I think that putting things in perspectve is something both the Bushites and many Arabs need to learn how to do.
I think that third thing there is all-important.
On the OP…
Valuable lessons for the denizens of the Middle East…
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Never, never EVER give the Americans time to prepare for battle. Saddam would have been MUCH better off just throwing his army at American bases in Kuwait and SA as early as possible. Giving the US military time to prepare and choose the terms of engagement means losing quick and dirty.
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Play to your strengths. Countries in the ME are militarily weak regardless of opportunity. However, some are economically powerful. Using that will be more effective than any amount of sword-waving (though not as good for PR purposes).
- Get nukes.
- Brag that you have nukes.
Emm , depends , something like 50 mil people died in WW2. Since we were talkin bout the middle east and their learning experience , I dont see how the brown people comes into it , but so be it.
Something you may want to concider is that I am not attributing blame, that is more of a judicial thing , than it is a military thing. Your precious Middle eastern protaganists took off the gloves, and attacked the towers , being saudis primarily. Bali was bombed , those being indonesian , thailand had some sort of mini rebellion.
The common denominator of all these incidents , were the protaganists being muslim
Militarily an area that vast , has to have a benign population before an occupation is doable. So yes a program of nuclear weapons detonations would be the most benificial , in terms of cost. Giving the inhabitants 12 hours to vacate the area , would provide the nessary sytemic shock.
Other than me having a Colonel Flagg moment ,I fail to see what the point is for mentioning the japanese. Is it possible that all you want to do is create an aura of hysteria regarding this ?
Sure boss , now who is still taking hostages ? Its nice to say that it was a historical practice ,by anyone of note , however only one of those groups is still taking hostages to this day ,and its not the romans
I knew I had the ball park right
Its actually an idea , Nasser was just the first person to really get the ball rolling, while it would not be called the UAR anymore , an islamic nation is on the agenda for most of the wahabi groups, regardless of what the leadership of those individual nations wanted.
Thats nice , I just dont believe you
No , it was just after 9/11 and various arab/muslim/whatever newspapers , it was a common statement , from now empowered nationalities
Thats nice , enjoy your life
Declan
Declan, it’s like trying to nail shit to a wall with you. You make ridiculously incorrect statements and then attempt to sail on as if nothing as happened.
So why haven’t we invaded Saudi Arabia? Why not Indonesia? Why not Thailand? Because these countries had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 or other terrorist attacks, apart from some terrorists being Saudi, Indonesian or Thai nationals. There isn’t even this link with Iraq.
When you’re talking about the nuclear bombing and subesequent occupation of an entire area (the Middle East? ME and North Africa?), we’re already in hysteria territory. When we’re talking about deliberately slaughtering unrelated civilians, it might as well be the Japanese for all they have to do with 9/11. Think carefully - do you really want to be advocating genocide?
You lied and said it was a Muslim creation, I proved you were wrong, you attempt to laugh it off. This is pathetic rhetoric and it’s not winning you any argument.
Your comment that only one group is still taking hostages is, once again, incredibly stupid. When you don’t know what you’re talking about, just keep quiet. Stating something incorrect when you haven’t bothered to find out whether it’s true is lying. Many modern groups have taken and still take hostages. How about FARC in Colombia? The SLA in the US? The IRA in the Northern Ireland conflict? If it’s only Muslims who are taking hostages today, why’s it called the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, rather than the ‘Beirut Syndrome’?
No, you were off by a couple of centuries and you nominated a country that didn’t exist till the 20th century.
Nasser was not an Islamist, he was an Arab nationalist. He did not believe in government by Islam, he believed in a form of benevolent socialist dictatorship. He was a great enemy of the Islamists, as they were his main competition for ‘hearts and minds’ in Egypt and in the broader Arab world. It has been argued that Islamism was backed by the US and the West in general as it provided a counterbalance to Nasser’s brand of nationalism based on Arab ethnicity. The UAR was based on Nasser’s ideas and had absolutely nothing to do with Islamism.
