Total number of comments: 299 (since 2013-11-28 15:55:00)
Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion
Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion
Total number of comments: 299 (since 2013-11-28 15:55:00)
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Nice catch
Everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Erdogan could have grown. He could have become a truly great leader, mediating between the West and the Islamic world.
Instead he turned into a thug. Another opportunity missed.
I am currently closely working with a Russian-Canadian professional, today I saw he was reading a Russian news article, and he told me it was about the challenges of clearing mines and booby traps in Palmyra.
Haven't read anything on Russian troops being involved in this operation in Western media. So I can see the point that the Russian media makes.
Funny thing is he's in isolation to protect him form other prisoners.
It's a sad state of affairs.
US elections are hardly ever decided on foreign policy issues. The voters don't care nor are they educated enough to know better.
Typo:
"Of if he understands that Iran was brought to the table ..."
Just want to be clear on this, no disrespect intended, there's no doubt in my mind that Islam in all its variations has lots to offer. It's just that I am personally disinterested in the finer points of religion for religion's sake. My interest is limited to the extent that it informes history and politics.
This video is probably more aimed at such an audience.
The US is to blame for a lot of things, but I don't think that the Sunnis and Shiites infighting is one of them. The narrow minded closing of the mind that Wahhabism promotes would have occurred regardless of any US action.
When it comes to disinterested agnostics, that's about as much as I like to know about the difference between protestants and catholics.
The only reason I bother with the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam is because of its geopolitical implications, which I am profoundly interested in.
The move away from fossil fuels can't come fast enough.
Very insightful background info.
Delighted to see the war nerd referenced here. My two most favorite commenters on this war in one spot.
The world economy is in a debt induced deflationary spiral. The pent up demand in Iran is one of the few bright spots.
This is a net positive for everyone.
He is one of the few people who can make the Donald look good in comparison. Trump comes out smelling like roses when compared to this treasonous war criminals.
Well, I think Obama's silence is well understood here.
The US wants continued usage of the Turkish airbases.
"... what she holds most dear in all the world: Her staying in power… "
If Merkel only cared for power, she could have closed the borders months ago, and expel the refugees.
Her position is extremely unpopular. She already burned through her entire political capital, by insisting that the asylum process is kept intact.
To think she is politically motivated in this question is completely counter factual.
And know he summoned the US ambassador to explain the US position.
link to news.yahoo.com
It is getting ever more risky to keep this country within NATO.
Future case study for blowback.
"Both parties"
Say what?
To my knowledge Daesh does not attend the talks.
Calling it "aggression" is indeed over the top, and it is quite appropriate that Prof. Cole put this term in quotation marks.
My comment was simply meant to draw attention to the fact that contrary to the non-issue of the temporarily detained US sailors, this problem is not going away anytime soon, and is likely to escalate.
China’s “aggression” seems mainly to be doing landfill in their territorial waters.
Unfortunately this issue is by far not as artificial as the hyperventilating over the trespassing US sailors.
These waters are far away from China's coast. Well beyond the 100 nautical miles. The territory is equally claimed by the Philipines as well as Vietnam. Inflaming nationalist and anti-Chinese sentiments in both countries.
link to bangkokpost.com
link to atimes.com
Thank you for introducing me to Al-Ma’arri.
These right wing attitudes are so tribale it makes my head hurt.
Maybe "tribal" is to weak a word, "atavistic" may be more appropriate.
A German intelligence officer summarized a common pattern with regards to Daesh/ISIS terrorists who originated in Germany, with the following quip:
"Not all Salafis are terrorists but all terrorists are Salafi."
German agencies consider radical Salafi preaching a "gateway drug".
True, the BBC is a shadow of its former self, pretty much across the board (had fun with that on my own blog some years ago). link to wp.me
Yet, even in their diminished form the beat the c*** out of any American corporate media.
Just to name a few Western countries: Canada has the CBC, the UK BBC, Germany ARD/ZDF, the French have France Télévisions.
