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How should the world deal with ISIS?

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What should we do about ISIS?
Withdraw all Western forces and hope for the best
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Deploy a large number of ground forces into Iraq and Syria to defeat them, then rebuild both countries
41%
 41%  [ 5 ]
Negotiate with ISIS to stop further attacks and expansion of the group
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Allow Middle Eastern countries and militia groups to deal with the problem
8%
 8%  [ 1 ]
It's too late! ISIS can't be stopped.
8%
 8%  [ 1 ]
Containment from the air but no ground force invasion in Iraq and Syria (current policy)
8%
 8%  [ 1 ]
Other (please explain)
33%
 33%  [ 4 ]
No Idea
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Total Votes : 12

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Morrigu Capricorn



Joined: 11 Aug 2001


PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:31 pm
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^ that's a good piece Jezza - easy to read and comprehend. A few years ago now I was offered a shipload of tax free money to go and work in Jeddah - I was in ICU at the time and they needed experienced Crit care nurses to work but mainly educate and train. I very seriously considered it (it was seriously good money for an OZ nurse) but in the end thought - hell I won't even be allowed to drive - nah ta!!

Oh and I am too fond of a drink Wink

But on a more serious note the West may well have been complicit but the conflict in the ME is not entirely of our making as some propose and unfortunately it is not a recent phenomenon!!

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:45 pm
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I don't think anyone is seriously saying it is all the West's doing (at least, not anyone worth listening to). Conflict exists everywhere. But colonisation, arbitrary borders and resource theft have certainly done a considerable amount of work in screwing up these places.
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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 10:27 pm
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David wrote:
I don't think anyone is seriously saying it is all the West's doing (at least, not anyone worth listening to). Conflict exists everywhere. But colonisation, arbitrary borders and resource theft have certainly done a considerable amount of work in screwing up these places.


Islam and the locals seem to have done a great deal more. The borders have not helped, but compared to sectarianism, Salafism, and the internecine fights over oil wealth, I think Western colonialism in the Arab world (cf Africa) had a modest impact. If you want to understand colonialism in the Arab world, you might consider the impact of hundreds of years of underdevelopment as the Arabs laboured under an oppressive, cruel, backward and crumbling Ottoman rule, rather than 30 years of rather distant Western influence from 1920-45.

As for "resource theft", well, these are some of the richest countries in the world on the back of a cartel engineered at the expense of the world economy since the 1970s, with massive transfers from the people of oil-consuming nations to oil-producing ones. In this period and before, there was development of the oil industry in these countries largely through Western engineers, capital and technology. Perhaps you could elaborate on where exactly this theft lies ?

I think you are casually nourishing the false narrative that underpins these atrocities. I think that this kind of thinking is very similar to that of the appeasers in 1938 - "they have a point, you know, they might be unreasonable, but we did some things wrong in history that caused some of this, and it's partly our doing", etc.

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Morrigu Capricorn



Joined: 11 Aug 2001


PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 11:04 pm
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^ damn I wish I could respond as you do Mug - reasoned and rationale without overt derision nor a lecture that makes you lose the will to live!!

I don't understand it as well as I perhaps should - I think perhaps that is the problem for many who espouse opinion framed as fact when the problems are so complex.

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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 11:45 pm
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Morrigu wrote:
^ damn I wish I could respond as you do Mug - reasoned and rationale without overt derision nor a lecture that makes you lose the will to live!!

I don't understand it as well as I perhaps should - I think perhaps that is the problem for many who espouse opinion framed as fact when the problems are so complex.


Well, thanks Morrigu. I'm 54, I love history, and I still learn new things every week about it - some of it even on here !! Smile

The instincts of honest people who do jobs that benefit society and just want to do good are the greatest comfort we have in troubled times. You do your own part in that. Cheers.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 12:44 am
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Regardless, moral blame is not a good strategist. Even if I think people haven't a clue about the science of religion or the sustained political lock-in strategically imposed by the West and its thuggish local allies for decades, and others disagree completely and think I haven't a clue, oil is still the only handle we have on the problem.

The oil economy is now locking in and sustaining enormous dysfunction. Anyone serious about stabilising the region to reduce people movements, death and terrorism has to deal with it. The rest of our discussion is really just vague moralising.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 12:56 am
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Jezza wrote:
I never thought I'd see the day when PTID actually likes a politician from the Liberal Party Shocked

Back on the topic, here's a great and lengthy article about Wahhabism by Alastair Cooke that was published last year (but still remains very relevant to today) and how it's connected to the foundation of ISIS' ideology and started in Saudi Arabia centuries ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html?ir=Australia

Great read, thanks.

