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Originally Posted by Neuling
Frankly, if the West had not supported Arab dictators for decades, people would not be so pissed at all things from the West, including what we like to think of as democracy.
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That's incredibly insightful, not to mention completely accurate.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
LOL. Blame the United States.
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You deserve blame, since you have continually interfered with those countries politically, economically and socially for decades, actually about 90 years.
You created the Monster that you cannot now control.
You have only yourself and your incredibly short-sighted foreign policy to blame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by woodworkingmenace
When you have a culture such as in the Middle East, they will ultimately go for a Theorcracy, instead of Democracy.
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But you created that through continual interference in those countries politically, economically and socially.
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Originally Posted by Moth
I think you are on to something, but only to a limited extent.
Regarding Egypt, Mubarek took over for Sadat who took over for Nasser. Nasser is the one who overthrew the British puppet, King Farouk. Nasser was then very Pro-Soviet, as was Sadat at first.
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No. Totally WRONG.
Nasser was part of the non-Aligned Movement, just like India, and just like India, Egypt incurred the wrath of the US because Egypt refused to choose sides.
Nasser also tried to unite the Muslim countries (except Iran) under one flag in the brief United Arab Republic (UAR).
That angered the US even more, because those uppity Arabs might get the bizarre idea that they actually own the oil coming out of the ground and that they should share the profits 50-50 instead of getting nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Casper in Dallas
WE? You mean those that back tyrants and dictators, and oppose the right of People of a Nation to determine their own future. I am no way part of that WE you speak of...
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Of course you are. You've been backing dictators for decades.
I guess it's like eating potato chips. You just can't stop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moth
The West supported Sadat and Mubarek because they were a breath of fresh air after Nasser.
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You got it backwards. Nasser was the innovator; the forward thinker.
Nasser had the guts to tell the US to suck snot, because he wasn't going to kiss US ass.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moth
Yes, the West mostly cares about oil. Oil is important. However, I do not think we would have any objection if Saudi Arabia turned into Norway overnight.
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Um, then you should have guided Saudi Arabia in that regard, instead of setting up a police state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moth
Most of the oil states- Saudi Arabia, Algeria, (Khadaffi's) Libya, (Saddam's) Iraq, etc are or were run by goons who were not placed their by the West and indeed are fairly antagonistic towards the West. Saudi Arabia in particular, was not created by the Brits or the French. It was created organically by its people and embodies their values. The West is not suppressing some kind of Democratic movement there.
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Uh, wut?
Are you trapped in some alternate universe or something?
You set up every freaking one of those dictators.
You (and the damned Brits) created Kuwait out of nothingness. You put a freaking member of the Saud Tribe from Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim, in charge of Shi'a majority Iraq, specifically to wit: King Faisal.
You subsequently murdered Faisal in cold blood and replaced him with General Qasim, whom you subsequently murdered in cold blood, and that created a vacuum for the Baathist Party and you supported Saddam Hussein and kept him in power.
You put Ghaddafi in power. You protected Ghaddafi from three different coup attempts. You then tried to murder Ghaddafi in cold blood by shooting down his private plane flying in Italian air space, but instead you missed and shot down an Italian airliner murdering some 80+ passengers in cold blood.
You put the Sauds in power in Saudi Arabia. Your tax dollars set up the secret police apparatus that wrongfully imprisons people, tortures them, and then murders them.
You put the Shah in power after you failed in three attempts to murder Prime Minister Massadeq. Your tax dollars set up the SAVAK. Your tax dollars trained the SAVAK. Your tax dollars equipped the SAVAK. And the SAVAK wrongfully imprisoned, tortured and murdered dissidents.
You put Abdullah in power in Jordan, and now his idiot son is running the show.
Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar, you set up all those governments with dictators.
And then talking out of both sides of your neck about "Freedom and Democracy" you deny them the very rights you wave about with your flag.
Look at the Muslim countries that are democratic and the ones that aren't. The striking difference is that the ones that are democratic don't have oil or a single cash crop.
For the ones that have oil, the governments in power use the oil revenues to fund their security apparatus, you know, the secret police, the domestic spying and intelligence agencies etc.
The exception, is Jordan. Jordan has no oil, but one-sixth of Jordan's GDP is US foreign aid money, which Abdullah II dumps into his security apparatus to remain in power. What's he do? Dissolves parliament and starts issuing decrees. What a great dictator. Here's a man who's in a military officer uniform on Monday, wearing an Italian business suit on Tuesday, decked out in grunge clothing drinking cappuccino in a cafe on Thursday, and running around dressed like a pious sheik on Friday.
So in those countries, the press is government controlled, so are the TV and radio, all opposition is squelched, opposition political parties are outlawed, when they are allowed, the often aren't allowed to run in elections, so where's the only safe place to go to discuss politics and air your grievances about the failures of the government?
The mosques. They can't close the mosques any more than they can close churches in the US. Even the communist countries didn't close the churches.
So what would happen in the US if there was a dictatorship and you could not express dissent?
