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Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?[W:51***]

Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

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radcen

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Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

I think we have, and for decades to come. For good or for bad, and as imperfect as it was, it was somewhat stable. Now, it's chaos.

Discuss.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

I think we have, and for decades to come. For good or for bad, and as imperfect as it was, it was somewhat stable. Now, it's chaos.

Discuss.

The US, via NATO, screwed up Libya. We are funding, arming and training Islamic "moderate" fundamentalists. That started with OBL, and continues in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Chechnya, and who knows where else. USA money and arms and training keeps the Syrian debacle afire, keeps the Iraq debacle afire, created the Libya fire and our arms support the Yemen fire. Good money in war, don't ya' know?
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Radicalism and fundamentalism screwed the Middle East.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Yeah, things were much better with state genocide and court sentences of gang rape.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Mistake number one. Bush should not have invaded Iraq.

Mistake number two. Everything Obama has done in Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Yeah, things were much better with state genocide and court sentences of gang rape.
I'm glad to see evidence that our presence caused those things to come to an end. Let me know when you find some.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

I'm glad to see evidence that our presence caused those things to come to an end. Let me know when you find some.

The government of Iraq no longer commits genocide nor sentences gang rape.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

I think we have, and for decades to come. For good or for bad, and as imperfect as it was, it was somewhat stable. Now, it's chaos.

Discuss.

No, without the United States the Middle East would be far more war-torn, chaotic, and poor.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

No, without the United States the Middle East would be far more war-torn, chaotic, and poor.

Following your logic then our constant screwing with the people and the governments of that region: determining their borders, assassinating or arranging for the assassination of their heads of state and their leaders; picking their new heads of state; backing their enemies in armed conflict; back them later against their enemies (our former "friends") in armed conflict; sending our corporations over to "help" them with their national resources; sending our missionaries to help with their national religions; occupying their sovereign nations; killing hundreds of thousands of their children, their women and their civilian; destroying their cities and their infrastructures; making hundreds of thousands homeless; destroying their livelihoods; bombing them and droning them; giving billions to their corrupt leaders that we choose, billions their people will never see has been good for them?

How has it been good for America?
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

occupying their sovereign nations

Sovereignty belongs to the people and not a tyrant. Where tyrants rule, the people are not sovereign. Protecting the sovereignty of a tyrant that has taken sovereignty from the people is intellectually pathetic garbage.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Following your logic then our constant screwing with the people and the governments of that region: determining their borders, assassinating or arranging for the assassination of their heads of state and their leaders; picking their new heads of state; backing their enemies in armed conflict; back them later against their enemies (our former "friends") in armed conflict; sending our corporations over to "help" them with their national resources; sending our missionaries to help with their national religions; occupying their sovereign nations; killing hundreds of thousands of their children, their women and their civilian; destroying their cities and their infrastructures; making hundreds of thousands homeless; destroying their livelihoods; bombing them and droning them; giving billions to their corrupt leaders that we choose, billions their people will never see has been good for them?

How has it been good for America?

We haven't done the bulk of the things you described.

Without US influence and involvement in the Middle East innumerable horrendous outcomes would almost certainly have come to pass. Our involvement has been good for the United States, and for the good of the Democratic world, by at various times preventing the expansion of Soviet influence, preventing a single regional dictator from controlling the entire region, routinely defusing or crushing incipient conflicts, freezing others, bringing down or stymying the ambitions of dangerous regimes, etc. All in a region that serves as a critical energy node, transportation hub, and nexus of modern civilization.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Following your logic then our constant screwing with the people and the governments of that region: determining their borders, assassinating or arranging for the assassination of their heads of state and their leaders; picking their new heads of state; backing their enemies in armed conflict; back them later against their enemies (our former "friends") in armed conflict; sending our corporations over to "help" them with their national resources; sending our missionaries to help with their national religions; occupying their sovereign nations; killing hundreds of thousands of their children, their women and their civilian; destroying their cities and their infrastructures; making hundreds of thousands homeless; destroying their livelihoods; bombing them and droning them; giving billions to their corrupt leaders that we choose, billions their people will never see has been good for them?

How has it been good for America?

Off the wall rhetoric and outlandish hyperbole sounds good sometimes. Heck, the useful idiots and low information people even tend to believe all that BS.