On politics, it probably seems like that, but remember I loved Keating, so it makes sense. I really hate both parties at the mo; Mal is the only one with the ability and insight to bring economic competitiveness and social progress together into a unified solution, which is what I consider the primary objective.

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Tannin Capricorn

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Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania

PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:28 am
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Mugwump wrote:
David wrote:
I don't think anyone is seriously saying it is all the West's doing (at least, not anyone worth listening to). Conflict exists everywhere. But colonisation, arbitrary borders and resource theft have certainly done a considerable amount of work in screwing up these places.


Islam and the locals seem to have done a great deal more. The borders have not helped, but compared to sectarianism, Salafism, and the internecine fights over oil wealth, I think Western colonialism in the Arab world (cf Africa) had a modest impact. If you want to understand colonialism in the Arab world, you might consider the impact of hundreds of years of underdevelopment as the Arabs laboured under an oppressive, cruel, backward and crumbling Ottoman rule, rather than 30 years of rather distant Western influence from 1920-45.

As for "resource theft", well, these are some of the richest countries in the world on the back of a cartel engineered at the expense of the world economy since the 1970s, with massive transfers from the people of oil-consuming nations to oil-producing ones. In this period and before, there was development of the oil industry in these countries largely through Western engineers, capital and technology. Perhaps you could elaborate on where exactly this theft lies ?

I think you are casually nourishing the false narrative that underpins these atrocities. I think that this kind of thinking is very similar to that of the appeasers in 1938 - "they have a point, you know, they might be unreasonable, but we did some things wrong in history that caused some of this, and it's partly our doing", etc.


Oh dear. And just when you were doing so well too. Very disappointed to see this glib, shallow, and above all low-fact understanding of Middle-eastern history from you Mugwamp.

These are not, repeat not "some of the richest countries in the world". Out of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, Syria is 147th "richest"; Iraq in 97th (behind Thailand, Cuba and Botswana) and Afganistan is 175th with national "wealth" equivalent to US $708 per person. (Compare with Australia at $65,600 pc.) Syria, the primary host land of IS, one of the "richest countries in the world" according to your fact-free reprint post has a national income less than 2.5% that of Australia. Yes, more than 40 times smaller. No nation ruled by IS, part-ruled by IS, or in any form of armed revolt related to IS has an income remotely approaching the income of any of the rich countries.

Secondly, it is insane to pretend that Western exploitation of the Middle-east ended in 1945. 1945 is when it started in earnest. Up until then the wealth extracted from the Middle-east by the West was fairly minor in the overall scheme of things. (Though terribly harmful, of course - invasion and occupation always are.)

Thirdly, what is this nonsense claim that the nations in question "engineered a massive wealth transfer" from the West through OPEC? It is, in one word, rubbish. Or to put it in two words, it is complete rubbish. (a) OPEC only came about as a direct response to massive, sustained, and utterly ruthless theft of irreplaceable national resources by Western countries: theft by the rich from the very, very poor. (b) Only one of the IS countries had any significant role in OPEC, and it was run by a quasi-military dictatorship put in by the US as an obedient puppet in the first place - against the clear wishes of the majority of the population. (c) This "massive wealth transfer" merely refunded a very small proportion of the wealth that had already been stolen by the West, often at gun-point and always with bribes and double-dealing. It couldn't possibly make up for the truly huge amounts that were already owing, let alone for the legacy of invasion and occupation. (d) The overall effect of the oil shocks has been very beneficial to Western countries. Because of OPEC, we all got a valuable reality check, and a vital head start on transitioning to sustainable long-term energy supplies. If only there had been an OCEP too! (Where "c" stands for "coal".)

I must also remind people that the Ottoman Empire was not Arab, or anything like it. The Ottomans were, from an Arab point of view, more nearly European than Arab.

I should write a proper deconstruction but it's late, I'm tired, and I find it rather disconcerting to have to say what I'm about to say. After all, I spend half my life on Nicks rubbishing David and telling him how poor his knowledge of history is, and rightly so. In this case, however, David has his facts absolutely right and the usually reliable Mugwamp has made a series of major errors amounting to a post of pure idealogical fact-free nonsense.

