Bush is setting up Custer's Last Stand in Iraq! What will be the outcome this time?I consider myself pretty lucky of late to have made the acquaintance of some from the middle east who have been educating me as to middle eastern emotions and thoughts. I have taken the liberty to post them here in hopes of educating more of us and to hopefully engage in a useful dialogue as to what is unfolding in the middle east and the repercussions of a permanent American military presence in the middle of all this.
I hope those I am including think this is a good idea because they are educating me and I would like to spread the wealth to all our benefit. Per suggestion yesterday I will note their input in blue so as to denote them from my own. I was corrected right off the bat when I mistakenly termed the rift between Sunni and Shiite as hate.
Reply! I think we have to separate what is ideological rift from actual hate. The rift between Sunnis and Shias was there from the beginning but there is no hate. Spin, yes. I think AhmadiNejad's rhetoric about Palestine is actually damaging the Palestinian cause in Iran (but serving well AhmadiNejad's popularity across the Arab world) because Iranians do not want to wage war with the US and Israel because of Palestine, although they are sympathetic to the cause. I understand that.
I hope those I am including think this is a good idea because they are educating me and I would like to spread the wealth to all our benefit. Per suggestion yesterday I will note their input in blue so as to denote them from my own. I was corrected right off the bat when I mistakenly termed the rift between Sunni and Shiite as hate.
Reply! I think we have to separate what is ideological rift from actual hate. The rift between Sunnis and Shias was there from the beginning but there is no hate. Spin, yes. I think AhmadiNejad's rhetoric about Palestine is actually damaging the Palestinian cause in Iran (but serving well AhmadiNejad's popularity across the Arab world) because Iranians do not want to wage war with the US and Israel because of Palestine, although they are sympathetic to the cause. I understand that.
I think also that if AhmadiNejad was able to score points in the Arab world and the shia Arabs, it is because Saudi Arabia, who owns most Arab media, has been waging a sectarian war on Iran and the Shias while not doing anything for the Palestinian cause, only harm in my opinion. They started it through Saddam, the Sunni, and when they realized that Saddam, despite US help, was not able to overthrow the mullah regime, they let him down and are now espousing Bush's sectarian policy in the ME.
Saudi Arabia has lost the hearts and minds of Arab faithful and citizens, the same people whom it is supposed to represent as a religious authority. It has even lost the hearts and minds of its own citizen who are very critical of the royal family. This is a very backward family and a very backward regime.
They know, since 9/11, which is a kind of internal revolution against the royal family waged on a foreign soil, that their only hope now for surviving the rift between them and their 'subjects' is to fan flames of hate between Sunnis and Shias.
But it will not work this way. The most successful religious leaders in the Arab street now are Shias, and not Sunnis. There are convergent interests in waging a war against Iran between the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Even since its inception, SA's royal family has worked against Muslim and Arab interests and for its own interest and survival as a royal ruling family. I have a post on this, it is in my permanent links (selection of articles) 'the Lawrence of Arabia syndrome'. It is the Saud family who 'sold' Palestine to the Zionists.
Now for Persians and Arabs, they are very different. The fact that some Arabs are Shias, and most Persians are, do not erase the difference. Their histories are fundamentally different and also their languages. I know that some Persians might feel contempt for Arabs, but I am not of that mentality and I don't resent that. This kind of national pride pitted against another nation or ethny can be found everywhere and is a bit stupid and folkloric in my opinion. We are all human beings.
One has to remember that ideological rifts do not necessarily translate into hate unless hate is provoked and spinned. I am from the opinion that a war against Iran is criminal, as was the war against Saddam, and enhances the risk of inflaming the whole ME.
I am afraid I can agree with what she said especially the last paragraph in light of Bush's intentions in Iraq to set up a permanent presence. . I was using the word Hate to represent the Rift between Sunni and Shiite. I actually do not know the feelings they have towards each other. I only hear of the intolerance of the sects to each other at least by leaders and hard liners. I have found that the average citizen of every nation is very tolerant of others and wants peace and prosperity and only to not be bothered.
