Arab Winter Setting In -- Gonna Be a Doozy...

[Cormac]

Incidentally, don't take from my comments that I don't think these guys should not be opposed militarily.

However, because it will not deal with root causes, it cannot succeed.

You know what the root causes are? Better go let Obama know....

About 1200 years, but primarily the last 125 years of Western suppression of independence and democracy in the whole region from Afghanistan to Morocco.

[Ian]

[Cormac]

It is true though. The reason we see photos of reasonably westernised scenes in North African and Middle Eastern Countries about 60 yeats ago was because they did have very strong democratic and secular movements. As these were systematically suppressed under the jackboot of Western puppets, it created great disillusionment and created a vacuum ready made for Islamist extremists who have an attractive combination of "Faith and Fatherland" - ready made for successful recruiting.

[Atheist-Lite]

It is true though. The reason see photos of reason dry westernised scenes in North African and Middle Eastern Countries was because they did have very strong democratic and secular movements. As these were systematically suppressed under the jackboot of Western puppets, it created great disillusionment and created a vacuum ready made for Islamist extremists who have an attractive combination of "Faith and Fatherland" - ready made for successful recruiting.

They couldn't stand up for themselves before and they are doing a great job at not doing that now, either. A weakness of inate character? The middle east does have a exceedingly long history of fuckwittery.

[Coito ergo sum]

Incidentally, don't take from my comments that I don't think these guys should not be opposed militarily.

However, because it will not deal with root causes, it cannot succeed.

You know what the root causes are? Better go let Obama know....

About 1200 years, but primarily the last 125 years of Western suppression of independence and democracy in the whole region from Afghanistan to Morocco.

Great. Now that we know that we can succeed.



But, come on.... 1200 years? 125 years of Western suppression?

In the 1880s, that entire area you're referring to was the Ottoman Empire. Western Suppression?

The Ottoman Empire was solidly in control of North Africa, Turkey, the Holy Land, Arabia, and out to the 'stans from at least 1453 (fall of Constantinople) until the end of World War 1.

Before that, there was the Byzantine Empire, which struggled against 800 years of Muslim invasions and onslaughts, until it fell.

After World War 1, the League of Nations created the French and British Mandates for Palestine to maintain peace after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Over the ensuing few decades, various countries were formed out of those Mandates -- Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, etc. All the countries became independent.

So - how was any of that "western suppression?"

[Coito ergo sum]

It is true though. The reason we see photos of reasonably westernised scenes in North African and Middle Eastern Countries about 60 yeats ago was because they did have very strong democratic and secular movements. As these were systematically suppressed under the jackboot of Western puppets, it created great disillusionment and created a vacuum ready made for Islamist extremists who have an attractive combination of "Faith and Fatherland" - ready made for successful recruiting.

What the....?

Dude -- prove your case.

I'll start. Beirut. 40 years ago+ it was the Paris of the Middle East. It wasn't "western suppression" that destroyed it. It was Islam and the wars to drive out Christians and Jews from Lebanon. They succeeded. Lebanon was once majority Christian. Now Christians are a small minority. And, we all know what happened to Beirut.

And, you can feel free to identify the "strong secular and democratic movements" in arab Muslim countries...lol.... I'll wait.

[Ian]

It was Cormac's "suppression of democracy across the muslim world" quip that drew my scorn. Pure nonsense.

[Seabass]

Ambassador Stevens deliberately murdered as part of a coordinated resurgence of al Qaida, along with the other supporting actors -- http://www.debka.com/article/22353/Al-Z ... r-Stevens-

This is the inevitable consequence of declaring a "War on Terror". There is no possible end to it, and it opens up multiple fronts and many new potential alliances for your enemies. Permanent war footing is useful for control at home, and if you want to extinguish liberties, but the consequences can run out of your control easily.

The "War on Terror" is a stupid hypocritical concept the idiocy of which is astounding.

