Some excellent insight on how the war is affecting the ME

[Jaakko]

Read the linked thread. Everything the Collounsbury fellow types is worth its weight in gold.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=172697

[Urban Ranger]

He's good.

He confirmed what my general perception of the region, their reactions to the whole "WoMD" fiasco, and the current US-UK invasion.

He also confirmed my view that the GWB government has zero expertise in international relations.

[Urban Ranger]

I've said in the past, he's like John Gotti running a country (except Sadaam is well educated, I know people who knew him back in the Cairo days). Not crazy, but mean.

However, that's a matter of degree in a region that has largely only known despotism, so mean gets respect if its even handed.

[TheBirdMan]

Yes - it really does look like Collounsbury knows what he is writing about. Really.

[Sirotnikov]

Actually while he is convincing in his speech - he mentioned several things which clash with my knowledge of reality.

He claims that the Us sponsored the Baath party via the CIA and viewed them as allies against communism.


That is very silly considering the Soviets always were Iraq's best allies, and to this day, almost all Russia's politicians and military chiefs talk about Iraq as "our ally" and "our friend".

To remind you - Iraq now has millions upon millions in debt to Russia (formerly the USSR) for military help they've recieved during the Baath era.

And this goes even without mentioning that the Baath is an arab nationalist socialist movement. Baath parties all around the arab world have always allowed the creation of other communist and socialist movements, conditioned they rejected universalism.

But by that time, post-Stalinist USSR has long rejected universalism and promoted the creation of Russian / Soviet myths.

Thus, the relationship between the communist-socialist movement and the Baath party have always been very very warm, and remain so to this day.

It is true that the US saw secular and nationalistic Iraq as a way to combat Iran - which at the time was US's largest concieved Islamic threat.

But don't forget it was not a love relationship but more of an "anyone who'se my enemy's enemy is my friend" attitude. Iran at the time, was holding several hundreds US hostages. Iraq was not.

[TheBirdMan]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
That is very silly considering the Soviets always were Iraq's best allies, and to this day, almost all Russia's politicians and military chiefs talk about Iraq as "our ally" and "our friend".

The Sovietunion has been dead for a decade now and we all (should) know, that politicans are the best and bussiest whores on earth.

Therefore it is "silly" to draw the influense of old commies to much into this matter now. The new Russia can say whatever they want - but they have not power neither enough money to support their words.

Who CIA actually supports - only the gods know. I doubt even the american president knows for sure.

[Az]

He was referring to the 80s. I don't think there is any chance that the CIA supported Saddam in the 90s.

Actually, who knows?

[Spec]

HA! Libertarian is on this Forum! Hehehehe Think I'll drop by and say hi!


Spec.

[TheBirdMan]

Originally posted by Spectator
HA! Libertarian is on this Forum! Hehehehe Think I'll drop by and say hi!


Spec.

And????????????????

[Sirotnikov]

The Sovietunion has been dead for a decade now and we all (should) know, that politicans are the best and bussiest whores on earth.

Therefore it is "silly" to draw the influense of old commies to much into this matter now. The new Russia can say whatever they want - but they have not power neither enough money to support their words.

Who CIA actually supports - only the gods know. I doubt even the american president knows for sure.

Considering that I was talking about the creation and rise to power of the Baath party, and their cooperation with the Soviet Union, and the CIA, I was referring to the 70s and 80s.

[Solly]

Who is he?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Actually while he is convincing in his speech - he mentioned several things which clash with my knowledge of reality.

He claims that the Us sponsored the Baath party via the CIA and viewed them as allies against communism.

Your knowledge of reality needs some help, then. The US sponsored the Ba'ath party against the former strongman of Iraq, who had allied with the Iraqi Communist Party. It was only after the Ba'athists came to power the 2nd time that they turned towards the USSR (probably because of the US's support of Israel in 1967).

