The Middle East: only Wars & Conflict ! .. ??

[Ela James]

Is it fair to say the Middle East throughout history has always been a place where there was a war going on?

Someone even suggested the 3rd world war might be triggered in the ME

[tinfoilhat]

Is it fair to say the Middle East throughout history has always been a place where there was a war going on?

Someone even suggested the 3rd world war might be triggered in the ME

 

Someone? Can't see that happening.

[Happ Hazzard]

Yes I think so. Most of the world has been full of trouble for most of history, it's only in recent times when there has been relative peace.

[Uptowngirl]

Is it fair to say the Middle East throughout history has always been a place where there was a war going on?

Someone even suggested the 3rd world war might be triggered in the ME

 

The problem is religion. Folk in a country do not identify themselves as being Iraqi or Egyptian. They identify themselves as being Sunni Muslims or Shia etc.

 

I think we should let them get on with it.

 

The question we should ask is how many British lives would you be willing to sacrifice in order to save 1000 Egyptian/Syrian/Iraqi ones?

The answer that I would give would be not very many.

[Mecky]

The problem is religion. Folk in a country do not identify themselves as being Iraqi or Egyptian. They identify themselves as being Sunni Muslims or Shia etc.

 

I think we should let them get on with it.

 

The question we should ask is how many British lives would you be willing to sacrifice in order to save 1000 Egyptian/Syrian/Iraqi ones?

The answer that I would give would be not very many.

 

Eh? Islam is a new religion, much younger than Christianity anway. The troubles in the middle-east existed long before islam

[Ridgeway84]

My attitude to the place is in line with that of Mathew Paris who when on Question Time was asked what his opinion was on the latest bloodbath. He caused the handwringers of the UK to explode by shrugging and saying words to the effect he didn't care anymore as it's just never ending with no moral authority on either side.

 

I used to suppport the Palestinians etc but these days I look at the thriving democracy that is Israel, a kind of European island and compare it to the basket cases that surround it.

 

Some Isreali politician said that he'd be scared of Arabs when they formed a queue. I was in Luxor airport in 2008 and was disgusted at the running and scrumming of the Egyptians when the plane doors were opened. The families and old were just elbowed aside. Most of these nations aren't even nations, just lines on a map ignoring multiple tribal territorial pi**ings.

[ronthenekred]

The problem is religion. Folk in a country do not identify themselves as being Iraqi or Egyptian. They identify themselves as being Sunni Muslims or Shia etc.

 

I think we should let them get on with it.

 

The question we should ask is how many British lives would you be willing to sacrifice in order to save 1000 Egyptian/Syrian/Iraqi ones?

The answer that I would give would be not very many.

 

That would be dependant on the $ return. British lads and lasses deaths are a smokescreen and we can sanitise it all with honour, bravery and hero worship. We'll keep doing this until we all wake up to the fact that the kids in the field are pawns who have been fed guff, and dead soldiers parents who wont acknowledge the futility of their loss simply because they want something a little more than waste as a memorial.

 

We the masses are our own worst enemy.

[catpus]

That would be dependant on the $ return. British lads and lasses deaths are a smokescreen and we can sanitise it all with honour, bravery and hero worship.

We'll keep doing this until we all wake up to the fact that the kids in the field are pawns who have been fed guff, and dead soldiers parents who wont acknowledge the futility of their loss simply because they want something a little more than waste as a memorial.

 

We the masses are our own worst enemy.

 

ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON RON!

Sheep leading sheep, God bless 'em.

What can you do when they have been hooked, line and sinker to the box.

 

>>The Middle East has always had a rich abundance of natural resources, although which resources are coveted and valued has changed over time. Today, abundant petroleum fields dominate the area's economy. The Middle East is similarly disproportionately rich in Natural Gas especially off the coast of Isreal (32 percent of the world's known natural gas reserves are in the region) and Phosphate (Morocco alone has more than half of the world's reserves).

