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Trump & ISIS


ditchman
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4 hours ago, chilly1981 said:

You think Iraq was a functioning society before well functioning socities don’t gas whole villages of there own people  or have people that scared of you they won’t speak to you

The picture below isn't Iraq or Syria. It is Saudi Arabia, about 40 kilometers from where I'm sitting now. The town is called Awamiyah. And, two years ago, after it was shelled to bits, it was bulldozed. The crime was to challenge the authority of Riyadh. But of course this little incident wasn't reported much in the western press because Saudi is our ally. And right over the fence from me, probably as I type this,  BAE personnel are servicing and arming Saudi Tornado IDS fighter bombers for their bombing runs over the hapless Yemenis.  Not much room for squeamishness there.   

And as for scared to speak to you, come to Saudi or go to Bahrain or any other Gulf Monarchy and ask anyone's political opinion. Or Egypt, or China, or Thailand come to that. In any of these countries people are scared to say what they think because if they say the wrong thing and the wrong person hears them  - it's re-education at best, or else  finish up in a river with your stomach full of concrete (Thailand) or with an electric wire around your privates (Bahrain). Aside from the putting down of the Kurdish rebellion, Iraq was in no way at all unique in its level of internal oppression. 

Yet in all these places, unless you're unlucky enough to live in the wrong town like Awamiyah, society functions fine and life goes on normally - just like  before the US invasion it did in most of Iraq (excepting the punitive sanctions). You can drive your kids to school without fear, go to the park with family and friends at the weekend, go shopping in the malls, go fishing, etc ,etc

But once you smash up the society, the school disappears because the teachers have fled or haven't been paid; you don't drive anyway because there's no petrol to be had and what's more at anytime you might run into the wrong militia roadblock and find yourself a statistic; the shops are empty of goods; and the parks are likely to be bombed, there are no medicines and the hospitals are targets anyway.

Do you imagine that anyone in the country thinks that's better than having to watch what you say in public? No, how it works is that when they want to work a country over for strategic reasons, there are always 'good' reasons put forward for the violence. In a democracy you need to sell the idea to the electorate  - it's called 'manufacturing consent'. But it's all lies really. The real reason is almost always money.

saudi-qatif.png?w968

Edited by Retsdon
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Trump's complete lack of diplomacy, statesmanship, modesty, vocabulary, and general decency should surprise no one, but I have to admit I had raised eyebrows and shook my head at the dog comments.   He's starting to remind me of that Iraqi minister I think his title was in the second gulf war, who just talked complete, unbelievable  drivel.  

As noted above, the office was previously also seen as the leader of the free world.  Trump has quite quickly eroded that one.

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Let's not forget the West needs these terror groups to be incensed now and again so they don't go away altogether. The west needs to sell arms to make loads of money and these need to be tested and while it's all very well firing a few missiles in the wastelands and blowing up a few old trucks etc there is no proving ground quite like blowing the guts out of a city in the name of anti terrorism. 

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2 hours ago, hod said:

Trump's complete lack of diplomacy, statesmanship, modesty, vocabulary, and general decency should surprise no one, but I have to admit I had raised eyebrows and shook my head at the dog comments.   He's starting to remind me of that Iraqi minister I think his title was in the second gulf war, who just talked complete, unbelievable  drivel.  

As noted above, the office was previously also seen as the leader of the free world.  Trump has quite quickly eroded that one.

Comical Ali ? Donald the clown, saying that, Trump has to get some praise for thus far avoiding starting another tragic all out war somewhere, there is no real choice in murican democracy, regardless of who the President is you get ruled by a combination of the MIC, dual citizenship “politicians” and the  money men at the top of industries such as pharmacy.

6 minutes ago, bostonmick said:

Let's not forget the West needs these terror groups to be incensed now and again so they don't go away altogether. The west needs to sell arms to make loads of money and these need to be tested and while it's all very well firing a few missiles in the wastelands and blowing up a few old trucks etc there is no proving ground quite like blowing the guts out of a city in the name of anti terrorism. 

Correct.

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2 hours ago, hod said:

Trump's complete lack of diplomacy, statesmanship, modesty, vocabulary, and general decency should surprise no one, but I have to admit I had raised eyebrows and shook my head at the dog comments.   He's starting to remind me of that Iraqi minister I think his title was in the second gulf war, who just talked complete, unbelievable  drivel.  

As noted above, the office was previously also seen as the leader of the free world.  Trump has quite quickly eroded that one.

Tariq Aziz?

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1 hour ago, panoma1 said:

Tariq Aziz?

He was the foreign minister, Christian too if I remember right, their media spokesman was quickly dubbed Comical Ali after his bizarre rants (named after some nasty cousin of Saddam who organised the mass gassing of people) whom the press initially called Chemical Ali.

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