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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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 Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Old Painless wrote: |
| This is all the fault of bush. If he hadn't invaded Iraq to begin with, none of this would be happening now. |
SR is correct, this whole thing is bigger than the west or US foreign policy. The competition within the region between the various ethic and religious factions is much more important to understanding the how and the why.
Plus US imperial meddling in the Middle East didn't begin in 2003. If you are going to blame the Great Satan then pretty much every president since 1945 should get their share. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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One of my analyst acquaintances brought up this "coincidence"...
Iraq abandoned the petrodollar system in 2002, and in March 2003 the USA invaded their country and toppled their government.
Two birds with one stone -- propping up the USD by forcing the world to buy oil in dollars, plus putting their people in place to get the sweet oil contracts. |
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asylum seeker
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Let the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria have their own country, let the Shia have their own country and let the Kurds have their own country. Trying to force them to govern and live together makes about as much sense as trying to keep Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia together post-USSR. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| asylum seeker wrote: |
| Let the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria have their own country, let the Shia have their own country and let the Kurds have their own country. Trying to force them to govern and live together makes about as much sense as trying to keep Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia together post-USSR. |
Exactly. Simply re-drawing the map years ago would have spared everyone the bloodshed.
Go kurdistan! |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:53 am Post subject: |
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| asylum seeker wrote: |
| Let the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria have their own country, let the Shia have their own country and let the Kurds have their own country. Trying to force them to govern and live together makes about as much sense as trying to keep Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia together post-USSR. |
Iraq was originally created to create a strong country in Mesopotamia to face off against the Persians. As there had been frequent wars along that fault line for centuries, Iraq was seen as a preferable alternative to a myriad of smaller states.
In any case I doubt the Syrian or Iraqi governments would accept such a division.
It would be interesting to see how many Iraqi Sunni Arabs actually flock to ISIS and how many are foreign/Syrians. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| Chaparrastique wrote: |
| asylum seeker wrote: |
| Let the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria have their own country, let the Shia have their own country and let the Kurds have their own country. Trying to force them to govern and live together makes about as much sense as trying to keep Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia together post-USSR. |
Exactly. Simply re-drawing the map years ago would have spared everyone the bloodshed.
Go kurdistan! |
Lines were drawn and then the Turks fought back.
The Treaty of Lausanne made sure and continues to make sure that 'Kurdistan' will never include the millions who live in present day Turkey. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
The Treaty of Lausanne made sure and continues to make sure that 'Kurdistan' will never include the millions who live in present day Turkey. |
Sad story indeed. Turkey will probably do all they can to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state on their borders, and if it happens they will do all they can to destabilise it. |
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EZE
Joined: 05 May 2012
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:46 am Post subject: |
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| Most Americans wanted the war, but Americans lack the toughness and the resoluteness of the jihadists. We're talkers, they're doers. |
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Old Painless
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Old Painless wrote: |
| This is all the fault of bush. If he hadn't invaded Iraq to begin with, none of this would be happening now. |
SR is correct, this whole thing is bigger than the west or US foreign policy. The competition within the region between the various ethic and religious factions is much more important to understanding the how and the why.
Plus US imperial meddling in the Middle East didn't begin in 2003. If you are going to blame the Great Satan then pretty much every president since 1945 should get their share. |
None of this would be happening right now if America's greedy paws weren't in every pie in the ME. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Old Painless wrote: |
None of this would be happening right now if America's greedy paws weren't in every pie in the ME. |
And even after they stole everyone resources, their GDP STILL fell at a 3% annualized rate in Q1...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101787838 |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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| EZE wrote: |
| Most Americans wanted the war, but Americans lack the toughness and the resoluteness of the jihadists. We're talkers, they're doers. |
The worst are full of passion, the best lack all conviction. |
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ersatzredux
Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Location: Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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Steelrails,
There's so much bs packed into your last two posts that I don't know quite where to begin. That's why I've hesitated in replying. Besides you seem to agree for the main part with what I was saying anyway- that it wasn't a surprise attack and that the Americans were involved. So, yeah.