Many Islamist groups do want nations governed by Islam, but note that Wahhabism is a subset of Islamism. Thus Jama’a Islamiyya in Indonesia is not Wahhabist, for example. Saying ‘the wahabi groups’ is incorrect.
That’s nice, but I have the consensus of scholarship on my side here. I’m the one coming up with the arguments and the evidence here. Here’s a suggestion - if you have a wild-ass generalisation to make about all Arabs / all Muslims / whoever the hell you think you’re talking about, why don’t you present some kind of evidence? Even an appeal to authority might be handy.
“Now empowered nationalities”? And you’re going to have to be more specific than arab/muslim/whatever. Remember, there’s a big difference between the peoples of the Middle East - they don’t all share the same beliefs and priorities. Some random guy in Iraq getting raped with a chemical light /= Usama bin Ladin.
An Islamic nation, or a pan-Arab nation? That is, would the Iranians and other non-Arab Muslims further east be included or not?
I’m not sure if you’re just taking a crack at Declan’s argument, but I’ll try to answer the question factually. Declan talks about Nasser and the UAR, Islamic groups and Wahhabis. Needless to say, the three have different motives.
Nasser wanted a pan-Arab nation, a secular one with various religions represented. A radical Islamist with a Sunni (and especially a Wahhabi) background would want a state ruled by the law of God (as interpreted by Sunni scholars) and composed of all states once owned by ‘real’ Muslims. While they wouldn’t want the Iranians, being Shiites, they would want Iran itself. Various other Islamist groups would have various motives and aims regarding an Islamic state.
I find myself wishing Nasser had got his way. If all the Arabs were united in a single secular state along the lines of the Turkish Republic, that would make the world a bit more stable . . . wouldn’t it?
(Of course, a united Arabia could squash Israel like a bug if it wanted to . . .)
I would say that the Arab world has learned that the US will do anything to get control of more of the world’s oil reserves. Even fight a war. What irritates me is that the US government doesn’t just come out and say it. They say that they are doing this to fight terrorism and to find WOMD. BS. That is mearly the justification. GWB is an oil man, and his family’s and many of his friend’s wealth is tied up in oil. I’ve heard from a few contacts that work with his cousin on oil marketing issues that the Bushs’ own oilfields in the middle east. (I haven’t searched for an independant cite for this, but the logic makes sense)
The US certainly didn’t want a large, stable Arab federation / centralised state, based on semi-socialist principles, allied with other Arab nationalist groups in Palestine or Saudi Arabia and capable of militarily crushing US allies in the region, especially Israel. That’s why, in the bizarre ‘enemy of my enemy’ logic of global strategy, the US backed some Islamist groups against the Arab nationalists. This has obviously come back to bite them in the ass big-time.
Note that such a federation / centralised state, being secular and semi-socialist, wouldn’t be acceptable to the Islamists either. However, such a state might be able to leach a great deal of ‘man on the street’ support from Islamist groups, leaving only a hard core of nutjobs.
The ending of the film Lawrence of Arabia implies that, if Lawrence had had his way, at the end of WWI, all Arab lands east of Egypt would have been united under the rule of Prince Faisal (who ultimately did become a king, but only of Iraq). Is there any truth to this?
I think we’re heading a bit into GQ territory here, BrainGlutton.
The quick answer is that Lawrence and elements in the British government did want to establish a large Arab state in the Arabian peninsula, though “everything east of Egypt” is a bit too broad. There were established and British-recognised leaders around the Gulf, for example. TE Lawrence was a personal friend of Faisal bin Hussein, and saw him through rose-coloured glasses, as the hope of the Arab world. The British government perhaps thought that they could establish a large nation under their control. However, the British government, in the end, were more cynical than Lawrence, and events overwhelmed all their plans anyway.
Why did Faisal look so good to the Brits? Well, Faisal was of the Banu Hashim, the family / clan of the Prophet Muhammad, and son of Hussain bin Ali, self-proclaimed leader of the Hejaz, the Muslim holy land around Mecca and Medina. They may have overestimated his appeal, but the Brits perhaps favoured the idea of royalty with a long pedigree over any form of democracy.
