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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#191

Post by finid »

rm999 wrote: post #139
tdkl wrote: 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.

Do you have a source? I just searched and see no such pledge. All I'm finding are vague statements from her allies and advisors that they think she'll prioritize Syria.

I haven't read that myself, but even in the absence citation, you have to believe it is true, given her Middle East affiliations.

Hint: She and her husband are in bed with the House of Saud. Her (their) deep commitment to Israel is unquestionable. Never forget that she's a neocon and worships Henry Kissinger. It's just that she's joined at the waist to a democrat.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#192

Post by tim333 »

cholantesh wrote: post #155
tim333 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reviews on amazon.com seem quite positive, especially from people who have lived in Arab countries eg "I have lived in the Middle East, on and off, for four years, and no book explained the Arab mind as well as Raphael Patai's." It doesn't seem popular with the politically correct crowd.

That it anecdotally speaks to a few anonymous persons who engaged with a small subset of Arabs in particular parts of the ME is hardly impressive, but if you want to hold it up, so be it. My immediate family and much of our circle of friends (conservative South Asians) were settled there for decades. Some are still there. The descriptions Patai uses do not jibe with our experiences, at least not in the aggregate. It…

Maybe so. I only glanced at the reviews, I haven't read the thing.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#193

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

jcbeard wrote: post #76
sevenless wrote: post #13

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…

I don't think we should say let's pay for the invasion with their oil, it's probably more accurate to say let's take their oil or steal it because when you say 'pay' it implies Iraqis asked for invasion(which they didn't) and you are talking of oil as payment.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#194

Post by manarth »

douche wrote: post #81
nailer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Saudi will fall apart?

Of course it will. Someday, there won't be enough bread and circuses and sinecures for all of the extended offshoots of the House of Saud, and somebody will stir up popular, probably religious, discontent, or else a disaffected faction of the government/royalty will stage a coup. Besides that, it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars. They have been fighting a price war again…

> it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars

There was a HN article[1] a few months ago, on the efforts to move Saudi Arabia away from reliance on oil income. Although who can say how successful that effort will be.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540776

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#195

Post by finid »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #167
jcbeard wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 initial execution was not beautiful, it and the occupation that followed were remarkably brutal. Dropping bombs on a Baghdad, destroying the civilian infrastructure like sewage, electricity etc. It was a case of aggression, the same crime for which the Nazi's were hanged at Nuremberg.

> The initial execution was not beautiful

It was "beautiful" because you were watching it on TV and marveling at how we manage to drop bombs from a distance through a building's smallest opening.

For the men, women and children of Iraq, it was hell. It was not fun, and, most definitely, was not beautiful.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#196

Post by [deleted] »

rm999 wrote: post #139
tdkl wrote: 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.

Do you have a source? I just searched and see no such pledge. All I'm finding are vague statements from her allies and advisors that they think she'll prioritize Syria.

[deleted]

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#197

Post by MisterBastahrd »

hacker42 wrote: post #19
not_a_terrorist wrote: post #7

tl:dr 100 pages: 1) People are fucking poor and hungry (extreme wealth inequalities) 2) Salafi/Wahhabi (Saudi) funding of islamism 3) Antediluvian hatred between people (it goes, way, way, way farther back than Sykes-Picot)

It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.

Sure, this is the same reason that nobody who smokes cigarettes has ever been successful. All those breaks they take in the middle of the day.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#198

Post by bogomipz »

ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #174
bogomipz wrote: post #147

"The Arab World" - What does that even mean? Arab is a language distinction, a language of which there are many dialects. As Arabic is spoken from Western Sahara all the way east to Oman that pretty much disqualifies Arab World from having geographical significance. Arab also does not denote religious faith as there are Arab Jews, Arab Christians(Coptic) and of course Arab Muslims. There was once briefly a concept of…

I'm not sure where you get the idea that Pan-Arabia died with Nasser in 1970. The main reason the US kept on Saddam was his stated intention of Pan-Arabia >'We don't look on this piece of land here in Iraq as the ultimate limit of our struggle,'' he told a group of visiting Iraqi ambassadors in 1975. ''It is part of a larger area and broader aims: the area of the Arab homeland and the aims of the Arab struggle.'' Aft…

What do you mean the "US kept on Saddam"? Sadam was kept on initially because of what was going on in neighboring Iran if anything, certainly not because of his altruistic aspirations.

Nasser was a credible leader and Pan-Arabism was a state policy under him . This is not the same thing as a delusional dictator invoking Pan-Arabism and invading his Arab neighbors. Quadafi also invoked Pan-Arabism at time, that did not make alive and well or a credible movement either. It was just a convenient ruse for another delusional dictator. These are not the same as Nasser at all.

Pan-Arabism largely lost momentum after 1967 Six Day War with Israel in which Egypt was defeated. Nasser died a few years later which is why I said it died with him. Anwar Sadat made no mention of it subsequently.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#199

Post by mcguire »

finid wrote: post #191
rm999 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source? I just searched and see no such pledge. All I'm finding are vague statements from her allies and advisors that they think she'll prioritize Syria.

I haven't read that myself, but even in the absence citation, you have to believe it is true, given her Middle East affiliations. Hint: She and her husband are in bed with the House of Saud. Her (their) deep commitment to Israel is unquestionable. Never forget that she's a neocon and worships Henry Kissinger. It's just that she's joined at the waist to a democrat.

"I haven't read that myself, but even in the absence citation, you have to believe it is true,..."

I suspect you would be surprised how much that sentence scares me.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#200

Post by pm90 »

alanwatts wrote: post #182
anonu wrote: 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.

And even before that: the epic Roman-Persian and Greco-Persian wars.
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