.commentContent = function(post_id, s) {
			var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
			if (_meta.killed) {
				return '<em>Comment removed.</em>';
			} else if (!_meta.approved) {
				return '<em>This comment was flagged for review.</em>';
			}

			s = s.replace(Dsq.MEDIA_POST_RE, Dsq.MediaPostHandler);
			return s;
		};
	};

	//
	// Thread
	//
	// TODO: These need to be stripped of all Django template tags.

	this.authPost = function() {
		if (!Dsq.jsonData.context.show_reply) {
			return '';
		}
		var result = [];
		result = result.concat([
				'<div id="dsq-auth"',
						Dsq.jsonData.integration.reply_position ? 'class="dsq-auth-bottom"' : '',
						'>',
					'<div class="dsq-by">',
						'<a href="http://disqus.com" target="_blank">',
							(Dsq.jsonData.integration.disqus_logo ?
								Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<img src="%(media_url)s/images/embed/by-disqus.png" alt="discussion by DISQUS">') :
								Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<img src="%(media_url)s/images/embed/dsq-button-120x19.png" alt="discussion by DISQUS">')
							),
						'</a>',
					'</div>',
					'<div class="dsq-auth-header">',
						'<h3 id="dsq-add-new-comment" class="dsq-h3-addcomment">',
								Dsq.Strings.ADD_NEW_COMMENT,
						'</h3>',
						'<div id="dsq-login">',
						(!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated && Dsq.jsonData.forum.allow_anon_post
								? '<p class="dsq-login-message" id="dsq-login-message">You are commenting as a <a class="dsq-help" title="Click for more information" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges(); return false">Guest</a>. You may log into:</p>'
								: '')
		]);
		if (!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated) {
			result = result.concat([
							Dsq.Utils.interpolate(
								'<a id="dsq-login-toggle" href="%(disqus_url)s%(login_url)s?next=article:%(thread_id)s" onclick="Dsq.Popup.login(); return false"><img class="dsq-login-icon" src="%(media_url)s/images/dsq-profile-btn.png" title="%(log_into)s" alt="%(log_into)s"/></a>',
								{login_url: Dsq.Urls.LOGIN, thread_id: Dsq.jsonData.thread.id, log_into: Dsq.Strings.LOG_INTO_DISQUS}
								),
							'&nbsp; ',
							(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_fb_connect ?
								'<div id="dsq-fbc-login" onlogin="DisqusFbcParentController.onLogin()" size="medium" background="light" length="short" style="display:inline; margin-right:7px"></div>' :
								''
							),
							(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_twitter_signin ?
								Dsq.Utils.interpolate(
									'<div id="dsq-twitter-login" class="dsq-twitter-login" onclick="Dsq.Twitter.startTwitterConnect();" style="display:inline; cursor: pointer"><img src="%(media_url)s/images/twitter-signin-short.png" style="margin-right:7px" /></div>', {}) : ''),
							(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_openid ?
								Dsq.Utils.interpolate(
									'<div id="dsq-openid-login" class="dsq-openid-login" onclick="Dsq.OpenID.requestURL();" style="display:inline; cursor:pointer;"><img src="%(media_url)s/images/openid-login-button.png"/></div>', {}
								) : '')
			]);
		}
		result = result.concat([
						'</div>', // dsq-login
					'</div>', // dsq-auth-header
					'<div id="dsq-authenticated" class="dsq-authenticated" ',
						Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated ? 'style="display:block"' : '',
						'>',
						'<div class="dsq-authenticated-pic">',
								Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<a href="%(url)s" title="%(request_display_username)s">' +
																			'<img class="dsq-post-avatar" src="%(avatar_url)s" alt="" /></a>',
																			{avatar_url: Dsq.Urls.REQUEST_USER_AVATAR,
																			url: (Dsq.jsonData.request.is_remote
																					 ? Dsq.jsonData.request.url
																					 : Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + Dsq.Urls.REQUEST_USER_PROFILE) }),
						'</div>',
						'<div class="dsq-authenticated-info">',
							'<ul>',
								'<li>',
									(Dsq.jsonData.request.is_remote
										? Dsq.FmtStrings.LOGGED_IN_AS(
												Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<a href="%(url)s" title="%(request_display_username)s">%(request_display_username)s</a>', {url:Dsq.jsonData.request.url})
										  )
										: Dsq.FmtStrings.LOGGED_IN_AS(
												Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<a href="%(disqus_url)s%(profile_url)s" title="%(request_display_username)s">%(request_display_username)s</a>')
											)
									),
								'</li>',
								'<li class="logout">',
									(!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_remote
										? Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<img class="dsq-login-icon" src="%(media_url)s/images/dsqicon12.png" alt="%(logged_in_as)s"/>&nbsp',
											{logged_in_as: Dsq.FmtStrings.LOGGED_IN_AS(Dsq.jsonData.request.display_username)})
										: ''),

									(!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_remote
										? Dsq.Utils.interpolate('<a href="%(disqus_url)s%(logout_url)s?ctkn=%(csrf_token)s" title="%(logout_from_disqus)s">',
											{logout_url: Dsq.Urls.LOGOUT, csrf_token: Dsq.CSRF_TOKEN, logout_from_disqus: Dsq.FmtStrings.LOGOUT_FROM('DISQUS')})
										: ((Dsq.jsonData.request.remote_domain == 'twitter')
												? Dsq.Utils.interpolate('using Twitter (<a href="%(disqus_url)s%(logout_url)s?ctkn=%(csrf_token)s" title="Logout">Logout</a>)',
												 {logout_url: Dsq.Urls.LOGOUT, csrf_token: Dsq.CSRF_TOKEN})
												: ((Dsq.jsonData.request.remote_domain == 'openid')
													 ? Dsq.Utils.interpolate('using OpenID (<a href="%(disqus_url)s%(logout_url)s?ctkn=%(csrf_token)s" title="Logout">Logout</a>)',
													 {logout_url: Dsq.Urls.LOGOUT, csrf_token: Dsq.CSRF_TOKEN})
													 : ''
													)
											)
									),

									(!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_remote ? Dsq.FmtStrings.LOGOUT_FROM('<span class="logo-disqus">DISQUS</span>') : ''),
									'</a>',
								'</li>',
							'</ul>',
						'</div>',
					'</div>'
		]);
		if (Dsq.jsonData.context.use_fb_connect) {
			result = result.concat([
					'<div id="dsq-fbc-authenticated" class="dsq-authenticated">',
						'<div id="dsq-fbc-profilepic" class="dsq-authenticated-pic" uid="loggedinuser" type="FB.XFBML.ProfilePic" size="square" facebook-logo="true"></div>',
						'<div class="dsq-authenticated-info">',
							'<ul>',
								'<li>',
									'Logged in as <span id="dsq-fbc-name" uid="loggedinuser" type="FB.XFBML.Name" linked="true" useyou="false"></span>',
								'</li>',
								'<li class="logout">using Facebook Connect <a href="#" onclick="javascript:DisqusFbcParentController.logout();return false;">(Logout)</a></li>',
							'</ul>',
						'</div>',
					'</div>'
			]);
		}
		result = result.concat([
				'</div>', // dsq-auth
				'<div id="dsq-toolbar-items">',
				'</div>'
		]);
		result = result.concat([
					//
					//
					//
				((!Dsq.jsonData.forum.allow_anon_post && !Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated) ?
					// Needs to be translated:
					('<p id="dsq-no-anon-msg">Required: Please log into <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span> ' +
					(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_fb_connect ? 'or connect with Facebook ' : '') +
					(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_twitter_signin ? 'or sign in with Twitter ' : '') +
					(Dsq.jsonData.context.use_openid ? 'or sign in using OpenID ' : '') +
					Dsq.Utils.interpolate('to comment on <strong>%(forum_name)s</strong>.</p>')) :
					''
				),
				'<div id="dsq-post-add"></div>',
				'<div style="margin:10px 0">',
				((Dsq.jsonData.forum.use_media) ?
						'<a href="#" id="dsq-media-link" onclick="Dsq.Post.showMenu(this, false, \'media\'); return false">' + Dsq.Strings.USE_MEDIA + ' <small>&#9660;</small></a>' :
						''),
				'</div>'
		]);
		return result.join('');
	};


	this.header = function() {

		var html = '\<h3 id="dsq-comments-count" class="dsq-h3-commentcount">\
	 Showing <span id="dsq-num-posts">30</span> of <span id="dsq-total-posts">30</span> Comments\
	 &nbsp;\
	 <span class="dsq-item-feed">\
	 <a href="http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics/latest.rss"><img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/embed/bullet-feed.png"></a>\
	 </span>\
	 </h3>\
	 <div id="dsq-options" style="margin:15px 0">\
	 <span class="dsq-item-sort">\
	 Sort by\
	 <select id="dsq-sort-select" onchange="Dsq.Thread.sortBy(this.value);">\
	 <option value="hot" selected="selected">Popular now</option>\
	 <option value="best" >Best Rating</option>\
	 <option value="newest" >Newest first</option>\
	 <option value="oldest" >Oldest first</option>\
	 </select>\
	 &nbsp;\
	 </span>\
	 <span class="dsq-item-cp"><a href="http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics/">Community Page</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>\
	 <span class="dsq-item-subscribe">\
	 <img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/embed/email.png" style="width:12px;height:12px;vertical-align:middle">\
	 <span id="dsq-subscribe">\
	 <a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Thread.subscribe(1); return false">Subscribe by email</a>\
	 </span>\
	 </span>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-alerts">\
	 </div>\
		';

		
			html = Dsq.Templates.authPost() + html;
		

		
		if (Dsq.jsonData.request.is_moderator) { 
			html = ' \
			<div class="dsq-alert-message dsq-upgrade-message"> \
				<strong>Disqus upgrade available.</strong> Hi ' + Dsq.jsonData.request.display_username + ', this message is being displayed to you because you are a moderator of this site. <a href="#" onclick="Dsq.$(\'dsq-upgrade-message\').style.display=\'block\';this.style.display=\'none\';return false">Click here for details.</a> \
				<div style="display:none; margin-top:10px;" id="dsq-upgrade-message"> \
					A new theme is available with added features. <a href="http://disqus.com/comments/settings/' + Dsq.jsonData.forum.url + '/?p=customize">To change your theme, click here</a> and choose the theme Narcissus. \
					If you do not upgrade, you are missing out on features such as: real-time commenting, new sign-in integrations, and an upgrade interface. \
					<strong>This message will automatically go away in one week.</strong> \
				</div> \
			</div> \
			' + html; 
		}
		return html;
	};

	this.footer = function() {
		var html = Dsq.Templates.pagination();

		

		html += Dsq.Templates.reactions();

		

		return html;
	};

	this.pagination = function() {
		var html = '';
		
		if (Dsq.$('dsq-pagination')) { Dsq.$('dsq-pagination').innerHTML = ''; }
		if (!Dsq.jsonData.thread.paginate) { return ''; }

		//
		// TODO: num_paginator still uses the template tag for pagination, 
		// 		while append_paginator does it all in JavaScript.
		//		This should all be in JavaScript.
		//

		if (Dsq.jsonData.thread.num_pages > 1 && Dsq.jsonData.request.page < Dsq.jsonData.thread.num_pages) {
			html = ' \<a class="dsq-paginate-append-text" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Thread.paginate(Dsq.jsonData.request.page + 1, this); return false">Show more comments...</a>\
	 <button class="dsq-button-small dsq-paginate-append-button" onclick="Dsq.Thread.paginate(Dsq.jsonData.request.page + 1, this);">Load more comments</button>\
			';
		}
		
		if (Dsq.$('dsq-pagination')) {
			Dsq.$('dsq-pagination').innerHTML = html;
			return '';
		} else {
			return '<div id="dsq-pagination" class="dsq-pagination">' + html + '</div>';
		}
	};

	this.trackbacks = function() {
		var html = '';

		if(typeof DsqLocal != 'undefined' && DsqLocal.trackback_url && DsqLocal.trackbacks) {
			var trackbacks = DsqLocal.trackbacks;
			var trackback_url = DsqLocal.trackback_url;
		} else {
			var trackbacks = [
			