These are all strong major public broadcasting powerhouses.
There's at least one very clear parallel. Both Hitler and Mussolini started out as laughing-stock.
NATO is a good deal for a country like Germany that can keep its defense spending low, knowing that NATO has its back.
NATO should distance itself and let Erdogan suffer the consequences for his rashness.
Indeed, let's hope those in power will follow this course of action.
Erdogan has the Turkish military neutered. All the generals that would have had the intestinal fortitude to try to dispose him have been arrested long time ago.
The days of military coups in Turkey are over. The Turkish military has been house broken by Erdogan.
@Glez, you are completely mistaken. There's not a chance in hell that NATO had a heads-up on this. A NATO country like Germany would have never gone along with this.
@Nel, this time Russia and Turkey need little "help" in pulling them down. Their governments do this just fine by themselves.
Frankly, I am getting pretty tired of this proclivity of some circles on the left to always suspect US secret intervention everywhere, and to blame all the woes of the world on it.
It's just another flavour of American exceptionalism, thinking that it is the all-powerful imperial US that causes all this evil. It is also intellectually lazy, it provides a one-fit-all explanation for everything - no further details required.
The US made plenty of mistakes, including bad shady covert actions to destabilize countries, but the US is just one of many state actors, and beset by many incompetencies. Frankly, your country is not as powerful as you imagine it to be, and plenty of contemporary history does not involve it.
Very interesting perspective, eloquently put.
In Colorado Springs the "madrasas" are called Sunday school.
@Andreas, doubtless it is an ideal to strive for but it also patently non-religious. That is unless you cannot conceive of ideals outside the religious sphere.
@Sufi Muslim, thank you for the reference. I have no doubt that Khaled Abou El Fadl is eminently qualified and his book very compelling to Muslims. Yet, your comment also highlights to me a fundamental disconnect.
To a secular, agnostic humanist like myself even the title hardly computes. There are many views of the divine, and from the outside looking in, any dialog with this realm will be but an interior dialog. One that doesn't hold any particular sway in a secular society that accommodates many beliefs and ways of life. In order to inform how such a society should be structured the arguments for the law of the land need to be functional in nature. I.e. based on what they accomplish and measured against the shared values of a diverse society, regardless if the true motivation ultimately flows from deeply held religious convictions.
Yep, that sounds about right. Clearly tolerated while not officially sanctioned. The kind of duplicity that NATO should not tolerate. I wished Turkey was expelled from the alliance ASAP.
"There are ISIS training camps in Turkey. There are hospitals just for their fighters."
This is almost certainly not true. There have been sporadic reports on Daesh/ISIS fighters receiving medical treatment in Turkey, but nothing of the scale you alledge. Officially sanctioned Daesh/ISIS camps are out the question. Erdogan may be ambivalent towards the "right" kind of terrorist but he isn't stupid.
Russia is moving it most advanced anti-air weapons system the S‑400 to its base in Latakia. It's a long range missile system that even has Israel worried, since they also want to be able to intervene in Syria if they feel threatened.
Clearly Russia is preparing to respond in kind if another of their planes is attacked.
Assads regime is many things, but "reasonable government" it is not. Most of the Syrian refugees are escaping from the Syrian army's barrel bombs and its torture chambers. When they are surveyed Daesh/IS comes in a distant second as flight cause (and surveyed they are, at least the ones who reach Germany).
At best Assad is the least bad option at this time.
Gavrilo Princip - to this day considered a hero in Serbia.
"Red lines have a way of turning into hot wars."
Well said. All of this would be bad enough, but the fact that Turkey is a NATO member gives me a major headache.
Turkey is NATO member, the ones entrapped are us. And if you think that the US was involved with that shot-down of the Russian jet, than you have lost all bearings.
There is a moment of opportunity here to get all major powers to push towards a stable solution similar to what you outline, but it will require major diplomatic tact and persuasion. The US may play a constructive role if the White House stays Democratic otherwise the US will be part of the problem not the solution.
