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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

181–190 of 341 posts

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most of modern history: America's fault most recently, but Europe's fault originally.

"Like most of modern history: America's fault most recently, but Europe's fault originally." America and Europe are stabilizing and largely benevolent forces in the world, and they were even this when they were colonialist. The Middle East is a mess because of the nature and history of the types of cultures there. The most prosperous nations in the region are those that play reasonably in the context of international…

Without USA+Europe, I believe the Arab world would look like Libya does now internally.

This is irony, right? Without Europe and USA, Libya wouldn't look like it does now, and this isn't ancient history: it happened five years ago!

It astounds me how much people forget in such a short time. We have a sort of "Forget Disastrous Military Interventions" Complex.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#182
post #77

My view on the Middle East: it has been a playground for the powers of the world to muck around. The fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end WWI allowed the region to be carved up between the French and the British. Secret agreements like Sykes-Picot cemented borders that should never have been there. After WWII a considerable amount of support was put behind Israel (and rightly so). However, the ongoing conflict and l…

Pretty accurate description for the last 100 years. But this fighting has been going on for thousands of years between the 3 Abrahamic religions, perpetually fighting over the Holy Land and between their own respective sects.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#183

For me it is extremely simple: They have an extraordinary amount of oil:Iraq,Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, natural gas: Libya,Iran or they are in the middle of strategic places to build oil ducts: Syria, Afghanistan. http://www.energybc.ca/images/profiles/oil/reserves.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without e…

This is a way to reductionist view of the situation. Yes, oil is important, very important, but it completely fails to explain a huge number of factors that are in play.

Your reduction of the middle east countries as simple 'protectorates' is also completely false. These are countries with their own opinions and politics and they are far, far more then just outposts of the more powerful nations. Seeing everything as a global power struggle will not lead to understanding of the situations.

> The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without energy their society will collapse.

Thats also completely false. Any analysis of this will show that even in a worst case of a huge war in the middle east, the changes in oil prices would not collapse the first world. It might cause a slight slowdown in growth, and that only in the short term.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#184

I haven't read the article yet but from the introduction I sense a narrative that the current situation is due to the 'illegitimate' second war in Irak? So it's Amerika's fault as usual?

Like most of modern history: America's fault most recently, but Europe's fault originally.

And the Turks fault before that, and Tamerlane's fault before that, and Genghis' fault before that, and the Arabs, Sassanids, Byzantines, etc, ad nauseum. It's the battlegrounds of the world, and always has been.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#185
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing Islam with the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula -- it may be the birthplace of Islam but Muslims have done much more than eek out a meager existence among sand dunes. Education curriculum, fairness, equality, social justice, civic duty, personal accountability -- all of these things are similarly as present in Islam as they are anywhere else. Also, governance by royal decree is one of the most un-I…

> Education curriculum, fairness, equality, social justice, civic duty, personal accountability The problem is which form they take. Women are clearly not men's equal in the Koran. The Koran talks about all these subjects, it doesn't mean it promotes these. According the to Koran(and the Bible) , slavery is acceptable, the Koran even tells how Muslims should treat their slaves. Is that the fairness,equality and socia…

Inequality between genders in Islam is a difficult subject to discuss without pointing out that many female Muslims in the Western world are afforded the same rights and freedoms as male Muslims -- indeed, Muslim women have achieved equality without being permitted to enter Islam's holiest sites.

That said, women are most definitely treated differently under Islamic rule as outlined by Islamic law, and there is no point of view that can deny this. Some would argue that women and men are inherently different and that it would be imprudent to ignore this, and this line of reasoning leads us to unpleasant situations like women being denied the same opportunities to achieve success as men are.

Millions of Muslims in the West find slavery to be barbaric and none of them own slaves, and not only that but one of the central tenets of Islam is donation to make slavery unnecessary. This is evidence of fairness, equality, and social justice not only being compatible with Islam, but encouraged.