			
			];
			var trackback_url = 'http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics/trackback/';
		}

		html += '<div class="dsq-item-trackback">Trackback URL&nbsp;&nbsp;<input class="dsq-trackback-url" onclick="this.select()" readonly="true" value="' + trackback_url + '"></div>';

		if(trackbacks.length) {
			html += '<ul id="dsq-references">'
			for(var i = 0; i < trackbacks.length; i++) {
				var trackback = trackbacks[i];
				html += '<li><cite><a href="' + trackback.author_url + '" rel="nofollow">' + trackback.author_name + '</a></cite> \
						<p class="dsq-meta">' + trackback.date + '</p> \
						<p class="dsq-content">' + trackback.excerpt + '</p></li>';
			}
			html += '</ul>';
			html = '<h3 class="dsq-h3-trackbacks">Trackbacks</h3>' + html;
		}

		return html;
	}

	this.showRetweets = function(id, limit, element_id /* Optional */) {
		var source, html = '';

		for (var i = 0, reaction; reaction = Dsq.jsonData.reactions[i]; i++) {
			if (reaction.id === id) {
				source = reaction.retweets;
			}
		}

		if (source) {
			if (limit === 0) {
				limit = source.length;
			}

			for (var j = 0; j < limit; j++) {
				var rt = source[j];
				html += '<a href="' + rt.url + '">' + rt.author_name + '</a>'	+ ((j === (limit - 1)) ? '.' : ', ');
			}
		}

		if (element_id === undefined) {
			return html;
		}

		var element = document.getElementById(element_id);
		element.innerHTML = html;
		return element;
	};

	this.showMoreReactions = function(reactions, has_more, start, limit) {
		var link = document.getElementById('dsq-show-more-reactions');
		var container = link.parentNode;
		container.removeChild(link);

		for (var i = 0, reaction; reaction = reactions[i]; i++) {
			var el = Dsq.Templates.generateReactionHTML(reaction);
			if (el) {
				container.innerHTML += el;
			}
		}

		if (has_more) {
			var d = Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url;
			var f = Dsq.jsonData.forum.url;
			var t = Dsq.jsonData.thread.id;
			var s = start;
			var l = limit;

			var handler = 'Dsq.Utils.execScript(\'' + d + '/forums/' + f + '/more_reactions.js?t=' + t + '&s=' + s + '&l=' + l + '\', true); return false;';
			container.innerHTML += '<li id="dsq-show-more-reactions"><a href="#" onclick="' + handler + '">Show more reactions</a></li>';
		}
	};

	this.generateReactionHTML = function(reaction) {
		if (reaction.body === null || reaction.body == '') {
			return;
		}

		if (reaction.author_name === '') {
			reaction.author_name = '&nbsp;';
		}

		if (reaction.url === '') {
			reaction.url = reaction.get_service_url;
		}

		/* Reaction HTML begins */
		var item = '<li class="dsq-reaction" id="dsq-reaction-' + reaction.id + '">'
			+ '<div class="dsq-reaction-header">'
			+ '<div class="dsq-header-avatar">';

		if (reaction.author_url && reaction.author_url !== '') {
			item += '<a target="_blank" href="' + reaction.author_url +'">';
		} else {
			item += '<a target="_blank" href="#" onclick="return false;">';
		}

		if (reaction.avatar_url && reaction.avatar_url !== '') {
			item += '<img src="' + reaction.avatar_url + '"/>';
		} else {
			item += '<img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.media_url + '/images/noavatar32.png"/>';
		}

		var service_icon = (reaction.get_service_name == 'trackback' || reaction.get_service_name == 'pingback' ? 'rss' : reaction.get_service_name.replace(' ', ''));
		item += '<img class="dsq-service-icon" src="' + Dsq.jsonData.media_url + '/images/reactions/services/' + service_icon + '.png"/>'
			+ '</a></div>'
			+ '<cite><span>' + reaction.author_name + '</span></cite>'
			+ '<span class="dsq-header-meta"><a class="dsq-header-time">' + reaction.date_created + '</a></span>'
			+ '</div><div class="dsq-reaction-body">'
			+ '<div class="dsq-reaction-message">' + reaction.body + '</div>'
			+ '<div class="dsq-reaction-footer">From <a class="dsq-service-name" target="_blank" href="' + reaction.url + '">' + reaction.get_service_name + '</a> '
			+ 'via ' + (reaction.source == 'backtype' ? '<a href="http://backtype.com/">BackType</a>' : '<a href="' + reaction.source_url + '">UberVU</a>')
			+ (Dsq.jsonData.request.is_moderator || Dsq.jsonData.request.is_global_moderator ? '&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;<a class="dsq-hide-reaction" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Reaction.hide(' + reaction.id + '); return false;">Hide</a>' : '') + '</div></div>';

		if(reaction.retweets) {
			var num_retweets = reaction.retweets.length;
			if (num_retweets > 0) {
				item += '<div class="dsq-reaction-retweets">';
				if (num_retweets == 1) {
					item += 'One more retweet from <a href="' + reaction.retweets[0].url + '">'  + reaction.retweets[0].author_name + '</a>';
				} else {
					item += (num_retweets + ' more retweets from ');

					item += '<span id="dsq-reaction-retweets-' + reaction.id + '">';
					var n_tweets = (num_retweets > 15) ? 15 : num_retweets;
					item += Dsq.Templates.showRetweets(reaction.id, n_tweets);

					if (n_tweets != num_retweets) {
						item += '</span> <a onclick="Dsq.Templates.showRetweets(' + reaction.id + ', 0, \'dsq-reaction-retweets-' + reaction.id + '\');'
							+ 'this.parentNode.removeChild(this); return false;" href="#">Show all</a>';
					}
				}
				item += '</div>';
			}
		}

		item += '</li>'; /* Reaction HTML ends */
		return item;
	};

	this.reactions = function() {
		var html, reaction;

		if (Dsq.jsonData.reactions === undefined || Dsq.jsonData.reactions.length === 0) {
			return '';
		}

		html = '';
		for (var i = 0; reaction = Dsq.jsonData.reactions[i]; i++) {
			var item = Dsq.Templates.generateReactionHTML(reaction);
			if (item) {
				html += item;
			}
		}

		if (Dsq.jsonData.has_more_reactions) {
			var d = Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url;
			var f = Dsq.jsonData.forum.url;
			var t = Dsq.jsonData.thread.id;
			var s = Dsq.jsonData.reactions_start;
			var l = Dsq.jsonData.reactions_limit;

			var handler = 'Dsq.Utils.execScript(\'' + d + '/forums/' + f + '/more_reactions.js?t=' + t + '&s=' + s + '&l=' + l + '\', true); return false;';
			html += '<li id="dsq-show-more-reactions"><a href="#" onclick="' + handler + '">Show more reactions</a></li>';
		}

		return '<h3 class="dsq-h3-reactions">Reactions</h3><ul id="dsq-reactions" class="dsq-reactions">' + html + '</ul>';
	};
	
	this.missingPermissions = function() {
		return '';
	};

	//
	// Post
	//

	this.prependPost = function(post_id) {
		var html = '<div id="comment-' + post_id + '"></div>';
		return html;
	};

	this.appendPost = function(post_id) {
		var html = '<div id="dsq-comment-reply-' + post_id + '"></div>';
		return html;
	};

	this.postPrependHeader = function(post_id) {
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][_meta.user_key];

		var _includeServices = function() {
			var userServices = Dsq.Post.getUserServices(null, post_id);
			var html = '';
			var hiddenThreshold = 3; // Define # of services to show before stuffing them in hidden div

			for(var i = 0; i < userServices.length; i++) {
				html +=
				(i == hiddenThreshold
					? '<li id="dsq-drop-hidden-' + post_id +'" class="dsq-drop-hidden"><ul>'
					: '')
				+ '<li class="dsq-drop-services"> \
					<a class="dsq-service-' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '" href="' + userServices[i].url + '" target="_blank"> \
						<img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.media_url + '/images/embed/services/' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '.png" alt="' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '">'
					+ userServices[i].name
					+ '</a> \
				</li>';
			}

			if(i >= hiddenThreshold) {
				html += '</ul></li> \
				<li id="dsq-drop-more-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-drop-more"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.dropProfileMore(this, '+ post_id + '); return false"><small>&#9660;</small></a></li> \
				';
			}
			return html;
		};

		return ' \
			<div class="dsq-header-avatar" id="dsq-header-avatar-' + post_id + '" onmouseover="Dsq.Post.dropProfile(' + post_id + ')"> \
				<a id="dsq-avatar-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-avatar" href="' + userData.url + '" onclick="Dsq.Popup.popProfile(' + post_id + '); return false;">'
			+ (Dsq.jsonData.forum.show_avatar
				? '<img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.users[_meta.user_key].avatar + '" alt="" />'
				: '')
			+ '</a>'
			+ '</div> \
		';
	};

	this.postAppendHeader = function(post_id) {
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];

		return ''
			+ (_meta.author_is_moderator
				? '<img class="dsq-mod-star" src="http://media.disqus.com/images/bullet-star.png" title="Moderator" alt="" />'
				: '')
			+ '<span class="dsq-header-meta"> \
				<a id="dsq-time-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-header-time" href="#comment-' + post_id + '" title="Permalink">' + _meta.date + '</a> \
			</span>';
	};

	this.preBody = function(post_id) {
		return '';
	}

	this.postBody = function(post_id) {
		// TODO: Deprecate flagging conditional
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
		return ''
			+ (_meta.edited
				? '<p class="dsq-editedtxt">(Edited by a moderator)</p>'
				: '')
			;
	};

	this.postFooter = function(post_id) {
		// TODO: Use media should be conditional
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
		if(_meta.killed) { return ''; }

		return ' \
			<div class="dsq-comment-footer" id="dsq-comment-footer-' + post_id + '"> \
				<div id="dsq-points-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-likedtxt">'
				+ (_meta.points
					? _meta.points + Dsq.Utils.pluralize(_meta.points, ' person', ' people') + ' liked this comment.'
					: '')
				+ '</div>'
				+ '<ul class="dsq-comment-options dsq-list-style">'
				+ (_meta.votable
					? '<li class="dsq-list-first dsq-rate" id="dsq-rate-cont-' + post_id + '">'
					+ (!_meta.up_voted
						? '<a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.rate(this, ' + post_id + ', 1); return false;">Like</a>'
						: 'You liked this.') + '</li>'
					: '')
				+ '<li class="dsq-report' + (!_meta.votable ? ' dsq-list-first' : '') + '" id="dsq-post-report-' + post_id + '"><a href="#" class="dsq-post-report" onclick="Dsq.Post.report(' + post_id + ', false); return false;">Report</a></li> \
				</ul> \
				<ul class="dsq-list-style">'
				+ (_meta.can_reply
					? '<li class="dsq-list-first"><a href="#" id="dsq-reply-link-' + post_id +'" onclick="Dsq.Post.toggleReply(this, ' + post_id +'); return false;">Reply</a></li>'
					: '')
				+ (_meta.can_reply && !_meta.has_replies && _meta.from_request_user
					? '<li id="dsq-edit-el-' + post_id + '"><a id="dsq-edit-link-' + post_id + '" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.edit(this, ' + post_id + '); return false;">Edit</a></li>'
					: '')
				+ '<li class="' + (!_meta.can_reply ? 'dsq-list-first' : '') + '" id="dsq-more-el-' + post_id + '"><a id="dsq-more-link-' + post_id + '" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.showMenu(this, ' + post_id + ', \'more\'); return false">More <small>&#9660;</small></a></li>'
				+ (Dsq.jsonData.forum.use_media
					? '<li id="dsq-media-el-' + post_id +'" style="display:none"><a id="dsq-media-link-' + post_id + '" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.showMenu(this, ' + post_id + ', \'media\'); return false">Use Media <small>&#9660;</small></a></li>'
					: '')
				+ '</ul>'
				+ '<div id="dsq-reply-bar-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-reply-bar" style="display:none"> \
						<div id="dsq-reply-bar-items-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-reply-bar-items"> \
						</div> \
						<div id="dsq-reply-bar-auth-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-reply-bar-auth"> \
							 \
								 \
								 	<a href="#" class="dsq-help dsq-reply-req-opt" title="You are commenting as a Guest. You may choose to log into an existing DISQUS Profile, your Facebook, Twitter or OpenID account to comment on The Washington Independent" onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges(); return false">Optional:</a> \
								 \
								<img class="dsq-login-icon" src="http://media.disqus.com/images/dsq-favicon-16x16.png" alt="" /> \
								<a id="dsq-reply-login-' + post_id + '" href="http://disqus.com/profile/login/?next=article:3616940" onclick="Dsq.Popup.login(); return false">Login</a> \
								 \
								 \
								 \
							 \
						</div> \
					</div> \
					<div id="dsq-reply-' + post_id + '"></div> \
			</div> \
		';
	};

	//
	// Iframes
	//

	this._makeAttributes = function(attributes) {
		// Makes a tag attributes string out of an object.
		// Caller is responsible for making sure nothing needs to be escaped.
		var result = [];
		for (key in attributes) {
			result.push(' ' + key + '="' + attributes[key] + '"');
		}
		result = result.join('');
		return result;
	};

	this._frameGeneric = function(base_url, params, attributes) {
		if(typeof(disqus_callback_params) == 'undefined') {
			disqus_callback_params = '';
		}

		var default_params = {
			// TODO: These should be moved to Dsq.jsonData.
			'f'				: 'washingtonindependent',
			't'				: 'cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics',
			// Do we need encodeURIComponent here?
			'ifrs'			: encodeURIComponent(disqus_iframe_css),
			'to_redirect'	: encodeURIComponent(window.location),
			'cbp'			: disqus_callback_params,
			'ff'			: Dsq.Thread.ff,
			'fc'			: Dsq.Thread.fc,
			'ac'			: Dsq.Thread.ac,
			'default_text'	: disqus_default_text
		};

		base_url += '?' + (new Date()).getTime();
		// Add params to default_params.
		if(params) {
			for(var key in params) {
				if(params.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
					default_params[key] = encodeURIComponent(params[key]);
				}
			}
		}
		// Build querystring.
		for(var key in default_params) {
			if(default_params[key] && default_params.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
				base_url += '&' + key + '=' + default_params[key];
			}
		}

		return [
			'<iframe marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" frameborder="0"',
			(' allowtransparency="true" src="' + base_url + '"'),
			this._makeAttributes(attributes),
			'</iframe>'].join('');
	};

	this.frameLogin = function(opt_attributes) {
		var params = {};
		var base_url = 'http://disqus.com/embed/login.html';
		var attributes = opt_attributes || {};
		attributes['class'] = 'dsq-post-login';

		if(typeof disqus_frame_theme != 'undefined') {
			params['theme'] = disqus_frame_theme;
		}
		return this._frameGeneric(base_url, params, attributes);
	};

	this.frameReply = function(post_id, extra_params, attributes) {
		// Returns the HTML for a reply iframe. Called by Dsq.Iframes.setReplyIframeToContainer
		var _meta = (typeof post_id != 'undefined') ? Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id] : false;
		var base_url = Dsq.Urls.REPLY;
		var params = {
			'def_email'		: disqus_def_email,
			'def_name'		: disqus_def_name
		};
		if(extra_params) {
			for(var key in extra_params) {
				if(extra_params.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
					params[key] = extra_params[key];
				}
			}
		}
		if(_meta) {
			params['parent_post'] = post_id;
		}
		if(typeof disqus_per_page != 'undefined') {
			params['per_page'] = disqus_per_page;
		}
		if(typeof disqus_frame_theme != 'undefined') {
			params['theme'] = disqus_frame_theme;
		}
		if(Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated) {
			attributes['class'] += '-authenticated';
		}
		return this._frameGeneric(base_url, params, attributes);
	};

	this.frameEdit = function(post_id) {
		var _meta = (typeof post_id != 'undefined') ? Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id] : false;
		var base_url = 'http://disqus.com/embed/edit.html';
		var params = {
			'p' : post_id
		};
		return this._frameGeneric(base_url, params, {'class': 'dsq-post-edit', 'name': 'dsq-edit_' + post_id + '-frame'});
	};