Thank you for making this point so forcefully. This is a matter of considerable urgency, not only for of the refugees themselves, but also the countries that currently shoulder the brunt of the influx.
Between this and the refugee crisis it is hard to see how the Schengen open borders treaty can survive. Maybe some good will come of it if people have to learn the hard way that the EU actually affected them in positive ways. Right now the EU is always scapegoated by national politicians while the advantages it confers are taken for granted.
At any rate, if ISIL/Daesh thought that this will deter France from fighting them they are in for a nasty surprise.
Alec,
As a German I lived in the US for a while but then left for Canada, because I couldn't stand the American political climate. So I don't have any particular allegiance.
But to equate the democratically challenged US with these utterly authoritarian regimes goes beyond false equivalency, or illuminating hyperbole.
Assad is about as democratically elected as Lukashenko in Belarus.
What you contend is that there is no civil recourse for a movement like "Black Lives Matter" to succeed by peaceful means. If the US was a regime than only violence could hope to achieve anything.
Your logic is that of civil war and utter societal collapse. No good will come of it.
"92,000 admitted by Germany"
This must be a typo. The official number as of August 2015 was 161.000, and that was before the current accelerated influx.
link to mediendienst-integration.de (German link, Source of the number is a German parliamentary inquiry).
Nukes won't prevent a civil war. Right now it's just knives. If Israel's elite had any sense they'd hurry to find a way towards peace. Peres is entirely right that they cannot win this in the long run.
Paul,
Al-zawahari is an ineffective leader, an old man without an ounce of charisma. There's no urgent matter to make him a "martyr", he the best insurance against a resurgence of al'Quaeda.
Thanks for posting this transcript.
There's but one upside to this: The take-away that hardline Iranians are no less delusional than US neocons.
Iran's hardliners are setting the Revolutionary Guards up for a quagmire.
Sad but very true.
He got rich and then switched to a religion that has the nice feature to forgive all sins after a detailed aural confession. Makes one wonder if he is as delusional in his confessionals.
And there's your reason why the US never signed on to the De-Hague human rights court.
Always considered Blair, the worst of the Iraq war cabal.
Bush is too stupid to tie his own shoes without help, Dick Darth Cheney is unapologetically evil, but Blair should have known better.
"In the end the Mujahidin rejected all this and swept into Kabul. Najib Ullah was hanged from a lamppost."
Najib Ullah, was a secular apparatchik ready to cut a deal with the devil, as long as it meant his regime could have stay on top. Instead the US kept backing the Mujahidin. Stupidity on a grand scale. An Afghanistan under Najib Ullah would have never seen the rise of the Taliban, who then in turn played host to Bin Laden.
Makes me hopeful that the US finally recognizes that the Kurds are the only reliable allies in this corner of the world and will stick with them.
This is why I so enjoy Trump's performance. The way he tears into the GOP establishment is delightful. Without him the US media would be happy to never have to revisit this issue.
Louis Proyect is right. Problem is Assad won't just use the Russian weapons to get a handle on IS/Daesh.
Occam's razor suggest incompetence is a much more likely explanation.
"The American support for radical Muslims against the left seems foolish for two reasons decades later."
Was just a news-junky teenager back then, but already knew then that it was foolish. Admittedly my analysis may have been a bit shallow, it came down to Najibullah wearing a suit, as a outward sign that he wasn't beholden to tribalism.
After the Soviets left he would have cut a deal with anyone to keep the Taliban out of Kabul, but no the US stuck to their best fundamentalist buddies in the funny outfits, and let them string up Najibullah on a lamppost.
Brian, RT is not an objective news source (more like a smarter FOX News with a very different agenda). RT is an outlet of the Russian government. The coverage of the Ukraine crisis clearly shows this. RT reports need to be carefully scrutinized.
Colin Powell warned Bush before the Iraq war: "If you break it you own it."
Unfortunately, the US is not owning up to this mess.