 

In the 18th and 19th centuries, major European nations competed to establish and maintain colonies around the world. Superior military power and economic leverage allowed them to create new markets for their manufactured goods, and to exploit the natural resources of the African, American, and Asian continents.

 

Since the early part of the 19th century, Europeans vied to control the Middle East. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 divided the Ottoman lands between the British and the French, giving those nations control over any natural resources, most importantly oil.

 

Modern armies were thirsty for oil. The British navy was the first to switch from coal to oil in 1912, (First World War 1914?) and other new technologies, like automobiles and airplanes, quickly and drastically increased the demand for fuel.

 

The United States was becoming an important player in world affairs during the early 20th century, and soon Americans found they, too, had a vested interest in developing and controlling oil reserves in the Middle East to supply their growing needs.

 

More than 1,000 years ago, Zoroastrians in Iran revered the perpetual flames that burned where natural gas vented from the earth. In the early 20th century, British prospectors discovered oil in Iran and in 1908 began the first large-scale drilling projects there. The government of Iran sold the exclusive right to explore and drill for oil in Iran -- a "concession" -- to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). The British government bought a controlling stake in AIOC, and by the start of World War I, Iranian oil was Britain's most important strategic resource.

 

In time, Iranians grew to resent the AIOC. The terms of the concession were so unbalanced that British investors were rewarded handsomely while the government of Iran made very little profit. Foreign businessmen and engineers in Iran led extravagantly wealthy lifestyles that contrasted sharply with the poverty of the local population.

 

Frustration with foreign exploitation led to nationalization. The Iranian government of Mohammed Mossadeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1953, but in a coup engineered by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this nationalist government was overthrown, and a government friendly to Western interests was installed under the control of the Shah of Iran.

The continued economic and cultural influence of the West and the repressive nature of the Shah's regime led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Shah was overthrown and exiled, and the new Islamic Republic of Iran was established, (by the CIA?) led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

 

After World War II, Britain and France gave up control over much of the Middle East, as they could no longer afford to continue their imperialist strategies, either politically or economically. But a new world power, the United States, increased its presence in the region as American demands for oil were rapidly growing and outstripping domestic supply.

 

Standard Oil of California first discovered oil in Saudi Arabia in 1936. The huge deposits there and in the neighbouring Persian Gulf countries -- the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain -- established these countries as some of the richest in the world.

 

Continuing American military power and domestic lifestyles... depend on available access to Middle Eastern oil and reasonably low world petroleum prices. Thus, U.S. foreign policy initiatives work to support the stability of pro-U.S. governments, prevent anti-U.S. powers or blocs from forming, and reduce tension and potential armed conflict in the region.

Relations between the Saudi and U.S. governments have traditionally remained strong. Some Americans have questioned that relationship since the events of September 11, 2001, when Osama bin Laden and several other Saudis were SUPPOSEDLY involved in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. At the same time, many Saudis mistrust their government's close relationship with the U.S. and resent other American policies in the region, such as U.S. support for Israel and the U.S.-led bombing of Iraq. The presence of armed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia -- the birthplace of Islam -- is particularly galling to many Muslims.<<

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/resource/index.html

 

I guess you will probably be aware of what I post, because I can tell from your posts that you are an avid reader and assimilator, as am I.

I hope this adds to your extensive information.

[Harleyman]

The middle east was ruled by Britain and France for decades. Countries like Syria, Iraq, Libya were all cobbled together by long dead colonial bureaucrats with little or no regard for the different tribal rivalries among the peoples who found themselves living together in one new country.

 

It took a bit of time to happen but now the chickens have come home to roost. These current conflicts are all basically wars among various tribes

[mafya]

The problem is religion. Folk in a country do not identify themselves as being Iraqi or Egyptian. They identify themselves as being Sunni Muslims or Shia etc.

 

I think we should let them get on with it.

 

The question we should ask is how many British lives would you be willing to sacrifice in order to save 1000 Egyptian/Syrian/Iraqi ones?

The answer that I would give would be not very many.

 

I think you need to brush up on your history regarding the Middle East, you could start before the religion of Islam came about.