But that BS isn't a sound basis if you want to apply logic. Sorry about that.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Following your logic then our constant screwing with the people and the governments of that region: determining their borders, assassinating or arranging for the assassination of their heads of state and their leaders; picking their new heads of state; backing their enemies in armed conflict; back them later against their enemies (our former "friends") in armed conflict; sending our corporations over to "help" them with their national resources; sending our missionaries to help with their national religions; occupying their sovereign nations; killing hundreds of thousands of their children, their women and their civilian; destroying their cities and their infrastructures; making hundreds of thousands homeless; destroying their livelihoods; bombing them and droning them; giving billions to their corrupt leaders that we choose, billions their people will never see has been good for them?

How has it been good for America?

Some of the discord does go back to European colonialism ans the arbitrary drawing of borders, absolutely, but while the region did have some levels of conflict in modern times, it wasn't near as much as it is now.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Yes we, and the rest of the west, have screwed up the Middle East but it's not something that just happened recently, we've been meddling since the end of WWI.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Sovereignty belongs to the people and not a tyrant. Where tyrants rule, the people are not sovereign. Protecting the sovereignty of a tyrant that has taken sovereignty from the people is intellectually pathetic garbage.

What the hell does that mean in context to my post? What criteria are you using?
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

We haven't done the bulk of the things you described.

Want to be specific?

Without US influence and involvement in the Middle East innumerable horrendous outcomes would almost certainly have come to pass.

How about fleshing that out. Be specific, please.


Our involvement has been good for the United States, and for the good of the Democratic world, by at various times preventing the expansion of Soviet influence, preventing a single regional dictator from controlling the entire region, routinely defusing or crushing incipient conflicts, freezing others, bringing down or stymying the ambitions of dangerous regimes, etc. All in a region that serves as a critical energy node, transportation hub, and nexus of modern civilization.

In essence it's all about oil and you'll kill for it. Right?
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

The "modern" Middle East was a mess before America and the Europeans screwed it up even more.

But, yes, we had a hand in screwing it up quite a bit, no more than the Europeans though.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Yeah. The Middle East was a happy, peaceful place before the U.S. Came and screwed it up. I don't think that region of the world knew war or understood the concept of violence against your fellow man before America showed up on the block.

Minor sectarian differences never led to bloodshed in the past, it's just after the Stars and Stripes showed up that these peaceful folks suddenly learned of violence
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Want to be specific?



How about fleshing that out. Be specific, please.




In essence it's all about oil and you'll kill for it. Right?

1. I tried to address these in sequence.

We haven't been "constantly screwing" with the 'people' and 'governments' of the region. The vast bulk of the regimes in the Middle East either predated US involvement and/or have come about as a result of indigenous movements. I struggle to think of a country who's borders we 'determined' other than Iraq when we drove them out of Kuwait. We've assassinated vanishingly few Middle Eastern leaders or heads of state. In fact I'm struggling to think of any that we did. Would you care to name some that you think we killed? The selection of 'new heads of state' has also been vanishingly rare if not non-existent. The only example that comes to mind might be Iran but that doesn't really fit with your description.

We've certainly played both sides of the field in certain circumstances. This is only reasonable when you are presented with two terrible choices. The alternating support for Iraq and Iran during the Iran-Iraq War was emblematic of our desire that neither Baathist Iraq nor Islamist Iran would become hegemons in the Middle East.

Obviously US companies, like Dutch, British, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc, etc, companies have invested in the region and have periodically been given state partnerships as a result of their technical expertise, especially in the 50's and 60's. This has largely abated in favor of more conventional FDI. When have we sent our missionaries to assist with propagating our 'national religions'? We've occupied one state: Iraq. I hardly care about the 'sovereignty' that a genocidal fascist dictator asserts. Etc, etc, etc.

2. Without US involvement in the Middle East we could point to a plethora of likely outcomes. Going to the immediate post-war period in 1946, it is likely that without US pressure the Soviet Union would likely not have withdrawn support from the Mahabad Republic which would have likely resulted in the creation of a Sovietiezed Kurdish 'Republic' protruding into Iran as a springboard for deeper Soviet penetration and further conflict. This is just one early example among a litany. Without US involvement in the Middle East it is likely that Saddam Hussein and Baathist fascism would reign from the Euphrates to the Gulf and that his government would once again have become embroiled in a war with Iran, a war, with new resources, it might have won. Without US involvement it seems quite likely that Jordan would have collapsed in bloodbaths under pressure from Syrian backed Palestinian uprisings in the 1970's. Without US involvement it seems probable that the Soviet Union would have extended an immensely greater hand throughout the region ensuring much greater regional conflict and violence between the likes of Soviet backed Syria and Egypt against Jordan and Iraq. Instead, as a result of US involvement, these conflicts never materialized and remained 'cold' before eventually dissipating.

