If Saddam was still in power, would things be more stable in the Middle East/less terrorism?

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agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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I agree, but I'm trying to show that it isn't so easy to just install democracy in a middle-eastern country, like it was in Europe after WW2 where fully functional nation states already existed for a long time, and the Catholic/Protestant schism was fought out even way before that, while the Sunni/Shia schism will probably never end, because Islam is a little less forgiving than Christianity.

Now that documentary also shows how al-Zarqawi was a lowlife thug from Jordania who went to Afghanistan but was turned down by OBL who wanted nothing to do with him. Then he started a small training camp in N-Iraq. And that camp was used to link Saddam to AQ. Al-Zarqawi's name was mentioned in the UN main room, catapulting him to terrorist stardom. Instead of just telling Saddam the location so he could take care of it like he used too.

Thinking about things like this could make a man paranoid. Option 1: Bush wanted to convince the UN to give him a mandate and was actually sincere in his efforts to install democracy. Option 2: There is someone behind this, military-industrial-complex? Goldman Sachs? War aint too bad for some people's economy.

Even then, Saddam would have died eventually. Or there might have been a revolution leading to civil war like in so many M-E countries right now. It's also weird how all these refugees lived for years in Turkey, where there is no war, and then suddenly decided to come to Europe. Mostly non-Syrian anyway, and it's a long walk from Afghanistan or Pakistan. Anyway, I would look into donators to both parties. Never Judge a book by the cover either, but Pence looks like one of those American guys the world could use. Only a small subset of Catholics like little boys, and it's mostly because their rules make them a bit frustrated. So maybe it's a good thing vicars can marry.

Btw, why aren't you a bit more angry about the illegal war that Hillary started in Libia?

Shia/sunni rift goes back a ways, not unlike the catholic/protestant divide that christianity only grew out of through nationalism. When the british created iraq they were exploiting said rift to control the country, and Saddam represented said nationalism. So once again the west thwarts progress in the region, even if this time more through incompetence than design.

Saddam was america's buddy in the region until he became disobedient and therefore had to pay for that crime (along with the iraqi people through econ sanctions). That trumped any other consideration.
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
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Shia/sunni rift goes back a ways, not unlike the catholic/protestant divide that christianity only grew out of through nationalism. When the british created iraq they were exploiting said rift to control the country, and Saddam represented said nationalism. So once again the west thwarts progress in the region, even if this time more through incompetence than design.

Shia/Sunni rift goes back a ways...
British imperialism exploited this...
Its the West's fault that the country is so behind!

Shia and Sunni have not liked each other for hundreds of years. If you are talking about the British, that only really started post WWI. The Arab world was not doing great well before that time. We can thank Khan for destroying the Middle east. The British had a very short influence in the region compared to the hundreds of years of problems before that. Pre British, there was little to no progress, so to say the West thwarted progress is dumb.


Saddam was america's buddy in the region until he became disobedient and therefore had to pay for that crime (along with the iraqi people through econ sanctions). That trumped any other consideration.

No. The US did not punish him for his disobedience. The reason the US did nothing before was because he was being obedient, once he stopped, they did not have the excuse to stay out. He was a horrible person who did horrible things.

Also, going into Iraq was not about punishments. G.W. had a grad idea that if he could establish a stronghold for democracy in the Middle East, that people would see how super cool it was and want it too. Dumb fuck idea sure, but it was not about punishment.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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Shia/Sunni rift goes back a ways...
British imperialism exploited this...
Its the West's fault that the country is so behind!

Shia and Sunni have not liked each other for hundreds of years. If you are talking about the British, that only really started post WWI. The Arab world was not doing great well before that time. We can thank Khan for destroying the Middle east. The British had a very short influence in the region compared to the hundreds of years of problems before that. Pre British, there was little to no progress, so to say the West thwarted progress is dumb.

The west is also responsible for toppling various other modernizing democratic/secular regimes & movements in the region. I made a list in another thread but it's a pointless exercise since knowledge doesn't apply to the sort of people on other side of this issue.

No. The US did not punish him for his disobedience. The reason the US did nothing before was because he was being obedient, once he stopped, they did not have the excuse to stay out. He was a horrible person who did horrible things.
Now that you bring it up, they also have rather terrible thinking skills.