True dat. If only Bush hadn't declared War on Terror, those poor, innocent Muslims wouldn't have had to fly loaded passenger planes into the WTC.

[Seth]

Sure we could, Seth. Just declare Sharia law in the U.S., legalize child marriage, enact blasphemy laws, hang children from construction cranes for having premarital sex, you know, that sort of thing.

We should certainly consider it, after all, without those actions we might inadvertently offend their religious sensibilities.

Well, that's a point, but...no, sorry.

[Seth]

It isn't as if there wouldn't be a war, just because we didn't give it a name.

but which war? The Taliban War? The Iraq War? The Yemen War?

It is non-specific and generally applicable. What is "Terror" and what is "Terrorism"?

Names are important. The current war has no defined mission. It has no victory conditions.

Nonsense. It's defined mission is to identify terrorists, terrorist-supporting states and individuals and then destroy them. The victory condition is the elimination of global terrorism.

So, would for example, the Contras of the 1980s be considered "terrorists"?

The rebel fighters in Syria? The Georgian government fighting Russian aggression? The miners in South Africa? Wikileaks?

Depends. Are they fighting against a) Marxism, b) radical Islamism, c) despotic tyranny, d) Progressivism, e) Socialism? If so, then they are freedom fighters who deserve our support no matter what because their cause is just.

[Seth]

The issue is that what it actually does is create a permanent state of war, akin to that described in Orwell's 1984, along with the attendant assaults on liberties by the government.

That is indeed a huge problem and threat to individual liberty. Take the "War on Drugs." That "war" alone has done more to destroy our liberties and civil rights than any outside invader or indeed internal traitors. But unlike drugs, which could simply be legalized, thereby removing the impetus for criminality that causes us to spend 10 billion a year on enforcement and costs at least 150 innocent lives per year from para-military drug raids ON THE WRONG HOUSE where innocent homeowners, thinking they are being invaded are shot down by police who screwed up the raid, there is no simple solution to the War on Terror. This is because the terrorists involved want to destroy our entire nation, economy, culture and way of life and impose radical Islam upon everyone in the world, and being that they are religious zealots, nothing but complete capitulation and slavery (Dihimmitude) under the Islamic World Caliphate is acceptable, it's either continue to fight them or surrender and become slaves.

I prefer to fight, and if necessary I'll take up arms to defend my nation and my community against Islamic subjugation, and I'll die fighting before I'll bend a knee to any false kiddie-fucking mysogynist fuck of a "prophet" called "Mohammed." And if there are any radical islamists out there who take offense at my insult of Islam or the prophet "mohammed," fuck you, if you want some, come get some.

It also gives the likes of Russia, Iran, China, Indonesia, and lots of other dictatorial shitholes to crack down on their opposition by calling them terrorists.

Like any tyrant has ever needed permission to declare undesireables and seditionists as enemies of the state and suppress them.

[Seth]

You might as well have the victory condition be "the elimination of unease". Terrorism cannot be eradicated globally. We can't even do it in Afghanistan.

hexactly.

There is a way to eradicate terrorism but it prevented by the USA being held back by the UN. Take Afghanistan. There is a option on deploying biological agents that would utterley decimate the opium harvest. This would reduce the flow of arms to a trickle and unless the farmers started to use crops prescribed by the West they would be left to starve.

It is also a collective punishment - a war crime.

Nope. Destroying infrastructure or material support for terrorism, including destroying opium crops, is perfectly valid military strategy and is NOT a "collective punishment." We might be obligated under the Geneva Convention to supply humanitarian aid to displaced farmers rather than letting them starve, but if they are growing opium to fund terrorism they are themselves legitimate targets of antiterrorist action, which might include killing them outright for providing material support for terrorists.

[JimC]

It isn't as if there wouldn't be a war, just because we didn't give it a name.

but which war? The Taliban War? The Iraq War? The Yemen War?

