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The last time there was peace in the Middle East was . . . never. OK, maybe back in the days of the Pharaohs. But then you might be building a pyramid and where’s the fun in that? Flash forward to modern times and “peace” in the Middle East can be roughly defined as “a predictably perishable period of political stability during which a tyrant controls a country.” Democratic liberty and relative tranquility in a Middle Eastern country that’s used to hundreds if not thousands of years of sectarian violence? We’re working on it. Allegedly. Anyway, the U.S. is supporting the Free Syrian Army with arms, ammo, intel and all the other bits and pieces modern insurgencies require. How great is that?

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43 COMMENTS

  2. who are these people we’re arming? will we have to fight them in 10 years. why do we have to be involved in the syrian implosian. being the worlds only super power sucks.

    • My thoughts too. In modern history, Syrians have not been deeply religious yet some reports suggest that is changing. A future Islamic Republic is not out of the question and that could possibly result in conflict with them in the future.

      Islam has a long history of going from the Caliphate ‘the Islamic form of government representing the political unity and leadership of the Muslim world’ to decentralized independent states or kingdoms. Rewind. The trend is now to go in the the direction of rebuilding the Caliphate. That is not good news for Westerners.

      • Lets see—we supported the overthrow of Mubarak, and now the Muslim Brotherhood runs Egypt and is crucifying people in the streets.

        We supported the overthrow of Qaddafi, and now the Muslim Brotherhood runs things and is throwing Libyans off of buildings. Oh, and they’ve been slaughtering black Libyans.

        Syria is going to go the same way. We KNOW it’s going to go the same way. We are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. WHY?

        Some countries cannot be allowed to have democracy, if giving them the vote means they will vote for a more oppressive Islamic regime.

        We should have left all those countries alone. Bare minimum, we should not be supporting one side in a civil war.

        • A democratic-republic with the focus on republic is right for us yet I agree with you that not all people and cultures (countries) should have democracy. We supported the Aghani Mujhadin against the Soviets and the result for us was the Taliban hosting Al Quida.

          John Naisbitt the trend writer once wrote that the Chinese when not watched over by the state do not have a good regard for the law and as individuals would not be responsible to others (beyond family, friends, etc). He thought too much democracy and individual freedom would be bad for China.

          Hitler’s Nazi Party was elected in a democratic election.

        • All countries can and should have democracy – eventually. What people forget is that the concepts of democracy and republic and human rights did not appear out of the blue in Western countries. They’re a product of centuries of political development, from Ancient Greek polises and Roman Republic, meshed with tribal war democracy of German and Celtic tribes, and later reviewed through the prism of Western Christianity and Reformation. It was something that had to be born, nurtured and mature as a concept before it could be applied to its full effect.

          The problem with those societies today is that they didn’t go through a similar path. Their Islamic culture may have it yet, but right now democracy is more of a cargo cult for them. When it’s applied, and riches don’t start falling out of the sky, people get mad at the idea (hey, clearly it isn’t working!) and abandon it for something they know better and can relate to, be it the tribalism of Afghanistan and Libya, or the Caliphate of the more advanced Islamic states.

          If you want to see democracy in Libya and Syria and Afghanistan, at this stage you need to support any movements that, in long term, will get them to the socioeconomic stage at which representative democracy becomes a natural thing. In other words, promote capitalism over feudalism, civic nationalism over ethnic tribalism, rule of law over anarchy, and science and education over customs and superstitions. Democracy doesn’t even enter the picture at this point; first, the groundwork for it needs to be laid.

  3. HEADLINES FROM THE FUTURE:

    August 2019- “Operation Syrian Freedom” to kick off.

    “After the pro-Democracy government of Syria adopted Sharia law and backed Hamas in a terrorist bombing of a US embassy, the President issued an ultimatum for the current Syrian President to step down or face consequences. The Syrian government issued a statement challenging the ‘infidels in America’ to war. In 2012 the current Syrian government was supported by the US in that nations bloody civil war.”

  4. During the Iran-Iraq war Prime Minister Shimon Peres was asked which side he favored. The PM answered that he was on the side of war. That should be our policy in Syria. Get the Sunnis and Shias involved in a ten year war which destroys both sides and render them incapable of causing problems for the next couple of decades.

  5. The Egyptians regularly did battle with the Hittites and others way back when. War has been a constant in the region, since it started out being rich in resources and now has become a land of basically one valuable commodity.

    But unlike other commentors here, it seems to me that encouraging democracies is what America should be about. Countries that have truly representative governments don’t tend to go to war with each other. To quote the Russian ambassador in Dr. Strangelove, the people want nylons and washing machines. War chokes off that supply. A nation of Muslim voters would be no better and no worse than a nation of Christian voters. The form of government, the protections of liberties, and the character of the citizens are the things that will make the difference.

    • I don’t disagree, but the point is we don’t know if these guys are would-be democrats or the next al-Quaeda.

    • What “protection of liberties” can be in an Islamic theocratic state, democracy or not? There’s a reason why there’s such a thing as Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which is deliberately antagonistic towards the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

      Countries that have representative governments go to war quite happily. What really helps against going to war with each other is mutual economic dependency and a shared culture and mentality.

      • Join the USMC
        Go to exotic places
        Meet exotic people
        And kill them.