	//
	// Menus
	//

	this.menuMore = function(post_id) {
		// TODO: "Remove post" button should hide menu.
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][_meta.user_key];
		return ' \
			<li><a href="#comment-' + post_id + '" onclick="Dsq.Popup.permalink(' + post_id + ')">Link</a></li> \
			<li><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Popup.popProfile(' + post_id + '); return false;">Profile</a></li>'
	+ (Dsq.jsonData.request.is_moderator || Dsq.jsonData.request.is_global_moderator
		? '	<li class="dsq-menu-sep"></li>' + (_meta.email ? '<li class="dsq-admin-email">' + _meta.email + '</li>' : '')
		+ '	<li class="dsq-admin-ip">' + _meta.ip + '</li> \
			<li class="dsq-menu-sep"></li>'
		+ (Dsq.jsonData.request.moderator_can_edit
			? ' <li class="dsq-admin-edit"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.edit(this, ' + post_id + '); return false;">Edit Comment</a></li>'
			: '')
		+ ' <li class="dsq-remove"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.removePost(' + post_id + ', 1); return false;">Remove Comment</a></li> \
			<li class="dsq-report-spam"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.reportSpam(' + post_id + '); return false;">Mark Spam</a></li> \
			<li class="dsq-block-user"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Popup.blacklist(' + post_id + '); return false">Block User</a></li>'
		: '');
	};

	this.menuMedia = function(post_id) {
		return ' \
			<li><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.toggleMediaReply(this, ' + post_id + ', \'seesmic\'); return false;">Record video</a></li> \
		';
	};

	this.dropProfile = function(post_id) {
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id];
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][_meta.user_key];

		var _includeServices = function() {
			var userServices = Dsq.Post.getUserServices(null, post_id);
			var html = '';
			var hiddenThreshold = 3; // Define # of services to show before stuffing them in hidden div

			for(var i = 0; i < userServices.length; i++) {
				html +=
				(i == hiddenThreshold
					? '<li id="dsq-drop-hidden-' + post_id +'" class="dsq-drop-hidden"><ul>'
					: '')
				+ '<li class="dsq-drop-services"> \
					<a class="dsq-service-' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '" href="' + userServices[i].url + '" target="_blank"> \
						<img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.media_url + '/images/embed/services/' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '.png" alt="' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '">'
					+ userServices[i].name
					+ '</a> \
				</li>';
			}

			if(i >= hiddenThreshold) {
				html += '</ul></li> \
				<li id="dsq-drop-more-' + post_id + '" class="dsq-drop-more"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Post.dropProfileMore(this, '+ post_id + '); return false"><small>&#9660;</small></a></li> \
				';
			}
			return html;
		};


		var menu = '<li class="dsq-drop-showlnk"><a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Popup.popProfile(' + post_id + '); return false;">Expand &#8663;</a></li>';
		var pointsMessage = '';
		if (userData['registered']) {
			pointsMessage = 'with ' + userData['points'] + ' points (more points are better).';
		}

		if (userData['is_remote']) {
			var domain = userData['remote_domain_name'];
			menu += '<li class="dsq-drop-badge" title="' + userData['display_name'] + ' is a ' + domain + ' user ' + pointsMessage + '" onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges()">';
			menu += '<span class="dsq-badge-' + domain.toLowerCase() + '">' + domain + '</span></li>';
		} else if (userData['registered']) {
			if (userData['verified']) {
				menu += '<li class="dsq-drop-badge" title="' + userData['display_name'] + ' has a verified commenter profile ' + pointsMessage + '" onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges()">';
				menu += '<span class="dsq-badge-verified">Verified</span></li>';
			} else {
				menu += '<li class="dsq-drop-badge" title="' + userData['display_name'] + ' has a registered, but unverified, commenter profile ' + pointsMessage + '" onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges()">';
				menu += '<span class="dsq-badge-registered">Registered</span></li>';
			}
		} else {
			menu += '<li class="dsq-drop-badge" title="' + userData['display_name'] + ' has not claimed this commenter profile." onclick="Dsq.Popup.helpBadges()"><span class="dsq-badge-guest">Guest</span></li>';
		}

		menu += _includeServices();
		return menu;
	};

	//
	// Popups
	//

	this._popupGeneric = function(content) {
		return ' \
		<div class="dsq-popup-content"> \
			<div class="dsq-popup-top"></div> \
			<div class="dsq-popup-body" class="clearfix"> \
				<div class="dsq-popup-body-padding"> \
					<div class="dsq-popup-header"> \
						<a class="dsq-close-link" href="#" onclick="Dsq.Popup._closePopup(null, true); return false"><img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/modal-close.png" alt="" /></a>'
						+ content['header']
					+ '</div>'
					+ content['body']
					+ '<div class="powered-by"><a href="http://disqus.com/comments/">Powered by <img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/embed/disqus-logo.png" alt="Disqus Comments" style="margin-bottom:-5px" /></a></div> \
				</div> <!-- padding --> \
			</div> <!-- body --> \
			<div class="dsq-popup-bottom"></div> \
		</div> \
		';
	};

	this.popupProfile = function(user_key) {
		var userServices = Dsq.Post.getUserServices(user_key, null);
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][user_key];
		var headerHtml = '';
		var bodyHtml = '';
		var content = {};

		var _includeServices = function() {
			var html = '';
			for(var i = 0; i < userServices.length; i++) {
				html +=
				(i == 0
					? '<h4>Connections</h4><ul>'
					: '')
				+ '<li> \
					<img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.media_url + '/images/embed/services/' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '.png" alt="' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '" title="' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '" /> \
					<a class="dsq-service-' + userServices[i].name.toLowerCase() + '" href="' + userServices[i].url + '" target="_blank">'
					+ userServices[i].name
					+ '</a> \
				</li>'
				+ (i+1 == userServices.length ? '</ul>' : '');
			}
			return html;
		};

		headerHtml = ' \
			<table> \
				<tr> \
					<td> \
						<a class="dsq-profile-userurl" href="' + userData.url + '"><img class="dsq-popup-profile-avatar" src="' + userData['avatar'] + '" alt="" /></a> \
					</td> \
					<td> \
						<div class="dsq-popup-profile-user"> \
							<h3>' + userData['display_name'] + '</h3> \
							<div class="dsq-popup-profile-user-stats" id="dsq-popup-profile-user-stats-' + user_key + '">Loading...</div> \
						</div> \
					</td> \
				</tr> \
			</table> \
		';

		bodyHtml = ' \
			<div class="dsq-popup-profile-state"> \
				This is a&nbsp;<span class="'
					+ (userData['registered']
						? (userData['verified']
							? ' dsq-badge-verified'
							: (userData['is_remote']
								? ' dsq-badge-' + userData['remote_domain_name'].toLowerCase()
								: ' dsq-badge-registered')
							)
							: ' dsq-badge-guest') + '">'
			+ (userData['registered']
				? (userData['verified']
					? 'Verified'
					: (userData['is_remote']
						 ? userData['remote_domain_name']
						 : 'Registered')
					)
				: 'Guest')
			+ '</span>&nbsp;commenter profile.'
			+ '&nbsp;<a class="dsq-profile-userurl" href="' + userData.url + '"><strong>View more comments </strong></a>'
			+ (!userData['points']
				? '<p class="dsq-popup-notice">If this is you, <a href="http://disqus.com/profile" target="_blank">claim it now</a> to manage your comments.</p>'
				: '')
			+ ((userData['registered'] && !userData['verified'] && (Dsq.jsonData.request.username && (Dsq.jsonData.request.username == userData['username'])) && !userData['is_remote'])
				? '<p class="dsq-popup-notice"><strong>Alert</strong>: You have not verified this account. <a href="http://disqus.com/verify">Verify it now.</a></p>'
				: '')
			+ '</div> \
			<div id="dsq-profile-status-' + user_key + '" class="dsq-popup-profile-status" style="display:none"></div> \
			<div class="dsq-popup-profile-snapshot"> \
				<table> \
					<tr> \
						<td> \
							<div id="dsq-popup-profile-active-sites-wrapper-' + user_key + '"> \
								<h4>Most active sites</h4> \
								<ul id="dsq-popup-profile-active-sites-' + user_key + '"> \
									<li>Loading...</li> \
								</ul> \
							</div> \
						</td> \
						<td>'
							+ _includeServices()
							+ '<div id="dsq-popup-profile-moderated-wrapper-' + user_key + '"> \
								<h4>Moderator of</h4> \
								<ul id="dsq-popup-profile-moderated-' + user_key + '"> \
									<li>Loading...</li> \
								</ul> \
							</div> \
						</td> \
					</tr> \
				</table> \
			</div> \
			';

		content = {
			'header': headerHtml,
			'body': bodyHtml
		};

		return this._popupGeneric(content);
	};

	this.popupReblog = function() {
		var headerHtml = '';
		var bodyHtml = '';
		var content = {};

		headerHtml = ' \
			<cite><span>Reblog this comment</span></cite> \
		';

		bodyHtml = ' \
			<div id="dsq-reblog-form" class="dsq-reblog-form"> \
			</div> \
		';

		content = {
			'header': headerHtml,
			'body': bodyHtml
		};

		return this._popupGeneric(content);
	};

	this.popupModal = function(title, message) {
		var headerHtml = '';
		var bodyHtml = '';
		var content = {};

		headerHtml = ' \
			<h3>' + title + '</h3> \
		';

		bodyHtml = message;

		content = {
			'header': headerHtml,
			'body': bodyHtml
		};

		return this._popupGeneric(content);
	};

	this.alertContent = function(name, post_id) {
		var alert = {
			'post_not_approved': {
				'title': 'Comment awaiting approval by a moderator',
				'message': 'Thanks for posting. Your comment must be approved by a moderator before appearing here.'
			},
			'post_has_profile': {
				'title': 'Use your existing commenter profile',
				'message': 'You have just posted your commment as a <span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-guest">Guest</span>, but you may already have a <span class="dsq-badge dsq-badge-registered">Registered</span> commenter profile.<br /><br /><a href="http://disqus.com/claim">Log in and claim this comment!</a>'
			}
		};
		return alert[name] || false;
	};

	//
	// Actions
	//

	this.voted = function(post_id, points, vote) {
		// Update number of points
		Dsq.$('dsq-points-' + post_id).innerHTML = points + Dsq.Utils.pluralize(points, ' person', ' people') + ' liked this comment.';

		// Update link text
		if(vote) {
			Dsq.$('dsq-rate-cont-' + post_id).innerHTML = 'You liked this.';
		}
	};

	this.subscribed = function(status) {
		var title, message;

		if(status) {
			title = 'Subscribed!';
			message = 'You have subscribed to this comment thread. New comments will be sent directly to your email inbox, where you may read and respond by email.';
			Dsq.$('dsq-subscribe').innerHTML = ' \
				<a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Thread.subscribe(0); return false">Unsubscribe</a> \
			';
		} else {
			title = 'Unsubscribed';
			message = 'You have unsubscribed to this comment thread. New comments will no longer be sent to your email inbox.';
			Dsq.$('dsq-subscribe').innerHTML = ' \
				<a href="#" onclick="Dsq.Thread.subscribe(1); return false">Subscribe by email</a> \
			';
		}

		Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title);

	};
	
	this.highlighted = function() {
		Dsq.Popup.popModal('This comment has been highlighted.', 'Highlighted comment');
	};

	//
	// Media
	//

	this.mediaSeesmic = function(id, thumb) {
		return ' \
			<div id="dsq-seesmic-' + id + '_preview" class="dsq-seesmic-preview"><a href="http://www.seesmic.com/video/' + id + '" target="_blank" class="see_link">&nbsp;</a> \
				<div style="display:block;width:160px; height:120px; border:none; background-image:url(http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/' + thumb + ')"> \
					<div id="dsq-seesmic-' + id + '_hide" class="seePlayOverlay" style="display:none;"><img onclick="see_play_video(\'' + id + '\',false)" src="http://media.disqus.com/images/seesmic/stopOverlay.png" width="50" height="50" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand; padding-top: 30px; padding-left: 50px" alt="" /></div> \
					<div id="dsq-seesmic-' + id + '_show" class="seePlayOverlay"><img onclick="see_play_video(\'' + id + '\',true)" src="http://media.disqus.com/images/seesmic/playOverlay.png" width="50" height="50" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand; border:none; padding-top: 30px; padding-left: 50px" alt="" /></div> \
				</div> \
			</div> \
			<div id="' + id + '_content" style="display:block; width:100%; padding-top:5px"></div> \
		';
	};