It is non-specific and generally applicable. What is "Terror" and what is "Terrorism"?

Names are important. The current war has no defined mission. It has no victory conditions.

Doesn't stop the need to hit terrorists as hard as possible and as often as possible...

However, it is also important not to target bystanders, so simplistic solutions such as "bomb Tripoli" are crude nonsense.

[Cormac]

It is true though. The reason we see photos of reasonably westernised scenes in North African and Middle Eastern Countries about 60 yeats ago was because they did have very strong democratic and secular movements. As these were systematically suppressed under the jackboot of Western puppets, it created great disillusionment and created a vacuum ready made for Islamist extremists who have an attractive combination of "Faith and Fatherland" - ready made for successful recruiting.

What the....?

Dude -- prove your case.

I'll start. Beirut. 40 years ago+ it was the Paris of the Middle East. It wasn't "western suppression" that destroyed it. It was Islam and the wars to drive out Christians and Jews from Lebanon. They succeeded. Lebanon was once majority Christian. Now Christians are a small minority. And, we all know what happened to Beirut.

And, you can feel free to identify the "strong secular and democratic movements" in arab Muslim countries...lol.... I'll wait.

The history of North Africa, Arabia, and "Persia" since the Ottoman Empire began to crumble is a classic "Great Game" story in which the major powers have competed for control. In the pre-oil days, control of the Panama Canal, and since oil, control of the resource.

Control was easiest to establish through a series of puppet regimes and the deliberate suppression of entities such as a unified Arab state,(as had been promised in return for Arab support against Germany and the Ottomans). Then events like the creation of Israeland the betrayal by Britain of the Palestinians, the overthrow of (democratic and pro-American) Iran on behalf of Gulf Oil - a British planned but US executed coup which installed the despotic Shah. This by the way led directly to the rise of radical Islam in Iran as the people turned to the Islamic Revolution.

Because the West more or less was the number one foreign "ally" for despotic regimes it is the focus of radical Islam.

We've even been caught on the hop by finding ourselves on the wrong side in the so-called Arab Spring.

People in the region are very conscious of how we have deliberately stood against their democratic rights, and the USA as the lead country gets most of the blame.

In a culture where religiosity is high, and apostacy is rare and deadly, and democracy has been heavily discredited the opening is ripe for radical Islamism to attract mass support, which it does. It will continue to do so no matter how long the War on Terror continues. So American boys and girls are being sent to die in an unwinnable war which in reality is a thin veneer to cover the latest flavour of resource war in that hemisphere.

[Cormac]

Incidentally, don't take from my comments that I don't think these guys should not be opposed militarily.

However, because it will not deal with root causes, it cannot succeed.

You know what the root causes are? Better go let Obama know....

About 1200 years, but primarily the last 125 years of Western suppression of independence and democracy in the whole region from Afghanistan to Morocco.

Great. Now that we know that we can succeed.



But, come on.... 1200 years? 125 years of Western suppression?

In the 1880s, that entire area you're referring to was the Ottoman Empire. Western Suppression?

The Ottoman Empire was solidly in control of North Africa, Turkey, the Holy Land, Arabia, and out to the 'stans from at least 1453 (fall of Constantinople) until the end of World War 1.

Before that, there was the Byzantine Empire, which struggled against 800 years of Muslim invasions and onslaughts, until it fell.

After World War 1, the League of Nations created the French and British Mandates for Palestine to maintain peace after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Over the ensuing few decades, various countries were formed out of those Mandates -- Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, etc. All the countries became independent.

So - how was any of that "western suppression?"

The 1200 years is roughly the length of time they would perceive that we've had conflict. It is unreasonable, as in that time our geography, our politics, and even our entire culture has changed.

The 125 years is roughly the time period since Britain began to plot against the Berlin to Bagdhad railway. But in fact, Europe had long been engaged in the region. For example, Britain fought Napoleonic France for control of Egypt.