|
<< Why Right Hates Tax Cuts for Middle Class | Main | Abolish Filibuster/Abolish Senate >> March 12, 2003Saddamism by DesignAnd interesting article from The UK Guardian on the original British folks who drew the borders of Iraq after WWI. As the article notes, Iraq was deliberately designed as an internally warring mess of repressed groups where an authoritarian state would be the dominant system: Bell and her superior as British high commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, laid down policies of state in Iraq that were taken up by Saddam's Arab Ba'ath socialist party. Those policies were to retain, if necessary by violence, the Kurdish mountains as a buffer against Turkey and Russia; to promote Sunni Muslims and other minorities over the Shia majority; to repress the Shia clergy in Najaf, Kerbela and Kazimain, or expel them to Iran; to buy off the big landowners and tribal elders.So the US and Britain design artificial borders with the intent of an authoritarian dictator to rule it, then use that dictatorial rule to justify violating international law. Yep, it's just them ignorant backwards peoples in the third world causing all these problems. Colonialism and imperialism has been a great racket for the West. Posted by Nathan at March 12, 2003 07:03 AM Related posts:
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: Comments"So the US and Britain design artificial borders..." Why "US"? It was the British who did it. The U.S. is not responsible for *every* evil on this planet, is it? Posted by: Andrew Boucher at March 12, 2003 07:24 AM The US was hardly a minor player at the Versailles treaty and followup decisions after WWI that carved by the Ottoman Empire and allowed Britain to draw these lines. Posted by: Nathan Newman at March 12, 2003 07:39 AM As I understand it is was the responsibility of the League of Nations, not a result of the Versailles treaty. Do you have a link? The U.S. of course was not a member of the League, but I guess you could always say then it was America's fault for not having been a member. Posted by: Andrew Boucher at March 12, 2003 10:03 AM Andrew, according to some information I've seen, there is solid anecdotal evidence of Woodrow Wilson drawing the lines of the Balkan region, leftover from the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire. I have yet to find any direct evidence linking US post WWI influence to the larger Mid East territory. I do know and have read the Sykes-Picot agreement, between the British and the French, dividing almost all of northern Africa between themselves. The US began to inherit the problems of that agreement as the British and French began to lose influence over those colonies. We inherited mainly the British problems. The shah of Iran was installed and supported by us as a buffer and strategic ally against USSR until the 79 revolt. We broke off relations with Iraq in 65 after one of the Arab-Isreali conflicts, re-eastablished them to support Saddam against the Iranians,1983-88, and then through Iran-conrta,1985,86 secretly sold missiles to the Iranians to use against Iraq. And those are just the highlights, if you will. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 leads to the creation of the Jewish homeland, with the League of Nations approval in 1922, giving England sole determination and control over Palestine. Which after WWII and the Jewish migration to Isreal was granted independence, which lead to Arab animosity and war, and the take over of support and defense of Isreal by the US. Most all of the above actions, either British or US, occurred without consultation of Arabs on the ground, or were outright false agreements, knowing they would not abide by the Arab position. So yes, we do share a large responsibilty for what we face today, and these events and our lack of understanding as to how they affected large Arab populations for decades is one of the reasons they hate us. Posted by: MS Tierney at March 17, 2003 12:47 PM Join the Linux community. Linuxwaves.net Posted by: Elizabeth at July 6, 2004 11:56 AM Post a comment
|
Series-
Social Security
Past Series
Current Weblog
January 04, 2005 January 03, 2005 January 02, 2005 January 01, 2005 ... and Why That's a Good Thing - Judge Richard Posner is guest blogging at Leiter Reports and has a post on why morality has to influence politics... MORE... December 31, 2004 December 30, 2004 December 29, 2004 December 28, 2004 December 24, 2004 December 22, 2004 December 21, 2004 December 20, 2004 December 18, 2004 December 17, 2004 December 16, 2004
Referrers to site
|