All Posts

post a reply | post a new topic

Author

Topic: Mideast Leadership

topic by Barb 11/14/2001 (1:33)

reply top In my lifetime (40 years) and MUCH longer before that, why has there not been good strong leadership in the mideast? Seems when they get money all they want to do with it is build weapons rather than an economy. I can just hear all the whiners already bitching that the USA is somehow responsible (they'll blame the USA for every thing in their lives that is wrong). Look at history. Before the USA WAS the USA, there was CONSTANT FIGHTING. The problem in the mideast is not the USA -- it's the mideast. We've bought their oil for decades -- it's up to their leadership how to spend it. And look how they've spent it.

reply by DJFLux 11/14/2001 (4:37)

reply top You're right. The middle east always had problems in the past, most of which was due to the relics of former british colonisation. The American's got into the politics of the middeast somewhere around the early 70's when Egypt finally made a peace treaty with Israel.( But probably even before with the formation of the state of Israel) If you ask why there wasn't any good leadership in the mideast, well fact is there was, but alot of political opponents were killed even before getting into anything. The only leader who was well noted as being a good leader was King Faisal, who later was assisinated by his son, who the CIA said was working with them. So no matter how you look at it, forget history for just a second and reliase that America isn't solely to blame, but has a very BIG role in the problems in the middle east...and like I said before, Europe is involved, the British are certainly to blame on many issues, so if you look at most of the countries who form the so called 'NATO'...are in someway responsible for some other country's problem. But if you look at it, I'm not blaming the government of today( I'm blaming blind supporters), rather I blame our granparents who didn't think of thier actions, and left us with so much mess to clean up after.

reply by John Shaplin 11/14/2001 (5:02)

reply top Forget history for just a second? Forget it altogether is more like it. You and Barb make quite a comedy team.

reply by DJFLux 11/14/2001 (5:07)

reply top I only wished it was so. But then I don't get to choose my partner. :)

reply by Sandra 11/14/2001 (8:46)

reply top I don't know why I'm wasting my time trying to educate this woman. But here goes: During the British and French control of the region after WWI, both those imperial governments actively worked to deny electoral victory to political parties who wanted to improve their societies. In Egypt, for example, the Wafd party won in free and fair elections throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s. But Britain would not allow them to rule the country (except for 5 brief periods) because their goal was to reduce British control of the country's government and economy. That is what imperial control means, dear: to have veto power over a country's political choices. When a region *wants* to change, it is not allowed to. That is what happened in Latin America throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, with the US consistently stepping in to *thwart* attempts to democratize these countries. Immediately after WWII, the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, got rid of their dictator and called for free elections. A social democratic nationalist, Mohammed Mosadegh, won in what is regarded by all scholars of the region as a genuinely free election. His goal was to wrest control of oil from foreign powers and work to build a better economy to benefit his people. But the CIA stepped in and imposed the Shah on Iran, ushering a period of monarchical dictatorship and the rule of the brutal secret police force, the Savak. In 1962, the CIA stepped in to sponsor a coup in Iraq to usher in the Ba'ath party. The Ba'ath assured the US it would go after communists and socialists and liberals and social democrats, which it did vigorously. Thousands were imprisoned, killed or fled the country. The control of the party over Iraq paved the way for Saddam, who started out as a young military officer in the party. The reason my messages to you are so angry is that you epitomize exactly the sort of person who makes injustice possible. There are uneducated, useful idiots all over the world to whom a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You know nothing about this region's history, you speak in generalities only. You don't know anything about the region's political historical development, the enormous scientific, medical, technological and artistic achievements of the Arab and Islamic world at a time when Europe was a dark collection of dirty hovels. You know nothing of the region's history of enlightened scholarship and leadership at a time when Europe was a pathetic little backwater. You know nothing of how much knowledge European crusaders took from the Islamic world and brought back to Europe to later found the Renaissance. You're so fixed in your prejudices, so deeply mired in blind nationalism that you identify your American identity with your government and your military. You don't even know the history of your own country. The founding fathers of this country and the Americans of the 18th century would be APPALLED at the notion that to be an American is to identify oneself with one's government and one's military. True Americanism is to NEVER, EVER cede one's mind to the government (the Libertarians are absolute right about that), to constantly question it and criticize its conduct. You remind me of those German citizens throughout WWII who refused to believe the terrible things being said about their government by the outside world. When these decent citizens were shown the Nazi death camps just a few miles from their homes, some of them were traumatized while some still refused to believe that their government committed such heinous crimes. I can imagine taking you by the hand to see the aftermath of a destroyed village with bloodied bodies strewn all over the place while US-armed, US-trained and US-paid terrorists wielded their American arms to go kill other civilians and STILL it would not affect you. The decent German citizens I refer to above were easily manipulated and lied to because they were ardent nationalists, unquestioning fools. It doesn't matter how many times history documents that the US gov't has lied in times of war, lied about its conduct overseas, people like you never learn. You swallow whole everything you're told like a dutiful little robot. You equate American imperial policy with being pro-American yet not once do you offer any refutation of the history of US support for fascism in the post-war world. You never confront the charge, never deal with the historical record. I keep looking for any hint that you actually KNOW anything about what you're talking about but none of your posts offers anything to back up your assertions---they're full of sweeping generalities, grand platitudes, simpleminded labels, phrases borrowed from our fearless leaders. Your arguments are without any nuance, any sophistication, any knowledge at all. PLEASE, isn't there someone here who can defend the US who's ACTUALLY studied the region's history and the history of US foreign policy?