(None of this should be taken as in any way a defence of the evil religion known as Islam - a religion which is yet to do anywhere near as much harm to the world as Christianity has done, but which started late and seems to be doing its very best to catch up on the horror deficit ASAP.)

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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 2:47 am
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^ I don't really know where to start with that. Like truck of fireworks accidentally ignited, catching each capering rocket is impossible. Ill keep it as brief as I can.

I read your post twice, and the second time, I sensed that it stemmed from your desire to defend OPEC against my presumed distaste for it. Well, in case it was not clear, I feel fairly neutral about OPEC. Oil is their business and their resource, and its not their job to feed the worlds oil thirst charitably. However, the charge of theft of oil through puppet regimes requires a certain indifference to evidence, given that OPEC crushed Western growth in the 1970s through two oil price spikes. If they were puppets, then the puppeteers strings were broomsticks.

Tannin wrote:

(a) OPEC only came about as a direct response to massive, sustained, and utterly ruthless theft of irreplaceable national resources by Western countries: theft by the rich from the very, very poor.


In this starburst, we have a large assumption which cannot be proven or disproven - masquerading as a fact. Not even OPEC's website on its own history makes that deeply simplistic claim. No doubt it came about, as most political/economic blocs do, because many threads of interest coalesced, and they could.

I'll say it again, as it is true. Middle East oil was developed mostly by Western technology, capital and engineers. For a period, the production sharing agreements were advantageous to the developers, as natural resource agreements often are when the indigenous owners do not have the know-how to develop the resource. As you said elsewhere, Tannin, youre an unreconstructed Leftist ; and this is the old, discredited leftist view which considers trade and foreign investment theft, despite the fact that it is almost the sole source of global growth and improvement for the very, very poor.

Tannin wrote:

(b) Only one of the IS countries had any significant role in OPEC, and it was run by a quasi-military dictatorship put in by the US as an obedient puppet in the first place - against the clear wishes of the majority of the population.


The original members of OPEC were Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Kuwait. Id say that three of these are the key players in the whole IS fiasco, which is driven by the Saudi-Iranian battle over a suddenly leaderless Iraq, with a pinch of pure sectarian hatred thrown in. Two of the original members remain very wealthy, if deeply corrupt, and the others have squandered their riches through populist politics, corrupt theocratic elites, sectarian feuds, and the general malaise that comes of believing in the nostrums of the 6th century. Syria is simply one of the battlegrounds on which this war of OPEC members is being fought.


Tannin wrote:

I must also remind people that the Ottoman Empire was not Arab, or anything like it. The Ottomans were, from an Arab point of view, more nearly European than Arab.


Not sure if that was meant to remind me, but it was wasted if so. As far as colonialism goes, this Turkish/Muslim empire ruled the Arab lands for hundreds of years, compared to which Western colonialism - such as it was - was a candle-flicker. My post, remember, was responding to Davids belief that Western colonialism lay near the heart of the Arab envenomation. My point was that the really debilitating colonialism, over hundreds of years, came from a Muslim power - a power that no Arab would consider European of course.

Finally, that OPEC, through its $100/bbl policies since 2003, has been hastening the end of the oil age is correct. Hurrah for that, I say.

EDIT : None of that should be considered a denial of the fact that bribes were paid, political influence wielded, coups assisted and much besides. History is made by good and bad human beings according to the assumptions and mores of their time, and this was the end of the age of empires. I'm sure it was not pleasant to feel powerless in such an age. But that age presented opportunities and defeats, like so many others. Some countries, from China and Singapore to Australia, Malaysia and (in its own way, and despite many obstacles) India, have made a relative success of modernity. The nations infected with Salafist or other pious forms of Islam have not.

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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:00 am
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pietillidie wrote:
Regardless, moral blame is not a good strategist. Even if I think people haven't a clue about the science of religion or the sustained political lock-in strategically imposed by the West and its thuggish local allies for decades, and others disagree completely and think I haven't a clue, oil is still the only handle we have on the problem.

The oil economy is now locking in and sustaining enormous dysfunction. Anyone serious about stabilising the region to reduce people movements, death and terrorism has to deal with it. The rest of our discussion is really just vague moralising.


I can agree with that, but at the risk of restating - when the oil age ends, I think the place will be an even bigger powder-keg.

Millions of young men who think they were promised something will see no clear economic future, have no serious skills with which to earn a living, and believe in their own sanctimonious rectitude. You think they're angry now ? Wait 'til you see the Salafist equivalent of the Sex Pistols.

