Cue a shitstorm.....
On a serious note, can you be more specific? Do you mean Israel-Palestine, or Iraq-Syria, or something else completely, or all of it bungled together?
Posted from TSR Mobile
On a serious note, can you be more specific? Do you mean Israel-Palestine, or Iraq-Syria, or something else completely, or all of it bungled together?
Posted from TSR Mobile
Religion
The "Middle Eastern conflict" as you say is not a homogeneous conflict observable in every country. Conflicts occur because of non-state actors trying to overthrow state actors for reasons which seem to have a civilian support . Conflicts occur because of a region's national resources. Conflicts occurs due to foreign interests in said resources. Conflicts occur because of sectarianism. And this is not confined to the middle east.
There are many Middle Eastern conflicts, and they can't all be explained in a TSR post.
And yet we let people like OP vote.
Basically our Jew puppet governments are destabilising Middle East and bringing about regime change to the benefit of Israel
^ See above. Jews even in media that isn't owned by them, it is full of Jews. They use their influence in media to promote their Jewish agendas like toppling Assad and of course Russia.
Yes that includes so called progressive news as well like the Guardian is full of Zionist and Israeli apologists who even justify cleansing Arab villages.
^ See above. Jews even in media that isn't owned by them, it is full of Jews. They use their influence in media to promote their Jewish agendas like toppling Assad and of course Russia.
Yes that includes so called progressive news as well like the Guardian is full of Zionist and Israeli apologists who even justify cleansing Arab villages.
Which Middle East conflict are you referring to exactly? Israel/Palestine? The Syrian war? Iraq? Yemen? The Shia/Sunni split in Islam?
Oh, and whichever one you're referring to, completely ignore the anti semitic bull**** posted above.
Oh, and whichever one you're referring to, completely ignore the anti semitic bull**** posted above.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Palestinians want Israel to sod off out of their land, and Hamas who are somehow relevant don't think Israel is even a country
Syria: Everybody hates Assad so like a billion different rebels showed up to kill Assad but one of the rebel factions is ISIS so everything is ****ed.
Any other one: People are just madtings yo
Syria: Everybody hates Assad so like a billion different rebels showed up to kill Assad but one of the rebel factions is ISIS so everything is ****ed.
Any other one: People are just madtings yo
Original post by Retired_Messiah
Syria: Everybody hates Assad so like a billion different rebels showed up to kill Assad but one of the rebel factions is ISIS so everything is ****ed.
Syria: Everybody hates Assad so like a billion different rebels showed up to kill Assad but one of the rebel factions is ISIS so everything is ****ed.
You sure about that?
https://twitter.com/rostomzavarian/status/805153038004617216
Original post by LV Her Husband
psh close enough
Original post by Retired_Messiah
psh close enough
well, you also omit to mention that many of these "rebels" are just random jihadis from across the world who have no interest in Syria, and that many of the rebel groups are islamists just like the IS, such as Al Nusra Front and al Sham.
But yeah, close enough I guess...
Pope Urban II said we have to reclaim the Holy Land so Baldwin I and his brothers sold their worldly possessions to liberate what is rightfully the property of Christendom.
Don't believe rubbish about it being all for oil. That is just to a distraction for the real reason we're there.
There's literally dozens of reasons why the Middle East is a hotspot & it's certainly not a new phenomenon. My posts below will only barely scratch the surface.
Why do I personally think the Middle East is generally a bit of a conflict zone -
1) Religion - Islam has regularly come into conflict with itself over the past couple of thousand years. The major sects are the Sunnis & Shias. Nations like Iran, Iraq & Bahrain are majority Shia while Saudi Arabia, the UAE, & almost every other ME nation are majority Sunni. It also doesn't help that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a Sunni regime that deliberately targeted Shias which led to the sectarian violence during the Iraq War. Bahrain is also a Shia nation ran by a Sunni minority which has lead to clashes between the government & citizens.
Islam & Christianity regularly came into conflict in the Middle Ages when European forces attempted to take the Holy Land while Islamic armies at one point reached as far as Southern France when they invaded Spain. It took until the 1400s for the Spanish to drive them out.
