Iraq falling apart

[Blue Peter]

Furthermore, whilst I detest the slimy toad in any event, I am bound to suggest that this would very likely have been the fate of whoever was in power at the time in the UK.

Though France managed to resist. Perhaps they don't have a "special relationship"?


Peter.

[3rdRock]

Sunni militants have seized the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, officials and residents say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27865759

The Home Office said it would be a criminal offence to associate with or give financial backing to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).

The UK has ruled out a role in any possible military action but may give other support to the Iraqi government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27865849

[raspberry-blower]

Rather than give space to a war criminal, here is an alternative view from the Artist Taxi Driver:
Tony B.Liar: "Iraq is not my fault"

There is an obvious irony in there somewhere

[clv101]

Furthermore, whilst I detest the slimy toad in any event, I am bound to suggest that this would very likely have been the fate of whoever was in power at the time in the UK. One way or another, the USA was going to insist that the UK back them up and I can't see how any UK prime minister would have been able to withstand that pressure. Or, at least the kind of politician/administration that would have been able to withstand it would (is) never let anywhere near the door of Downing Street in the first place.

I agree. If William Hague had won in 2001, or even formed a collation with Kennedy, I can't see them having rejected the Bush/Powell/Rice invitation to go to war.

[biffvernon]

My MP, Sir Peter Tapsell, is a man of many faults, but he was one of the very few Tories to vote against going to war. (His wife is French, which may have been relevant.)

I think the point is that Blair went in willingly while had there been someone else from the Labour Party in his job (two notable cabinet resignations come to mind) then the UK may have taken the French line.

[biffvernon]

Another brilliant article from Nafeez Ahmed:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -addiction

Concluding thus:

In Einstein's words: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

[biffvernon]

And more of the tangled web we wove:
http://nsnbc.me/2014/06/15/isis-unveile ... yria-iraq/

[biffvernon]

And another perspective: http://stopwar.org.uk/news/what-we-re-n ... 6B9DPldXHv

[Mean Mr Mustard]

And a comment from a Graun reader...

You can just imagine one of these Isis lads phoning his boss yesterday asking what shifts he was on this week.

"Eh, I've got you down Monday to Wednesday as a terrorist in Iraq but
might have to send you to Syria as a rebel Thursday & Friday. Mustafa wants those days off to go to his cousin's wedding and I'm a bit short of men.
You've got the weekend off though"

[madibe]

What I write below is not of popular acceptance:

Most Islamic Countries have serious issues to deal with; climbing out of the medieval mindset will take some doing. Only they can do it. We can not help.

Whilst they cling to fundamentalist views, they can not stop fighting themselves or other belief systems. Although they view Christians and Jews as 'of the book' they still can not accept anything but their right to be right.

As for non believers, then it gets worse.

If Islam can not accept others of its own faith then what chance for the rest of humanity? It is a masculine dominated society full of intolerance.

They are fighting a religious war. A situation that the west can not really comprehend, because we have moved beyond that point in history.

We talk of 'democracy', 'equality', and 'justice', just to mention a few ideals. They basically do not care or have no notion of these things. Democracy is virtually unknown, at least in our ken of it, equality does not exist and justice comes at the end of a gun in the name of god.

The talk of our 'bad doing' is pointless. They would all be killing each other one way or another even if we had not become involved in the region. It is indeed a shame we became embroiled along with other nations. We should have stayed out and let the position be settled naturally.

But do not be convinced that all would be peace and light without our past 'interference'. The murder, the rape, the gassing, the torture, the bombing, the religious strife would still be going on - the only difference is that we would not be looking at it full in the face, as we do now.

And so, we must ask ourselves… if we turn a blind eye… does it all go away?

There are really only two options: Turn away or go in.

Since the region has for countless centuries been unstable then it is probably best that we turn away. Fence it off and pretend it doesn't exist.

But then there is the oil. And that's the rub.

[PS_RalphW]

That cannot be the whole story. The history of Islam is not that different from Christianity, periods of bitter infighting interspersed with long periods of peaceful coexistence. The last forty years we have seen massive rise in sunni fundamentalism largely funded by Saudi Arabian oil. They have bank rolled the maddrasas that have indoctrinated children from a very young age, into blood curdling fanatics. Much like Mao did in China. Or the Jesuits. This phase will pass in a few generations, after the oil has run out.