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sixpoints 



Joined: 27 Sep 2010
Location: Lulie Street

PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:11 pm
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Mugwump wrote:
David wrote:
I don't think anyone is seriously saying it is all the West's doing (at least, not anyone worth listening to). Conflict exists everywhere. But colonisation, arbitrary borders and resource theft have certainly done a considerable amount of work in screwing up these places.


Islam and the locals seem to have done a great deal more. The borders have not helped, but compared to sectarianism, Salafism, and the internecine fights over oil wealth, I think Western colonialism in the Arab world (cf Africa) had a modest impact. If you want to understand colonialism in the Arab world, you might consider the impact of hundreds of years of underdevelopment as the Arabs laboured under an oppressive, cruel, backward and crumbling Ottoman rule, rather than 30 years of rather distant Western influence from 1920-45.

As for "resource theft", well, these are some of the richest countries in the world on the back of a cartel engineered at the expense of the world economy since the 1970s, with massive transfers from the people of oil-consuming nations to oil-producing ones. In this period and before, there was development of the oil industry in these countries largely through Western engineers, capital and technology. Perhaps you could elaborate on where exactly this theft lies ?

I think you are casually nourishing the false narrative that underpins these atrocities. I think that this kind of thinking is very similar to that of the appeasers in 1938 - "they have a point, you know, they might be unreasonable, but we did some things wrong in history that caused some of this, and it's partly our doing", etc.


An interesting attempt at rewriting history with the "30 years of rather distant Western influence from 1920 -1945" in Iraq.
No mention of the 100,000 British/Indian army that fought the 1921 war in Iraq against one of the few times the local Sunni/Shia teamed up together. With thousands dying - I wouldn't call that 'rather distant'.
Plus what about the sustained aerial bombing campaign carried out beginning in 1923 by the RAF to stop all Kurdish independence actions? It went on for years and was a prelude to all subsequent use of air force strategic bombing campaigns.
Plus what about the second Anglo-Iraqi War of 1940 when again British troops took on the locals and again thousands were killed?
The two main British-Iraqi treaties of 1921 & 1930 were signed off by the British installed puppet king of Iraq and they gave Britain almost unlimited rights to base and move their troops throughout the country any time they liked.
British army and Air Force garrisons remained in Iraq for decades, their warships also remained in the Gulf off Kuwait & Basra the whole time.
Compared to the Ottomans this was hardly remote or distant. It was occupation by force and bitterly resented.
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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:19 pm
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Large view:
https://i.imgur.com/CRaBPOx.jpg

http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/did-the-us-and-the-west-create-islamic-state/news-story/e44273d42822db30620066b6efb670a0

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:46 pm
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Good archive on diplomatic relations with Iraq:

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/


Old article looking back at the marvellous work of Rumsfeld and US companies in Iraq:

CounterPunch wrote:
DECEMBER 8, 2005
Rumsfelds Handshake Deal with Saddam
by NORMAN SOLOMON

Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagons top man was upbeat. And he didnt have to deal with a question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?

Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddams murderous brutality.

As it happens, the initial trial of Saddam and co-defendants is focusing on grisly crimes that occurred the year before Rumsfeld gripped his hand. The first witness, Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, 38, riveted the courtroom with the scenes of torture he witnessed after his arrest in 1982, including a meat grinder with human hair and blood under it, the New York Times reported Tuesday. And: At one point, Mr. Muhammad briefly broke down in tears as he recalled how his brother was tortured with electrical shocks in front of their 77-year-old father.

The victims were Shiites 143 men and adolescent boys, according to the charges tortured and killed in the Iraqi town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against Saddam in early July of 1982. Donald Rumsfeld became the Reagan administrations Middle East special envoy 15 months later.

On Dec. 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld visited Iraq in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to bolster the already improving U.S. relations with that country. A couple of days later, the New York Times cited a senior American official who said that the United States remained ready to establish full diplomatic relations with Iraq and that it was up to the Iraqis.

On March 29, 1984, the Times reported: American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name. Washington had some goodies for Saddams regime, the Times account noted, including agricultural-commodity credits totaling $840 million. And while no results of the talks have been announced after the Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad three months earlier, Western European diplomats assume that the United States now exchanges some intelligence on Iran with Iraq.