For a few months after WW1, Faisal was king of an ill-defined nation of ‘Greater Syria’. However, this area was given to the French as a mandate in 1920, so Faisal was thrown out. The Brits then installed him in Iraq, as you say, his brother Abdullah as amir, then king, of Transjordan (now Jordan), and his father Hussain was supported as leader / king of the Hejaz. In 1924, bin Sa’ud threw Hussain out of the Hejaz, and in 1958 the last king of Iraq was killed in a revolution.
I’d amend that slightly - the British were handed a fait accompli after Abdullah and a sizeable number of traditional Bedouin supporters moved into the area in force ( originally as armed support for Faisal in Syria, who seemed to have had some genuine popular support there ). The Brits decided that it would be more trouble to eject them than it was worth, especially after the Syrian mess, and made the best of the situation.
For the next few decades into the mid-1950’s, the Hashemite alliance of Jordan and Iraq was, later in rivalry with the triple alliance of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, the most formidable political power in the Arab world, with the best army ( Jordan’s ), detente with Turkey, and, after WW II, serious claims on Syria, Lebanon and Palestine/Israel ( and they pursued all three for a time ). In at least one historian’s view, Egypt’s worst nightmare in 1948 wasn’t an independent Israel - it was an allied Hashemite monarchy(s) stretching from the Lebanese coast to the Gulf.
- Tamerlane
Now, I had thought that Abdullah’s Bedouin troops were organised and trained by the Brits from the start. Or was the creation of the Transjordanian Arab Legion a response to the presence of disorganised forces commanded by Abdullah in the Transjordan area?
We are SO far off topic.
Sorry for the late reply , puter got scragged with a storm we had
Why , lets take em in order
Saudi Arabia is a debtor nation with large reserves of petroleum that the sale of services their debts. Should the price of oil drop below a certain point , they run the risk of a civil war. At the moment , the succession of power is still uncertain , in short they can be dealt with through economic measures, with out having to invade. American forces stationed both in Iraq and Kuwait , can also be brought to bear, mostly in the form of special forces.
Indonesia , is dealing with their homegrown terrorists, as they currently several in custody awaiting execution. Their government seems to get it.
Thailand is an ally , who has put down their insurgency , so invading them is out of the question totally.
I take it the use of nuclear weapons , brings about hysterical thoughts from you , so I shall refrain from mentioning it , in future.
Busted I guess , what more can I say. But lying was not the intent.
Nice how you mention modern, while the hostage taking went back in history , the use of airline hijackings in the early seventies , plus the iranians in the late seventies , provided a blue print for how dispossessed groups could achieve if nothing else , publicity.
IF you could fire off one cite , for just the IRA , I would be grateful , cause I doubt they took any hostages at all.
http://www.sniggle.net/stock.php
You can probably find other cites for stockholm syndrome, if this one is not to your liking, but it appears that it was a media creation , rather than an actual dotoral thesis , which I assumed that it originally was.
If I look hard enough, there probably will be an actual Beirut syndrome.
Ottoman empire , with some shrunken borders , is actually todays Turkey is it not ? Besides turkey proper, it also included armenia and parts of todays Iraq. The political entity has changed , but it was the turks.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/OTTOMAN/ORIGIN.HTM
I think Nasser would have been what ever he needed to be , for his dream to take off, however I would agree with you on the balkanization of the arab world , by the western powers, but would suggest that you look more to the British , than to the Americans , as they were the ones humiliated by the suez crisis.
For the most part , a cohesive functional arab super state , controlling vast reserves of oil , openly hostile to Israel , and beligerent enough to impose a boycott on the sale of oil to the US , would have been an incentive to keep the region fragmented.
Okay you got me on the franchise thing , as you can imagine , to me they are all the same , however since this is about fighting ignorance on the message board , I can also learn things.
If you really want to educate me , fire off a couple of cites ,with average , middle class, etc muslims or arabs , or any other non functional nationality that you care to mention , condemming the terrorist activities , from sept 12 /01 to say sometime 03.