[UndercoverElephant]

That cannot be the whole story. The history of Islam is not that different from Christianity, periods of bitter infighting interspersed with long periods of peaceful coexistence. The last forty years we have seen massive rise in sunni fundamentalism largely funded by Saudi Arabian oil. They have bank rolled the maddrasas that have indoctrinated children from a very young age, into blood curdling fanatics. Much like Mao did in China. Or the Jesuits. This phase will pass in a few generations, after the oil has run out.

There is a fundamental difference, though. The difference is that the enlightenment and the scientific revolution (as well as the protestant revolution) happened in Europe and didn't happen in the heartland of Islam. The emergence of the modern world, with all of its ideological changes, forced Christianity to evolve while Islam remained firmly entrenched in the past. These changes took centuries, were often brutal and the conservative forces within the Catholic church fought every inch of progress. Fought and lost.

I agree with Maudibe. The underlying problem in that part of the world is that Islam was never forced to go through the same sort of major reformation, and that as a result it is still trying to drag humanity back to the 7th century. I also agree that if that sort of reform is ever going to happen, then it cannot be imposed from outside.

[PS_RalphW]

The irony is that the enlightenment and scientific revolution where built on the foundations of a lot of work done Islamic scholars whilst we suffered under the medieval church. Arabic numerals, algebra, (al)chemistry etc., etc.

Cultures change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. There is nothing in the Islamic religion itself that causes fundamentalism. It is just another meme that the human brain is prone to latch on to in its weaker moments.

[Little John]

The irony is that the enlightenment and scientific revolution where built on the foundations of a lot of work done Islamic scholars whilst we suffered under the medieval church. Arabic numerals, algebra, (al)chemistry etc., etc.

Cultures change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. There is nothing in the Islamic religion itself that causes fundamentalism. It is just another meme that the human brain is prone to latch on to in its weaker moments.

The Islamic religion, as laid out in the Quran, literally interpreted, is most certainly a cause of dangerous Islamic fundamentalism. That's the point.

The bible, literally interpreted, is equally dangerous. The point is that the Enlightenment and all the rest means that, for the most part, the bible is no longer fundamentally interpreted by the vast majority of people who come from a broadly Christian tradition, even to the extent that many of them may not even lay claim to a belief in a god, myself included. That's a measure of just how far the Christian cultural tradition has come. Islam has not yet adequately gone through this historical process.

Having said all of the above, where I differ from some of the previous points made is that I do not believe that there is a rising global tide of Islamic fundamentalism that we should be concerned with in and of itself. This rising tide is a function, not of Islam per-se. But, is, instead, due to a hundred or so years of Western forces accessing the oil in Islamic countries by fair means or foul and, in doing so, carving up parts of the world in such a way as to make ethnic and religious conflicts pretty much inevitable. All of the above is further complicated by the matter of cultural issues that exist independently of Islam, but which nevertheless occur in some oil rich, predominantly Islamic countries. This leads, if we are not careful to erroneously assigning some of the cultural practices in such countries to Islam instead of to other aspects of their culture.

In other words, I am suggesting, yes, Islam needs to go through a process of cultural growth and that will inevitably involve sometimes violent tensions between the old reactionary Islamic forces and the forces of Islamic liberalism. However, the globally murderous levels of those tensions we are currently witnessing are, to a significant extent, the result of our various interferences in various Islamic countries over many decades. These tensions, though, are yet further complicated by other cultural issues in those countries.

We reap what we sow. Or, rather, the poor bastards who have to live in those countries are reaping it. We should walk away and let them fight it out until a blind, vindictive peace eventually pertains. Two or three centuries down the line, the vindictiveness will be forgotten and there will be only the peace.

But we can't walk away because of the oil.

[UndercoverElephant]

The irony is that the enlightenment and scientific revolution where built on the foundations of a lot of work done Islamic scholars whilst we suffered under the medieval church. Arabic numerals, algebra, (al)chemistry etc., etc.

Yes, but those things did not challenge the Islamic metaphysical/theological or political view of civilisation.

There is nothing in the Islamic religion itself that causes fundamentalism

Oh yes there is. Islam was, right from the start, designed to be absolutist, fundamentalist, violent and utterly resistant to change/interpretation. This was in no small part due to the perceived "mutation" or "watering down" or "failure" of Christianity after it had been co-opted by the Romans as a state religion. There was to be no risk of the same thing happening to Islam.