Hussein was on the CIA's payroll in the 1950s and 60s. When the Ba'athists came to power the first time in 1963, the CIA gave Hussein a list of communists, communist-sympathizers, and suspected commies and commie-symps. Eight-hundred of them died or disappeared.

[Ramo]

Ba'athism as an ideology resembles fascism much more than communism. It was originally seen by the US as a natural bulwark against the commies.

[Az]

Your knowledge of reality needs some help, then. The US sponsored the Ba'ath party against the former strongman of Iraq, who had allied with the Iraqi Communist Party

You mean that Gangster type? doesn't say much about the Iraqi communist party, then.

If baathism is a form of Pan-arabism ( it is, right? ), how come Nasser, and the baath parties of Iraq and Syria took different sides?

[Sloth]

On the situation in ME I suggest reading this article from the Economist

"IRAQ'S vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, has a predictably low opinion of his fellow Arab leaders. Mr Ramadan, speaking before cameras to prove he had survived the first bombs on Baghdad, said Arab leaders come in three flavours: those who collude openly with America, those who do so secretly, and those who avoid decisions altogether, while unleashing their police to suppress popular rage.

The Arab public broadly shares Mr Ramadan's contempt. After a week glued to the gore on satellite channels, their mood is one of fury against America, pride in Iraq's defiance, and frustration with their own governments. They are shamed by their leaders' weakness in the face of America. Not only are many governments complicit with the war effort; their feeble diplomatic attempts to prevent war were less effective than those of non-Arab powers, such as France and Turkey.

Anti-war demonstrations in Arab capitals have yet to attain the scale of those seen in Europe before the war. Even so, given the range of repressive instruments in the hands of Arab states, both the turnout and tenor of protests have been eye-catching. In Sudan and Yemen, demonstrators were killed in clashes with police. Half a million Syrians braved foul weather to stomp through the centre of Damascus. Some 40,000 people stalled Cairo's main square for ten hours, dispersing only after police dragged off and beat up several hundred, including two members of parliament. The square has remained an armed camp in anticipation of even rowdier protests to come.

Two factors have emboldened Arab protesters. The first is that Iraq, battered and despised as its regime is, appears to be winning the propaganda war. This is partly due to early boasts and blunders by American and British forces. The targeting of a busload of Syrian workers heading home from Baghdad, for example, brought bereavement directly into Syrian homes. And the brief raising of an American flag over the port of Umm Qasr, a contravention of orders that happened to be captured on Arab screens, convinced some that this is indeed a war of occupation.

Arab television audiences have also been surprised to find that, in contrast to previous wars in the region, their own news channels are proving at least as reliable as western ones. Round-the-clock news stations, such as al-Jazeera, Saudi-owned al-Arabia and Abu Dhabi TV, maintain larger networks of correspondents inside Iraq and rarely flinch from airing graphic content. Iraqi officials have also been assiduous at courting the press, punching home the message that they are fighting to defend faith and fatherland.

The second factor is the failure of many Arab governments to provide adequately for their own people. Demonstrators in impoverished Syria are too afraid to criticise their own corrupt regime, whose only proven competence, in any case, seems to lie in diverting domestic criticism to foreign affairs. But other economically beleaguered governments are either less effectively repressive, or have proved less nimble at aligning themselves, rhetorically at least, with Iraq's resistance.

The shakiest right now is Egypt's. For Hosni Mubarak, the timing of this war could hardly be worse. Depressed for five years, Egypt's economy has sunk further in the past month. A 20% currency devaluation has fuelled sharp price rises, even as tourism, a big hard-currency earner, faces a wartime collapse. America has bailed out this key Arab ally in the past. It is overstretched with other commitments just now, and also miffed by Mr Mubarak's unwillingness to offer open support.

Small wonder that Cairo's demonstrators shouted curses at their own leaders as well as at George Bush, or that police turned most brutal when the crowd surged towards the headquarters of Mr Mubarak's party, apparently with the intention of attacking the giant presidential portrait that hangs there. As Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, said recently, being America's enemy these days may be dangerous, but being its friend could prove fatal."