But just for the hell of it, let me summarize your argument for you. The war is happening because of ancient history and would have happened even if the Americans hadn't gotten involved. What happened thousands of years ago is relevant but what has happened in the last twenty or so years isn't. Training, provisions, money, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft weapons, and so on don't provide any significant advantages in war so if the Americans arranged for them to "find them" (lucky guys, that's twice now!) well, big deal. They didn't tip off the Iraqis about the invasion and warn them to prepare for it because they thought they could handle it (probably the same reason they didn't deliver- and still haven't delivered- the F16s the Iraqis ordered and paid for). They may be lying and just a bit evil but they're too stupid to be able to make a plan and follow it. Therefore you're a conspiracy nutjob if you accuse them of doing so.
That about sum it up?
I will admit though it's kind of fun to have someone stereotyping me as some kind of Masonic Bilderberger conspiracist nutball. Though I'm a bit surprised you didn't think to accuse me of believing in chem trails and Illumati too. Maybe you were saving that for later on.
Hate to disappoint, but alas, I am not such a glamorous person as all that. My conspiracy theorists tend to be guys like Leo Strauss (and his apostles from the University of Chicago) , William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and so and so on. I didn't need to break any codes because these guys wrote and spoke about what their plan were , how they justified it, and how they were going to go about doing it. Hell, I studied political philosophy under a direct disciple of Allan Bloom- I got this shit straight from the horses mouth as it were. So I’d be a bit of an ass to claim any special distinction for discovering a conspiracy that has been in plain sight since the early nineties.
Anyway, because you tickled my vanity by immediately going for an ad hominem I'm going to give you a helpful bit of advice: Never underestimate the power of having a plan. And a bonus one- don't sell your rulers short- they're not really as stupid as all that. Just evil. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| ersatzredux wrote: |
| My conspiracy theorists tend to be guys like Leo Strauss (and his apostles from the University of Chicago) , William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and so and so on. I didn't need to break any codes because these guys wrote and spoke about what their plan were , how they justified it, and how they were going to go about doing it. Hell, I studied political philosophy under a direct disciple of Allan Bloom- I got this shit straight from the horses mouth as it were. So I’d be a bit of an ass to claim any special distinction for discovering a conspiracy that has been in plain sight since the early nineties. |
Show me where Leo Strauss advocates the invasion of Iraq or any Middle Eastern country, and show us how Leo Strauss "spoke about what his plan was, how he justified it, and how he was going to go about doing it."
http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/993329.html
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Strauss's prominence in the story of the Iraq War, or in the story of the neoconservative ascent to power, remains a puzzle, however. He did not, it will be recalled, write much about practical politics, and certainly not about international relations. Moreover, even if every link in the aforementioned chain were real—which we will argue is not the case—Strauss's rise to notoriety in the media would remain puzzling because, so far as we have seen, those who have been allegedly influenced by him have not paraded his name and doctrines and have not defended or explained their policy preferences by reference to Strauss or his views. Whence, then, comes the connection to Strauss?
The first to suggest a link between Strauss and makers of public policy was, so far as we can tell, the English professor of ancient philosophy Miles Burnyeat, in a well-known piece in the New York Review of Books from 1985 titled "The Sphinx Without a Secret." Although the article was directed more toward Strauss's scholarship and his academic following, Burnyeat did identify at least one policymaker in the then current Reagan administration as a Straussian. Burnyeat did not have a long list, as the more recent writers do, and he did not place the political influence of Strauss-influenced individuals at the center. His claims were thus far less cosmic than those made by later versions of the "Strauss is running the government" literature. Yet one senses that the political implications Burnyeat perceives in Strauss's work are quite central to what motivates him to his scholarly critique of Strauss. As one reviewer of the Burnyeat diatribe put it, "the dispute between Strauss and Burnyeat is, in the end, not a scholarly dispute. It is political." Burnyeat particularly objects to the way, as he sees it, "Strauss's 'ruthless anti-idealism' [leads] to a dangerously aggressive foreign policy." Political concerns drive Burnyeat's critique—he is especially eager to challenge Strauss's interpretation of Plato's Republic as the philosophic source of that "ruthless anti-idealism"—but he is operating more in the mode of warning or forewarning. The one Straussian in government whom he identifies is also a classical scholar, with whose work Burnyeat was most likely familiar before he made the Strauss connection to the Reagan administration. He did not begin from the political side and move back to Strauss in search of intellectual forebears of a dominant political clique. Thus, this first explicit linking of Strauss and Washington is limited in its claims and intelligible in its origins: Burnyeat, a scholar, knew the work of Strauss, another scholar, and perceived a political tendency in it, which he saw realized to some degree in the person of another scholar who was a member of the Reagan foreign policy team. Accordingly, although the Burnyeat critique made something of an impression in academic circles, it had no power to draw Strauss into the daily press.