You'd end up with Radical Christianity.
You all deserve a dictatorship after the millions of people you've oppressed with your puppet dictators. Perhaps that is your ultimate Karmic Fate. Hell, it would be damn near poetic and an ignoble end to the US to have it turn into a dictatorship.
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Originally Posted by Mr. Mon
The western support of these brutal dictators has done more to radicalize the Islamist opposition than anything. Our past meddling in the name of sort term security has come back to bite us.
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That's absolutely correct, for the reasons I just explained.
The
only place you can express dissent (outside of your own home assuming it isn't bugged) is in a mosque.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Randomstudent
The middle east is a mix of hardline and moderate. Tunisia will likely stay moderate, while Yemen will likely be a disaster.
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Tunisia? Moderate? Ha. That is a screamer.
Mohammed Talbi writes that,
"[We Tunisians] have the freedom to shut up." The UN Commission on Human Rights came to Tunisia and not one single person spoke out against the government about human rights abuses at the hearings, because the only freedom anyone has is the freedom to shut up, unless they want to be exiled or imprisoned.
The next day the newspaper editors couldn't criticize the government about its human rights abuses or the UN visit so they printed a blank spot for the editorial to express their frustration about both the issue and political rights.
That's you have avoid being imprisoned, tortured and murdered in those countries. You keep your mouth shut.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Mon
Full scale war with Iran would make the Invasion of Iraq look like the Invasion of Grenada. A suicide mission that would erupt the entire region. Dumb, dumb, dumb...
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The ground war would be over in 30 days, and Iran would be history in 30-90 days.
The target is Khuzestan.
Given the general ignorance of people, Khuzestan is bounded by Iraq/Kuwait to the west, the Zagros Mountains to the north, the Iranian Plateau to the east, and the Persian Gulf in the south.
It is a province. It is Arabic speaking, because 90% of the people are Arabs, not Perso-Medes. It was originally part of Baghdad (as was Kuwait which was "created" when the drunken slob Churchill burped while drawing lines on a map).
Khuzestan has a history of revolting and declaring independence, most recently in the Iraq-Iran War.
One other important thing: Khuzestan has 80% of Iran's oil and natural gas.
Before the war, oil and natural gas flowed west through pipelines into Iraq then Syria to the Mediterranean Sea.
You need 4 divisions and 1 regiment/brigade to invade Iran and take it over in 30 days.
It goes like this:
The US owns Iraq/Kuwait so the west is protected. The US would have 2 carrier battle groups and an amphibious assault group in the Persian Gulf, which it controls. Air power will destroy the three bridges over key passes in the Zagros Mountains (and they will take a decade to repair/rebuild).
That means the only place for contact is the "Fulda Gap of Iran." That is a small area between the Persian Gulf and the Zagros Mountains. It's called the Eastern Approaches (coming off of the Iranian Plateau).
One brigade can defend that all day long. Even a battalion could, so long as it has sufficient air cover.
Iran has two divisions and miscellaneous security units in Khuzestan. The US, of course, will not declare war, it will simply attack and the barracks are priority targets. By the time those units get moving, they'll be combat ineffective and the marines will already be on the beach, with US armor units racing east from Kuwait.
When I was training for that, my unit's job was to secure both bridges over the River Karun so that US armor units could cross easily, and also to secure a bridgehead (in the event one or both bridges got destroyed before we secured them).
The US would then, naturally, turn off the oil and natural gas, which it now controls and start sending to Iraq.
Iran would run out of money in about 30-60 days and it would be total chaos with civil unrest, since Iran will have lost 80% of its oil and natural gas revenues which it needs to provide its social welfare programs and power the countries many oil and gas fired power plants.
It's not rocket science, it's just military planning (and training).
My guess is the US would partition the country, keeping the southern part so that it has air, ground and sea access from the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean to Central Asia to get the Chevron-BP Consortium's oil and natural gas out of Central.
And more importantly, guarantee that oil and natural gas is sold on the world market in US Dollars, instead of Euros or Rubles, lest 1 Euro = $4.53 (and you become a 3rd World Country).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Casper in Dallas
The right has never met a Tyrant or Dictator they didn't think they could use...
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Um, sorry to disappoint you, but it was a Democrat president and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate that overthrew the Greek governmetn and installed a right-wing dictatorship, and then later, a different Democrat president and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate overthrew that governmetn and installed a right-wing military dictatorship.
It was also a Democrat president and Democrat-controlled House and Senate that almost murdered President Cardenas in cold blood and set up a dictatorship in Mexico so US oil companies could get "their" oil back. WW II looming on the horizon is the only thing that prevented it.
A Democrat president and Democrat-controlled House and Senate also tried to repeatedly murder a head-of-State for attempting to tax US corporations.
A Democrat president and Democrat-controlled House and Senate also overthrew a governmetn, set up a right-wing dictatorship, and then murdered that dictator when he tried to tax US corporations.
As a point of fact, Democrats have set up more right-wing dictators than Republicans.
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