Also, going into Iraq was not about punishments. G.W. had a grad idea that if he could establish a stronghold for democracy in the Middle East, that people would see how super cool it was and want it too. Dumb fuck idea sure, but it was not about punishment.

No, the neocon ideologues had that idea. GW is more like that kid in school who gets into trouble following the wrong crowd.
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
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No, the neocon ideologues had that idea. GW is more like that kid in school who gets into trouble following the wrong crowd.

Disagree. Iraq was all about GW Bush getting payback for his daddy. It really was. GW has some daddy issues to work through...
 

realibrad

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
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The west is also responsible for toppling various other modernizing democratic/secular regimes & movements in the region. I made a list in another thread but it's a pointless exercise since knowledge doesn't apply to the sort of people on other side of this issue.

I would be interested to see that list. What thread did you post it in?

Also, I love how you can dismiss any argument by dismissing the person. It makes explaining your position and how its right and theirs wrong much easier.


Now that you bring it up, they also have rather terrible thinking skills.

Sure.


No, the neocon ideologues had that idea. GW is more like that kid in school who gets into trouble following the wrong crowd.

GW was the president of the US. He damn well is more responsible than a kid who got caught up in the wrong crowd. The steps to get to the invasion of Iraq started before him, but he is responsible for the steps he took no doubt. Made the world a far worse place for a very long time.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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I would be interested to see that list. What thread did you post it in?

Also, I love how you can dismiss any argument by dismissing the person. It makes explaining your position and how its right and theirs wrong much easier.
You can look for it using the function of this forum with the intersection of my username and various regimes in the regions. Probably one that I didn't bring up was afghanistan, where the soviets were arguably just as much at fault, which I'm charitably not including in "the west" in part because they're not too christian.

It's best to dismiss people who're the obvious weak link of any conversation when one has no desire to be a co-moron. You can look up what that means, too.

For example, I could explain in detail why this counterargument over obedience doesn't even make semantic sense, but even you can see that's never going to get anywhere.

GW was the president of the US. He damn well is more responsible than a kid who got caught up in the wrong crowd. The steps to get to the invasion of Iraq started before him, but he is responsible for the steps he took no doubt. Made the world a far worse place for a very long time.

Responsibility doesn't matter much when he couldn't have been the decider without quite a bit of help.
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
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It will be interesting to see if Hillary really does taken down Assad. The replacements looking pretty damn frightening. Is there a non-terrorist group even fighting for a piece of the pie any more?

This crapfest is the fruit of GW. We are making it worse by preventing any party from actually winning the war. We are taking down one of the strongest parties and Hillary is threatening to take down the other. We are supporting parties that are actively hostile to Turkey and fomenting civil war in that country. WE ARE FUNDING ENEMIES OF OUR SUPPOSED ALLY TURKEY RIGHT NOW, enemies that could destabilize Turkey and send it down the same road as Syria.


0*vIrNAQr3V44WTxeI.jpg
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
12,203
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Disagree. Iraq was all about GW Bush getting payback for his daddy. It really was. GW has some daddy issues to work through...

You can of course postulate this without much evidence, but the bigger picture is that the people influencing him had this premeditated; we know because they wrote out their plan beforehand in some detail so it's not just rationalization after the fact.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
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Stable? No.

Less (stereotypical) terrorism in the form of ragtag knuckleheads running around executing men, women and children in public squares, lot of people dying, and shit blowing up here and there? Possibly.

Less terrorism in the form of men, women and children disappearing... maybe or maybe not to be found in mass graves later on, lots of people dying, state-sponsored knuckleheads in expensive suits and cars driving around raping/pillaging, shit blowing up here and there?

Not at all.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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Stable? No.

Less (stereotypical) terrorism in the form of ragtag knuckleheads running around executing men, women and children in public squares, lot of people dying, and shit blowing up here and there? Possibly.

Less terrorism in the form of men, women and children disappearing... maybe or maybe not to be found in mass graves later on, lots of people dying, state-sponsored knuckleheads in expensive suits and cars driving around raping/pillaging, shit blowing up here and there?