A few months later, on July 17, 1984, a Times article with a Baghdad dateline sketchily filled in a bit more information, saying that the U.S. government granted Iraq about $2 billion in commodity credits to buy food over the last two years. The story recalled that Donald Rumsfeld, the former Middle East special envoy, held two private meetings with the Iraqi president here, and the dispatch mentioned in passing that State Department human rights reports have been uniformly critical of the Iraqi President, contending that he ran a police state.

Full diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored 11 months after Rumsfelds December 1983 visit with Saddam. He went on to use poison gas later in the decade, actions which scarcely harmed relations with the Reagan administration.

As the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq in six years, Rumsfeld had served as Reagans point man for warming relations with Saddam. In 1984, the administration engineered the sale to Baghdad of 45 ostensibly civilian-use Bell 214ST helicopters. Saddams military found them quite useful for attacking Kurdish civilians with poison gas in 1988, according to U.S. intelligence sources. In response to the gassing, journalist Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most U.S. technology. The measure was killed by the White House.

The USAs big media institutions did little to illuminate how Washington and business interests combined to strengthen and arm Saddam Hussein during many of his worst crimes. In the 1980s and afterward, the United States underwrote 24 American corporations so they could sell to Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction, which he used against Iran, at that time the prime Middle Eastern enemy of the United States, writes Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, in his book The New Media Monopoly. Hussein used U.S.-supplied poison gas against Iranians and Kurds while the United States looked the other way.

Of course the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were not just in the future when Rumsfeld came bearing gifts in 1983. Saddams large-scale atrocities had been going on for a long time. Among them were the methodical torture and murders in Dujail that have been front-paged this week in coverage of the former dictators trial; they occurred 17 months before Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad.

Today, inside the corporate media frame, history can be supremely relevant when it focuses on Husseins torture and genocide. But the historic assistance of the U.S. government and American firms is largely off the subject and beside the point.

A photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddams hand on Dec. 20, 1983, is easily available. (It takes a few seconds to find via Google.) But the picture has been notably absent from the array of historic images that U.S. media outlets are providing to viewers and readers in coverage of the Saddam Hussein trial. And journalistic mention of Rumsfelds key role in aiding the Iraqi tyrant has been similarly absent. Apparently, in the world according to U.S. mass media, some history matters profoundly and some doesnt matter at all.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/12/08/rumsfeld-s-handshake-deal-with-saddam/

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:56 pm
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Mugwump wrote:
pietillidie wrote:
Regardless, moral blame is not a good strategist. Even if I think people haven't a clue about the science of religion or the sustained political lock-in strategically imposed by the West and its thuggish local allies for decades, and others disagree completely and think I haven't a clue, oil is still the only handle we have on the problem.

The oil economy is now locking in and sustaining enormous dysfunction. Anyone serious about stabilising the region to reduce people movements, death and terrorism has to deal with it. The rest of our discussion is really just vague moralising.


I can agree with that, but at the risk of restating - when the oil age ends, I think the place will be an even bigger powder-keg.

Millions of young men who think they were promised something will see no clear economic future, have no serious skills with which to earn a living, and believe in their own sanctimonious rectitude. You think they're angry now ? Wait 'til you see the Salafist equivalent of the Sex Pistols.

But that surely is even bigger incentive to manage the process through a major agreement which gives people hope and forward direction.

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Mugwump 



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PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:29 pm
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^ sixpoints, the British army had left Iraq more or less completely by the thirties, having transitioned the country from a League of Nations mandate to independence under King Faisal, a relatively modernising figure and of course, a British ally. Had the Hashemites remained in power, it is likely that Iraq would be in a far better condition today.

It is funny how people see things so differently. You paint the 1921 war as a war of conquest against a united nationalist army, but i think a less romantic and more reasonable history would see it as a chaotic uprising, largely of the north against the Southern tribes. The British reimposed order as required by their mandate and got on with transitioning Iraq toward stability and independence under a Muslim king. It was in their interests to do so, partly as Iraq was an oil partner and strategic to them. You may argue that Faisal was a puppet, but the British were not making day to day decisions in Iraq by the 1930s and the country was independent, long before most other colonised nations. Compared to centuries of Ottoman rule, the British involvement in Iraq was relatively - relatively - benign. Imperialism is wrong, but it was the dominant paradigm in international affairs for thousands of years. Iraq, if anything, represnets a forerunner of its ending.

As regards 1941, well, in the climate of that time a faction in Iraq tried to change its allegiance to a power with which Britain was at war, in an existential struggle. The pictures of that uprising's leader, Rashid Ali, with Adolf Hitler say much about the dynamics at play.

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