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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#311

Post by nickik »

hx87 wrote: post #271
nickik wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Saudis will eventually fall, but thats not gone be anytime soon. If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick. Just look at Saddam, he was not popular but managed to remain in power for a long time. The Saudis have more money, and a easier to repress, less divided population. The Saudis will be fine for a long time.

The stick has to be paid too--otherwise things don't go very well for those who wield it. Saddam at least had enough of a domestic economy to tax to pay for the security services, as well as a loyal extended family that actually did some of the grunt work, whereas it is doubtful the Saudis have either.

The Saudis are sitting on the largest reserves in the world. They are profitable at the lowest prices. They have money for the stick and the carrot in excess and will be so long as oil has relevance.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#312

Post by dragonwriter »

nickik wrote: post #122
douche wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Saudis will eventually fall, but thats not gone be anytime soon. If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick. Just look at Saddam, he was not popular but managed to remain in power for a long time. The Saudis have more money, and a easier to repress, less divided population. The Saudis will be fine for a long time.

> If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick.

Not really; while they've spent a lot of money of hardware to use as the stick, they House of Saud lacks the loyalty of enough of the population for the stick to be the primary control -- they need a lot of carrot to even keep the trigger fingers that would apply the stick on their side, which is a lot of the reason for all the accommodation the regime makes with religious extremists.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#313

Post by shwouchk »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #138
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…

>> in every country where natural resource mining is dominant, we see a rise of more despotism. I think we're still doing reasonably OK in Canada... :->

Lets not forget the US either

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#314

Post by nl »

finid wrote: post #203
nl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invasion of Iraq was a stupid idea, and the NYTimes should be ashamed for that. But the real problems occurred in the disastrous power vacuum and complete lack of a plan that occurred after the war was won. That's what tore Iraq and the Middle East apart. I don't think the NYTimes has any responsibility for that.

> But the real problems occurred in the disastrous power vacuum and complete lack of a plan that occurred after the war was won. No, the real problem was invading a country that posed no threat to us. That was the real crime. The power vacuum could not have happened without that illegal invasion.

Yes, I agree entirely.

Is there a way I can say both that the invasion was stupid AND that it could (not should!) have worked out ok afterwards if the US had a plan?

I think that it is worth noting all the things that went wrong, not just the stupidity of the invasion itself.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#315

Post by nl »

tim333 wrote: post #186
pdabbadabba wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Erdogan has been one of the biggest backer of anti-Assad forces in Syria, and it is unclear why that will change.

Erdogan and Assad are hardly buddies, even after the attempted coup.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#316

Post by ttepasse »

webXL wrote: post #307
mytddu wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The invasions initial execution was beautiful (first few days) The initial "Shock and Awe" campaign in Baghdad killed an estimated 6,600+ civilians. [1] It's stated purpose was to " impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on ... [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perc…

Please don't redefine terrorism. Terrorists don't give fair warning. Terrorists don't primarily target military installations. Terrorists don't accept surrender. As abhorrent and terrifying as war is, nothing can excuse the deliberate targeting of civilians. Yeah, it was disgusting, but the whole world watched because the whole world's media decided to broadcast it. Without the terror of Saddam's reign coupled with t…

The first instance of the word terrorism was the terror of a democratically legitimated state against civilians. Its own in this case: I'm speaking of the Reign of Terror of the french revolutionary state. Since then the word terrorism was somewhat redefined. But of course not everywhere. Even you describe Hussein's actions as terror in your post.

I think it's acceptable to describe as terror that thing which kills you, wether you are someone in Bagdad 2003 who is too poor to flee to Jordan, wether you are a victim of ISIL or if you are a 16 year old male shepherd in Waziristan where there is a full legal procedure which in the end lawfully decides to kill you because you're you.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#317

Post by Retric »

oblio wrote: post #201
dragandj wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple explanation: communist occupation of East Germany by the Soviets brought there the "excellent" development opportunities also seen in the rest of Eastern Europe and Russia. Before that, Prussia was way ahead of Bavaria.

That still doesn't explain why Bavaria is ahead of other former West German states.

