The first attempt tanked, so let's see if we can do this without it descending into theological or political bickering.
For those who want some more background on the subject, here are two decent documentaries. There is some crossover, but each has its own focus.
Thanks. Apologies for contributing to the last debacle.
I'll watch these soon. How far back do they go? One thing I've noticed is that each side wants to claim sovereignty based on a snapshot of some time in the past, but everyone picks a different year in which to claim said sovereignty.
I would love to hear unbiased history from 640 BCE or so. I think that's about when things went badly.
Thanks, 02. Mrs. VCH and I have been following this, and happened to catch an article the other day that read VERY differently than most of what we've seen. I checked the website- Al Jazeera. What tuna says is absolutely correct: "each side wants to claim sovereignty based on a snapshot of some time in the past, but everyone picks a different year in which to claim said sovereignty."
Its unfortunate the last discussion went off the rails; the very nature of what's going on means its impossible to disentangle religion from this situation. I predict this topic will be locked in about 11 pages.
tuna55 said:Thanks. Apologies for contributing to the last debacle.
I'll watch these soon. How far back do they go? One thing I've noticed is that each side wants to claim sovereignty based on a snapshot of some time in the past, but everyone picks a different year in which to claim said sovereignty.
I would love to hear unbiased history from 640 BCE or so. I think that's about when things went badly.
This seems like a big part of the problem. This area has basically always been at war since there were enough people to even have a "war".
It's like "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia", that's just how it is. Lots of well meaning people have tried to stop it, and here we are a few millennia later. I certainly don't know how.
In reply to tuna55 :
These documentaries only go back to WWI, which is arguably the root of the current problem, given that that's when many of the borders were delineated. While it's possible to stretch the argument back further, I don't know that it's a productive avenue for understanding the current situation, as the current nation-state paradigm only arrived in the region with the retreat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse:
Difficult to ignore religion as an issue here, yes, but recognizing that it is part of the equation is not the same as fighting over it. The Ukraine thread has managed to endure some fairly heated exchanges over ideological differences - it's possible to have arguments without descending into mere shouted contradiction.
Sonic said:This seems like a big part of the problem. This area has basically always been at war since there were enough people to even have a "war".
But it hasn't, at least if we're talking about millennia. There have been periods of conflict, certainly, but there have also been stretches of relative peace under the Ottomans, and the various Caliphates before them (Abbasids, Umayads, etc.). It's the 20th Century that's been so tumultuous.
02Pilot said:In reply to tuna55 :
These documentaries only go back to WWI, which is arguably the root of the current problem, given that that's when many of the borders were delineated. While it's possible to stretch the argument back further, I don't know that it's a productive avenue for understanding the current situation, as the current nation-state paradigm only arrived in the region with the retreat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse:
Difficult to ignore religion as an issue here, yes, but recognizing that it is part of the equation is not the same as fighting over it. The Ukraine thread has managed to endure some fairly heated exchanges over ideological differences - it's possible to have arguments without descending into mere shouted contradiction.
It's not really a religion issue for most, honestly. The folks saying that are abusing religion to get material gain, which is blasphemy by most accounts.
What I have heard is something something "homeland" something something. Well where I am living now was originally a British colony. Before that is was Cherokee territory. Before that it was likely some mound builder community. Who's homeland is it? North America is comparatively simple in this regard. I said 640 BCE because that was the original Babylonian exile of the Jews I believe. Otherwise I believe you have to reject all claims of "homeland" after a certain point. Relevant, I still think pre-invasion borders of Ukraine are Ukrainian homeland, but I conversely don't believe the Soviets have any claim to that same land. I don't know how to define it though. The majority of the world seems pretty OK with respecting borders recently at least in terms of national territory. We're not trying to annex parts of Mexico. It seems China, Palestine, Russia and NK really struggle with this.
In reply to 02Pilot :
One thing I found interesting in my re-learning of history of the area is that "Israel" as a "state" in the more modern sense (as you mention) was created, and relatively soon afterwards there was a very sudden need to move Jews there, as a result of what was going on in Germany. The timing of these events make it seem unlikely it was a coincidence.
I heard last night that there have been some antisemitic protests popping up in Germany recently, over the events in this region. History doesn't repeat itself, but there sure are some recurring themes.
I think I will just observe this one and keep my mouth shut.
Or at least try to.
Dave Barry said:
7. They can hold all the peace talks they want, but there will never be peace in the Middle East. Billions of years from now, when Earth is hurtling toward the Sun and there is nothing left alive on the planet except a few microorganisms, the microorganisms living in the Middle East will be bitter enemies.
In reply to tuna55 :
"Religion" is not just religion (i.e. "faith"). "Religion" is a quick shorthand for ethnicity and tribe.
In much the same way that The Troubles in Northern Ireland split along religious lines, but people aren't killing each other over whether or not the Pope is infallible.
Heck, look at antisemitism in the U.S. The majority of my Jewish friends are more what we jokingly call "Jew...ish". They're predominantly descended from Ashkenazi Jews, in the same way I'm predominantly British (Scottish, English, and Welsh). But they're effectively atheists. They've still faced antisemitism.
Two of my classmates at brewing school were Israeli. They were not religious. Ate just as much pork as everyone else.
In for clean and constructive.
Beer Baron said:Dave Barry said:
7. They can hold all the peace talks they want, but there will never be peace in the Middle East. Billions of years from now, when Earth is hurtling toward the Sun and there is nothing left alive on the planet except a few microorganisms, the microorganisms living in the Middle East will be bitter enemies.
people gotta fight for some reason or another. Football, cars, what video game console is better.
