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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#321

Post by jhanschoo »

metaphorm wrote: post #245
finid wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

it still amazes me that people argue that there is even such a thing as "legal" war. war is the breakdown of social order. law is only relevant in the presence of existing social order. when a country like the U.S. chooses to initiate a war of aggression against a foreign population it is effectively just an assertion that there is no such thing as law when it comes to wielding geo-political power. in the case of the…

You are mixing rhetoric into your argument. Nations make agreements between themselves and bodies like the UN, and violating these agreements can be called legal. War is not the breakdown of social order, often order continues within the societies of the belligerents. We may say that an act of war is legal if its declaration and conduct does not break any of the nation's agreements.

When a country decides to break its agreements it is more useful to say that there is no strong rule of law in international relations, rather than that there is no law.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#322

Post by abalone »

hacker42 wrote: post #302
abalone wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what would be the percentage of Christians in Western countries who don't really oppose ideas of violence[1] and misogyny[2] in the Bible and would prefer to return to a traditional social order? [1] http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=21 [2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10635510/Women-...

There is a difference in the percentages and arguably in the degree of accepted violence and actually lived misogyny. There is definitely a difference in the extremes (Islam is currently the only ideology to produce suicide bombers in such large quantities). There is also a difference in that the Bible is regarded to consist of interpretations of God's words, whereas the Quran is regarded to contain a direct transcri…

And what would be the degree of accepted violence by Christian extremists, historically?[1][2][3][4] Can we even begin to compare it? Subtly narrowing the definition of "violence" to "suicide bombers" alone serves a political agenda.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_antisemitism

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#323

Post by gotchange »

kobayashi wrote: post #301
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…

>It is not the fault of the countries in the Eastern part of the Arabic speaking world that they're surrounded by reactionary forces in the region like the oil sheikhdoms or nationalist-led Israel that they would do everything they can to undermine the then-nascent democratic experiments to protect their interests and save their thrones but this is the topic of another article. Woh, woh, woh, what on Earth does Israe…

Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013 and then the military-led regime that took shape after that whether internally or abroad?

If so, I don't see that there's any point of arguing over facts like these.

It's OK to have reservations about the democratic experiments in the region but if you could call "Talibani vs Barazani" a democracy, then I think it's fair that I get to call what happened in Egypt or Tunisia a democratic experiment.

Speaking of Kurdish democracy, I believe that opening channels with other players in the region is good strategy to secure the interests of the Kurdish people or elite, but excessive pandering to one particular player at the expense of others in the region would be very shortsighted move esp if you're planning to stay in this neighborhood for long time.

A balanced and well thought-out approach to foreign policy in the region would be a better alternative to the Kurdish people for whom I wish good luck for their legitimate political aspirations.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#324

Post by maverick_iceman »

gotchange wrote: post #323
kobayashi wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is not the fault of the countries in the Eastern part of the Arabic speaking world that they're surrounded by reactionary forces in the region like the oil sheikhdoms or nationalist-led Israel that they would do everything they can to undermine the then-nascent democratic experiments to protect their interests and save their thrones but this is the topic of another article. Woh, woh, woh, what on Earth does Israe…

Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013 and then the military-led regime that took shape after that whether internally or abroad? If so, I don't see that there's any point of arguing over facts like these. It's OK to have reservations about the democratic experiments in the region but if you could call "Talibani vs Barazani" a democrac…

> Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013

Conspiracist much?

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#325

Post by maverick_iceman »

joosters wrote: post #116
jasode wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Long piece, [...] This piece may be fun to get through your flight, Yes, it's ~43000 words and at 250wpm, it would be a 3 hour read! I think I'll wait to collect some more opinions/tldrs like yours before reading it myself. Three hours would be a terrible waste of time on a substandard article. Open question: Are there better articles on the topic that use that would use that finite reading time better?

Is there a decent way to save the article as a PDF to read later, say on an ipad? I tried Safari's 'Export as PDF' but the formatting is too mangled. Safari can also save as a single 'web archive' file but I can't get that file to open on my ipad. Firefox has a save option of 'Web page, complete', but you end up with lots of files, impractical to move around to other devices. Printing as a PDF also mangles the format…

Instapaper

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#326

Post by maverick_iceman »

pipio21 wrote: post #170
pipio21 wrote: post #153

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…

One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse. There is a great relationship between having huge resources and war, violence and crime. The countries in Africa with less resources are the richest ones, because they had peace for a long time. War destroys any wealth people have and give it to a few guys. It also destroys al civilization and social structure…

> One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse.

Don't see any of them in a rush to give up their 'curse'.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#327

Post by maverick_iceman »

berntb wrote: post #10
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)

Thanks, will read after work. :-) It was surprising. From what I've read, people living for a long time in dictatorships are quite intolerant and hateful. (There were quite a bit of intolerance in East Germany after 1989, too. And examples from Eastern Europe are well known.) If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". Or maybe I a…

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#328

Post by hacker42 »

abalone wrote: post #322
hacker42 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference in the percentages and arguably in the degree of accepted violence and actually lived misogyny. There is definitely a difference in the extremes (Islam is currently the only ideology to produce suicide bombers in such large quantities). There is also a difference in that the Bible is regarded to consist of interpretations of God's words, whereas the Quran is regarded to contain a direct transcri…

And what would be the degree of accepted violence by Christian extremists, historically?[1][2][3][4] Can we even begin to compare it? Subtly narrowing the definition of "violence" to "suicide bombers" alone serves a political agenda. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch…

Back then the inhibition level for violence was much lower than it is today, even in the Middle East. Also the Christian culture went through various changes, i.e. the French revolution and enlightenment, which have never occurred in Islamic cultures. Even the kind of enlightenment in the Golden Age were deeply motivated by religion and were hence inherently unstable and also limited.

I am talking about the cultural difference today, not in the past, about aggression and harmful traditions occurring in reasonably stable and educated middle classes. Note, that I am not trying to whitewash the past of Christianity; both sets of beliefs are bad in that they have or had the potential to produce fundamentalism and badly informed decisions, but I am just arguing for a qualitative difference between Islam and Christianity (especially today's Christianity and Islam), i.e. one is much worse than the other. Today's Christianity does not produce anything as Islam does in other troubled regions such as African countries, even though these people would be in their 'right' to take vengeance for e.g. centuries of slavery, right?

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#329

Post by metaphorm »

jhanschoo wrote: post #321
metaphorm wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it still amazes me that people argue that there is even such a thing as "legal" war. war is the breakdown of social order. law is only relevant in the presence of existing social order. when a country like the U.S. chooses to initiate a war of aggression against a foreign population it is effectively just an assertion that there is no such thing as law when it comes to wielding geo-political power. in the case of the…

You are mixing rhetoric into your argument. Nations make agreements between themselves and bodies like the UN, and violating these agreements can be called legal. War is not the breakdown of social order, often order continues within the societies of the belligerents. We may say that an act of war is legal if its declaration and conduct does not break any of the nation's agreements. When a country decides to break it…

I find it obscene that you can even entertain the notion of "legal war" in your mind. Is there such a thing as legal theft, legal rape, or legal murder?

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#330

Post by oblio »

Retric wrote: post #317
oblio wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. h…

Ok, then: Ireland, Baden-Wurtemberg, Austria, Lombardy.

Max Weber was a smart guy, but he died 100 years ago. I hope we have better things to correlate with prosperity than just one strain of a particular religion.

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