And global worming does not explain any specific daily temperature. The point is there are hundreds of years of history to do comparative analysis and thousands of locations to consider. I would suggest reading the literature instead of trying to point to a counter example.

PS: Bavaria is only nominally 51 Cathlic vs the average of 30 for the entire country. Further, you can break things down to a much lower level. https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/07/18/germany-mass-go...

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#318

Post by tmptmp »

John23832 wrote: post #291
tmptmp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>and dialog become impossible. The dialog becomes impossible because of many other important reasons, too, including, a. the opposition by liberals/leftists/Islamists to bring forward any critical review of some extremely troubling vicious aspects of Islam and Islamic scriptures (Quran and Hadiths) under the phony reasons of islamophobia b. the reluctance of Islamists to accept the notion of freedom of expression ev…

No, comments and thinking like yours are the reason there is no progress. In conflict between group X and group Y, if you ask X it's because Y does (insert list of offenses here). The same from the opposing side. Nobody wants to acknowledge that both sides have issues, and if they work towards fixing said issues the world will be a better place. Your whole diatribe about "liberals/leftist/Islamist" is the exact same…

>>If you understand what Islam is, and what a muslim is, this statement makes no sense.

If you mean to say that "Islam and Muslims are the same" I beg to differ. Islam is a religion not person and Muslims are persons.

Let me clarify, Islam is a religion/ideology whereas Muslim is a person who is either practicing Islam (religion/ideology) or who is labeled as Muslim because he/she is born within a family who practices Islam.

By "the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se", I mean the fight must against the ideology/religion and must not necessarily against all Muslim population.

So it was a big mistake by USA to attack Iraq as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks on USA, instead the military attack (only small surgical level) should have been restricted to Taliban/Osama in Afghanistan and then along with that small military surgical attack, the USA should have actually opened a war against the vicious ideology of Islam.

The Iraq was not a big threat to USA. Millions of innocent lives could have been saved in Iraq and elsewhere, if the USA had realized that this is an ideological war and must be fought on the ideological war-front. This can and must be done by supporting liberal minded humanists (like, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins) who are exposing the viciousness of the ideology of Islam and upholding the modern humanist values like freedom of expression and separation of 'mosque and state'.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#319

Post by paulmd »

whateveracct wrote: post #295
paulmd wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's offer to Kasich (as confirmed by Kasich himself) was that he would be the quote 'most powerful VP in history', in charge of both domestic and foreign policy, while Trump would be in charge of 'making America great again'. So the other poster is exactly right, Trump doesn't have anything at heart beyond self-aggrandizement. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/07/politics/john-kasich-donald-tr... http://www.slate.com/bl…

If all you care about is foreign policy, maybe Pence is okay with you. The guy is a garbage person though and made me ashamed of my home state on multiple occasions.

Pence is actually also a terrible choice and even people in Indiana don't like him.

For the record I'm not a Trump fan either. I'd like to reform some stuff like patent law but Trump would burn most of it down.

I'm just saying that ~in theory~ Pence is an olive branch towards the middle. I don't think Trump will follow up on it in any way, nor will he be elected given the polls.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#320

Post by gotchange »

dragonwriter wrote: post #285
gotchange wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that this was an unfair characterization of your comment, can you please refute the points that I raised in my counterargument? Because just taking your word for it won't cut it, sorry. > "elections suddenly would fix all the problems in countries like egypt, libya, syria" I'd take ballot-box-only democracy and majoritarianism over tyrannical strongman rule or military dictatorships anytime of the day bu…

> I'd take ballot-box-only democracy and majoritarianism over tyrannical strongman rule or military dictatorships anytime of the day but this is just me, a Middle Eastern native who really cares for the future, prosperity and the welfare of people living there. The usual overt basis for complaints that elections are insufficient is that they don't end up as ballot-box-only democracy, but that they instead they often…

> "The chance of making progress toward real democracy is often not seen as worth the risk for external parties (especially external elites); locals, of course, may have different calculus. "

That's a very true observation but that doesn't mean that elites will always get their way and prevail over the masses.

The masses can sometimes secure victories at their expense, albeit short-lived in most cases, and force them to change their mind and adopt their ideas.

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