	//
	// Callbacks
	//

	this.postComment_onSuccess = function(parent_post_id) {
		// Increment post count
		var num_posts = Dsq.$('dsq-num-posts');
		var total_posts = Dsq.$('dsq-total-posts');
		
		if (num_posts) { 
			num_posts.innerHTML = parseInt(num_posts.innerHTML) + 1;
		}
		if (total_posts) { 
			total_posts.innerHTML = parseInt(total_posts.innerHTML) + 1;
		}
	};
};
// Dsq.Templates


/**
 * Dsq.Post
 */
Dsq.Post = new function() {
	this.openedMenu = {};
	this.menuEventListener = null;
	this.stateReplyToggled = {};
	this.stateEditToggled = {};
	this.stateRecordLink = {};

	/**
	 * Inserts a new post into the document.
	 *
	 * @param after_id {Number}	Insert a post before specified id.  If after_id
	 *							evaluates to false, then post in the front.  If
	 *							after_id is -1, post at the end.
	 */
	this.insert = function(after_id, id, message, author) {
		// Skeleton template from thread_posts.html.
		var skeleton = ' \
			<li id="dsq-comment-%(id)s"> \
				<div id="dsq-comment-header-%(id)s" class="dsq-comment-header"> \
					<cite id="dsq-cite-%(id)s" class="dsq-comment-cite"> \
						<a id="dsq-author-user-%(id)s" href="%(author_url)s" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">%(author_name)s</a> \
					</cite> \
				</div> \
				<div id="dsq-comment-body-%(id)s" class="dsq-comment-body"> \
					<div id="dsq-comment-message-%(id)s" class="dsq-comment-message">%(message)s</div> \
				</div> \
			</li> \
		';
		var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[id];
		var _user_meta = Dsq.jsonData.users[_meta.user_key];
		var markup = Dsq.Utils.interpolate(skeleton, {
			id: id,
			message: message,
			author_url: _user_meta.blog,
			author_name: _user_meta.display_name
		});
		var div = document.createElement('div');
		markup = markup.replace(Dsq.COMMENTS_RE, Dsq.CommentsHandler);
		div.innerHTML = markup;

		if (after_id === -1) {
			Dsq.$('dsq-comments').appendChild(div);
		} else if (!after_id) {
			Dsq.$('dsq-comments').insertBefore(div, Dsq.$('dsq-comments').firstChild);
		} else if (Dsq.$('dsq-comment-' + after_id)) {
			// Get next node after "after_id", so we can insert before it.
			// If "after_id" is the last comment, the target node is the
			// last node.
			
			// var append_post_id = Dsq.Templates.appendPost(after_id).replace('<div id="','').replace('"></div>', '');
			var append_post_id = 'dsq-append-post-' + after_id;
			var node = Dsq.$(append_post_id);
			while (node = node.nextSibling) {
				if (!node || node.nodeType == 1) { // 1 == Node.ELEMENT_NODE
					break;
				}
			}
			if (!node) {
				node = Dsq.$(append_post_id);
			}
			node.parentNode.insertBefore(div, node);
		}
	};

	this.incrementPostCount = function() {
		
		var num_posts = Dsq.$('dsq-num-posts');
		var total_posts = Dsq.$('dsq-total-posts');

		if (num_posts) {
			num_posts.innerHTML = parseInt(num_posts.innerHTML, 10) + 1;
		}
		if (total_posts) {
			total_posts.innerHTML = parseInt(total_posts.innerHTML, 10) + 1;
		}
	}
	
	this.outlineComment = function(post_id) {
		Dsq.$('dsq-comment-' + post_id).className += ' dsq-comment-outline';
		setTimeout("(function () { Dsq.Post.clearOutlineComment(" + post_id + ") })()", 3000);
	};
	
	this.clearOutlineComment = function(post_id) {
		Dsq.$('dsq-comment-' + post_id).className = Dsq.$('dsq-comment-' + post_id).className.replace('dsq-comment-outline', '');
	};

	this.showMenu = function(el, id, name) {
		var anchorPos = Dsq.Utils.findPos(el);
		var menu = document.createElement('ul');

		if(this.openedMenu) {
			if(this.openedMenu.linkClicked) {
				this.openedMenu.linkClicked = false;
				return;
			}
		}

		switch(name) {
			case 'more':
				menu.innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.menuMore(id);
				break;
			case 'media':
				menu.innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.menuMedia(id);
				break;
			default:
				break;
		}

		// Add menu to document body
		menu.id = 'dsq-menu-' + id;
		menu.className = 'dsq-menu';
		Dsq.$b.appendChild(menu);

		// Position and show
		anchorPos[1] += 15;
		menu.style.left = anchorPos[0] + 'px';
		menu.style.top = anchorPos[1] + 'px';
		menu.style.display = 'block';

		// Set global reference
		this.openedMenu = {
			'el' : menu,
			'id' : id,
			'name' : name,
			'linkClicked' : false
		};

		// Set listener
		this.menuEventListener = Dsq.Utils.addEventListener(document, 'mouseup', this._hideMenu);
	};

	this._hideMenu = function(e) {
		var el = e.target || e.srcElement;
		var openedMenu = Dsq.Post.openedMenu.el;
		var id = Dsq.Post.openedMenu.id;

		if(!id) {
			var link = 'dsq-' + Dsq.Post.openedMenu.name + '-link';
		} else {
			var link = 'dsq-' + Dsq.Post.openedMenu.name + '-link-' + id;
		}

		if(!openedMenu) {
			return;
		}

		if(!Dsq.Popup.isClicked(e, openedMenu.id)) {
			openedMenu.style.display = 'none';
			Dsq.Utils.removeEventListener(Dsq.Post.menuEventListener);
			Dsq.Utils.deleteNode(openedMenu);

		} else {
			// Hide the menu if a link was clicked inside the menu.  We can't
			// completely remove the menu until the onclick event on the link
			// fires, but the menuEventListener will prevent multiple menus
			// from polluting the DOM.
			if(el && typeof el.href != 'undefined') {
				openedMenu.style.display = 'none';
				Dsq.Post.openedMenu.el = null;
			}
		}

		if(Dsq.Popup.isClicked(e, link)) {
 			Dsq.Post.openedMenu.linkClicked = true;
		}
	};


	this.getUserServices = function(user_key, id) {
		if(!user_key && id) {
			var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[id];
			user_key = _meta.user_key;
		}
		var userData = Dsq.jsonData['users'][user_key];
		var userServices = [];

		// Keep a full list of supported services. This is the order they will display in the drop-profile.
		// Each service must have a corresponding case in _buildServiceUrl()
		var supportedServices = ['blog', 'twitter', 'facebook', 'tumblr'];

		function _buildServiceUrl(serviceName) {
			var data = userData[serviceName];
			var services = {
				blog:		function(d) { return d; },
				twitter:	function(d) { return d; },
				facebook:	function(d) { return d; },
				tumblr:		function(d) { return 'http://' + d + '.tumblr.com'; }
			};
			return services[serviceName](data);
		}

		for(var i = 0; i < supportedServices.length; i++) {
			if(userData[supportedServices[i]]) {
				var serviceUrl = _buildServiceUrl(supportedServices[i]);
				userServices.push({'name' : supportedServices[i], 'url' : serviceUrl});
			}
		}
		return userServices;
	}

	this.dropProfile = function(id) {
		var dp = Dsq.$('dsq-drop-profile-' + id);

		// IE6 needs JS to display/hide. All other browsers use CSS.
		if(dp) {
			if(Dsq.Utils.ie6) dp.style.display = (dp.style.display == 'inline') ? 'none' : 'inline';
			return false;
		} else {
			dp = document.createElement('ul');
		}

		dp.id = 'dsq-drop-profile-' + id;
		dp.className = 'dsq-drop-profile';

		if(Dsq.Utils.ie6) { dp.style.display = 'inline'; }

		var container = Dsq.$('dsq-header-avatar-' + id);
		dp.innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.dropProfile(id);
		container.appendChild(dp);
	};

	this.dropProfileMore = function(el, id) {
		var hiddenItems = Dsq.$('dsq-drop-hidden-' + id);

		hiddenItems.style.display = 'inline';
		el.parentNode.style.display = 'none';
	};

	this._updateReplyLinks = function(el, id) {
		// Update "reply / cancel" links based on state.
		var displayDict = {};

		if(id) {
			if(this.stateReplyToggled[id]) {
				el.innerHTML = 'Cancel';
				displayDict['media'] = 'inline';
				displayDict['edit'] = 'none';
			} else {
				el.innerHTML = 'Reply';
				displayDict['media'] = 'none';
				displayDict['edit'] = 'inline';
			}
		}

		for(var key in displayDict) {
			if(displayDict.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
				var	linkEl = Dsq.$('dsq-' + key + '-el-' + id),
					spacer = Dsq.$('dsq-' + key + '-spacer-' + id);

				if(linkEl) {
					linkEl.style.display = displayDict[key];
					if(spacer) spacer.style.display = displayDict[key];
				}
			}
		}
	};

	this._updateMediaLinks = function(el, id) {
		// Update "use media / cancel" links based on state.
		var appendId = (id) ? ('-' + id) : '';
		var link = Dsq.$('dsq-media-link' + appendId);

		if(this.stateRecordLink[id]) {
			link.innerHTML = 'Cancel Media';
			link.onclick = function() { Dsq.Post.toggleMediaReply(link, id); return false; };
		} else {
			link.innerHTML = 'Use Media <small>&#9660;</small>';
			link.onclick = function() { Dsq.Post.showMenu(link, id, 'media'); return false; };
		}
	};

	this.toggleReply = function(el, id) {
		// Create reply IFrame
		if (window.disqus_use_postmessage) {
			if (!this.stateReplyToggled[id]) {
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + id).style.display = 'block';
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-bar-' + id).style.display = 'block';
				// Create IFrame if it doesn't exist.
				if (!Dsq.frames['reply_' + id]) {
					var _meta = Dsq.jsonData.posts[id];
					Dsq.frames['reply_' + id] = new Dsq.ReplyFrame(Dsq.$('dsq-reply-frame-' + id), id);
					Dsq.frames['reply_' + id].init();
					Dsq.frames['reply_' + id].setState(id, _meta.depth);
				}
			} else {
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + id).style.display = 'none';
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-bar-' + id).style.display = 'none';
			}
		} else {
			// DEPRECATED
			if(!this.stateReplyToggled[id]) {
				// Reply toolbar
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-bar-' + id).style.display = 'block';
				Dsq.Iframes.showReplyIframeInContainerIfAllowed(Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + id), id);
			} else {
				Dsq.$('dsq-reply-bar-' + id).style.display = 'none';
				Dsq.Iframes.hideAllInContainer(Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + id));
				if(this.stateRecordLink[id]) {
					// HACK: Cancel media before canceling self.
					this.toggleMediaReply(Dsq.$('dsq-media-link-' + id), id);
				}
			}
		}

		this.stateReplyToggled[id] = !this.stateReplyToggled[id];
		this._updateReplyLinks(el, id);

		if(Dsq.Utils.ie) { Dsq.Utils.fixIframesIE('dsq-reply-' + id); }

		Dsq.Events.fire(Dsq.Events.REPLY_IFRAME_TOGGLED, {
			postId: id,
			opened: this.stateReplyToggled[id]
		});
	};

	this.toggleMediaReply = function(el, id, xtype) {
		id = id || 0;
		if(id) {
			var container = Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + id);
		} else {
			var container = Dsq.$('dsq-post-add');
		}

		if(!this.stateRecordLink[id]) {
			Dsq.Iframes.showReplyIframeInContainer(container, id, {xtype:xtype}, 'dsq-post-video');
		} else {
			Dsq.Iframes.showReplyIframeInContainer(container, id);
		}
		this.stateRecordLink[id] = !this.stateRecordLink[id];
		this._updateMediaLinks(el, id);

		if(Dsq.Utils.ie) { Dsq.Utils.fixIframesIE(); }
	};

	this.edit = function(el, id) {
		Dsq.$('dsq-comment-message-' + id).innerHTML = Dsq.Templates.frameEdit(id);
		el.parentNode.style.display = 'none';
		if(Dsq.Utils.ie) { Dsq.Utils.fixIframesIE('dsq-comment-message-' + id); }
	};

    this.rate = function(el, id, vote) {
		if(Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated || Dsq.jsonData.forum.allow_anon_votes) {
			if(vote == 1) {
                Dsq.$('dsq-rate-cont-' + id).innerHTML = '<img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/loading-small.gif">';
            }

            Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/vote.js'
                + '?post_id='    + id
                + '&vote='        + vote);

		} else {
			Dsq.Popup.login(Dsq.Strings.TO_RATE_PLEASE_LOG_IN);
		}
    };

	this.report = function(id, confirmed) {
		if(confirmed) {
			Dsq.Utils.postToUrl('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics/post_report/', {'post_id': id});
			Dsq.Popup.popModal('Thank you. This comment has been flagged for moderator attention.', 'Successfully flagged');
			Dsq.Utils.deleteNode(Dsq.$('dsq-post-report-' + id));
		} else {
			var title = Dsq.Strings.FLAG_INAPPROPRIATE_COMMENT;
			var message = Dsq.Strings.ARE_YOU_SURE_YOU_WOULD_LIKE_TO_REPORT_THIS_COMMENT_TO_A_MODERATOR + '? \
			<br /><br /> \
			<button onclick="Dsq.Popup._closePopup(null, true)"><strong>' + Dsq.Strings.NO + '</strong>, ' + Dsq.Strings.NEVER_MIND + '</button>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<button onclick="Dsq.Post.report(' + id + ', true);"><strong>' + Dsq.Strings.YES + '</strong>, ' + Dsq.Strings.FLAG_INAPPROPRIATE_COMMENT + '</button><br /><br />'
			+ Dsq.Strings.THIS_WILL_FLAG_COMMENTS_FOR_MODERATORS_TO_TAKE_ACTION + '. \
			';

			Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title, id);
		}
	};



	this.showAlert = function(id, msg) {
		var msgEl = Dsq.$('dsq-comment-message-' + id);
		var alert = '<div class="dsq-comment-alert">' + msg + '</div>';

		msgEl.innerHTML = alert + msgEl.innerHTML;
	};

};
// Dsq.Post


/**
 * Dsq.Thread
 */
Dsq.Thread = new function() {
	this.fc = null;
	this.ff = null;
	this.ac = null;

	
	this.adminIsOn = false;

	
	
	

	this.hlComment = null;
	this.hlCommentClass = null;

	this.getNextComment = function(el) {
		var start_id = el.id;
		while(el = el.nextSibling) {
			if(el.id && el.id.indexOf('dsq-comment-') != -1 && el.id != start_id) {
				return el;
			}
		}
		return null;
	};

	this.getActiveCommentId = function() {
		if (document.URL.indexOf('#comment-') >= 0) {
			var anchor = document.URL.slice(document.URL.indexOf('#') + 1);
			return anchor.replace('comment-', '');
		}
		return null;
	};

	this.highlightAnchor = function() {
		var i = this.getActiveCommentId();
		if (i == null) return false;
		var id = 'dsq-comment-' + i;
		var hash = window.location.hash;

		// Toggle the hash incase the comment isn't available when the page loads
		// for WebKit-based browsers.
		if (Dsq.Utils.webkit) {
			window.location.hash = '';
			window.location.hash = hash;
		}

		this.hlComment = Dsq.$(id);
		// Adding this conditional guard pending #289
		if (!this.hlComment) {
			return;
		}
		this.hlCommentClass = this.hlComment.className;
		this.hlComment.className += ' dsq-hl-anchor';

		setTimeout("Dsq.Thread.highlightClear()", 3000);
	};

	this.highlightClear = function() {
		if (!this.hlComment) {
			return;
		}
		this.hlComment.className = this.hlCommentClass;
	};

	this.login = function(toggle) {
		// toggle id is #dsq-reply-login-[id]
		var postId;
		if(toggle.id.indexOf('dsq-reply-login') != -1) {
			postId = toggle.id.slice(16);
			var container = Dsq.$('dsq-reply-' + postId);
		} else {
			var container = Dsq.$('dsq-post-add');
		}

		if(toggle) {
			if(toggle.className == 'dsq-login-active') {
				Dsq.Iframes.showReplyIframeInContainerIfAllowed(container, postId);
				toggle.className = '';
			} else {
				Dsq.Iframes.showLoginIframeInContainer(container, postId);
				toggle.className = 'dsq-login-active';
			}
		} else {
			Dsq.Iframes.showLoginIframeInContainer(container, postId);
		}

		if(Dsq.Utils.ie) { Dsq.Utils.fixIframesIE(); }
	};


	this.paginate = function(page, el_clicked, per_page) {
		// Use extra_params to pass any override parameters that we need to persist.
		var extra_params = '';

		// "Per page" can either be overriden by providing it as an argument
		// (per-call) or setting the disqus_per_page override variable (global).
		if(typeof per_page == 'undefined') {
			per_page = null;
		}
		if(typeof disqus_per_page != 'undefined' && per_page === null) {
			per_page = disqus_per_page;
		}

		if(typeof disqus_sort != 'undefined') {
			extra_params += '&sort=' + disqus_sort;
		}
		if(per_page !== null) {
			extra_params += '&per_page=' + per_page;
		}

		Dsq.$('dsq-pagination').innerHTML += '<img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/loading-small.gif">';
		
		if(el_clicked) {
			el_clicked.style.display = 'none';
		}
		
		Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/thread.js'
			+ '?slug='	+ 'cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics'
			+ '&p='		+ page
			+ extra_params);
	};

	this.sortBy = function(sort) {
		var disqus_script = document.createElement('script');
		var disqus_date = new Date();

		if (location.hash != '') {
			location.hash = '#disqus_thread';
		}

		if(typeof(disqus_url) == 'undefined') {
			disqus_url = disqus_href;
		}
		disqus_script.type = 'text/javascript';
		disqus_script.src = 'http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/thread.js'
			+ '?slug='	+ 'cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics'
			+ '&sort='	+ sort
			+ '&title='
			+ '&'		+ disqus_date.getTime();

		Dsq.$('dsq-comments').innerHTML = '<img src="http://media.disqus.com/images/loading.gif">';
		Dsq.container.appendChild(disqus_script);
	};

	this.subscribe = function(status, email) {
		// `status` is an int -- 1 to subscribe, 0 to unsubscribe
		if(Dsq.jsonData.request.is_authenticated || email) {
			// If authenticated user OR anonymous email provided

			if(email) {
				Dsq.Popup._closePopup(null, true);
			}

			Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/subscribe.js'
				+'?status=' 	+ status
				+ '&slug='		+ 'cia_largely_in_the_dark_on_interrogation_tactics'
				+ '&email=' 	+ encodeURIComponent(email));

		} else if(!email) {
			// If anonymous user and no email has been provided yet, prompt for email

			var title = 'Subscribe to this comment thread';
			var message = ' \
				New comments will be sent directly to your email inbox! \
				<div class="dsq-subscribe-submit"> \
					<p><strong>Enter your email address below.</strong></p> \
					<input type="text" id="dsq-subscribe-email"> \
					<button onclick="Dsq.Thread.subscribe(1, Dsq.$(\'dsq-subscribe-email\').value)">Subscribe</button> \
				</div> \
			';

			Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, title);
		}
	};

	this.showSettings = function() {
		if (!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_moderator) {
			return;
		}

		/* The form has to be re-designed when more options will come out. */
		var html = 'Automatically close comments after <input size="3" id="dsq-thread-days-alive" value="' + Dsq.jsonData.thread.days_alive + '" type="text" /> days. Existing comments will still be displayed.<br /><br />(Using 0 days will disable this feature)<br /><br />'
								 + '<button onclick="Dsq.Thread.updateDaysAlive();" class="dsq-button-small"><span>Save</span></button>'
								 + '<span id="dsq-thread-settings-status" class="dsq-options-status"></span>';
		Dsq.Popup.popModal(html, 'Settings');
	};

	this.updateDaysAlive = function() {
		var days = Dsq.$('dsq-thread-days-alive').value;
		var status = Dsq.$('dsq-thread-settings-status');
		Dsq.Utils.postToUrl('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/update_days_alive.js', {days:days,thread:Dsq.jsonData.thread.id});
		status.innerHTML = 'Saved!';
		window.setTimeout(function() { status.innerHTML = ''; }, 1000);
	};
};
// Dsq.Thread

Dsq.Events = function() {
	var obj = {};

	// Private
	var handlers = {};
	var getHandlers = function(event) {
		if (handlers[event] === undefined) {
			handlers[event] = [];
		}
		return handlers[event];
	};

	// Public
	// Value keys : postId, node, xtype
	obj.REPLY_IFRAME_CREATED = 1;
	// Value keys : postId, opened
	obj.REPLY_IFRAME_TOGGLED = 2;
	obj.fire = function(event, opt_value) {
		if (!event) {
			throw new Error('Unknown event');
		}
		var value = opt_value || {};
		for (var i=0; i<getHandlers(event).length; i++) {
			getHandlers(event)[i](value);
		}
	};
	obj.addHandler = function(event, callback) {
		getHandlers(event).push(callback);
	};

	return obj;
}();

/**
 * Dsq.Realtime
 */
Dsq.Realtime = new function() {
	var initialized = false;
	var interval = null;
	var last_checked = Dsq.jsonData.request.timestamp;
	var new_posts = [];
	var ongoing_request = false;
	var prev_script = null;

	function updateNewPostCount() {
		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-alert').style.display = new_posts.length ? 'block' : 'none';

		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-queued').innerHTML = new_posts.length
		+ ' new '
		+ Dsq.Utils.pluralize(new_posts.length, 'comment', 'comments')
		+ Dsq.Utils.pluralize(new_posts.length, ' was', ' were')
		+ ' just posted.';

		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-show').innerHTML = '(' + Dsq.Strings.SHOW + ')';
	}

	function insertNewPosts() {
		var post_id = null;
		var after_id = Dsq.$('dsq-sort-select').value === 'oldest' ? -1 : null;

		for (var i=0; i<new_posts.length; i++) {
			post_id = new_posts[i];
			Dsq.Post.insert(after_id, post_id, Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id].message);
			Dsq.Post.incrementPostCount();
			Dsq.Post.outlineComment(post_id);
		}
		new_posts = [];
	}

	this.enableInterval = function() {
		interval = setInterval(Dsq.Realtime.check, Dsq.jsonData.context.realtime_speed);
		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-status').innerHTML = Dsq.Strings.ENABLED;
		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-toggle').innerHTML = '(' + Dsq.Strings.PAUSE + ')';
	}

	this.disableInterval = function() {
		if (interval) {
			clearInterval(interval);
			interval = null;
		}
		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-status').innerHTML = Dsq.Strings.PAUSED;
		Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-toggle').innerHTML = '(' + Dsq.Strings.RESUME + ')';
	}

	this.toggleInterval = function() {
		if (!interval) {
			Dsq.Realtime.enableInterval();
		} else {
			Dsq.Realtime.disableInterval();
		}
		return false;
	}

	this.initialize = function() {
		if (!initialized) {
			initialized = true;
			Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-toggle').onclick = this.toggleInterval;
			if (!Dsq.jsonData.forum.streaming_realtime) {
				Dsq.$('dsq-realtime-show').onclick = this.show;
				updateNewPostCount();
			}
			if (Dsq.jsonData.thread.realtime_paused) {
				Dsq.Realtime.disableInterval();
			} else {
				Dsq.Realtime.enableInterval();
			}
		}
	}

	this.show = function() {
		insertNewPosts();
		updateNewPostCount();
		return false;
	}

	this.check = function() {
		if (!ongoing_request && Dsq.jsonData.realtime_enabled) {
			if (prev_script) {
				prev_script.parentNode.removeChild(prev_script);
			}
			ongoing_request = true;
			prev_script = Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/forums/3616940/realtime.js?timestamp=' + last_checked);
		}
	};

	this.update = function(timestamp, posts, users) {
		ongoing_request = false;
		last_checked = timestamp;

		if (users) {
			for (var user_id in users) {
				if (users.hasOwnProperty(user_id)) {
					if (!Dsq.jsonData.users[user_id]) {
						Dsq.jsonData.users[user_id] = users[user_id];
					}
				}
			}
		}

		if (posts) {
			for (var post_id in posts) {
				if (posts.hasOwnProperty(post_id)) {
					if (!Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id]) {
						Dsq.jsonData.posts[post_id] = posts[post_id];
						new_posts.push(post_id);
					}
				}
			}

			if (Dsq.jsonData.forum.streaming_realtime) {
				insertNewPosts();
			} else {
				updateNewPostCount();
			}
		}
	};

}();

// DEPRECATED
Dsq.Iframes = function() {
	// Different style of object from the above. Hoping to switch to this for some reason.
	var obj = {};

	// Private
	var showIframeInContainer = function(container, id, markup) {
		// Look through container for iframes, hiding them, except show one that matches id
		// If none of them matched id, create a new iframe using markup and insert it.
		// Returns the iframe node if and only if it was newly created.
		var found = false;
		for (var i=0; i<container.childNodes.length; i++) {
			var child = container.childNodes[i];
			if (child.nodeName == 'IFRAME') {
				if (child.id == id) {
					child.style.display = 'block';
					found = true;
				} else {
					child.style.display = 'none';
				}
			}
		}
		if (found) {
			return;
		}
		// The iframe wasn't found, so construct it and add it to the container.
		// Don't use innerHTML because it might reload iframes
		var div = document.createElement('div');
		div.innerHTML = markup;
		var iframe = div.childNodes[0];
		div.removeChild(iframe);
		container.appendChild(iframe);
		return iframe;
	};

