Iraq falling appart

[Leshma]

For a collection of independent countries, western Europe and former Commonwealth, sure do act like an homogeneous entity. Funny thing is that they project the image of: their opinion = world opinion which is far from the truth, because world is much bigger than western Europe + UK + USA + Canada + Australia.

[lombardsoup]

Ahmed Darwi, former Egypt parliament candidate, died after joining IS, allegedly after blowing himself up in Iraq.  Apparently went through Turkey and Syria to get there.

edit: his bros confirmed the recent death.

Not exactly the dumb inbred Muslim terrorist stereotype.

[Tovi]

Ahmed Darwi, former Egypt parliament candidate, died after joining IS, allegedly after blowing himself up in Iraq.  Apparently went through Turkey and Syria to get there.

edit: his bros confirmed the recent death.

Not exactly the dumb inbred Muslim terrorist stereotype.

Seems more like the dumb inbred parliament candidate stereotype. 

[lombardsoup]

Seems more like the dumb inbred parliament candidate stereotype. 

lol nice

[Lt_Anders]

For a collection of independent countries, western Europe and former Commonwealth, sure do act like an homogeneous entity. Funny thing is that they project the image of: their opinion = world opinion which is far from the truth, because world is much bigger than western Europe + UK + USA + Canada + Australia.

5 Countries have nearly 50% of the worlds Population and 5 Countries have 1/3 of it's Resources.

I don't know, when you have numbers like that, if 3 of those "big countries" say it's their opinion, unfortunately that means (for better, or worse) it is the worlds opinion.

[Xant]

A period discussion would be more in line with what the game is about.  Modern day?  No point aside from trolling western sympathizers

No one forces you or anyone else to participate. It's entirely voluntary, and surprisingly this game is played by people. Which is to say that it's ridiculous to draw boundaries like that, as if all cRPG players were capable of is playing cRPG and talking about cRPG, nothing else. People are people, whether they're on "Let's Discuss Politics" forums or Super Mario forums.

Ahmed Darwi, former Egypt parliament candidate, died after joining IS, allegedly after blowing himself up in Iraq.  Apparently went through Turkey and Syria to get there.

edit: his bros confirmed the recent death.

Not exactly the dumb inbred Muslim terrorist stereotype.

Really? How so? What kind of feats of intelligence does it take to be a parliament candidate in Egypt?

[lombardsoup]

No one forces you or anyone else to participate. It's entirely voluntary, and surprisingly this game is played by people. Which is to say that it's ridiculous to draw boundaries like that, as if all cRPG players were capable of is playing cRPG and talking about cRPG, nothing else. People are people, whether they're on "Let's Discuss Politics" forums or Super Mario forums.
Really? How so? What kind of feats of intelligence does it take to be a parliament candidate in Egypt?

And who are you exactly

[Xant]

And who are you exactly

Your father, Luke.

[Kafein]

Bash Tovi as much as you want. But there is a lot of truth in that above statement.

Until he proves that the French and British drew arbitrary borders for the purpose of destabilization, that's just empty conjecture like everything else Tovi ever types. The idea itself it ridiculous as those borders were drawn when these colonial powers were in charge of the territory and had both a lot to lose from destabilization and no insight into future decolonization and weapons trafficking or concern about it. To believe that 19th century colonial powers drew stupid borders in order to sell more weapons in the 1960s and after is just absurd, I'm sorry.

However, I can agree 100% that these borders were stupid and that the concerns of the colonists about the ethnic/religious groups of the locals was related to racial theory/anthropology/social darwinism and certainly not the well being of any of them. For example, the Hutu/Tutsi dichotomy and much of the animosity between them was largely created by the Belgian administration of the Rwandan territory after WW1 by portraying the Tutsi as "more European" and basically better in every way as well as giving them power over the Hutu. In fact the Belgians also did that to maintain order, securing the support of their Tutsi elite.

Anyways, the reason those borders were arbitrary was due to the fact that these reflected treaties between colonial empires, that had to have very clear terms and also a sense of "fairness" through the adoption of arbitrary lines as borders in order to limit the localized advantages of one power over the other and local disputes. The parties also tended to have poor knowledge of the local situation in the border region. Perhaps the most well known example of this was the Treaty of Tordesillas around 1500 that parted the non-Christian world between Portugal and Castile/Aragon without any of those powers knowing anything about a huge majority of the lands they were dividing. In fact Portugal had been boned hard by that first treaty, but did not actually knew it.