I don't know about damaging the Palestinian cause but I do believe AhmadiNejad has gained favor in defending the Muslim Religion. I think even Sunni Muslims would rally behind AhmadiNejad when Bush attacks Iran as I believe he will.Saudi Arabia has alienated many of their own citizens and at any rate without a doubt all Iranian citizens at least would rally behind AhmadiNejad even though many may disagree with him now.
I certainly agree with Saudi Arabia fanning the flames of sectarian violence to save themselves. That makes total sense. It has been my contention from the beginning that the sectarian civil war Bush created in Iraq that is being supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia as was expected, will engulf the entire middle east. Then it will get worse.
It amazes me and I decided to discuss this today, that Bush is talking drawing down troop strength while he is proposing to put our military in the middle of that exploding sectarian violence for generations to come as a Korea style force.
That supposed draw down is not the beginning of the end for our military interference but the beginning of the end for our military if it happens. It would be an enormous Custer's last stand. I do believe that a war against Iran is as criminal as the war against Iraq but It will happen. It is only one reason why Bush attacked Iraq in the first place to get our military in the middle east.
It is why he wants to leave us there. The whole middle east will be enflamed as was obvious from the beginning and it is sickening hearing the lies and watching this unfold. It will happen! Again, one of my contentions from the beginning was that our long term presence in the middle east would serve to unite them all in order to get us out of the middle east and once we were removed they would then turn on each other.
I would like to hear your take on the results of a permanent American military presence in the middle east, of particular interest is the thoughts of those from the middle east. Sounds like Custer's last Stand on a Grand Scale to me.
13 comments:
Jim
Whilst I agree with you that saudi arabia shares some responsiblity with Iran in flaming sectarian violence, I honestly think that Iran and Bush are both the ones who instigated the sectarian violence in the very first palce.
The åhony sectarian discourse ensured Bush the help of the Irani (not Iraqis because they faught with iran gainst their own country)brigades that were kicked out of Iraq in seventies and eighties for collaborating withthe Iranian enemy. Moreover, a moral cover was provided for his war, as Bush's propaganda machine presented this war to the American and western public- who happen to be totaaly misinformed about middle eastern issues-as war of liberation for the shiites opressed by Sadam which is totally untrue as Ira q was secular with shiites holding key posts in republican guards and Baath party.
For Iran,on the otherhand, a strong secualr progressive Iraq had defeated it thouroyghly in 1988 and checked the Iranians from entering into the middle eastern equation. Playing on sectarian emotions and presenting themselves as the protectors of shites and Islam against the athiest infidels would ensure them a cinsiderable influence in Iraq and will sever very well their ultimate goal of dismanling and weakening Iraq.
Saudi Arabia role there was simply a reaction to the increasing ethnic cleansing crimes commited by Iran i Iraq. However the Saudi Arabia being a backward retarded wahabi dominjated country is capable of doing nothing but fueling the sectarian discourse not healing it by launching a media campaign on shiites. A secular modernist discourse is a danger to the Saudi regime which is along with Iran is the source of many evils in the middle east.
remeber that it was Saudi Arabia that played a very dirty role with Egypt's Nasser- the only man who was really capable of uniting the Arabs.
I dont know about the extended American presence- but I think that wont be good for the United staes in the long run. That will only nurture hate and anti SAmerican feelings among middle easterns
"http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF22Ak04.html"
´Read this article James, and you will know why what Iran is doing doesn't qualify as sectarian cleansing, rather it is brutal ethnic cleansing against all arabs sunnis and shiites ( Iraq is predominatly Arabic except for kurdish minority and some Iraqis of an Iranian origin)
Now that Der Fuhrer Bush has told the American People that we will be in Iraq for decades possibly he has shifted the discourse away from his Iran War that is coming.