	// Public
	obj.makeReplyIframeId = function(opt_postId, opt_xtype) {
		var id = 'dsq-post-add-iframe';
		if (opt_xtype) {
			id += '-' + opt_xtype;
		}
		if (opt_postId) {
			id += '-' + opt_postId;
		}
		return id;
	};
	obj.makeLoginIframeId = function(opt_postId) {
		if (!opt_postId) {
			return 'dsq-login-iframe';
		}
		return 'dsq-login-iframe-' + opt_postId;
	};
	obj.makeReplyIframeName = function(opt_postId, opt_xtype) {
		var name = 'dsq-reply-frame';
		if (opt_xtype) {
			name += '-' + opt_xtype;
		}
		if (opt_postId) {
			name += '-' + opt_postId;
		}
		return name;
	};
	obj.showReplyIframeInContainer = function(container, opt_postId, opt_extraParams, opt_className) {
		// Construct the id so we can check if it's already present.
		// Hide any other iframes we find, and show this one if it's found.
		var params = opt_extraParams || {};
		// use xtype in the id and name so we can distinguish media replies from text replies:
		var id = Dsq.Iframes.makeReplyIframeId(opt_postId, params.xtype);
		var name = Dsq.Iframes.makeReplyIframeName(opt_postId, params.xtype);
		var attributes = {
			'id': id,
			'name': name,
			'class': opt_className || 'dsq-post-reply'
			};
		var markup = Dsq.Templates.frameReply(opt_postId, opt_extraParams, attributes);
		var iframe = showIframeInContainer(container, id, markup);
		// It was newly created
		if (iframe) {
			Dsq.Events.fire(Dsq.Events.REPLY_IFRAME_CREATED, {
				postId: opt_postId,
				node: iframe,
				xtype: params.xtype
			});
		}
	};
	obj.showLoginIframeInContainer = function(container, opt_postId) {
		var id = Dsq.Iframes.makeLoginIframeId(opt_postId);
		var markup = Dsq.Templates.frameLogin({id: id});
		showIframeInContainer(container, id, markup);
	};
	obj.showReplyIframeInContainerIfAllowed = function(container, opt_postId) {
		if (Dsq.jsonData.context.show_reply) {
			obj.showReplyIframeInContainer(container, opt_postId);
		} else {
			obj.hideAllInContainer(container);
		}
	};
	obj.hideAllInContainer = function(container) {
		for (var i=0; i<container.childNodes.length; i++) {
			var child = container.childNodes[i];
			if (child.nodeName == 'IFRAME') {
				child.style.display = 'none';
			}
		}
	};

	return obj;
}();

Dsq.Twitter = new function() {
	var that = this;

	this.startTwitterConnect = function() {
		var popupParams = 'location=0,status=0,width=800,height=400';
		that._twitterWindow = window.open(Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + '/_ax/twitter/begin/', 'twitterWindow', popupParams);
		that._twitterInterval = window.setInterval(that.completeTwitterConnect, 1000);
	};

	this.completeTwitterConnect = function() {
		if (that._twitterWindow.closed) {
			window.clearInterval(that._twitterInterval);
			window.location.reload();
		}
	};
};

Dsq.Yahoo = new function() {
	var that = this;

	this.startYahooConnect = function() {
		var popupParams = 'location=0,status=0,width=800,height=400';
		that._yahooWindow = window.open(Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + '/_ax/yahoo/begin/', 'yahooWindow', popupParams);
		that._yahooInterval = window.setInterval(that.completeYahooConnect, 1000);
	};

	this.completeYahooConnect = function() {
		if (that._yahooWindow.closed) {
			window.clearInterval(that._yahooInterval);
			window.location.reload();
		}
	};
};

Dsq.OpenID = new function() {
	var that = this;

	this.requestURL = function() {
		var message = '<table class="dsq-openid-form"><tr><td style="vertical-align:top;" rowspan="2"><img src="' + Dsq.jsonData.settings.media_url + '/images/openid-icon-100x100.png" /></td>';
		message += '<td><label for="dsq-openid-url">OpenID URL:</label></td><td><input type="text" id="dsq-openid-url" /></td></tr>';
		message += '<tr><td><label for="dsq-openid-username">Display name:</label></td><td><input type="text" id="dsq-openid-username" /></td></tr>';
		message += '<tr><td class="dsq-openid-submit" colspan="3"><input type="button" value="Sign in" onclick="Dsq.OpenID.startConnect();" /></td></tr>';
		message += "</table>";

		Dsq.Popup.popModal(message, 'Sign in using OpenID');
	};

	this.startConnect = function() {
		var isblank = function(str) {
			return /^\s*$/.test(str);
		};

		var openid_url = Dsq.$('dsq-openid-url').value;
		var username = Dsq.$('dsq-openid-username').value;

		if (isblank(openid_url)) {
			return;
		}

		var popupParams = 'location=0,status=0,width=800,height=500';
		var url = Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + '/_ax/openid/begin/' + '?url=' + encodeURIComponent(openid_url) + '&username=' + encodeURIComponent(username);
		that._openidWindow = window.open(url, 'openidWindow', popupParams);
		that._openidInterval = window.setInterval(that.completeConnect, 1000);
	};

	this.completeConnect = function() {
		if (that._openidWindow.closed) {
			window.clearInterval(that._openidInterval);
			window.location.reload();
		}
	};
};

Dsq.Reaction = new function() {
	var that = this;

	this.hide = function(id) {
		Dsq.Utils.execScript('http://disqus.com/forums/washingtonindependent/hidereaction.js?' + 'reaction_id=' + id);
	};

	this.reportMissingReactions = function() {
		if (!Dsq.jsonData.request.is_moderator || !Dsq.jsonData.forum.reactions_enabled) {
			return;
		}

		if (Dsq.jsonData.thread.queued) {
			Dsq.Popup.popModal('Your report has been received. The system will automatically search for new reactions; if any are found, they will be displayed on this comment thread.<br/><br/>Thank&nbsp;you.',
												 'Reported missing reactions');
			return;
		}

		Dsq.Utils.execScript(Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + '/forums/washingtonindependent/queueurl.js');
	};
};

Dsq.CNN = function() {
	var obj = {};

	obj.authenticate = function() {
		var url = Dsq.jsonData.settings.disqus_url + "/saml/cnn/try/";
		Dsq.Utils.postToUrl(url, {'target': document.location}, true);
	};

	return obj;
}();


if(Dsq.Utils.ie6) {
	(function() {
		DSQ_HEADER_AVATAR_RE = /<div class="dsq-header-avatar"(.*?)>/gim;
		Dsq.Templates.registerFilter('postPrependHeader', function(html, post_id) {
			// Add "onmouseout" for dsq-header-avatar for dropProfile
			// functionality since IE6 cannot use :hover.
			function _headerAvatarReplace(content, inner, _unused, html) {
				return '<div class="dsq-header-avatar" '
					+ inner
					+ ' onmouseout="Dsq.Post.dropProfile(' + post_id + ')">';
			}
			html = html.replace(DSQ_HEADER_AVATAR_RE, _headerAvatarReplace);
			return html;
		});
	})();
}









(function() {
	//
	// Load theme.  This overrides the base templates with template functions
	// from the respective themes.
	//
	if (Dsq.jsonData.integration.theme == 4) {
		var theme = 'narcissus';
		// HACK: Set variable on window to use post message.
		window.disqus_use_postmessage = true;

		
		for(var prop in Dsq.Themes[theme]) {
			if(Dsq.Themes[theme] && Dsq.Themes[theme].hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
				Dsq.Templates[prop] = Dsq.Themes[theme][prop];
			}
		}
		
		for(var prop in Dsq.Post) {
			if(Dsq.Themes[theme] && Dsq.Themes[theme].hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
				Dsq.Post[prop] = Dsq.Themes[theme][prop];
			}
		}
	}

	//
	// Register templates.  This must be done after all themes are loaded.
	//
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('authPost', Dsq.Templates.authPost);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('header', Dsq.Templates.header);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('footer', Dsq.Templates.footer);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('trackbacks', Dsq.Templates.trackbacks);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('reactions', Dsq.Templates.reactions);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('prependPost', Dsq.Templates.prependPost);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('appendPost', Dsq.Templates.appendPost);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postPrependHeader', Dsq.Templates.postPrependHeader);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postAppendHeader', Dsq.Templates.postAppendHeader);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('preBody', Dsq.Templates.preBody);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postBody', Dsq.Templates.postBody);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postFooter', Dsq.Templates.postFooter);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('_popupGeneric', Dsq.Templates._popupGeneric);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('voted', Dsq.Templates.voted);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('popupProfile', Dsq.Templates.popupProfile);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postBox', Dsq.Templates.postBox);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('pagination', Dsq.Templates.pagination);
	Dsq.Templates.registerTemplate('postComment_onSuccess', Dsq.Templates.postComment_onSuccess);

})();