Not at all.

It's pretty obvious you don't know anything about how much the situation in iraq has deteriorated since the war other than what you read on right wing media, but that won't stop you from mouthing off about it.
 

SmilingBhudda

Member
Aug 1, 2016
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Question, would the Arab spring have happened if Iraq was left intact?

It started when a fruit seller in Tunesia set himself on fire, after government officials confiscated his goods for selling without a permit. Which was probably just the regular kind of corruption: want to sell your fruit? pay us some money. I don't hope you are paranoid enough to see the work of the CIA/Mossad/MB behind that. So yeah, why not.
 

1prophet

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Indeed. Once ISIS/Assad are ousted, then the Kurds and Turkey can have it out. Our foreign policy leaders appear completely incapable of learning. I do believe it has something to do with the flow of money from Saudi Arabia. It is frankly chilling that our actions in the Middle East seem to be wholly determined by an Islamic country whose citizenry are funding terrorism and exporting it throughout the world. It is a sick and diseased relationship that is a slow poison to our national interests.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...allies-fighting-syria-islamic-state/89584748/

There is an unwritten agreement between the Saudi Monarchy and the Saudi religious leaders, keep the petrol dollars flowing into the mosque coffers and don't interfere with it being used to spread their version of Islam worldwide, and in return they let the royalty play their "game of thrones" with all the pleasures of the Western hedonistic lifestyle many of them enjoy while pretending to be pious Muslims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmESS8Mpyoc
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
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Stable? No.

Less (stereotypical) terrorism in the form of ragtag knuckleheads running around executing men, women and children in public squares, lot of people dying, and shit blowing up here and there? Possibly.

Less terrorism in the form of men, women and children disappearing... maybe or maybe not to be found in mass graves later on, lots of people dying, state-sponsored knuckleheads in expensive suits and cars driving around raping/pillaging, shit blowing up here and there?

Not at all.

Please. There weren't millions of refugees fleeing the violence prior to the invasion of Iraq. Which isn't to claim that the Iraqi & Syrian regimes were "Good Government" but merely superior to chaos.
 

bradly1101

Diamond Member
May 5, 2013
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www.bradlygsmith.org
That was the seminal event of The Arab Spring, a rosy phrase for absolute chaos. Dictators fell, and that's good, but huge vacuums were created, seemingly to be filled by everyone with a weapon who wants control - a lot of people/rebels/terrorists. "Our" dictators are still there though, trying to fill the void with weapons, death, and the destruction of cities and infrastructure, like what we are supporting in Yemen with the Saudis.

Why are we helping to cause this huge refugee crisis and starvation and homelessness.

ZRTHFdU.jpg


This child from Yemen is the result of being starved out by the Saudis with our weapons. He reminds me of photographs of children I've seen in Auschwitz.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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SmilingBhudda

Member
Aug 1, 2016
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Hahaha, because arabs are drug addicts, and those subhumans have their subhuman way of dealing with it.

People familiar with white supremacy against blacks in the US can tell where this comes from, and where it's going. Just a head up this isn't doing your movement any favors.

Well, it's only subhuman I suppose. I hear Duterte is making good progress though.

But there were drug addicts under Saddam too, there are drug addicts in Iran and the Saudi's snort their coke in Dubai. That's all beside the point, because I just answered your question: yes, I'm aware of the deterioriation of the situation in Iraq, because I read left, right and center wing media.

And that's why I think the best option for a middle-eastern country is a dictator, backed by the West (or Russia, or China if you prefer), so I guess we at least agree on that. Because you can't have democracy in an islamic country, it's simply haram. And drugs are haram too, but the caliphate you promote won't solve that, as shown by the failure of Hamas to adress the issue.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
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Well, it's only subhuman I suppose. I hear Duterte is making good progress though.

But there were drug addicts under Saddam too, there are drug addicts in Iran and the Saudi's snort their coke in Dubai. That's all beside the point, because I just answered your question: yes, I'm aware of the deterioriation of the situation in Iraq, because I read left, right and center wing media.