I wrote a story the other day. Went...minor viral? had a small youtube channel contact me wanting to do a reading of it. It's 100% true and by all accounts funny as hell. I had several people go out of their way to take offense with it instead of moving the berkeley on. It costs nothing to NOT be a miserable dick, yet some people still chose violence.
In reply to Mndsm :
I am going to paraphrase your last line and make it my signature.
Duke said:I think I will just observe this one and keep my mouth shut.
Or at least try to.
Nothing wrong with pointing people to your information sources and letting them reach their own conclusions. Where things go wrong is when we try and tell people what their conclusions should be. Speaking of which, I found this highly informative IRT the history of middle east politics from the Ottoman empire to a few years ago:
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East Fromkin, David
QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:In reply to Mndsm :
I am going to paraphrase your last line and make it my signature.
You do you, boo.
When I was in Israel, we visited about 48 different archeological dig sites. Each time someone would ask, "How old is this site?" The guide would give the same response... "How deep do you want to dig?"
In the US we think something that is 100 years old is "historic". Israel is 50 centuries deep. The tradition for most of the nations that conquered it at some point was to dismantle and level every building entirely, then use the rubble to rebuild new cities literally on top of the old ones.
Why did they do this?
The land that modern day Israel sits on is a land bridge. It connects 2 continents. If you want to move large numbers of people (like an army) from one place to another on land, you're gonna have to go through Israel. It's extremely valuable dirt.
Mix in a little religion and "God gave this land to me", and it's impossible for it not to be an extremely volatile (and violent) mix.
I am very much on side with israel. Except that I wish they would just stop with the damn settlements. They are always pushing the envelope and creating fodder for their detractors. When settlers go and physically remove Palestinians from their homes take them over, often using physical violence to do so it does nothing for their cause. I can see how a Palestinian sees no possible way forward and wants to lash out however they can against people that they see forever limiting their ability to be free. Everyone wants freedom in some form and they see no way forward. But still, butchering children and women in their homes set the free state back a hundred years.
I was bummed to see the other thread get locked because somebody said something that I felt I needed to respond to. I was in disbelief that the mods here would let something like that go unanswered when it was clearly and deliberately misleading and/or false.
I can't be 100% sure who said it at the moment but I think it was AngryCorvair. He said that about 1% of the population are shiny happy people. Clearly that's false... it's waaay more than 1%.
:)
On Topic:
I read/heard that the Eisenhower CSG and the 26th MEU are headed toward Israel, if they haven't arrived already.
In the quiet words of the greatest Joker ever, "And here... we... go..."
So we have two carrier strike groups, and then they are augmented by three ships full of Marines. Presumably these are amphibious assault crafts.
Isn't this enough firepower to take over, like, the entire Middle East sans nuclear warfare?
We're sending a very strong message here if nothing else.
tuna55 said:So we have two carrier strike groups, and then they are augmented by three ships full of Marines. Presumably these are amphibious assault crafts.
Isn't this enough firepower to take over, like, the entire Middle East sans nuclear warfare?
We're sending a very strong message here if nothing else.
Feels a lot like the "berkeley around and find out" crew.
In reply to tuna55 :
In general, it's way better to be over prepared, than under prepared (obviously, un-intended escalation is a concern here).
Also of note, there also needs to be some understanding of "attitude" or cultural norms. I am no expert, but from what I have seen and heard, the middle east (and many other areas certainly) have far more respect for showing power and strength, than to being conciliatory or "nice". Being "nice" in many areas will just give the impression of being weak and essentially begging to be taken advantage of.
aircooled said:In reply to tuna55 :
In general, it's way better to be over prepared, than under prepared (obviously, un-intended escalation is a concern here).
Also of note, there also needs to be some understanding of "attitude" or cultural norms. I am no expert, but from what I have seen and heard, the middle east (and many other areas certainly) have far more respect for showing power and strength, than to being conciliatory or "nice". Being "nice" in many areas will just give the impression of being weak and essentially begging to be taken advantage of.
Absolutely, and I respect our administration for being that strong. Granted I don't have an excellent military strategist background, but isn't 1 carrier strike group a strong message? Bringing two seems like overkill. Bringing in three marine boats on top of that seems like overoveroveroverkill. I'm okay with it as a taxpayer and I see the benefit as a tactical and strategic message, but WOW. When was the last time we deployed this much firepower?
tuna55 said:Isn't this enough firepower to take over, like, the entire Middle East sans nuclear warfare?
20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan would seem to indicate that it's not.
But it's certainly enough to say the the world "The US is watching". Which I'm OK with, as long as watching is all we do. Intervening on a limited scale to protect US citizens is fine, too, but IMO we don't need to be picking sides. History has shown that this whole thing is very much shades of gray. However, I recognize that our government made a pledge long ago to back one side, and will continue to do so.
I was born Jewish. I have family that lives in the kibbutz's and have been in the IDF and Mossad. I have heard thousands of hours of discussion from both sides of the table in my entire life. I have first hand accounts from the first war and this one.
I could not give you an opinion that after all that, plus the news, plus visiting, plus how many books. I can not put my finger on even twenty unique things that is the root cause of this. Anybody who is trying to distill it down to a one hour video or even a essay cannot do the history of the conflict justice nor pass on a clean understanding of exactly what both sides want with all parties
But everybody online has a opinion just like Covid and wants to share it,.I have spent 27 years of my life in a lab and worked on a released drug for the disease and even then I still did not have a full picture where I felt comfortable enough to have a informed opinion.
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