Karnal wrote on Aug 28^th, 2010 at 12:51am:


What about the legal authorities of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon? Western creations each.


The legal authority over Palestine after the Great War was Great Britain. It was not the League of Nations that defated the ottomans but the Allied Powers.

THE UN has no power, just as the League of Nations didn't.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 28^th, 2010 at 10:06am:


Being "honest" about brutality and imperialism doesn't excuse it.

Christianity doesn't control labour and resources, capitalism does. And before capitalism, empires did. I'm sure the Ottomans had as many slaves as the Romans.

I think you're mistaking political and economic structures for religious ones.

All soldiers are sold the lie that they are fighting on God's side. The point isn't the sides, but the political and economic structures that keep the war going.

Again, to get to the point of the thread, Iran is not fighting a defensive war. It's playing geopolitics. Religion might have something to do with it, but it is - as you put it - about the control of people and resources.

Fair enough? About time? Perhaps. But your original post highlighted the self-deception inherent in all war propaganda. If we're going to call the Christians bullsh!t artists, we should give the Muslims their due when they do the same.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Don't let your allegiance destroy your capacity for critical thought. If any type of religion encourages this, it's false religion.

Karnal wrote on Aug 28^th, 2010 at 4:28pm:



The US did not need UN authority. Bush got sucked into humouring Blair's endless UN 'legitimacy' mongering.

Nobody actually needs UN authority for anything (last of all the US) because nobody goes to war for the UN. There was no UN authorisation for attacking Afghanistan. The US decided to do it, so it was done.

The UN is without any capacity to enforce anything. Without the US financing it, the UN could't even cover its own wages bill.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 28^th, 2010 at 10:06am:


Islam obliterated the Romans and invented the wheel. Being a Muslims, you are more credulous than Alice, who belived only 6 impossible things before breakfast.

Hey, Abu_Rashid,
Don't you think Religious people (that includes Christians & Jews too)
have a Gun problem as if they think they were in the Military
...like Musicians seem to have a Drug problem
as if they were in the Medical
?

- no offence, but I thought Moslem nations only carry books around in the name of Religion.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 28^th, 2010 at 11:22pm:



Hang on....did you say that the groups like Hamas want to recreate the Caliphate????
If the 'World wide' Caliphate isn't 'imperialism'...then WHAT is?????

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 12^th, 2010 at 2:56pm:


Sure, but the Assyrians weren't free to escape the first modern, systematic genocide of the 20th century now were they? Surely you're not seriously defending this just because they were Muslims. I don't know many Germans who'd defend the Third Reich - a few members of this board perhaps...

You do raise a really important point about empires, and I'm happy to accept your argument on the Ottoman empire at face value. However, I think it's a mistake to see the Dutch, British or even the current "pax Americana" as empires. What these "empires" have done, in succession, is lead the process of global capitalism - and obviously exploit it to their own advantage.

But this exploitation does not, in itself, make an empire. An empire extorts lesser states, kingdoms or fiefdoms in the promise of protection, the Pax Romana as an example. It's a relationship based on brute force and taxation. Since the 16th century, successive states have arisen to lead capitalism, a completely different process to the imperial dominions of the past. They have acted to protect capitalism itself, which is essentially America's role today. It doesn't go into Iraq or Vietnam or Korea for its own sake. It does it to take care of business. The business of America, just like the British and Dutch before them, is business, and it's their business because the centre of global trade is based primarily within their borders.

The Ottomans were on the periphery of the economic core in the late 19th century, when the British led the way. I'll accept your argument that their domination wasn't merely about extorting surplus crops - although I have some doubts about this. Their place was the traditional form of empire, where they dominated lesser kingdoms and took them under their protection in return for favours, largely in the form of taxes on trade, given their control of important trading routes.

The Ottoman Turks weren't some pious, devoted Muslim utopia in the service of the people. Like all great powers, they relied on the rack and the iron maiden (or in recent Turkish history, the car battery, thumbscrews, and all the rest). Thank God they've changed into a secular state. Thank God they've ousted the military.

All great powers are corrupt to the core. They have to be to remain in power. There is no return to a golden age of brotherhood - especially at the global level. Sure, a handful of communities living simple lives, with decisions made by those you live with. But a global caliphate? Might as well bring back Stalinism and learn to live with the rack.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 14^th, 2010 at 8:57am:


Exactly.