        My Gunny Sgt friend wore a shirt with that on it all the time.

  8. So we’re arming the drug cartels and now we’re arming Al-Qaeda too?

    Nice.

    These politicians have got to go.

    • I guess you haven’t read about the revolts in Judea against the Romans? I think the last time there was peace in the middle east was before people began living there.

      • After the Bar Kokhba revolt was put down, there weren’t revolts in Judea for a long time, mainly because the Jews were a spent force, most of them having been either killed, driven out, or sold into slavery. The Romans then clamped down hard on the province and there weren’t any significant problems for many decades.

  11. Hopefully the American people won’t get suckered in to more Middle Eastern wars by neocon alarmists and bleeding heart liberals. Let the Syrians decide their own fate. Republicanism is not for export. Leave the permanent revolution to Trotskyites.

  13. I’m an advid lurker on TTAG and as a black Muslim American I must admit the hate speech on here amazes me. History has shown nothing good ever comes out of foreign countries meddling in the affairs of others. Sadly, most Americans don’t have the wherewithal to realize that a lot of the negative energy that people overseas have towards us is a byproduct of us toying with their lives for our economic benefit.

    Islam is just as anti-American as the South is anti-black American. Let’s not forget that there was a mass shooting in Wisconsin that was orchestrated by a white American on part of our religious minority community.

    • I didn’t know Sikhs were Muslims, that would come a surprise to the Muslims as well.

      Sorry if TTAG hurts your feelings. Fortunately there are 400 million other websites out there and I’m sure some won’t insult you and a few actually are calling for jihad against Christians. We aren’t about that, just interested in protecting our families from harm.

      Most of the concern is toward non-nondescript bad guys of any vintage, but if you’re using PC filters you see what you want where you look.

    • Islam is not anti-American. Some forms of it, however, are inherently anti-freedom, like Salafi – and Salafism spreads far and wide in the wake of Arab Spring.

      And yes, this is directly related to TTAG. To remind, fundamentalist Islam has this category of “Islamic state” where everything is according to the Sharia. This means that where there is non-Muslim population – like, say, Syria with its Christian 10% – there is also a category of “dhimmi”, non-Muslims relegated to the state of second-rate citizens who are denied many rights and are forced to pay a special “protection tax”. And among various other rights denied to dhimmi under Sharia, there is the right to own and carry weapons.

  14. These battles are true tests not only of firepower but tactics and plans. We get to see what works and doesn’t in urban settings between highly equipped government thugs and fanatically pissed citizenry. There is no chance for surrender so each side dukes it out until it’s really over. Each battle increases the resolve of the other side. No Geneva convention stuff or prisoner exchanges, it’s heavy gun fire house to house.

    Meanwhile we get a small glimpse of what happens when the SHTF.

  15. GS650,
    Try to use your reading skills pal. I did not say the victims in Wisconsin were Muslim. I just said it was an attack on a religious minority group. It appears you are a victim of some “filters” since you took my response out of context. Just like you I want to protect my family and my country(which my father represented in Vietnam as a marine and his father represented in a segregated navy in WW2). My point is the more we put our noses in civil wars the more we are grooming foreign populations to hold animosity towards us.

    • “My point is the more we put our noses in civil wars the more we are grooming foreign populations to hold animosity towards us.”

      Those bastards are going to hate America forever and for whatever the current popular excuse for a reason. Screw them.

    • ‘ Let’s not forget that there was a mass shooting in Wisconsin that was orchestrated by a white American on part of OUR religious minority community.”
      FLAME DELETED
      This site is not Anti Muslim. If you feel that way that’s a shame. We can’t stay out of civil wars abroad when eventually they end up creating enemy states to us. Isolationism never works.

  17. Jamaal,

    I don’t find this site literally anti-Muslim, anti-police, anti-black, anti-white, etc. The site is IMO anti-gun grabber, anti-ATF and anti- intrusive government that is encroaching on our liberties. People (self included) can at times speak in generalities which can be defined differently than literally profiling an entire people or group by the actions of a few. Unfortunately, the drive of dogmatic extremists can motivate them to fighting for positions of control and leadership of a larger group of people they claim affinity with and that in turn can make the larger group a threat.

    There are regular commentators here are against the US involvement and meddling abroad using our military and intelligence services directly or indirectly, and to the US practicing cultural imperialism.

    • continued,

      IMO, US meddling abroad (economic, political, and cultural) creates many enemies abroad. Still, some of the extremists would most likely be our enemies even if the US and Americans did nothing to deserve it.

      The USG and mass media’s propaganda that America was attacked on September 11th because “they hate us for our freedoms” is a sick joke. America was attacked for the most part because we aggressively meddle in foreign affairs of other people and to a degree our modern cultural values which drift abroad influence or impact some very old traditional societies.

      • We meddled in the Balkans in the 1990s supporting the Muslim Bosnians and Albanians over the Orthodox Serbs. Outside of a few stupid movies I don’t see any “evilserbs” conducting terrorist attacks against the US or it’s interests. Our meddling as you put it has had distinct pro-Muslim flavor to it. In light of these facts please explain why Orthodox Serbs aren’t flying airplanes into buildings and bombing nightclubs and muslims are.

        • Maybe for the same reasons middle-class white kids are shooting up high schools and college campuses and white Christians fire bombed black churches.

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