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The Middle East Friendship Chart

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Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#71

Post by wslh »

wslh wrote: post #52

Uh, this is what happen when you practice data visualization abuse.

I translated it to the following graph. No nodes, bad relationship. You can copy the source to: http://graphviz-dev.appspot.com/

Image at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs/...

digraph g{

AlQaida -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

AlQaida -> Hamas [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Israel [arrowhead="none"]

PalestinianAuthority -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

US -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Hezbollah [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iraq [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Turkey [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iran [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> US [arrowhead="none"]

ISIS

Israel -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> US [arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Turkey -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> SaudiArabia [arrowhead="none"]

}

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#73

Post by BugBrother »

dannypgh wrote: post #59
EGreg wrote: post #56

It would be interesting to find the "basis vectors" of issues, if you will, underpinning this matrix. They seem to be: Israel-Palestinians, Syria's Civil War, Egypt's Overthrow, and the new Iraqi state. So, if the issues would be resolved in the most peaceful way, namely: Egypt's current government continuing to exist Israel and Palestinian Authority defeating Hamas and working towards a peace deal Iraq getting stabl…

Hamas won free and fair elections. Peace must come from negotiations with Hamas; it can't be predicated on their destruction.

The best test of an organization isn't when they win an election, it is if they step down when they lose one.

If they "can't" lose elections (because of military control, media control, just not holding any more elections and/or election cheating), they aren't better than... well, Putin or Hamas.

In this case, we also have all that about celebrating the murdering of civilians and organised official antisemitism copied from both religious sources and the Nazis(!).

Edit: I might add that Austria got sanctioned in the EU over Jörg Haider's political party and its democratic result. Hamas must be at least a factor of hundred worse.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#74

Post by sam88 »

nl wrote: post #53
piggyback wrote: post #43

This chart is at the very least incomplete and inaccurate if not blatantly false. To accuse Iran of cooperating with Al Qaeda while claiming that Saudi Arabia does not is audacious. Saudi Arabia spreads the most violent branch of Islam (Wahhabism/Salafism) through indoctrination as well as direct funding for terrorism. Just look at the perpetrators of 9/11, all of whom were Sunni Arabs, most of them from Saudi Arabia…

I think this chart reflects the position of county's government. The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda and has a careful relationship with Wahhabism (as they see both as potential threats to their powerbase). Al Qaeda (the core part anyway) has never really had an anti-Shia bent (or, interestingly, anti-Israel) and Iran did tolerate some movement of Al Qaeda and Taliban through their territories. Iran did hav…

Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11 had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#75

Post by BugBrother »

sam88 wrote: post #74
nl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this chart reflects the position of county's government. The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda and has a careful relationship with Wahhabism (as they see both as potential threats to their powerbase). Al Qaeda (the core part anyway) has never really had an anti-Shia bent (or, interestingly, anti-Israel) and Iran did tolerate some movement of Al Qaeda and Taliban through their territories. Iran did hav…

Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11 had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

You write as if it doesn't matter that ISIS have been kicked out of AlQ?

(The last I read, ISIS was fighting with all the other rebel groups in Syria? I thought that included AlQ? Also, is that really Saudi policy?! [Saudi A do send weapons to other rebels!] )

(sam88 is a three hours old account.)

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#76

Post by EGreg »

dannypgh wrote: post #59
EGreg wrote: post #56

It would be interesting to find the "basis vectors" of issues, if you will, underpinning this matrix. They seem to be: Israel-Palestinians, Syria's Civil War, Egypt's Overthrow, and the new Iraqi state. So, if the issues would be resolved in the most peaceful way, namely: Egypt's current government continuing to exist Israel and Palestinian Authority defeating Hamas and working towards a peace deal Iraq getting stabl…

Hamas won free and fair elections. Peace must come from negotiations with Hamas; it can't be predicated on their destruction.

Ummm how about the part where after these fair and free elections they eliminated the rest of the government through killing them or running them out of town?

Would you mind addressing what part of legitimate democracy that is?