I am gonna exclude any need for someone condemming Terrorists regarding Israel , cause I doubt you would find more than a handful. Just the Attack on the towers would suffice.
Cause I am saddened to say , I doubt you will find any and thats the part that condemmed that region.
Declan
My guess would be pan-arab, but with out the persians. It would be by nature semi-islamic , but at some point in the future would probably shift over to a more secular body.
Declan
Bingo. Abdullah suddenly appeared in Amman in 1921 with a few hundred armed Bedouin, claiming he was there “for a change of air” to cure his jaundice. But it was apparent he was angling to attack/raid French-occupied Syria. Churchill essentially bought him off to prevent any further spread of hostilities ( the Briish actually feared a counterattack into British Palestine from French Syria ). After Lawrence persuaded Churchill that Abdullah would be easily shifted in time and was an ideal agent ( moderate and with his own forces, but not strong enough to get excessively uppity ), he was granted a six-month governorship and a subsidy to help bring order to the area. However he eventually became more entrenched ( he harbored continuing aspirations for Syria ). His early failure to establish order himself ( whether deliberately or through weakness - he may have had a hand or at least turned a blind eye to the attempted assassination of the French governor of Syria ), led to Colonel Peake whipping together the Arab Legion.
He certainly became an outwardly compliant vassal quickly enough and the British later had to intervene directly to stave off a major Saudi thrust and possibly save his ass. But his own enterprise/luck landed him there in the first place.
Eh, it happens :).
- Tamerlane
Declan, I’m not really interested in engaging in this particular conversation and I don’t feel inclined to search the board right now myself, but this topic has been broached numerous times on the SDMB and numerous cites for Muslim disapproval of the 9//11 attack have been posted before. The friggin’ spiritual leader of Hezbollah condemned the attacks. Heck here’s a quick google cite to start, with numerous links:
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
- Tamerlane
Okay, that pretty much answers my question. Lawrence of Arabia implies, without clearly stating, that the idealistic young Lawrence wanted a united, independent Arabia but the older and more Machiavellian leaders in the British government scuttled the idea on divide-and-rule principles. What you both seem to be saying is that the Brits were indeed amenable to the idea of an Arab state encompassing, at the least, what are now Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (leaving out the question of Palestine – my understanding is that the Brits made incompatible promises to the Arabs and the Zionists, and, when the time came to choose, they decided to screw the Arabs); but the French messed up that idea by occupying Syria, and the Arabs themselves produced rivals for leadership, such as ibn Sa’ud.
Relating this to the OP – “What has the Arab world learned from the Iraq debacle” – is it possible that the Arabs have learned, or will learn, that secular pan-Arabism is an idea that might make them stronger as against the West?
Oh, yeah. I kind of wish they had talked with a few people who actually worked over in the ME as to what would happen after they kicked Saddam out.
It also seems that people are easily swayed in their opinions in the ME. When the war first started everyone was against it. Once people saw images of Iraqis dancing in the street when Saddam was ‘officially’ toppled, they were all for it. Now they are against it again. As I’ve said before, critical thinking skills that we assume everyone has in the west are a product of our school system and our culture. It is not common in the ME. People do things by rote for the most part.
One contention with your post. Arrogance is something that the culture accepts and admires. People in power can be arrogant. It is one of the perks. I’ve never heard anyone say that they hated Americans because of arrogance. Actually, from the discussions I’ve had with Yemenies, none of them say they hate Americans. They admire their freedoms, but as has been suggested earlier, they don’t understand why they support Israel, or do some of the other things they do. Admittedly, the people I talk to are ones who have been educated for the most part outside of Yemen. One of the guys from the warehouse, named Mohammed, called me a couple of months ago. I had not met him at that point before. As he talks to me, I stop him and ask him his name again. He tells me, but I don’t believe him. We have a good laugh because his accent is pure Texan where he was educated. One thing I can say, at least about Yemenis, is that they have a great sense of humour.