The major bone of contention throughout recent times has certainly been the Jewish state of Israel formed shortly after the Second World War. Arab nations have repeatedly attempted to invade Israel in various wars including in 1949, 1967 & 1973. While it's fair to say most of the governments in Middle Eastern hemisphere at least begrudgingly accept Israel's existence, quite a few armed terrorist groups like Hamas, Da'esh, AQ etc don't. I must admit that I personally side with Israel with most policies but I certainly condemn their general treatment of Palestine. At one point it may have been possible to create a 2 state solution but that now looks unlikely due to Israeli settlements on contested land.
On the whole, the West (especially the USA) is rather sympathetic towards Israel while the USSR during the Cold War was happy to provide assistance to Arab nations more due to convenience rather than ideological aims.
Islam has once again come into conflict with the West since the War on Terror started in 2001 but the reality is that certain sections of Islam have seen Western interests as targets long before that. In fact Osama Bin Laden was so offended by Western troops playing a part in the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait that he organised several terrorist plots against the West. 9/11 was certainly the biggest & worst of the lot but attacks were also carried out on the USS Cole, a Filipino airliner & a VBIED attack on the World Trade Centre back in the 90s.
2) The War on Terror - Due to the 9/11 attacks, NATO forces responded by ousting the Taliban & AQ from Afghanistan in 2001. Militarily the operation was still great success at the time but towards the end of the decade the Taliban once again surged using an influx on foreign fighters drawn by promises of jihad & the adoption of tactics learnt in the insurgency in Iraq. Due to Western commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very difficult to fight both insurgencies at once which arguably resulted in both battles not exactly going according to plan.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was far more controversial than the invasion of Afghanistan two years earlier. Despite claims that Iraq has chemical weapons, no operational weapons were actually found. It's clear that Saddam certainly had used WMDs in attacks in the past but by 2003 all had been removed from Iraq's arsenal - whether or not the US government knew this & invaded anyway or whether the intelligence agencies genuinely believed there was still WMDs but got this wrong still isn't clear.
Certainly few tears where shed when Saddam was removed from power - he was an evil dictator who killed thousands of his own people, started wars with Iran & Kuwait & did certainly at one point use chemical weapons while also trying to obtain nuclear weapons also. However, there was no link whatsoever between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks which is another claim by the Bush administration prior to invasion. The major mistakes were actually made after the invasion however - once again military operations were a great success but the aftermath was a bloody fiasco. The West had no plan to deal with the undercurrent of sectarian tensions between the Sunni & Shia sects, the Iraqi army which could have at least been used temporarily to restore stability was disbanded (allowing military trained personnel to join insurgent groups) and the Americans went in with a typically heavy handed approach while arguably the UK did too much of the opposite & pretty much surrendered Basra to Shia militants as we tried to use the model of Northern Ireland in Iraq.
Certainly there's plenty of evidence to suggest that troop surges towards the end of the Bush presidency did reduce some of the sectarian violence but, from what I gather, mainly the US focused on keeping the Sunnis & Shias segregated. After the West pulled out, Shia & Sunni militants once again started fighting which is a major reason why Da'esh (ISIS/ISIL) came to prominence. The Iraqi army in 2014 fell apart in the face of the Da'esh offensive & even Baghdad looked like it may fall at one point. It took a combined effort of Western airpower, Shia militants & the Iraqi military to stop the offensive & to turn the tide as we are seeing now.
The War on Terror has/is also being fought in Pakistan & various other countries both in the Middle East & in other areas. Perhaps the biggest concern is the "homegrown" terrorism which is arguably far more of a threat to Western civilians.
3) Oil - Some individuals & groups will see this as the biggest reason for the wars in the Middle East. Certainly Afghanistan has no oil but that doesn't stop some of the conspiracy theorists. Iraq is/was obviously a major supplier of oil but it's worth pointing out that America & the UK actually get very little of their oil from the Middle East. China, on the other hand, has gained several oil deals from the post Saddam governments in Baghdad. I'm not going to say oil played no part in the invasion of Iraq but I do think its role is often overstated.