I mean I could go on and on. The list of hypotheticals is nearly endless.

3. You wouldn't? Civilization hinges upon access to resources. Food, Oil, Water, Copper, Rubber, it doesn't really matter what you call it. There is a difference between advocating Imperial conquest and colonization and recognizing the importance of resources and the need to ensure that they do not fall into the wrong hands. I'm perfectly willing to say it was in the interests of the United States, and the world, that the oil and natural gas of the Persian Gulf did not fall under the exclusive control of Saddam Hussein.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Other = Yes, but so have others.

Which doesn't make it acceptable, but may make it more understandable.


Specifically the most recent Iraq thing...

We either screwed up when we went in without a decent plan, or screwed up when we mostly pulled out after partially fixing ****. Depends which main party you listen to, but in even if they're both wrong it means THEY screwed up by being wrong. So someone screwed up in relation to that business.

Or perhaps that last wasn't a screwup, we haven't seen the end of that madness by any means.


But basically yeah. We screwed up.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Id say the blame falls on the world, including the middle east and the US. US definitely made it worse, so have many other countries, but the middle east damn sure isn't helping themselves.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

The government of Iraq no longer commits genocide nor sentences gang rape.

Sure it does..... its called ISIS, its the existing government of Northern and Eastern Iraq.

I believe the American adventures in the Middle East were the inspiration of the Cat-in-the-Hat Comes Back.

[video]https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C211US739D20141202&p=The+Cat+in+the+Hat+Comes+back[/video]

GW was just little Cat C in the long list of fumblin's and bumblin's we have done in the middle east. The whole matter of installing the Shah of Iran in the 1950's was hardly a proud moment. Of course, the this ultimately led to the fundamentalists gaining power there when the pendulum swung the other way in the 1970's. We were for OBL in Afghanistan before we were against him; We for Saddam before we were against him.

The middle east was mess before we fumbled and bumbled and turned into a bigger mess.... Our insatiable appetite for oil and our western arrogance that thinks all cultures should be western are two of the major wedges we have used in the ME to have far too many people there hating us....

I am a big believer in walking softly and carrying a big stick. However, once you use the stick, you are no longer walking softly. Moreover as well evidenced by our disaster in Iraq, once you swing the stick, you are very likely to hurt yourself as much as anybody, revealing that your stick isn't really all the big.
 
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Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

I think we have, and for decades to come. For good or for bad, and as imperfect as it was, it was somewhat stable. Now, it's chaos.

Discuss.

The UK and France were screwing up the Middle East decades before you came along.
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

Sure it does..... its called ISIS, its the existing government of Northern and Eastern Iraq.

I believe the American adventures in the Middle East were the inspiration of the Cat-in-the-Hat Comes Back.

[video]https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C211US739D20141202&p=The+Cat+in+the+Hat+Comes+back[/video]

GW was just little Cat C in the long list of fumblin's and bumblin's we have done in the middle east. The whole matter of installing the Shah of Iran in the 1950's was hardly a proud moment. Of course, the this ultimately led to the fundamentalists gaining power there when the pendulum swung the other way in the 1970's. We were for OBL in Afghanistan before we were against him; We for Saddam before we were against him.

The middle east was mess before we fumbled and bumbled and turned into a bigger mess.... Our insatiable appetite for oil and our western arrogance that thinks all cultures should be western are two of the major wedges we have used in the ME to have far too many people there hating us....

I am a big believer in walking softly and carrying a big stick. However, once you use the stick, you are no longer walking softly. Moreover as well evidenced by our disaster in Iraq, once you swing the stick, you are very likely to hurt yourself as much as anybody, revealing that your stick isn't really all the big.

Correction: ISIS is the existing government of Northern and Western Iraq
 
Re: Have we (the US) screwed up the Middle East?

GROUP EFFORT

I don't think it's entirely fair to say that "the US screwed up the Mid East" since the Foreign, Colonial meddling was a Colonial "Group Effort"

British betrayal of the Arabs,(1) the forced injection of a Foreign population into an existing, Native Population & confiscation & redistribution long inhabited land would screw up any existing culture.

There's nothing wrong with immigration except when it's forced, a completely alien culture & without the consent of the existing population.

The existing, native Jewish, Christian & Muslim population was co-existing peacefully & all dreaded the arrival of Foreign, militant Zionists. I don't believe that immigration into the Region was wrong only that it should have been done more thoughtfully & with consideration of the existing Residents








(1) The McMahon Agreement
 
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