Brilliantly, sadly observed

[ish mailian]

Now, before you accuse me of defending Bush for his stupid invasion of
Iraq, or apologizing for US and Western policy, Iraq, as I stated, or a
group like ISIS that might take control of the weapons, was more of a
threat after W pulled his boner, but the threat was there and is there. Not
simply because of what we do and what we have done, but because of what the
nations and factions in the region do. To treat the region as some sort of
white man's burden is patronizing, dare I say paternalistic and oriental.

They are big boys too. They are not super like us, but they so most of the
fighting and killing all by themselves.

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 10:19 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> Your critique of the US and Western policies is sketchy, at best, a gloss
> of the complexity and the history, but it is with your apology for the
> regions wars and the policies of the nations and factions in the region
> that is most in need of correction.
>
> You apologize for Syria's government, for Iran's government, for Iraq's
> government, Pakistan's,  for Afghanistan's, for ISIS and so on, you excuse
> all their incompetence, all their use and abuse of Islam, of terrorism,
> because you are so blinded by your thesis, that the problems and conflicts
> are never self-inflicted, not a product of religious conflict, not
> something inherent in Islam, nor products of the complex integration of
> resources, geography, politics, internal revolutions, but are all caused by
> external pressures by the West, or the Cold War etc....so you blame anyone
> else but the religious groups in Syria that are waging war, Muslims killing
> Muslims. You blame the Iran Iraq War on the US, and apologize, again, for
> the governments, for the killing of Muslims by Muslims.
>
> Basic knowledge of that protracted war would tell you that most of the
> killing and dying was down to incompetence and arrogance and a primitive
> belief in the religious warrior. Though Iraq had clear military advantage,
> Iran had more religious motivation, and Iran used that Religious motivation
> with better strategy, though both were essentially primitive armies
> organized and directed by idiots and zealots who knew little of how to wage
> war against their enemies. .
>
> There was also fortune. Recall that the Iranians, after the Revolution,
> could not get US equipment, parts, intelligence, and they condemned the
> Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, so they had to scramble, to wait for
> Reagan's deal etc, but in the meantime, the General Dynamics  fighter
> planes, built and contracted for Iran, were sold to Israel, who used them
> to knock out Iraq's French built Nuclear Program in Iraq.
>
> Some of these debates in the press, over, WMD, for example, are not
> controversial at all. The French built a Nuclear Program in Iraq, the
> Soviets supplied the means of delivering a nuclear weapon. Countless
> nations provide the region with chemical weapons, so we know, as our
> soldiers who were damaged by them know, that WMD were in Iraq. Was Iraq a
> threat to use them against the US? To sell them? to be toppled by a new
> extreme group, like ISIS and then use them?
>
> Yes.
>
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 9:09 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> Well I was clearly wrong in my memory of the verifiable timeline. Still,
>> if, as the article indicates, it is widely believed in the region that we
>> did Ok the Iraqi attack, and it is known that we then did support this war.
>> The effective message combined with other US actions are that power is
>> achieved with war. Not that we invented this particular idea.
>>
>> The thing that I see is the parallel between Wahabi notions of divine war
>> of the faithful, and our notions of being appointed to bring the true way
>> through strategic bombing. Both sides seem to have found good reasons to
>> think of the other as demonic. They are beliefs that are equally insane,
>> and equally violent and destructive  in their net effect.  I don’t know
>> what will work but check out this interview with a captive of ISIS.
>>
>>
>
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