We will lose the majority of our troops on the ground in Iraq when that happens.
I long for the day that he's charged with War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity and tried in the Hague.
I long for the day when he's found guilty and sentenced to either life in a dark damp cell or hung on the gallows and it can't come soon enough.
God Bless.
Hold on Anon, I want to respond to you but have to answer Amre.
Amre
I agree with you that Saudi Arabia shares some responsiblity with Iran in flaming sectarian violence, I also believe that Iran and Bush are both the ones who instigated the sectarian violence in the very first palce.
Saudi Arabia was forced to respond but respond they are. This will get much worse before it encompasses the entire middle east
It was obvious to many of us right from the beginning that Bush was lying and what his real intetions were. Now he wants us there permanently and that will be hell for everyone, Sunni, Shiite, Americans, the entire middle east.
This idiot really sickens me, Bush has managed to turn a surplus into a 2 trillion dollar debt in world record time and just imagine what a permanent American military presense will do to that.
Also Israel just attacked supposed syrian nukes with promises of retaliation and Bush wants us in thge middle of that?
This is only for his new world order but just to be there we will also end up enlarging our military, more money. Then what about the world?
This is a hell of a mess Bush insists on creating for the entire world and it will no longer be quelled period. I will write on that later but I have things to go attend to right now.
Amre
I don't know if I would term what Ahmadinejad is doing as ethnic cleansing but it is obvious to at least me that he does want Shiite dominence and that won't be allowed to happen by the Sunni or Bush. I want to thank you for the link I will check that out when I havbe a chance.,
Anon
This is all sickening as I have been tryting to alert people for years. with a permenent military in the middle east he will be poised to force his new middle east order.
Attacking Iran is only one given. Yesterday Israel attacked Syria's supposed nuclear assets with promises of retribution and we are going to be in the middle of all that? Don't forget Russia and China!
I have to run out but I am writing about this later. Just imagine what this is going to do to our military and our debt. Both will grow exorbitantly.
Every month in Iraq hundreds of victims are struck down by sectarian violence or massive bombing campaigns, and a small band of volunteers has taken it upon themselves to give the unclaimed dead a proper burial.
"We've been doing this for 20 years, under Saddam, but the numbers have increased, as have the difficulties," Sheik Jamal al-Sudani, who leads the volunteers, tells CNN correspondent Michael Ware. "Because now it is as if the streets are flowing with blood."
Before the US invasion of Iraq deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, the volunteers buried up to 40 people every month. In the war's worst months, that figure increased 50-fold as volunteers buried an average of more than 2,000 anonymous war victims, Ware reports.
As the war stretches through its fifth year, several hundred bodies remain unclaimed every month. The unidentified bodies of men, women and children are found on Iraqi streets and sewers as well as in bombing ruins; some are "so mangled and charred, they're unidentifiable," CNN says, while others are Sunni victims whose families are too fearful from their own lives to visit Iraq's Health Ministry morgue, which is controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr's hard-line Shiite followers.
How many thousands of fresh bodies will be buried once the Bush invasion of Iran takes place?
Larry
It's horrible! This is Bush's success and I am putting a story together right now but he will dwarf that.
I did a story over a year ago title one Morticians night of bush's sucess or something like that. Anyway one Baghdad mortician was picking up 100 bodies per night.
This is the success Bush wants our military in permanently to attack Iran then it gets worse.
Larry
Damn Larry! With everything set now you really have to wonder. For quite a while and I told my sons too, I expected it and still do this fall. As I told you, he will beat Congress to the punch.
Jim:
I don't know why Bush bothers dragging his military lapdog before congress to spread his lies of war.
Congress have already proven their not bucking the corporate dollars that flows their way to allow the war for oil to continue.
Larry
I know, I am so sick of this. no one is going to do anything unless we take to the streets enmasse and force them and the resolve is not there.
I just somehow blew away a story I spent hours putting together so right now I am trying to rebuild it from memory because I thought it important.
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