Dsq.container.className = "clearfix";
Dsq.container.innerHTML = ' \
<ul id="dsq-comments">\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788374">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788374" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788374" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788374">anderson</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788374" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788374" class="dsq-comment-message">&quot;But FBI agents familiar with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah have claimed that the waterboarding was worthless</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788373">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788373" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788373" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788373">dusty1215</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788373" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788373" class="dsq-comment-message">I have never heard or read, anyone making a good case for torture. Evidently this point is lost on the employees of BushCo?</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788372">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788372" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788372" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788372">fredw</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788372" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788372" class="dsq-comment-message">There is at least one other part of the federal government that has experience with interrogations: I was an interrogator for the US Army in Vienam.  The army intrrogation course in 1969 emphasized that we did not use coercive techniques because 1) they produce very poor quality information and 2) a surprising portion of prople can\'t be broken that way.  We didn\'t believe it and argued with the instructors over &quot;real life&quot; practices.  But a year\'s experience with prisoners convinced me that my instructors told the truth.  I had the (appalling) experience of trying to get information from someone who had previously been beaten for it.  Unless you know the exact right question and you know that he knows the answer, that is pretty near hopeless.  He is so focused on not going through that again that you can\'t get any sort of spontaeity or consideration from him.<br><br><br><br>As for the term &quot;broken&quot;, it does not mean physically broken.  It is a technical term that just means that you have overcome his resistance.  This usually just means that you asked some questions, he answered, and you got a conversation going.  Getting a conversation going is about 90% of the trick.  You have all the advantages and can take the discussion where you want it.  Lies are easier to detect than you would think.  Failure is not getting lied to so much as not getting responses.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788371">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788371" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788371" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788371">radlib1</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788371" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788371" class="dsq-comment-message">Very good, informational post. It again shows that the Bush-Cheney Administration doesn\'t know shit about anything -- except where the oil is. These torture clowns should be put up before an International War Tribunal -- not only for their crimes, but also for their stupidity.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788370">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788370" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788370" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788370">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788370" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788370" class="dsq-comment-message">This is an interesting article as the Intelligence Science Board\'s recommendations were first presented to Congress and then to the Ft. Hauchuca Intelligence Training Center in 2007. There has been no attempt on the part of the Ft. H Interrogator Training Center to incorporate those recommendations.<br><br><br><br>There is though a questioning technique called spiral questioning that if used as the basis for interrogations or tactical questioning goes to the heart of the &quot;educing information&quot; concepts presented by the ISB. This concept was originally developed in the early 70s and used daily at the Joint Refugee Operations Center Berling with great success---and never once do you have to use force or the threat of force.<br><br><br><br>I have used it extensively at Abu Ghraib and in Diyala in 2005 and 2006 and the results as the young generation says were &quot;massive&quot; when compared to a young Army trained interrogator relying on the school house doctrine.<br><br><br><br>I was taught years ago and still teach two things 1) treat detainees the way you would want to be treated in the same situation, and 2) rapport, rapport, rapport.<br><br><br><br>We older generation interrogators take our jobs seriously--- the issues of Abu Ghraib and the CIA black interrogation centers has damaged the US and interrogators in the eyes of the Muslim world to such a degree that our jobs are now 20 times harder. Even the CIA new generation interrogators in Iraq are no comparison to even young Army interrogators just out of school.<br><br><br><br>Perception is everything---the CIA never got it nor will they ever get it.<br><br><br><br>Kleinman is correct no one really wants &quot;educing information&quot; as the new generational form of interrogation---there are to many defense dollars going to several key defense contractors who if they had to change to the &quot;educing information&quot; concept would be out of a job as it is easy to teach and highly effective. Retired DEA and ATFE agents after being show the concept of spiral questioning were totally surprised and stated that was in fact what they had been doing for years, but did not know the name for the technique.<br><br><br><br>When you are an interrogator in Iraq you are in fact the defense lawyer, judge, jury, and DA all roled into one person---humanity is the only thing you have hold on to if you are true to yourself and want to see yourself in the mirror in the mornings.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788369">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788369" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788369" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788369">jrjohnryanjr</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788369" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788369" class="dsq-comment-message">Torture DOES work.<br>During the Middle Ages Christendom was only saved from Satanic witchcraft by its use.<br>Through torture, witches would not only confess but also identify other witches including the most difficult to find &quot;sleeper witches&quot;.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788368">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788368" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788368" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788368">checker</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788368" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788368" class="dsq-comment-message">I find the idea that the CIA knew so little about torture that they turned to Egypt, Saudia Arabia, et al, to learn torture methods to be totally baseless.  I refer you to:<br><br><br><br> <a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8310" rel="nofollow">http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Ite...</a><br><br><br><br>...whereby the CIA trained SAVAK agents of the Shah of Iran on torture methods they themselves learned from the Nazis.  I thought this was common knowledge.  You don\'t suppose whatever methods were presented to the SAVAK agents 30 years ago have since been improved and refined, do you?  Maybe something worse than waterboarding?<br><br><br><br>I suspect the CIA and the Bush administration are at this point willing to try anything to divert attention and cause confusion as to what the truth is.  No Tenet interviews?  Who\'d a thunk it.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788367">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788367" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788367" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788367">checker</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788367" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788367" class="dsq-comment-message">Sorry about that link.  Try this...<br><br><br><br><a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8310" rel="nofollow">http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Ite...</a></div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788366">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788366" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788366" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788366">ajhil</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788366" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788366" class="dsq-comment-message">One of the most amazing things about the current administration is how quickly and thoroughly one man has been able to imbue an entire government with his own characteristic  ignorance, incompetence, and disregard for the truth. With the help of a complicit media, it\'s likely that George W. Bush will escape prosecution for the crimes that have been committed on his order. Without the purgative of a Nuremberg style hearing, we as a nation will be tarred with those crimes long after Bush himself has faded into well deserved obscurity.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788365">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788365" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788365" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788365">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788365" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788365" class="dsq-comment-message">Ed,<br><br><br><br>The SAVAK stuff is unfortunately not common knowledge.<br><br><br><br>I think the point is not that the CIA had never known of this sort of thing, it\'s that they hadn\'t, as an agency, had an actual interrogation program for years before 9/11.<br><br><br><br>I doubt that their use torture as an interrogation technique was as influenced by their consultation with Egypt, et al as this article suggests. The fact is that everyone who has ever seen a movie where the interrogator &quot;does what has to be done&quot; thinks they know what they\'re doing. I\'ve been an interrogator for almost 15 years, and I would say that a good 50% of the people I meet who learn that about me immediately imagine they know how I do my job. I\'ve seen many, many completely untrained people go into the booth or offer their two cents, and that advice is always, EVERY TIME, to get vicious.<br><br><br><br>These CIA agents were given the green light to do anything they wanted, and they licked their lips at the opportunity to play vigilante. They knew they could do some research into best methods, but that isn\'t nearly as fun as shaking your head as you lament that &quot;desperate times call for desperate measures,&quot; is it?</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788364">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788364" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788364" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788364">checker</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788364" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788364" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean:<br><br><br><br>Appreciate your comments.  However I find it hard to believe the CIA had no interrogation program, official or otherwise, prior to the years before 9/11, and would find it easier to believe the CIA advised Egypt and Saudi Arabia on interrogation methods rather than what the article suggested.  I believe Isreal would support that opinion since they themselves are a benefactor of certain CIA interrogation methods.  Or am I presumptious to think that is also common knowledge?<br><br><br><br>The sad irony of the waterboarding issue, or any discussion of torture, is that it is an issue.  And as AJ Hill expressed, we will pay for this for a very long time indeed.<br><br><br><br>Ed</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788363">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788363" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788363" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788363">spencer_ackerman</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788363" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788363" class="dsq-comment-message">Richard, feel like dropping me a line at sackerman-at-washingtonindependent-dot-com?</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788362">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788362" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788362" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788362">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788362" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788362" class="dsq-comment-message">Ed:<br><br><br><br>The thing is, the intelligence community has been in a frenzy over new technologies for years, to the detriment of its HUMINT programs. (A lot of that has to do with contracting: Northrup Grumman doesn\'t make a killing on programs involving mere people; but new high-tech listening devices generate lots of revenue. The agencies then set their priorities based partially on what they spend their money on, and HUMINT gets pushed further down the list of priorities.) Everyone thinking they know how to interrogate helps push it down the list as well.<br><br><br><br>I probably should have written that I don\'t believe that no one asked the Israelis, et al about interrogation. But with even a basic institutional knowledge the CIA would have been able to see past the sexiness of breaking the law for the good of the many. The fact that they didn\'t tells me that they weren\'t real interested in interrogations prior to getting the order to start conducting them.<br><br><br><br>I should also caveat that with the acknowledgement that they did conduct a lot of debriefings during the cold war, but a debriefing is a radically different animal than an interrogation, something that interrogators know but debriefers quite often don\'t. As someone who has lived in both of those worlds, I\'ve seen that phenomenon a lot.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788361">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788361" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788361" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788361">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788361" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788361" class="dsq-comment-message">To all--what is getting lost in the debate is that torture gets one absolutely nowhere on the Humint side of the house. In the world of Humint collection and all source fusion it is amazing to stop and think that after a waterboarding session the CIA interrogator would even trust the gained information unless confirmed by other sources.<br><br><br><br>So if they had other sources of information why turn to waterboarding?<br><br><br><br>This whole debate has sidetracked the one main concept that has come out of the Iraq &quot;surge&quot;---a new style of tactical questioning that educes information via rapport building. Nothing fancy but for those that understand this field the term cognitive dissonance is the key and this is where the CIA always goes astray.<br><br><br><br>To drive cognitive dissonance one has to understand the culture of the individual and we Americans tend to not want to do that as it takes to much time or we simply do not know the culture or we feel that knowing the culture makes you one of the &quot;enemy&quot;.<br><br><br><br>We are in a few more weeks into the fifth year of the Iraq war and I sense that even after five years the intel community still does not understand the global Sunni jihad.<br><br><br><br>For those that really want to gain some insight into a number of interesting items that get little or no coverage checkout the book Brave New War.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788360">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788360" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788360" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788360">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788360" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788360" class="dsq-comment-message">Concerning SAVAK---ask any Iranian student studying in Germany at the height of the Shahs\' rule what they thought of SAVAK. While SAVAK was well known in European political circles there was little or no reporting on them here in the US during the same timeframe.<br><br><br><br>The irony of SAVAK was that for some strange reason they overlooked a little known Shiite Mullah during his Friday prayers in Paris, France. Even the CIA somehow felt that this particular Mullah was not a threat to Iran and for that we can thank the CIA for getting into the current Iranian mess.<br><br><br><br>Even the Europeans knew that the CIA was training their little brother and that torture was in play then with reports that CIA operatives were at least watching key SAVAK &quot;interviews&quot; with Iranian dissidents.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788359">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788359" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788359" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788359">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788359" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788359" class="dsq-comment-message">&quot;This whole debate has sidetracked the one main concept that has come out of the Iraq</div>\
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	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788358">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788358" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788358" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788358">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788358" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788358" class="dsq-comment-message">Rapport building was in fact a surge by product as it was being taught to the surge BCTs extensively both during LTP and in the desert in intensive sessions prior to the troops hitting the desert rotations.<br><br><br><br>As the trigger pullers while understanding maybe the high side of the concept pulled into their JSSs and COPs in Iraq and were running their 5 day dismounted patrols the concept seemed to take off on it\'s own. Coupled with a new form of cultural training not seen in the rest of the CTCs or for that matter Ft. H we have in fact been able to send BCTs into Iraq that are performing at a level which has caused the IRC to recently voice their wonder at the sudden shift in the Army---we have seen a definite improvement in EOF incidents and in detainee handling causing the IRC to wonder just what we changed.<br><br><br><br>Our surge BCTs now understand what wearing sunglasses while speaking with Iraqi\'s now culturally means or that there are deep cultural items that have to be respected even during detainee operations that affect the overall Iraqi perspectives of Americans. They now understand that the concept of Iraqi silence was getting them killed-once they understood that everything else fell into place.<br><br><br><br>HUMINT still has not taken off for a long number of reasons-internal to the MI as a whole and issues out of Ft. H. We still are facing the massive belief that hey if we can just throw more technology and more analysis at the problem and everything will work.<br><br><br><br>Regardless of what one thinks or for that matter does not think of the surge--we have a massive increase of Iraqi\'s willing to talk to us for the first time in 5 years which is in fact point 8 of the MNF-I Patreaus letter. Get the Iraqi\'s off the fence.<br><br><br><br>We are still struggling to get BCTs to understand point 5 of his MNF-I letter which is that all intel is driven bottom up not top down which is where most of the technology being fielded today is sitting.<br><br><br><br>A bulk of the successes which are in fact there are being driven by rapport building with both the local Sunni and Shiite sides and a solid amount of long hours at what I would call &quot;community policing&quot;.<br><br><br><br>Again based on long conversations with the surge BCTs they are rating rapport building as the single key to a lot of their captures and the calming of their JSS neighborhoods.<br><br><br><br>As to the Engagement and Reconciliation side of the problem---we did not force anyone into the &quot;awakening&quot; movement---think about it the Sunni insurgency was by mid 2007 fighting a three front war---1) with us, 2) with QJBR, and 3) with the Shiite militias. If you are a Sunni fighter offered 300USD to patrol your area to keep it quiet and you are the problem then in fact your neighborhood is going to be quiet and you can sleep at night knowing you will not be raided by the US. Secondly you can rebuild your own organization knowing the final Shiite fight is coming and lastly if QJBR is not having the perception that they &quot;won&quot; the war then you will not have to send your fighters to Afghanistan or Algeria as a &quot;blood debt&quot; payment for their winning your war.<br><br><br><br>There are solid recent developments that in fact the surge phase has allowed for a total reconstituion of all Sunni insurgent groups and in fact the battle tempo is slowly but steadily climbing again. QJBR is again in full IO glory on the jihadi websites and a recent battle video that was released was lead off by QJBR and as the last insurgent group on the video IAI-now what does that say.<br><br><br><br>But to get back to the rapport building comments---from Oct 2007 through to the initial surge BCTs in March not a single soldier nor a single BCT ever attempted to use rapport in the desert. Again only after extensive training and deep cultural training --rapport is understood by even the junior LT as the inherent part of every conversation they carry out with Iraqi\'s---what we refer to as the Love Bank and is the corner stone to the COIN COG process.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788357">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788357" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788357" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788357">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788357" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788357" class="dsq-comment-message">Richard,<br><br>You\'ve brought up too many points to deal with effectively, so I\'m going to focus on two of them: your contention that rapport building is a surge &quot;byproduct&quot; and your misunderstanding regarding engagement &amp; reconciliation.<br><br>You are simply mistaken to say that &quot;not a single soldier nor a single BCT ever attempted to use rapport in the desert&quot; prior to the surge. I certainly did in 2004-2005, and I know that many of my colleagues did as well. You were one of them, for God\'s sake. Just because the BCTs were taught rapport-building before coming out here (I\'m in Fallujah now) doesn\'t mean that they weren\'t taught it before. I know this because I was one of the many who taught them. I recall seeing your face in some of those classes and around those halls during that period as well. For all I know you disagreed with the manner in which we taught rapport-building, but we did it, almost to the point of overkill if you ask some students. Reporting back from the field, those students cited our schoolhouse emphasis on rapport building, particularly the long-term approach strategy, as crucial to their success. And this all happened back when the Administration was tarring and feathering people who suggested our pre-surge troop levels were insufficient.<br><br>As for Engagement &amp; Reconciliation--first, who said we &quot;forced&quot; anyone into the Awakening movement? I certainly didn\'t, and I don\'t see what it would have had to do with anything had I said it. Second, of course they are rebuilding their organizations. I think we\'re in agreement on the potential for a lull in the fighting to benefit all sides in their efforts to rebuild, and QJBR is indeed making more noise lately.