= new reply since forum marked as read
I've disliked the Assads since Reagan. I also thought Bush II was a fool for wanting to overthrow Assad the Lesser, but at least he didn't do anything to actually implement his foolishness.
I though Pelosi was a fool when Bush II said how bad he was an, in response, went to visit Syria, donned the headscarf, and said good things about the Lesser (at least wrt Israel).
And I thought that supporting the "Arab spring" student protests in Damascus was also stupid. Even if it put me on the same side of the neo-Nazi-Night-Wolf-supporting Putin. The West saw in the student movement only what confirmed its bias and conformed to its liberal views. The diversity of opinion, the lack of unity, the unsavory underbelly of the movement and the sheer incompetence of its leaders was tempting to overlook--and if there's one thing that a lot of people have trouble resisting, it's temptation, esp. self-flattering temptation.
Putin I've disliked since he was elected. Possibly before. Bush II's "looked into his soul" line was idiocy of the highest calibre, rivaled only by Obama's "reset" (it was more accurate in the Russian botch-up, "overload"
.
And don't try a come-back that I must have been on the side of Qaddhafi the Vile or the tribalized uprising. Those who cited Qaddhafi's "gates of hell" line against Benghazi had heard this line dozens of times from many different Arab (and other) leaders--Arafat, Meshaal come to mind readily--and never took it as a literal claim of genocide and mass murder but as the rhetorical flourish that it was.
(Some others that want Putin's head on a platter haven't been here for enough years or have interest in calling for US military boots-on-the-ground intervention in Syria.)
Kind of a difference between disliking Putin and Assad, there - sentiments i share.
(coulda sworn I saw a :wave: smiley... oh well)
Thank you General and Madam Secretary for championing the humanitarian solution, and supporting our moderate friends in the region. Re:
"They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down"
Syria’s prime location and muscle make it the strategic center of the Middle East. But it is a complex country, rich in religious and ethnic variety, and therefore fragile. After independence, Syria reeled from more than a half-dozen coups between 1949 and 1970, when the Assad dynasty seized full control. Now, after 30 months of bloodletting, diversity has turned deadly, killing both people and country. Syria has crumbled into three identifiable regions, each with its own flag and security forces. A different future is taking shape: a narrow statelet along a corridor from the south through Damascus, Homs and Hama to the northern Mediterranean coast controlled by the Assads’ minority Alawite sect. In the north, a small Kurdistan, largely autonomous since mid-2012. The biggest chunk is the Sunni-dominated heartland.
Syria’s unraveling would set precedents for the region, beginning next door. Until now, Iraq resisted falling apart because of foreign pressure, regional fear of going it alone and oil wealth that bought loyalty, at least on paper. But Syria is now sucking Iraq into its maelstrom.
“The battlefields are merging,” the United Nations envoy Martin Kobler told the Security Council in July. “Iraq is the fault line between the Shia and the Sunni world and everything which happens in Syria, of course, has repercussions on the political landscape in Iraq.”
Over time, Iraq’s Sunni minority — notably in western Anbar Province, site of anti-government protests — may feel more commonality with eastern Syria’s Sunni majority. Tribal ties and smuggling span the border. Together, they could form a de facto or formal Sunnistan. Iraq’s south would effectively become Shiitestan, although separation is not likely to be that neat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/imagining-a-remapped-middle-east.html?pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all
It's also a map of War Crimes Future. Or, at this point, ongoing for 10+ years.
The Ralph Peters map in Armed Forces Journal, 2006:
If the Nazis had drawn it, it would have been an exhibit at the Nuremberg trial. The AFJ link no longer works, possibly they took it down because back then the Saudi crown called in Condoleezza Rice to complain officially.
The article appears to have been readapted into his book:
https://books.google.com/books?id=2DvhkRE9GP4C&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=%22International+borders+are+never+completely+just.+But+the+degree+of+injustice%22&source=bl&ots=zSqsZXB-WL&sig=VPPqqwDkn-s9SfznGc0Hbpr1u1c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qLLzVKuzMM2hyATF04HoAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22International%20borders%20are%20never%20completely%20just.%20But%20the%20degree%20of%20injustice%22&f=false
Bernard Lewis, FBA (born May 31, 1916) is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. He is also noted in academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.[1]
..
Stance on the Iraq War
In 2002, Lewis wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal regarding the buildup to the Iraq War entitled "Time for Toppling", where he stated his opinion that "a regime change may well be dangerous, but sometimes the dangers of inaction are greater than those of action."[44] In 2007, Jacob Weisberg described Lewis as "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq".[45] Michael Hirsh attributed to Lewis the view that regime change in Iraq would provide a jolt that would "modernize the Middle East" and suggested that Lewis' allegedly 'orientalist' theories about "what went wrong" in the Middle East, and other writings, formed the intellectual basis of the push towards war in Iraq.[46]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
Turning Fars into "arabistan," but keeping Khuzestan as part of "Persia"? Why is "Greater Syria" smaller than "Syria" (which is itself but a fragment of historical "Greater Syria" ?
The amount of ignorance in that graphic is terrifying in its abundance.
in reducing 'Greater Syria' to 'Alawitestan':
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2914475/ISIS-expand-control-Syria-American-airstrikes.html