And that's why I think the best option for a middle-eastern country is a dictator, backed by the West (or Russia, or China if you prefer), so I guess we at least agree on that. Because you can't have democracy in an islamic country, it's simply haram. And drugs are haram too, but the caliphate you promote won't solve that, as shown by the failure of Hamas to adress the issue.

That's what the dutch thought about their colonies, too, and here we are with the Vlaams Belang & friends continuing that legacy.
 

SmilingBhudda

Member
Aug 1, 2016
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Don't let the Belgians hear that. We are going a bit offtopic now, but why not: After WW2, Dutch government wanted to suppress the Indonesian independence movement and restore it as a colony, but the US intervened and forced the Dutch to give Indonesia independence (probably to prevent communists from taking over).

Some 50.000 to a 100.000 Indonesians were killed in the independence war. After that there was chaos called the Bersiap in which tens of thousands of people died, then after the independence a million or so communists were killed by Sukarno, who was replaced by Suharto, one of the most corrupt leaders ever. In the meantime muslims killed 100.000's of Christians in East-Timor. It's rumored some older Indonesian folks still long back to the days the Dutch governed Indonesia. Most of them live here in Holland though.

Anyway, nowadays Indonesia is turning more and more into a fundamentalist muslim nation, with all the benefits that peaceful religion has to society. Not sure why you want to keep hearing my history lessons, because I don't think that turning Holland (or the US) into Indonesia would make up for any wrongdoings the Dutch have commited. And you also seem to forget that being a colony is not all about being exploited. Most Indonesians would probably agree that it is preferable to live in a nation state with roads, sewers, electricity and things like that.
 
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agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
12,203
1,242
86
Don't let the Belgians hear that. We are going a bit offtopic now, but why not: After WW2, Dutch government wanted to suppress the Indonesian independence movement and restore it as a colony, but the US intervened and forced the Dutch to give Indonesia independence (probably to prevent communists from taking over).

Some 50.000 to a 100.000 Indonesians were killed in the independence war. After that there was chaos called the Bersiap in which tens of thousands of people died, then after the independence a million or so communists were killed by Sukarno, who was replaced by Suharto, one of the most corrupt leaders ever. In the meantime muslims killed 100.000's of Christians in East-Timor. It's rumored some older Indonesian folks still long back to the days the Dutch governed Indonesia. Most of them live here in Holland though.

Anyway, nowadays Indonesia is turning more and more into a fundamentalist muslim nation, with all the benefits that peaceful religion has to society. Not sure why you want to keep hearing my history lessons, because I don't think that turning Holland (or the US) into Indonesia would make up for any wrongdoings the Dutch have commited. And you also seem to forget that being a colony is not all about being exploited. Most Indonesians would probably agree that it is preferable to live in a nation state with roads, sewers, electricity and things like that.

Indonesia was a US client under suharto and he was considered easier to deal with for oil reserves in east timor than whatever possible independent government. It's a pretty hard choice between that and the Dutch (Congo).

Of course none of this is so bad if you're of the superior white democratic race.
 

SmilingBhudda

Member
Aug 1, 2016
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Indonesia was a US client under suharto and he was considered easier to deal with for oil reserves in east timor than whatever possible independent government. It's a pretty hard choice between that and the Dutch (Congo).

Of course none of this is so bad if you're of the superior white democratic race.

Ok, ok, white people bad. So what is your solution? White people dead?

What you say about oil makes not much sense though. We are actually a people that is very easy to deal with when it comes to trading. You might make a slightly smaller profit but we are very dependable. I'll stick to the common cold war imperialism for now, which is not a bad thing as such, because communism doesn't always work out too well. The problem with East-Timor is that it was colonized by catholic Portugese, then taken by islamic Indonesians, raped and pillaged, and then made into an independent christian state by the UN, which is very haram.

And I see what you mean now, genetic similarity between Dutch and Belgian people, Dutch people guilty for Congo too, and India, Vietnam, Americas, WW1 and 2, nazism, communism, cold war, war on drugs, war on terror, global warming, and especially the situation in the M-E which has nothing to do at all with their primitive warrior-religion. And apartheid ofcourse, an actual Dutch word. Good thing slavery was invented by brown people, or I might have just killed myself. That, or you really don't know the difference between the Netherlands and Belgium.
 
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