Major_Spittle wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
Major_Spittle wrote:
As a reporter the follow up question should have been "Even if attacking Iraq would distract the public from your husban's latest affair while you were president?"
She said nothing about going to war with Iraq, hell she wouldn't even have "attacked them" even though they were breaking the cease fire agreement, shooting at our planes, refusing weapon inspectors, and saying fuck you to UN resolutions.
Clinton FTL.
Well, we did help Saddam rise to power, so in a way, we kind of created this problem in the first place. If we had just stayed the hell out of the Iran-Iraq War, the Middle East would probably be in a better situation today.
There is a comment with real thought and substance. Why don't you educate us what the middle east was like before the Iran/Iraq war and during the Iran/Iraq war and what the US did that made it such a worst place back in the 60s-80s? What would the middle east be like if the USA had no influence over there and totally stayed out?
Are you seriously asking me to educate you? I have to admit -- you don't seem like the type who wants to learn anything from anyone. So far as I've seen, your mind is pretty stagnant.
Nevertheless, assuming you actually are interested in knowing the history of this region, Iraq was rife with ethnic conflict before Saddam, but Iran had just held an Islamic revolution. Despite the religious dogma and oppression supported by the autocratic Ayatollah, Iran was in far better shape than Iraq at that point. Overall, Iran has proven itself to be a more advanced culture than Iraq, because of its general cultural unity.
The problem with Iraq is that it is composed of two major sects that hate each other. The Kurds are a third factor, but they generally stay away from most of the fighting and turn their attention to Turkey (which is another discussion altogether).
Iran would have likely conquered Iraq without the U.S. backing Iraq, but I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Sure, the Soviets were backing the Iranians, but as we've now seen, running Iraq is very expensive and mostly futile -- unless you want to be as brutal as Saddam. The Soviets and Iranians had quite a stomach for brutality, so I think they would have done a better job at running Iraq than we have.
Of course, I'm not saying that Iraq would be a free society or a nice place to live. I'm just saying that most of the insurgency would be dead.
Major_Spittle wrote:
The middle east has been a shit hole the past 1500 years that has been ruled by thugs and tyrant with in fighting among groups of thugs. Any outside influence can only make it better. I am sure there would have been nukes going off years ago if outside force hadn't kept a leash on some of the dictators.
/fail
Wrong. The Ottoman Empire was quite effective at running the Middle East for most of its reign. The order it brought to the region was a lot of the reason for scientific advancements they achieved as Europe was still fighting itself.
The point now is that this region understandably resents the influence of the West, so it might not be such a bad thing to just move away from oil and let them sort things out on their own terms.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are more worthy of our attention.
Last edited by Turquoise (2007-02-03 17:08:29)
