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What is Rupert on?

By all accounts things are not going well in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The carnage continues unabated.

Given that Rupert Murdoch is a newspaper proprietor - and not a man of letters in any field of politics or geo-political analysis, other than perhaps how to seek to influence Governments to favour his commercial interests - one has to wonder why anyone should care what the Sun King thinks about anything political.

That said, this from the man who pronounced before the Iraq War would result in the cost of a barrel of oil falling to US$20 - as The Australian reports:

"Mr Murdoch said the soldiers should stay in Iraq regardless of the election outcome.

"Australia only has a couple of hundred people there and I would hate to see them withdrawn," he said.

"I think it would rupture the relationship totally, because you have got forces in Afghanistan."

Mr Murdoch, professing to "know a bit about this", said the tide had turned against al-Qa'ida-linked terrorists and other insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

"On the ground in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we are at the point of saying, 'you have almost won it ... you see this out'," he said.

The big question now was whether strong governments could emerge in both countries."

The Sun King must know something about both Afghanistan and Iraq no one else does.

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