Another commentary linking Strauss to practical politics was an essay by Gordon Wood in the New York Review of Books. Wood was reviewing a number of books related to the bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987–88. He identified a cluster of scholars influenced by Strauss and devoted to scholarship on the founding period. Unlike Burnyeat, who treated Strauss scholarship dismissively, Wood spoke with respect, if not agreement, with the Straussian scholarship. He did note—and dissented from—a tendency he saw in that scholarship to support the doctrine of "originalism" in constitutional interpretation. He did not voice any worry, however, about Straussians running the government. Burnyeat and Wood represent what we might call the prehistory of the "Strauss and Straussians in politics" motif. They made limited claims, and the claims they made are not in any way puzzling, even if one may be inclined to dissent from some of them, as we are.
The number of public allegations of links between Strauss and Washington made a quantum leap with the publication of a 1994 op-ed piece in the New York Times by Brent Staples. Although he wrote it during the Democratic Clinton administration, Staples was concerned about conservative ideas that had become or were "poised to become . . . central . . . [to] this country's social policy." He was remarkably ill-informed about Strauss's views, but he asserted quite assuredly that Strauss's "ideas have crept into vogue in American politics." "Strauss," he intoned, "appealed to the conservative elite because he viewed the status quo as an expression of divine will." Staples named two individuals in or near practical politics who bear the mark of Leo. Strangely, the two he named, Thomas Sowell and Robert Bork, had nothing whatever to do with Strauss. He also named two writers of books more distant from politics, Allan Bloom and William Henry, author of In Defense of Elitism. Like Bork and Sowell, Henry had nothing to do with Strauss; his book never mentions Strauss or draws on Straussian ideas. Bloom was indeed a student of Strauss's, and his best-selling Closing of the American Mind did make use of Straussian thought. This appears to have been a lucky hit for Staples, however, for what he said about Bloom's book does not make one confident that he had read either it or any of Strauss's writings. |
By the way, Leo Strauss died in 1973. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 1:15 am Post subject: |
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Hate to disappoint, but alas, I am not such a glamorous person as all that. My conspiracy theorists tend to be guys like Leo Strauss (and his apostles from the University of Chicago) , William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and so and so on. I didn't need to break any codes because these guys wrote and spoke about what their plan were , how they justified it, and how they were going to go about doing it. Hell, I studied political philosophy under a direct disciple of Allan Bloom- I got this shit straight from the horses mouth as it were. So I’d be a bit of an ass to claim any special distinction for discovering a conspiracy that has been in plain sight since the early nineties.
Anyway, because you tickled my vanity by immediately going for an ad hominem I'm going to give you a helpful bit of advice: Never underestimate the power of having a plan. And a bonus one- don't sell your rulers short- they're not really as stupid as all that. Just evil. |
Having a faction in the government that pushes for war and does try to hatch schemes, does not mean that the situation currently going on in the Middle East is under their control. The situation is of a scale beyond the scope of the control of the neo-con faction. They will try to manipulate events for their benefit, but they are not the events authors, well presently.
Of course, we can go back to colonialism and the artificially drawn borders and consider it a precursor of neo-conservatism, and thus hold them more responsible in a vague philosophical sense, though not directly as the principal actors in the series of events are from completely different times. |
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ersatzredux
Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Location: Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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Kuros,
Sorry, misread the author and thought it was Steelrails (oops!). So some editing is in order here.
Strauss is the intellectual godfather of the neocons as I'm sure you know after googling for that excerpt you posted.. No, he didn't write about Iraq. He wrote about (if interpreted esoterically, as his disciples certainly did) the necessity and goodness of the wise and strong to lie to and manipulate the masses- that is at the base of the conspiracy. To a platonist such as he democracy is the lowest form of human existence. But you know what? Never mind Strauss. What about the other names I mentioned? What about the rest of my post? |
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