There has been a referendum on Quebec's independence before and there will be again.
A true Qubec-style Kurdistan would only last until the first referendum.
Not officially, but there is at least one well confirmed story about an undercover weapons delivery from Turkey.
link to al-monitor.com
Can't see how any intelligent observer of US politics can possibly remain sane without developing a healthy dose of cynicism.
It is asinine that the US tries to train some fictitious moderate Syrian rebels, rather than to back the one successful non-sectarian force that can actually make a difference i.e. the Kurds.
"Greece’s youth may accomplished much of what Occupy Wall Street was about. "
Nope, they won't, because the banks have already been bailed out long ago. The debt is now inter-governmental.
That horse left the barn a long time ago, in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
The banks have been made whole and hardly hold any more Greece debt.
The problem is that in this first bailout the debt has been rolled over from banks to the states, and now the governments of these countries that are holding the debt face an angry electorate that won't accept a haircut. The Finish PM for instance never gets tiered to point out that their share equals 10% of their GDP.
To move past this would require some innovation along the line of the "bad banks" that sprung up after 2008 to hold all the trash collateral, aka a "bad sovereign fund" that will keep the debt on the books yet, guarantees a long enough debt moratorium for Greece to recover.
Unfortunately nothing of the sort seems to be in the cards.
" The potentates in charge of European finance ..."
... happen to be other democratically elected governments.
Iceland had its own currency.
Much easier to handle a default in this case. Greece would have to print a new currency to refinance its banks, once they are cut loose by the ECB (slated to happen on the 20th when Greece will in all likelihood officially be deemed in default).
The only connection seems to be that these perps want to soil Ramadan with their crimes, imagining themselves extra pious for it.
Nestle is registered in Switzerland and makes most of its money in 1st world countries. These kind of companies are very vulnerable to well executed PR campaigns that expose some of their wrong-doing.
It should also be noted that European companies are far less prone to undermining social programs. Remember when conservative heads exploded because VW was supportive of unionization at its Chattanooga plant?
Switzerland is a highly developed welfare state with a democratic tradition much older than the US.
Nestle can be held accountable.
In defense of Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, he also states that there should be specific programs to help the poor to access water, his point is that water should have a realistic price.
In Eastern Germany water was essentially free. On the other hand refrigerators were scarce and prone to failure. So it wasn't uncommon for a worker to leave a bottle of beer in the sink and have water flow over it all day, so that it would be nice and cold when he returned from work.
"Once you start using your values to judge others you will find yours challenged more often than not."
Only if you don't believe in the universality of human rights.
Sisi's visit to Germany was overshadowed by protest, whereas Erdogan campaigned for his AKP unencumbered in Germany.
Maybe the criticism directed at Erdogan should be better understood as disappointment. One expects more from a democratically elected president than a third rate military dictator.
The fact that he ships weapons to rebels in Syria shouldn't be overlooked either:
link to reuters.com
Daesh is not aligning with Iran, wherever did you get this idea?
"They beat up Sunnis in Iraq to get them to oppose the government there, and they kill Shiites."
There fixed that for you.
Wrong movie. The US needlessly started the war in Iraq, but not the one in Syria.
The chickens are coming home to roost. There is no doubt in my mind that Saudi Arabia will eventually succumb to the religious bigotry that it actively exported all over the world.
"... that is the point of professor cole’s statement"
If that was his point I am sure he'd make it himself and much more succinctly.
Seems to me the only way that Iraq may survive as a nation would be as a loose federation.
Syria is a failed state and Kurds defending their territory against Daesh/IS is highly desirable. Turkey and Iran have strong armies, the Kurds won't be foolish enough to engage in conventional warfare with them, and heavy weapons are only good for the latter.
No trust needs to be invested to justify this support for the Kurds.
Brian, I was thinking of Khlifawi/Bakr who apparently went through Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib.
link to america.aljazeera.com
"The Republicans would have a field day if Obama backed off and let Iran take the lead."