I'd argue that oil (as well as the need to have some kind of stable ally in the region) is why the West panders to Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, with the availability of fracking & a general move away from fossil fuels towards nuclear fusion power in the future will mean that we're not forced to ally with nations so backwards.
4) The Bush Administration - While I don't totally buy all of the criticism thrown at the so called Neo-Cons in Bush Administration, it's certainly true that after 9/11 some officials saw a chance for America to overthrow regimes in the Middle East. Before 9/11, the Bush Administration was actually aiming for a more isolationist approach compared to the Bill Clinton era - George W Bush's biggest military priority was actually missile defence from rogue states & he favoured cuts in federal spending in exchange for tax cuts.
After 9/11 this all changed with federal spending increasing and military focus shifted away from Russia & China to terrorism. It's certainly apparent that some officials in the USA saw an opportunity to spread American style democracy & capitalism throughout the Middle East in the same way the West had done so in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union.
There's an interesting although now incorrect quote from Thomas Friedman -
"No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's."
I think this shows that many Neo-Conservatives had faith that democratic capitalism could help in the Middle East; it seems like they, at the very least, lacked understanding of the region, the religion & and tribal nature of the conflict zones.
There's a variety of other factors that could also be added - the different climate, the lack of natural resources other than oil, tribal conflicts, human greed, lack of representation/taxation, dictatorships, absolute monarchies, human rights abuses, poverty etc. Most factors are linked.
Why do I personally think the Middle East is generally a bit of a conflict zone -
1) Religion - Islam has regularly come into conflict with itself over the past couple of thousand years. The major sects are the Sunnis & Shias. Nations like Iran, Iraq & Bahrain are majority Shia while Saudi Arabia, the UAE, & almost every other ME nation are majority Sunni. It also doesn't help that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a Sunni regime that deliberately targeted Shias which led to the sectarian violence during the Iraq War. Bahrain is also a Shia nation ran by a Sunni minority which has lead to clashes between the government & citizens.
Islam & Christianity regularly came into conflict in the Middle Ages when European forces attempted to take the Holy Land while Islamic armies at one point reached as far as Southern France when they invaded Spain. It took until the 1400s for the Spanish to drive them out.
The major bone of contention throughout recent times has certainly been the Jewish state of Israel formed shortly after the Second World War. Arab nations have repeatedly attempted to invade Israel in various wars including in 1949, 1967 & 1973. While it's fair to say most of the governments in Middle Eastern hemisphere at least begrudgingly accept Israel's existence, quite a few armed terrorist groups like Hamas, Da'esh, AQ etc don't. I must admit that I personally side with Israel with most policies but I certainly condemn their general treatment of Palestine. At one point it may have been possible to create a 2 state solution but that now looks unlikely due to Israeli settlements on contested land.
On the whole, the West (especially the USA) is rather sympathetic towards Israel while the USSR during the Cold War was happy to provide assistance to Arab nations more due to convenience rather than ideological aims.
Islam has once again come into conflict with the West since the War on Terror started in 2001 but the reality is that certain sections of Islam have seen Western interests as targets long before that. In fact Osama Bin Laden was so offended by Western troops playing a part in the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait that he organised several terrorist plots against the West. 9/11 was certainly the biggest & worst of the lot but attacks were also carried out on the USS Cole, a Filipino airliner & a VBIED attack on the World Trade Centre back in the 90s.
2) The War on Terror - Due to the 9/11 attacks, NATO forces responded by ousting the Taliban & AQ from Afghanistan in 2001. Militarily the operation was still great success at the time but towards the end of the decade the Taliban once again surged using an influx on foreign fighters drawn by promises of jihad & the adoption of tactics learnt in the insurgency in Iraq. Due to Western commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very difficult to fight both insurgencies at once which arguably resulted in both battles not exactly going according to plan.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was far more controversial than the invasion of Afghanistan two years earlier. Despite claims that Iraq has chemical weapons, no operational weapons were actually found. It's clear that Saddam certainly had used WMDs in attacks in the past but by 2003 all had been removed from Iraq's arsenal - whether or not the US government knew this & invaded anyway or whether the intelligence agencies genuinely believed there was still WMDs but got this wrong still isn't clear.