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#79

Post by waps »

shortsightedsid wrote: post #41
waps wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If cultures interact a lot, they often end up with the same religion anyway. This is what people always seem to forget. "Diversity" within a culture does not bring diversity, ironically, but merely causes one side to be assimilated into the other, losing it's distinct identity.

Not necessarily. India for example was ruled primarily by Muslim rulers for over a thousand years but still ended up with a huge Hindu population and a significant Muslim population. If you consider the whole of South Asia, that "Diversity" in religion is even more stark. Since this region has almost 2 Billion people living, it can't be considered as different. At the same time, you do have a good point. When you con…

The India you're talking about starts in what we today call Iraq and ends about 1/3rd into what we currently call India, encompassing Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and never reached the south of India or Madagascar. That was the area ruled by the Mughals, which was called India because, well it was. Their rule can be described as having a death toll of between 30 and 50 world war IIs.

The area of the Mughal empire is most definitely both religiously and ethnically cleansed. So it the other side. Before islam northern africa was black. In all likelihood, Hannibal was black.

There is no assimilation. Now in this case is was because of constant massacres, perpetraded predominantly by the muslim side (but where one side starts massacring, revenge will come).

But it doesn't really matter. The European conquest of the Americas has only a few massacres, certainly not comparable to what happened in Northern Africa or India. For the most part Native American culture dissappeared because, well, frankly, because Native Americans preferred European culture above their tribes (and in a lot of cases, they didn't have much of a choice, having lost a duel for leadership, or a woman, according to several monks who wrote on the subject). You see the same in places where "natural" human communities still exist, like sub-saharan Africa.

Just talk to the people there. You will note that they know life in the "villages" as they call it. They're not talking about some faraway town with a church but no supermarket (for one thing, they're not all that far from the cities, only 10km or so). They're talking about huts, hunting, and so on. They also know why the men leave (the women, well, mostly can't. Think about the impact on the group for 5 minutes and you'll understand why men can leave and women can't. And no, they're not prudes, the women can fuck whoever they want, kids are the village's kids, not really having any real mother or father, just a group of people who care for them (mostly the older children)). They are voluntarily abandoning the culture they have en-masse to attempt (and mostly fail) to join the third world. Having been there, I can certainly see why. Plus sometimes they get into trouble (e.g. lose a territorial battle, get half the tribe infected, run out of food, ...) and they have no choice.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#80

Post by waps »

BugBrother wrote: post #75
sam88 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11 had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

You write as if it doesn't matter that ISIS have been kicked out of AlQ? (The last I read, ISIS was fighting with all the other rebel groups in Syria? I thought that included AlQ? Also, is that really Saudi policy?! [Saudi A do send weapons to other rebels!] ) (sam88 is a three hours old account.)

ISIS seems mostly to be western "idealist" muslims, recruited by extermist imams where those can operate (ie. in the west, mostly Europe, in Saudi Arabia, and not very many other places). The locals found them, well, what everyone finds them : cruel, extremist morons.

(Imams are tightly controlled in places like Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Why ? Well let's put it this way : "mosque" does not mean house of prayer. It means fortress (house of prayer is masjid. Keep in mind that that arabic is weird. Masjid by itself means house of prayer, but combined with other words it means different things, sort of like latin). The states there, well, it's not like there's anyone in them that doesn't know this. So recruitment of locals there cannot easily happen, except by the "state" (which may be a lot more local state than a map would have you believe))

The problem is what western agencies are pointing out, but nobody's listening. Currently Syria and Iraq are the targets. Mostly because they're in the middle east, and allow "other" religions (Shi'a islam is "other" to these guys, as is Druze religion, Alwite, hell, they're not all that fond of wahhabism (too many compromises for the state and the oil, first and foremost of course, the alliance with the United States, and "with Israel") ...). That won't last. We, as in you and me, England and Sri Lanka, Japan and Alaska, are on their list. They're just having some trouble with numbers one and two (Saudi Arabia and Israel).

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