reply by liz beech 11/14/2001 (9:40)

reply top sandra there isn't going to be anyone who can defend US policy since the 2nd WW since that policy is indefensible, consequently, on this list, we appear to be willing to subject ourselves to this pointless to and fro which you so aptly describe as attempting to educate people in reality. I've tried in another subject box to ask a question about how it is that our BBC correspondents wandered about an intact Kabul airport yesterday, when we had been told, day in day out that this airport was being bombed with cruise missiles. One cruise missile on Heathrow airport would have had a significant effect, but at Kabul offices are intact, planes are intact, and there were a few potholes in the runway, which for all I know were there anyway. Shouldn't we all be asking about the effectiveness of these very expensive weapons which seem to be unable to hit a target as obvious as an airport? Or, more to the point, since I wish that no-one was bombing anything, shouldn't we demand proper explanations about what is going on? At moments I cannot believe the contradictions we are fed. We're not stupid and, as I am increasingly discovering the answers are in the detail. We are being LIED to, plain and simple.

reply by Sandra 11/14/2001 (15:24)

reply top >>sandra there isn't going to be anyone who can defend US policy since the 2nd WW since that policy is indefensible>> True enough, well said, liked your post. Glad you repeated your point about the intact Kabul airport. This is nothing new of course. The UN and others already documented that 70% of the bombs the US dropped on Iraq during the Gulf war missed their targets. Visitors to Iraq immediately after the war saw that the country's military and gov't infrastructure was left mostly intact while the electrical, medical, water, sewage and sanitation infrastructure was destroyed. Of course we're being lied to, it's par for the course in war time for *any* government to do so. The media repeats Pentagon spin as if it were gospel (and people like Barb parrot the same line mindlessly). Like all wars, we'll only find out the truth years after, when so many people have suffered and died needlessly, when it's all too late.

reply by Sandra 11/14/2001 (17:08)

reply top By the way, Liz, are you in the UK? At least you have Channel 4, ITV and, yes, even the BBC. Problematic as the BBC is, it's light years ahead of the twaddle we get over here. The media is at its conformist and Stalinist best over here, as it always is in times of war. One thing you can never do publicly in the US (esp. in the mainstream media): ridicule the military, let alone seriously question it. The soft questions lobbed at the Pentagon in those sanitized press conferences are laughable. Compared to the crap we have over here, the BBC is a bastion of skeptical, sophisticated, intelligent reporting.

reply by Barb 11/15/2001 (1:43)

reply top 'Lied to?' Ha-ha! It's called 'classified information, Liz, dear. You or anyone else are NOT entitled to know every thing our military does, sorry, that's the way our country is. Wake up to reality.

reply by Barb 11/15/2001 (1:44)

reply top Hey, Sandra, why don't you move to the U.K? Why stay in this horrid country?

reply by liz beech 11/15/2001 (9:35)

reply top yes, Sandra, I am in the UK, and yes, I do understand that much more debate is happenning here . Many of my American friends have said how impossible it is to find any credible disussion in the mainstream media. Barb, please get a grip, Kabul airport was a perfectly logical place to bomb, so when we were told it was being bombed we assumed it was. Will you say the same thing if it turns out the US were not bombing the Taliban front lines? If they are not bombing these what are they bombing and why? Perhaps they aren't bombing anything but they know lots of Americans would like to hear that they are, so they are pretending to - to keep you all happy. Feeling 'good' rather than 'bad'.

reply by You wish 11/15/2001 (14:41)

reply top Sandra... I do think you should go and live with Os.. I am sure you and he will make a nice 3some.or 4 some .. or???? For you to state that you are all knowing and no one can read.. without looking to open your mind.. you ASSUME to much http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/taliban_bans.html

reply by Barb 11/15/2001 (24:23)

reply top Sandra knows everything-- in her own mind. (I do think her middle name is Assume)