Certainly few tears where shed when Saddam was removed from power - he was an evil dictator who killed thousands of his own people, started wars with Iran & Kuwait & did certainly at one point use chemical weapons while also trying to obtain nuclear weapons also. However, there was no link whatsoever between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks which is another claim by the Bush administration prior to invasion. The major mistakes were actually made after the invasion however - once again military operations were a great success but the aftermath was a bloody fiasco. The West had no plan to deal with the undercurrent of sectarian tensions between the Sunni & Shia sects, the Iraqi army which could have at least been used temporarily to restore stability was disbanded (allowing military trained personnel to join insurgent groups) and the Americans went in with a typically heavy handed approach while arguably the UK did too much of the opposite & pretty much surrendered Basra to Shia militants as we tried to use the model of Northern Ireland in Iraq.
Certainly there's plenty of evidence to suggest that troop surges towards the end of the Bush presidency did reduce some of the sectarian violence but, from what I gather, mainly the US focused on keeping the Sunnis & Shias segregated. After the West pulled out, Shia & Sunni militants once again started fighting which is a major reason why Da'esh (ISIS/ISIL) came to prominence. The Iraqi army in 2014 fell apart in the face of the Da'esh offensive & even Baghdad looked like it may fall at one point. It took a combined effort of Western airpower, Shia militants & the Iraqi military to stop the offensive & to turn the tide as we are seeing now.
The War on Terror has/is also being fought in Pakistan & various other countries both in the Middle East & in other areas. Perhaps the biggest concern is the "homegrown" terrorism which is arguably far more of a threat to Western civilians.
3) Oil - Some individuals & groups will see this as the biggest reason for the wars in the Middle East. Certainly Afghanistan has no oil but that doesn't stop some of the conspiracy theorists. Iraq is/was obviously a major supplier of oil but it's worth pointing out that America & the UK actually get very little of their oil from the Middle East. China, on the other hand, has gained several oil deals from the post Saddam governments in Baghdad. I'm not going to say oil played no part in the invasion of Iraq but I do think its role is often overstated.
I'd argue that oil (as well as the need to have some kind of stable ally in the region) is why the West panders to Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, with the availability of fracking & a general move away from fossil fuels towards nuclear fusion power in the future will mean that we're not forced to ally with nations so backwards.
4) The Bush Administration - While I don't totally buy all of the criticism thrown at the so called Neo-Cons in Bush Administration, it's certainly true that after 9/11 some officials saw a chance for America to overthrow regimes in the Middle East. Before 9/11, the Bush Administration was actually aiming for a more isolationist approach compared to the Bill Clinton era - George W Bush's biggest military priority was actually missile defence from rogue states & he favoured cuts in federal spending in exchange for tax cuts.
After 9/11 this all changed with federal spending increasing and military focus shifted away from Russia & China to terrorism. It's certainly apparent that some officials in the USA saw an opportunity to spread American style democracy & capitalism throughout the Middle East in the same way the West had done so in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union.
There's an interesting although now incorrect quote from Thomas Friedman -
"No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's."
I think this shows that many Neo-Conservatives had faith that democratic capitalism could help in the Middle East; it seems like they, at the very least, lacked understanding of the region, the religion & and tribal nature of the conflict zones.
There's a variety of other factors that could also be added - the different climate, the lack of natural resources other than oil, tribal conflicts, human greed, lack of representation/taxation, dictatorships, absolute monarchies, human rights abuses, poverty etc. Most factors are linked.
(edited 7 years ago)
My Brother and I against My Cousin; My Cousin and I against the Stranger.
American imperialism.
If you disagree, then you'd be supporting Hillary's policies.
If you disagree, then you'd be supporting Hillary's policies.
Original post by whatadon
Okay now, give it to me straight up. I've been trying my darndest but I don't get it.
Tldr: western countries keep helping appoint leaders of countries that was made up after world war 2 and then rush in like the freedom police when **** hits the fan.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by whatadon
Okay now, give it to me straight up. I've been trying my darndest but I don't get it.
Israel, oil & gas, and arms exports.
(edited 7 years ago)
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