The Saudis would also be very unhappy, which could easily spin completely out of control.
A very convenient view now that the US inadvertently created the Daesh/IS barbarity.
Not only do the Iraqis not even receive a US apology, no they also get US voyeurism of their plight.
Frankly, this is a pretty despicable attitude.
"What motivation is greater than your home being invaded, women raped or sold into slavery, and you are summarily executed if you are defeated?"
For all these reasons these soldiers, to the extent that they are from the Shia South, will fight if Daesh/IS actually advances on their home turf.
It should be obvious that this "Iraqi" army only abandons the Sunni dominated territory.
To cling to the notion of Iraq as an integrated nation is at this point either willful ignorance or wishful thinking.
An ISIL controlled state with oil revenue would quickly become a major security concern. My understanding is that the strategic goal is to prevent this from happening.
Sorry to be so blunt, but this sounds just like convenient US ethnocentrism. At this point this is no longer about the US, but rather long standing conflicts that have been arrested as long as Saddam ruled with an iron fist. Now the power vacuum, super-charged by the Arab spring uprising in Syria, turned into a free wheeling civil war of many actors.
At this point the crumbling American empire doesn't factor prominently.
It's also well documented how the Daesh/IS leadership was forged from former Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda cadres in the US run Abu Graihb prison compound. This is indeed a threat entirely created by massive blow-back from Bush's ineptly conducted, criminal war.
How this capital WE applies to the Iraqi army somewhat escapes me.
They really don't want Daesh/IS there either, and this monstrous group only exists courtesy of the US under the wise leadership of Bush.
The US broke it, and now owns it.
Reminds me of how the plight of African Americans was instrumentalized by the Eastern Bloc leaders in their propaganda.
Democracy requires independent functioning institutions. Building that kind of culture is a generational effort, it happens at best over the span of an entire lifetime.
The Arab youths that gave up on democracy after the counter-revolutions succeeded did not understand democracy to begin with.
Natural Gas power plants can quickly adjust to the load on the grid, making them a key element in keeping the grid stable as ever more highly fluctuating renewables are hooked up.
Until there is a good buffering storage solution available (e.g. Tesla's battery for home use) NG will be required in the power mix.
All of this technical lingo says in so many words, that these WW2 terror weapons, share very little similarities with drones.
Their express purpose was creating terror in the civilian populations. Whereas the line of sight, and command of control nature of drones allows for much more precise engagements.
Obviously the US is executing this very poorly and tolerates abysmally high numbers of civilian casualties but this doesn't equate this to Hitler's indiscriminate bombing campaign.
Correction with regards to the jet type: As can be taken from the wikipedia entry you linked to, the German word "Staustrahltriebwerk" translates to pulsejet, and while that shares some similarities with a RAM jet, the S in the SCRAM acronym specifically stand for "supersconic", and the V1 was never designed for that speed.
It was the V2 that you couldn't hear coming because it was the first supersonic weapon. The V1 had a primitive scram jet engine that made it faster than most plans at the time, but it did not break through the sound barrier. The former was simply a terror weapon, how much more terrorizing can it get than being pulverized by something you can't even hear coming?
The V1 was designed to be a mass produced weapon system and kept as simple as possible to that end, but Germany's industrial capacities were already depleted when the system was ready for deployment. The original idea was to be able to launch a swarm of V1s so that they could overcome the air defenses and to get the control system sufficiently accurate that strategic areas could be hit with sufficient precision.
Near the end of the war Hitler wasn't interested in implementing this, but used the V1s in a scattershot fashion as yet another revenge weapon.
This also allowed the Allies to learn from these attacks, and war documents that were unclassified in the nineties showed that they pulled together a weapon system based on radar, a simple analog computer and the most advanced anti-aircraft artillery at the time to automatically track and shoot down the V1.
(My grandfather was an aviation engineer in the V1 Penemünde division as a technical lead, and by the end of the war 2nd in command).