<br><br>But to get to my earlier point about the E&amp;R, and not the surge, being responsible for the turn to rapport-building, could you please then explain to me why the Marines have employed rapport-building as a central component of their HUMINT strategy? No Marines ever &quot;surged,&quot; that was all an Army thing. The crucial switch happened when some of us realized that this was an insurgency and that the only battle worth fighting for was the battle for hearts and minds. The surge was just extra people.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788356">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788356" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788356" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788356">ourpaul</span>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788356" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788356" class="dsq-comment-message">The masters of Bait and Switch, ye old Shell Game, and Let</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788355">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788355" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788355" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788355">tigerteam</span>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788355" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788355" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean---good to see that you are back into the fight at Fulluja-hope things have changed there a bit from 2005--to answer some of your questions.<br><br><br><br>I have had the opportunity to observe the MI effort for 16 BCT rotations and everything that you and I ever complained about at Ft. H is still going on in Humint and MI with no improvement. Still hundreds of young interrogators coming out of Ft. H with little or no understanding of 1) what the heck is a phase three insurgency or war of movement or what are the insurgency battle tactics or how many insurgents are on a mortar team and what are their functions during an attack or what is a swarm attack, 2) or what the heck is spiral questioning and let\'s not tell them about it because they are to young and inexperienced to handle it and 3) let\'s not teach it to the combat arms as a way of lowering the over all number of detainees as we are at what number in the TF 134 system--33, 34 or 35K which is up from the number of 13K prior to the surge. And by the way the concept of JUMPs does not get it and is a total failure, but what the heck let\'s continue to teach it anyway because someday we might be fight a HIC not LIC.<br><br><br><br>Oh by the way the EAIT side finally opened up some class seats for BCT interrogators---it does make a difference---spiral questioning the Tiger Team concept is what they take back with them as the two most important things they learned there.<br><br><br><br>Reference the Marines---they have undergone their own long internal discusssion of driving all COIN combat operations in an insurgency environment at the company level with the company being the tip of the spear, the spear itself and the thrower of the spear. Try to bring that conversation to a BCT Cmdr at the O6 level. I have spent the better part of a year in getting via straight personal influence and based on my long years of experience a total of seven BCTs to devolve MI to the company level and the message is taking hold. The Ft. H solution is 260M dollars and the first gradute of the IST concept is FY11--does not help the BCTs going now in the least bit.<br><br><br><br>The concept of teaching spiral questioning which you know all to well yourself--- Ft. H does not like me teaching it to the combat arms-why because the standard answer is that it is a difficult concept for young soldiers to grasp, but quess what they get it in a big way and the 3 ID has been using it well in southern Baghdad.<br><br><br><br>Rapport building may have been a thing in 2004 and 2005, but it disappeared from all BCTs in 2006 and 2007 because we were to be transitioning Iraq to the ISF so why did we need it--- until the surge BCTs got there it had all but disappeared.<br><br><br><br>The additional troops had two impacts that are vastly underdiscussed 1) they provided a limiting factor on the unimpeded movement of the insurgency groups---which until the surge came they could move at will---it is harder now to dodge the countless TCPs and flash TCPs and 2)they allowed a certain amount of &quot;balanced&quot; fairness in keeping the Sunni and Shiite apart in basically what was Shiite cleansing of all Sunni districts in Baghdad in the drive to make Baghdad the capital of a democratically elected Shiite State.<br><br><br><br>The fight is not in Baghdad, nor Fulluja or Ramadi---it has been and always will be in Diyala Provence especially Baqubah which is the stated capital of the ISI and QJBR. So goes Diyala so goes the war---after countless largescale 10K plus operations in Diyala (in 2007 and 08) and it is still not under control.<br><br><br><br>Sean-good to hear from you, stay safe, will be in country for a Humint visit in the coming months-let me know where you are exactly.</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788354">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788354" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788354" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788354">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788354" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788354" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean---could give you an equally long email on why the Marines are ahead of the Army in COIN---maybe they learned some important lessons during Fulluja 1 and 2 and Ramadi 1 and 2. Could be they learned that the insurgency was just as good at counter sniper and hunting down Marine sniper teams. Maybe they learned to understand the deep Anbar tribal culture for which a US Army LTC who became the world\'s leading SME on Anbar Tribal culure could never get promoted past LTC due to  his years of intensive research which are still not part an parcel of USA tribal culture training (many did not like his messaging).<br><br><br><br>Key though was their shift to company level operations---the theoritical debate had been lead by a retired USMC LTC Michael Poole with his books on Battle Tactics of the Cresent Moon--or the theories put forth by another USMC retired LTC on 4G warfare. The theoritical debate has taken most of their rotations in Iraq to get correct---but they rotate every 7 months not 12 or now 15 months on the USA side so maybe it is easier to discuss and decide if one is not gone for a total of 39 months out of 56.</div>\
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	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788353">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788353" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788353" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788353">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788353" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788353" class="dsq-comment-message">Richard,<br><br><br><br>I didn\'t know that the Army had abandoned rapport in favor of letting the ISF do it from now on, but that doesn\'t surprise me. The military is really good at taking the easy way out when what is required isn\'t technology but competence. I doubt they\'ll ever teach spiral questioning--given the acumen of most of the instructors at Ft. H I\'ve known, I don\'t think there\'s enough institutional knowledge to make it doctrine.<br><br><br><br>Of course one of the major roadblocks to ensuring that the Army is well-versed in 4G warfare is the fact that they\'re just not as picky about recruiting as they used to be, nor are they as picky about who gets into certain career fields. So just when what we need is smarter soldiers, we\'re dumbing down the force. This is true everywhere, but the situation in HUMINT is more dire, because we\'ve always needed the interrogators to be smarter than the average bear.<br><br><br><br>I agree withn you about the additional troops thing, but I wonder how much of the decline in violence wasn\'t due to the ethnic cleansing actually having worked? Any way you slice it, mass slaughter eventually results in something calmer than what was there before. Maybe we just hung around while they finished. It\'s a grisly thought, but worth pondering. (No idea where it is online, but a historical comparison of the ethnic/sectarian map of Baghdad supports this theory.)<br><br><br><br>As for Diyala, yes, it\'s important, and yes, QJBR hangs their hat there, but that\'s because they\'re not hanging their hat in Fallujah, Ramadi or Al Qaim anymore. I submit that the battle has always been over Baghdad, and that the Shia have won. Which is not to say that the Sunni will just roll over, but the Iraqi state is in the hands of the Shia. (We gave it to them, incidentally, but that\'s not quite germane here.) The fact that QJBR is operating much more in Diyala than they were (I covered Diyala and Salahadin at the Div level back in 2004-early 2005) just means that they don\'t get to operate in Baghdad as much as they would like. Focusing too closely on QJBR ignores the Shia elephant in the room, which is exactly what we did for the first 3 or so years of this war.<br><br><br><br>I\'m in Fallujah, but I travel a lot and I\'m only working tangentially with HUMINT these days. I plan to leave the military contracting biz for good in a month--grad school in ME Studies is calling.</div>\
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	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788352">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788352" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788352" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788352">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788352" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788352" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean---then stay safe for the remaining time there---I have about several more trips to Iraq and a handfull of rotations then it is off to southern France where I can finally forget COIN after 40 plus years.<br><br><br><br>Just finished up my book Drinkiing Tea in Iraq-War of Perception and have finished the Sprial Questioning Article for CALL with one to follow on Tactical Questioning. Will send you the electronic copies if you are interested---it summarizaes alot of what we had spoken about over the last few years.<br><br><br><br>Have a number of articles in the pipeline concerning the global Salafi movement and the global jihad coming out in the next few months on a global security site that has a large number of influencers.<br><br><br><br><br><br>Stay safe----</div>\
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	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788351">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788351" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788351" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788351">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
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	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788351" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788351" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean---here is something to think about while you are there.<br><br><br><br>If Mao is the theorist behind the three phase insurgency concept-just how did we go from a phase one in 2003 to a full blown phase three in mid 2005 when Mao himself envisioned the phase three itself taking upwards of 10-15 years to develop?<br><br><br><br>The answer is actually simple it is just that we still today are not willing to see the answer.<br><br><br><br>It goes to the heart of how the insurgency is able to evolve their TTPs so fast.</div>\
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	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788350">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788350" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788350" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788350">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788350" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788350" class="dsq-comment-message">I\'m not sure I follow you here. My take is that we\'re not in Phase Three (Conventional Military Tactics) and never have been, which is to say that the Iraqi insurgents (and the Jihadists in general) aren\'t following Mao\'s doctrine too closely. Mao himself acknowledged that slipping between the three phases was likely to occur, so even he didn\'t see his plan all that strictly.<br><br><br><br>If you\'re asking why the insurgency is so popular or has so many adherents, I\'d venture to guess that\'s because they don\'t want an outside country, especially us, running their country for them.<br><br><br><br>If you\'re asking how they got so powerful so fast, I\'d cite the general speeding-up of change in the world and increased access to newer, deadlier technologies. Nothing takes as long as it used to, it seems.<br><br><br><br>I\'m curious what your simple answer is; this was just me trying to guess.<br><br><br><br>Please send along your articles -- seannelson, gmail, you know where to put the periods and funny symbols. We\'ll continue this discussion elsewhere.</div>\
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	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788349">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788349" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788349" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788349">clint</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788349" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788349" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean, R Paul, and Richard<br>     Good discussion.  I am elated to discover there really are healthy intellectual discussions seeking battlefield solutions.  Glad someone is discussing the battle (including intel gathering) everywhere unlike the early pundits comments who believe and implied that the only battle is with the politicos here in the US and only with Bush.  Most of your tactical issues are the result of countless years of complacency exacerbated by the DC retreat from difficult discussions seeking real solutions for real places/events.  Thanks for serving.  Stay safe..</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788348">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788348" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788348" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788348">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788348" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788348" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean---will shift to your email for the other documents---will send them over the coming week or so. Sorry for not responding by have been busy writing templates.<br><br><br><br>The development speed that the insurgency had from the year 2003 to mid 2005 is an interesting one. Just how could relatively untrained, and seemingly disconnected groups of fighters be able to actually take on the only superpower left in an organized way.<br><br><br><br>I spoke with a Sunni fighter (cell leader) that we captured in late December 2005 who had been wearing a blast belt and who claimed that he had actually been recruited by an IIS officer into a Salafi movement in late 1996 in Amarra. They had prayed regularly (no hint of jihad) until the US arrived and then their conversations before and after prayer turned to jihad. The IIS officer had been based in Amarra and then with the US arrival he disappears to Baghdad but maintains close ties to the cell leader and still comes on occassions after 2003 to pray in Amarra. Then he calls in mid 2005 to see if the cell leader was ready to conduct jihad-- the cell leader immediately answers the call and is into the fight after a two week indoctrination period with 30 others in Baghdad.<br><br><br><br>I would suggest that in fact Saddam and the IIS knew of and had a serious internal Salafi movement problem that we knew nothing about prior to 2003--probably a spin off of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Iraq. I would further suggest that the very same IIS officers who were tasked to watch the Salafi movement are the same ones who later setup the various insurgent groups and were the driving force behind the various groups thus shortening the lead time needed to launch an organized full blown insurgency.<br><br><br><br>The US military in Iraq spends way to much time focused on al Qaida and not the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) which has historically spun off six different Sunni insurgent groups and was in fact founded by former IIS officers and Iraqi Army officers.<br><br><br><br>Couple the existence of well organized small groups that had learned to survive in the underground being hunted by the IIs to the concept of &quot;open source warfare&quot; then the critical mass is reached far faster than ever thought possible in the realm of unconventional warfare.<br><br><br><br>If you are interersted in the concept of &quot;open source warfare&quot; as the key in the evoluntionary speed of the Iraqi insurgency here is an interesting link run by John robb who has written the Brave New War.<br><br><br><br><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/" rel="nofollow">http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerr...</a></div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788347">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788347" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788347" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788347">clint</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788347" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788347" class="dsq-comment-message">Sean<br>Per your comment &quot;but new high-tech listening devices generate lots of revenue.&quot;<br>     With US population at around 5% to 6% of the worlds population, an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims and 1% (equals 12,000,000) embracing the Jihadist philosophy with 20% of that Muslim population willing to support a Jihadist  -what do you purpose as the combat multipliers.  Even excluding the potential of a Chinese conflict with the Ruskies, Iran, and Hugo C. as partners in that effort.  It seems to me that you avoid the obvious necessity for combat/Intel multipliers, the lack thereof creating the issue of multiple deployments to support the war on terror..  The efficient management of and interfacing those high-tech listening devices with human resources seems to be the necessary method/tact to pursue.  The past inclination was to only depend on these resources but/is the CIA so hamstrung or without a mission intent for how long to enable this efficient method...  My personal issue with some of the modern combat multipliers is that they enabled a process that removed from the trigger puller too much of the decision to pull the trigger..</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788346">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788346" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788346" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788346">declineandfall</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788346" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788346" class="dsq-comment-message">Clint,<br><br><br><br>I\'ve spent way too much time in the GWOT to believe those numbers are an actual reflection of support for militant jihad. The VAST majority of the &quot;jihadists&quot; I have met and interrogated were not particularly religious--no more so than the average non-radical muslim--but they were politically disenfranchised. In the dictatorships of the Middle East, there is no viable political resistance. The Mubareks and Assads and Husseins (to bring in Richard\'s conjecture about Saddam\'s Salafi problem) simply won\'t allow political opposition to grow. Which leaves religion as the only outlet for the frustrated poor and powerless. Scratch a jihadist and you\'ll find a garden-variety revolutionary. So I don\'t believe for a second that those big, scary hoardes of Muslim soldiers marching off to war.<br><br><br><br>I especially don\'t see the logic of thinking that Putin, Ahmedinejad and Chavez are going to join forces to wage war against China. Did I misunderstand what you were saying?<br><br><br><br>To get to what I think was your main point, I never said that high-tech listening devices aren\'t crucial to the national security. I merely said that increased spending on technology solutions drove the mission in ways that were counterproductive to the HUMINT mission. So enamored was our intel service of their technology, in fact, that we had <i>nobody</i> on the ground feeding us information from Saddam\'s Iraq. That\'s my conjecture as to how the CIA lost the ability to tell good interrogation methods from bad: they were too busy playing with their expensive toys to remember how to do the more stone-age stuff.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 <li id="dsq-comment-1788345">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-header-1788345" class="dsq-comment-header">\
	 <cite id="dsq-cite-1788345" class="dsq-comment-cite">\
	 <span id="dsq-author-user-1788345">tigerteam</span>\
	 </cite>\
	 </div>\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-body-1788345" class="dsq-comment-body">\
	 <div id="dsq-comment-message-1788345" class="dsq-comment-message">To those that read this particular article---this is a telling comment from John Robb who has been psuhing the concept of Open Source Warfare as a core element as to why the speed factor in the Iraq insurgency occurred and why the Army did not see it coming. The comment that the Army is both fighting the insurgency and leading the counter insurgency fight should wake a few people up but I doubt it will.<br><br><br><br>Thursday, 07 February 2008<br><br>OPEN SOURCE COUNTER-INSURGENCY?<br><br>What\'s left (as an option for the US in Iraq)? It\'s possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting IBM\'s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state\'s monopoly on violence by using (Shiite and Kurdish) militias as a counterinsurgency.<br><br><br><br>John Robb, October 2005, in a New York Times Op-Ed. (if you add Sunni militias to the mix, a gross oversight on my part but implied in the approach, it is spot-on analysis).<br><br>The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than &quot;the surge&quot;) has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That\'s a good thing, but the Awakening has been wrongly attributed to a new (resurrected) counter-insurgency doctrine (COIN). Here\'s why. The main objective of United States COIN doctrine is to enhance/extend the sovereignty and legitimacy of the host nation. Everything that is done is slaved to this top level goal. Unfortunately, the development of legitimacy is a long and slow process that takes decades of effort (if it can be accomplished at all). In contrast, everything about the Tribal Awakening is diametrically opposed to this. It arms and trains militias and groups that aren\'t loyal to the host nation and thereby diminishes the host nation\'s legitimacy by undercutting its monopoly on violence and its control over sovereign territory.<br><br><br><br>What did happen with the Awakening, and the speed of the transition should be a clue to this, is that the US military opportunistically embraced the insurgency (in a move akin to IBMs embrace of open source development in the 90\'s). This embrace showered autonomy, weapons, money ($300 per month x 60,000 participants), protection (from Shiite militias and the Iraqi government), and training on insurgent groups. By doing so, it replaced the ISI (Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate) as the leading participant in the insurgency. The only &quot;cost&quot; to these insurgent groups, which were under extreme pressure from Shiite militias due to overreaching by the ISI, was to sacrifice the ISI. They rapidly complied.<br><br><br><br>Where this goes from here is problematic since (and I say this to get you thinking and not to shock you) the US is now leading both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency in Iraq.</div>\
	 </div>\
	 </li>\
	 </ul>\
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