[Butan]

Until he proves that the French and British drew arbitrary borders for the purpose of destabilization, that's just empty conjecture like everything else Tovi ever types.

Never heard about electoral boundaries readjustment? In that example, it is done by people in power to be sure that a majority of districts are in the hands of their political side.
No need to be a conspiracy theorist to understand that the colonial powers of old didnt want their subjects to become too powerful and rise to kill their shit after decades of poor treatment, its better to let them fight among themselves and chill on the side, giving support/weapons to one as long as its in their interest, then the other as soon as it gets old, etc.

Basically, middle east is a whack a mole game version of the geopolitical world we live in.
Maybe they didnt do it on purpose back when borders have been drawn, but its pretty clear today that they are exploiting this at full capacity.

[Tovi]

In Iraq for exemple. At this time, oil was mainly in Kuwait, and Arabs were in Iraq (few oil was discovered). So they created a little country easier to control : Kuwait (in fact this country was created by the brit empire many years before oil usage, for commercial reason, but confirmed at the end of Ottoman empire).
A lot of african borders were drawn in consideration of the transportation lines, to deliver goods to a port. The goal was to control the economy of these countries.
There is a lot of "tactics" for a colonial country to maintain control with very few means. One of them is division, maintain ethnical or religious conflicts. That way, the colonial administration is seen as a good compromise.
But there many other means, like corruption of local elites, false flag operations etc.
Nothing has really changed today.

[Swaggart]

Ottoman empire has its own responsability for joining europeans war. But the new borders were just stupids. That what is claimed, today, by ISIS. So the Sykes-Picot borders are a western responsability. Including the withdrawal of a Kurdistan.
And I don't even speak about Jordania and Israel wich were both promised the same land by the British Empire.

Also, we know it was not just a mistake. Creating borders with no consideration for people living inside will automatically lead to war inside and outside the country. It's exactly the same problem in Africa.Then it's easier to control them and to sell weapons to both sides. French and British are experts in that game.

The fact that you actually consider that the borders were drawn up in some nefarious scheme to keep those regions in eternal war with the added benefit of selling them arms is completely absurd.

They didn't know what they were doing, or more to the point, they did not realize their mistakes likely because they were misguided by the white man's burden, not because of some new world order conspiracy nonsense.

Gerrymandering simply does not equate.

[Tovi]

The fact that you actually consider that the borders were drawn up in some nefarious scheme to keep those regions in eternal war with the added benefit of selling them arms is completely absurd.

They didn't know what they were doing, or more to the point, they did not realize their mistakes likely because they were misguided by the white man's burden, not because of some new world order conspiracy nonsense.

Gerrymandering simply does not equate.

Not because your are stupid, political leaders are too. They knew exactly what they were doing. Not for a "global empire" , but for their own empire (France and UK mainly). It's not a conspiracy, it's History, just read books and try to get some culture.
Selling weapons was not the main goal. Control of the economy or strategic places, are the main goals.

[Swaggart]

Not because your are stupid, political leaders are too. They knew exactly what they were doing. Not for a "global empire" , but for their own empire (France and UK mainly). It's not a conspiracy, it's History, just read books and try to get some culture.
Selling weapons was not the main goal. Control of the economy or strategic places, are the main goals.

So they wanted to control the economy and strategic places by creating borders that would inevitably lead to war?

Why not keep administration of the areas to maintain complete control? Why let it slide into war, which is the most disruptive and damaging event to happen to one's economy?

But the fact you can't back up your arguments with anything except "read books" and thinly veiled insults is pretty damning lack of an intellectual position. I used to reserve calling someone a fucking idiot purely for Leshma, but Tovi you're a fucking idiot.

[Daunt_Flockula]

They might not have wanted future wars to break out per se, yet they most likely didn't want borders that could maintain stability either so that the shredded power block could never again merge into a single entity. Likewise, selling of arms might have never been a part of the agenda, but the current circumstances indicate that it is indeed a profitable economy. And so is religion mongering. That is why secular states of the Middle East have been falling one by one.