That said, slavery is permissible in Islam under certain circumstances, and the primary basis for this permission is the profound lack of protection afforded to non-Muslims outlined in Islamic teachings. This is intentional and personally I hope it falls by the wayside.

Finally, criticism of the Quran is a touchy subject. The study of mathematics was regarded as being unable to bring perfection to the human soul, but many Muslims studied it nevertheless and humanity advanced in indescribable ways. Death was similarly regarded as an act of God regardless of the cause of death, but the study of medicine was defended as not being un-Islamic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidah

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#186
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (sounds like somebody that's running for president this year) Someone else running for president this year has pledged that the first act of her address would be removing Assad. Which brings us back at the beginning of stupid actions.

Well, unlike Iraq in 2003, there will be a war in Syria 12 months from now whether Hillary tries to remove Assad or not. The question is whether we continue to try to shape the outcome. In the meantime, we have this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/02/toxic-gas-in-the-...

Not so sure about that - the war was mostly Russia and Iran backing Assad against Turkey and the US backing the anti Assad rebels. Now Assad and Erdogan are buddies things may settle down with Assad, Putin and Erdogan all being presidents for life with questionable elections and the US not able to do a lot about it.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#188
post #76

The NYTimes itself is also a considerable part of the reason, considering Judith Miller, Friedman, Krauthammer and many others propagandized hard for invading Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq was stupid. It was likely illegal, based on false pretenses, and well....shouldn't have happened. The invasions initial execution was beautiful (first few days). The US Military performed splendidly. The follow through (driven by political leaders) was idiotic. Stupid decisions like not listening to his generals (Bush), disbanding the Iraqi security forces (Paul Bremer), and the odd focus on turn…

> The invasion of Iraq was stupid. It was likely illegal,

I agree that the invasion was stupid, but it was not "likely illegal," it _was_ illegal.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#189
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there much evidence for the specific choice of religion as a casual factor? Methods of blending a traditionalist religion with modern life seem much more important than which religion you start with. For example, Judaism imposes an extremely strict set of rules that govern almost every conceivable aspect of daily life. And indeed you find that strictly observant Orthodox Jews are mostly unable to function in a mod…

I lived in Western Turkey for a year, and while nearly everyone was Muslim (some atheists sprinkled here and there), there was plenty of alcohol and bars, Granted, this was in the less religious parts of Turkey, but it's grossly unfair to the moderates to paint everyone with the fundamentalist brush. There's a billion Muslims out there. The majority of Christians do not believe that the Earth was created 10000 years…

Turkey is not a good argument for Islam being "tolerant" or Muslims being somehow naturally "less religious."

Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1924. He explicitly introduced the constitution to Turkey which declared the state to be secular, that is, independent of any religious influence! He effectively banned headscarves (hijabs, nijabs, whatever) in all public institutions (being religious attire, therefore to be separated from state), including schools and universities.

The West however wasn't so smart recently, forgetting how much fights and sacrifices were needed to achieve the freedoms we have now (but will we keep them depends on our readiness to stand for them, more than up to now).

Erdogan now pulls Turkey back to the pre-20th century state. And unfortunately, there are enough of those who support him and his Islamic "revival."

---

The comics Persepolis that you mention, among some personal stories, also covers the moment of "Islamic revolution" in Iran, which, among many other things, destroyed women freedoms. Before:

http://www.parstimes.com/fashion/pre_revolution/

Now:

http://www.aquila-style.com/focus-points/iranian-women-campa...

Watch and weep. Or consider whom you support.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#190
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (sounds like somebody that's running for president this year) Someone else running for president this year has pledged that the first act of her address would be removing Assad. Which brings us back at the beginning of stupid actions.

She has to pay for the campaign/Clinton foundation donations somehow. Mark my words a vote for Hillary is a vote for war.[0] [0] https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/01/19496/defense-con...

Bit of a leap from the facts in that article (Clinton got $454k in donations from defence industry workers vs $310k to Sanders for example) to her having to go to war as a result.
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