Wrong on too many accounts
Aq not about "grievances". That's close to justifying their actions. It is an evil ideology who's only grievance wa the actual existence of non believers. Isis is the same. Also they did to all intents and purposes control a country. Afghanistan
Italy is no comparison at all. Mussolini did not exactly bring about the extrme social repression that will come with isis.
Of course I support Americas view. I believe in the success of liberal democratic states. Well I don't have to believe in it, it's there. Blindingly obvious. Eventually we might see such states in the Arab world once they through off the shackles of religous domination and tolerance of dictatorships.
I wonder if many do actually look to the economic success of Israel and wonder? Or maybe Tunisia will lead the way? I once read that there the number of patents (always the best indicator of an developing economy) in the Arab world was a tiny fraction of South Koreas
Americas allies are just as evil as isis? I don't think so.
Also I find your opinions of Arab dictators pretty troubling . Is it really forgotten now what saddam was about? The suggestion too that he had no alternative than to murdr the marsh Arabs because they could have overthrown him is ludicrous. The marsh Arabs????????
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The idea that there is no alternative is rubbish
They said that about South Africa didnt they? Also about the eastern bloc? Every dictatorship going would have an apologist saying that is the "best for them". Depressing opinion and frankly not justified by even the hard lefts soft spot for "strong men"
There should be a multiquote function in here somewhere, but for such time as Clive's doubtless salivating all over the Kennington Oval glorifying in the demise of decadent, capitalist India paying the price for their commercial extravagance and wilting in the test match I suppose it's worth revisiting his points
In the first case you're completely wrong. The word 'grievance' is for the beholder to define. AQ was never a top down hierarchy (as already noted). How often do you hear western commentators refer to groups as being "AQ inspired" , or having "links to AQ" or "affiliated to AQ". They rarely refer to them as AQ for the very good reason that AQ barely exists beyond a network. If you want a structural similarity, something like Linkedin isn't that far removed (I'll spare feeding you the obvious line about evil bonding). AQ affiliates are therefore responsible for defining their own jihadist terms and conditions based on whatever grievance they perceive to be operating within their locality, region, or country
You've completely missed the point about Mussolini. The point I was making is that well resourced and motivated minorites can dominate majorities and case mayhem inbetween the period before intervention. You can't vote against an army that doesn't want to listen to the results (as Jonah Savimbi showed in Angola). This is what happened in Italy. The factory owners and industrialists of Turin, and Milan supported Il Duce. As did the judiciary in Rome and the various city police forces and army. Sure the peasent farmers of the south didn't, nor did whole swathes of the working class slum dwellers (there was a reason why the invasion was greeted as a liberation and why so many Italians switched sides) but these people couldn't fight back. They'd have lost. Now you might like to argue that after 10 years of training and supply from the USA better should have been expected of the Iraqi army. That's another point, but if you believe that, then you have to accept that part of the reason why ISIS has gained ground so spectacularly is due to failure on the planning side post Saddam.
As regards supporting America's view, I believe you might have made a slight typo in omitting the word 'blindly'. Can you confirm this please? Similarly, can you also confirm that you believed them blindly when they told you that Iraq possessed WMD, and confirm that in hindsight this turned out to be a lie? In fact Bush even said something hysterical when justifying the decision later on, which was "they sure as hell are now" - when asked as to whether they were a threat when they were invaded - he said that without any sense of irony
I'm not sure that the registry of patents stands up in a region that frankly doesn't need to register patents or invent anything new. The oil states of the gulf have such a completely different economic model that a different set of rules does apply. Even innovative things like 'slant drilling' as practised by Kuwait against Iraq, was copied off the Texans
I wouldn't differentiate betwee ISIS and America's allies that closely Clive. Do you regard the country that finances the terror to be less guilty then? In terms of paralells we have interesting one at the moment by way of broadly similar concept. David Cameron is considering making it an offence to have covered up for someone who you knew to be guilty of child abuse (a third party actor becoming culpable in other words). I suspect he's aiming at the BBC but will back off when he realises he's on a collision course with the Pope, but leaving that aside, if he's prepared to accept that the background conveyance is part of the crime, then the funders of terror (Qatar and Saudi Arabia) get off scot free compared to those who had nothing to do with it (Iraq and Libya). Surely you can see the inconsistency here? If you can't, then you'll never be capable of addressing it, because you'll consistently be looking in the wrong direction for fear of finding something that inconveniences your prejudged position as to who is good and who is bad
The Marsh Arabs if they were supported could have overthrown Saddam. 500 protestors in Benghazi overthrew Gaddafi, as did some motley student in 1978 overthrow the shah and set in train the islamic revolution. Causation in history is well documented and its foolish to say X could never cause Y. In fact the very best example of how a snowball rolls is having its anniversary this year. Could a chauffeur altering his route back from the city in hall in Sarajevo in 1914 really have caused millions of people to be killed in a war, established the Soviet Union, and set in train the conditions that would lead to a second world war in Europe and a nuclear age that followed it? And yet had he returned the other way (the one he was meant to) Princep wouldn't have been sitting in a coffee bar with a revolver and able to take his chance.
More specifially on the marsh arabs though, lets not forget "the world would not shed a tear" (George H Bush when asked about the prospects of them successfully overthrowing Saddam). He followed it up by saying that the "Iraqi should take matters into their own hands". In other language Clive he encouraged them, and if you recall correctly, they made good progress in the first 2-3 weeks, (as indeed the Kurds did in the north). The State Department however did a post Saddam scenario build, and very quickly concluded that a crippled Saddam was an infinitely better option for stability in the region (strange that one isn't it). I'd say the state department of the early 1990's had a better grasp on the situation than they did when the labotimised son came along a decade later. The US (or Bush the first to be more precise) egged the Iraqi opposition on, but on being advised that this might not be a good idea after all, abandoned them to their fate. War and civil war is messy Clive. If you've tried to overthrow and kill people, they'll take their revenge on you 8 times out of 10
The they who said it about South Africa I hope you'll clarify was the reactionary right wing, principally Margaret Thatcher and Ronald O'Reagan. The left wing didn't, precisely because the ANC (and even the PAC for that matter) were established political parties of many decades standing (broadly similar to the British Labour party in longevity - albeit that was a movement turned political). It was definitely Thatch and Reagan who adopted the way know best, and that these people can't be expected to rule themselves because they're dysfunctional tribes (well perhaps Inkhata might have exhibited that a bit) but the ANC didn't. Strangely though, she also negotiated the independence and crooked elections in Rhodesia at the same time? Strange that isn't it? Perhaps the Thatcher family didn't have as much personal business interest in Zimbabwe and were therefore more prepared to prop up a truly nasty regime in South Africa and denounce the likes of Mandela as "terrorists" - which i assume you blindly believed and followed as well? Actually - in fairness to you, I rather suspect you might not have done in truth
