05-30-2008, 04:31 AM
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#11 (permalink)
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Banned
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Originally Posted by dlish
.....the topic of problems of the ME are huge, and volumes of books cannot do it justice, and have been countless discussions and arguments over this here in the politics board. but id haveto say that ww1 and the british meddling in arab and muslimaffairs to unbalance the delicate equilibrium in the ME was a major catalyst. britain, remains to this day scorned by most arabs for this. i still see this as a thorn in their side and i dont see the arabs as forgiving as the british hope they would be.
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Excellent post, dlish, but I warn you. It is all but impossible, in my experience, to reach anyone who already "knows what they know".
Summer reading:
Inventing Iraq – Yet Again?
http://www.antiwar.com/stromberg/?articleid=2556
Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation-Building and a History Denied
Quote:
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-...2150116&sr=1-1
A WARNING FROM THIS BOOK's AUTHOR, David Fromkin, JUST A WEEK BEFORE THE US INVASION OF IRAQ:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...50C0A9659C8B63
The World; A World Still Haunted by Ottoman Ghosts
By DAVID FROMKIN
Published: March 9, 2003
A GHOST has been haunting the United States. It is the specter of the Ottoman Empire.
The ghost is with us today, in the antagonism between Turkey and the Kurds in any war over Iraq. It was with us two years ago, when Osama bin Laden, in a televised message, said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were in retaliation for what the West had done 80 years earlier: divvy up the remains of the Ottoman Empire.
The ghost made its appearance when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, igniting the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Kuwait belonged to Iraq, Mr. Hussein argued, because modern Iraq was the lineal descendant and heir of Ottoman Basra. And Kuwait had come under the sovereignty of the province of Basra in the days of the Ottoman Empire.
The ghost was with us when Yugoslavia disintegrated into savage ethnic feuds. Many traced the disintegration to the Ottomans' efforts to set various Christian nationalities against one another. And conflicting claims -- notably Serbia's to Kosovo -- were based on the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans more than half a millennium ago.
Today, the more ambitious spirits in the Bush administration propose not merely to invade Iraq, but to use it as a base for transforming the Arab Middle East. Once before in modern times, Western countries -- England and France -- set about remaking these Ottoman lands. ....
......After World War I, Britain and France, by defeating the Ottoman Empire, won control of the Arab lands, and with it, a tantalizing bauble: the likelihood that vast deposits of oil might be found there.
The Europeans and their American business partners hoped to establish stable and friendly regimes. After they redrew the borders in the early 1920's, Britain and France introduced a state system, and sought to supply political guidance too. But the system did not endure. Instead, the area grew more turbulent and unsettled.
Looking back, it is clear that many characteristics of the Middle East, some of which President Bush would like to change, were shaped by the five centuries of Ottoman rule. The United States may preach and practice secular politics, but it would have difficulty imposing secularism on the Middle East. It was taught to put religion first by its Turkish rulers, which defined the empire as a Muslim country, not a national one. The importance of religion in the Middle East is a legacy of the sultans who were also caliphs.
<h3>The empire also encouraged its perhaps two dozen ethnic and national groups to maintain their separate identities. It is no wonder that they are constantly feuding today --</h3> the Ottoman ghosts never far away.
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Quote:
.....The police force is watching the people,
and the people just can't understand.
We don't know how to mind our own business,
'cause the whole world's got to be just like us.
Now we are fighting a war over there.
No matter who's the winner, we can't pay the cost.
'Cause there's a monster on the loose,
it's got our heads into the noose.
And it just sits there... watching."
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(Steppenwolf_album)">-Steppenwolf 1969</a>
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Last edited by host; 05-30-2008 at 04:55 AM..
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