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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#91

Post by Chos89 »

Retric wrote: post #57
_delirium wrote: post #40

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…

There is clear evidence that Catholic areas have lower levels of economic growth than Prodestent areas even within same country. So, religion really does impact economic growth. But, I don't think there is hard evidence to brake it down to specific causes within each religious group. PS: While you may disagree with this, there is a lot of research into this topic: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=religion+economi…

How do you explain Bayern in Germany then?

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#92

Post by Shivetya »

return0 wrote: post #38

Long piece , but it fails in that it does not give a coherent message. Pieces of stories here and there are not history. First of all , lets stop calling it Arab Spring. If anything it's the arab Autumn of civil wars, where all arabs are united only in their resentment of the west. Secondly, let's talk about people, their souls, aspirations, and culture instead of political history. Given that these states were built…

I am just glad we are finally getting a mainstream press group to admit the Middle East is the fault of European colonialism instead of the last fifteen odd years blaming Bush.

It was made a mess before and after WW2 and it never was allowed to self correct. If anything the powers that be kept trying to keep it bottled up until a few set pieces fell and the house came tumbling down. This isn't to say that going into Iraq didn't cause part of the problem, that simply revealed just how force the Saddam regime was applying to keep it all together.

Letting Libya fall like everyone did was likely the real issue. That whole country went without anyone trying to step in and allowed groups to assemble. Then the misguided interference with Syria by the US just sent the whole region to hell. You would have thought Libya would have given the administration a hint what would go wrong, let alone an Administration so hell bent on reminding people of Iraq repeated that mess twice if not worse.

The region has to reshape itself. What the West must do is try to minimize the civilian cost. This does not mean going in a setting new borders, but mostly protecting those who get out and making sure they have safe exit points.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#93

Post by SixSigma »

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…

> If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal".

When will the West do that ?

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#94

Post by tdkl »

curiousgal wrote: post #52
hacker42 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Nobody has time to thrive when they have to prey five times a day Ah huh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

The classic "Golden age" deception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#95

Post by cmdrfred »

tdkl wrote: post #87
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…

> (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...

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#96

Post by jcranmer »

jomamaxx wrote: post #33
ihsw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam is unrelated to the emotional and intellectual deficits imposed upon victims of poverty and disenfranchisement -- not only that but I think there's a strong argument in that a task performed five times daily repeated ad infinitum doesn't cause cultural impairment, nor does the age of a given mandate. Furthermore, I think maximizing for "human potential" is a red herring -- the inevitable end-result is exercisin…

Preventing women from driving, from being in public without family members, from touching others, from having other see their face etc. etc. is 100% part of the 'intellectual deficit' imposed by Arabic flavours of Islam. Islam is a religion, an ideology and a culture all blended into one. Parts of it are bad. But I don't think it's any of that. I think it's something simpler: there is nothing in the desert. It's real…

The Arab world is literally where civilization--the first development of agriculture, of urban settlements, of writing, coherent state polities, etc.--was first invented in history (note that most of these developments happened independently in a few places). They've had those things for at least 1000 years before anything in Europe showed any signs of comparable developments.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#97

Post by ihsw »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #37
ihsw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam is unrelated to the emotional and intellectual deficits imposed upon victims of poverty and disenfranchisement -- not only that but I think there's a strong argument in that a task performed five times daily repeated ad infinitum doesn't cause cultural impairment, nor does the age of a given mandate. Furthermore, I think maximizing for "human potential" is a red herring -- the inevitable end-result is exercisin…

People see and act through their own personal philosophies and personalities. You can't peel those off and have any kind of reasonable conversation about culture and history. When faced with impending death, pessimists might commit suicide. Optimists might struggle on. People with under-developed personalities might just listen to the first person they run into. But whatever the case, their choices will be broadcast…

I'm not going to deny that many are judged based on their religious and cultural values, and that there are correlations between all Muslims that point to certain trends that some find alarming (eg: irrationality, lack of self-preservation, and strong desire for justice), but I cannot accept that such trends are a reflection of Islam.

Culture shock happens and when it happens on a massive scale then there will obviously be issues, and I think that is what we are witnessing now. It may take a generation but I am hopeful that Western society will co-exist with Islam peacefully, regardless of the negative interpretations some people have.

You could do the same with a billion and a half people anywhere -- give them a unifying identity, tell them to live in every nation on Earth, and make most of the poor and uneducated. There will be a central global point that people call home, there will be culture clashes, and there will be demagogues taking advantage of the situation.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#98

Post by nickik »

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…

Any real look at the history of toppling governments in societies as divided as Iraq should understand the difficulty. The western world has hundreds of years of experience.

The interesting thing is that, when they were successful in 2007 (more troupes) it was completely accidental. They had no idea why it worked at first, and it took them a while to figure it out.

As everybody know, the US could not stay their with this much troupes forever and thus they could never credibly commit to long term stability and peace between the different sections. If you can not stay somewhere for 1-2 generations, don't go there in the first place.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#99

Post by oblio »

Retric wrote: post #57
_delirium wrote: post #40

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…

There is clear evidence that Catholic areas have lower levels of economic growth than Prodestent areas even within same country. So, religion really does impact economic growth. But, I don't think there is hard evidence to brake it down to specific causes within each religious group. PS: While you may disagree with this, there is a lot of research into this topic: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=religion+economi…

Have you ever heard of Bavaria? Also called Germany's Texas.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#100

Post by yodsanklai »

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.

I don't know about arabic countries and how religion affects their development but I tend to believe your comment isn't accurate. I've known personally a lot of muslims originally from those countries (colleagues, students, classmates, friends...). None of them preys five times a day or are hidden in cloth bags.
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