Current events - Guidelines 1st Post.

[Kestrad]

Approximately 4 months ago, a street vendor set himself on fire in Tunisia to protest humiliation inflicted on him by a local official. His act set off a series of protests against the government, which was notably corrupt. These protests, often organized through social media such as Twitter and Facebook, turned into a revolution that brought down the Tunisian government.

That incident in turn sparked calls for revolution throughout the middle east. Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, to name a few of the countries affected, have all had to deal with or are in the process of dealing with popular uprisings. The US and other Western nations, as well as the Arab League, have all agreed to take action "to protect civilians" in Libya, with the US leading attacks on the Libyan military.

What do you think about the uprisings occurring? Are they an opportunity for oppressed people to finally let their voices be heard? Or will they only cause more chaos and more dictators to take advantage and seize power? A point to be considered is the fact that Tunisia was a relatively wealthy and stable country with a well-educated general population that had a fair amount of civil liberty but a corrupt government, which may seem to have some parallels with the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It is noteworthy that the Iranian government is now a democracy (of sorts), but its people arguably enjoy fewer civil liberties than before the revolution.

In addition, what do you think of western (especially US) intervention in the Middle East? The US needs to look out for its own national interests, as does any other country, and perhaps poking its nose into the region's affairs is a necessary move. On the other hand, previous attempts by the US to intervene in other countries have often been short-sighted and have only sowed the seeds for more discord later down the road. To tie this into current events, was the choice to bring armed forces into Libya necessary? Should Gaddafi relinquish power? After all, he has been in power for 42 years. On the other hand, would it be wise to let the country fall into the hands of the rebels, whose agenda is unclear at best? Why is there intervention in Libya, but not any other country?

Quick note: There is another thread for current events, but the OP has requested that it be locked, hence this thread.

[BradTheMad]

To be blunt; I think that whatever we do it won't ever do us any good. If we help the people there we are tyrants and if we don't help we are murderers. When you take a stance there's always somebody who feels hurt so I say stay the heck away and at least save the lives of our soldiers.

The current Middle-East problems is not something that just happened over night or happened on their own. Remember that people like Hussein, Mburak, Khadaffi and many more have been put in place with help from us. We armed them, played nice with them because they were pro-West. There's a lot of politics involved and trust me when I say that a majority of people there hate the West because they only see this. It's complicated, trust me I've been following it for whole my life and not just recently because the bomb burst.

The biggest problem is the clan-mentality that rules there. For now people have a common goal but I can look into my crystal ball and foretell you that as soon as one dictator falls dozens of groups will fight one another in a desperate struggle for absolute power. It's why I do not trust the situation in Egypt, it's why Iraq and Afghanistan is still a mess.
So removing these figureheads will only cause chaos but allowing to let people suffer under their rule is also something we cannot allow. See the problem here? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And calling Iran a democracy is calling icecream fire. My art teacher back in the days was Iranian and the paintings he made gave me the chills. The things he has seen and has been done to him simply because he refused to paint what was considered "true art" is scary.

Personally I think we do owe it to the people to help them when they get slaughtered by dictators we put in place, but if we do interfere we need to also make a commitment to stay there for many years to guide those people to a stable democracy and not allow another dictator to grab power. Whatever we choose to do it's going to cost us...a lot.

[TxCat]

Please post items such as these under the Current Events thread. I'll move it for you.

[Kestrad]

And calling Iran a democracy is calling icecream fire. My art teacher back in the days was Iranian and the paintings he made gave me the chills. The things he has seen and has been done to him simply because he refused to paint what was considered "true art" is scary.

Just because the country has extremely limited civil liberties does not mean it's not a democracy. The general public elects their governing bodies, so it is in fact a democracy, and I mentioned this as part of my original post.

And it is true that many of the dictators in the middle east were put into place by the US in the first place. However, one can argue that the US's actions during those times were exceedingly short-sighted, which is what led to the current problems it needs to deal with right now. For example, the US provided Afghanistan with weapons to fight the soviets, and then proceeded to simply withdraw once they were done instead of helping the country build schools and other necessary infrastructure. The fighters they armed eventually became the Taliban. The US also kept supporting the Shah in Iran, until the people there became too fed up with him and revolted--much like what is happening now.

I took middle east studies last year, and honestly, many of the region's conflicts can be shown to stem from the fact that Israel is there.

[BradTheMad]

I took middle east studies last year, and honestly, many of the region's conflicts can be shown to stem from the fact that Israel is there.

*breathes in deeply...and breathes out* I know what you are trying to say and yes it's an issue to them but trust me that if Israel wasn't there they would be busy picking on something or someone else. It's a very sensitive issue to me so I'm not going to debate this beyond what I'll say here or I might seriously go out of bounds.
I'm not proud of everything Isreal does nor do I believe that the time for Jews has come to re-settle our land. I'm not crazy like Dovid Weiss or his Naturei Karta friends in that I support Hamas or terrorists groups but I do agree with their stance that, religiously speaking, we are still in exile. Israel is our promised land Eretz Yisrael but it cannot be retaken by men's hands. It's why I don't live there but only visit it. I will probably not even live there in this lifetime, or the next, as I don't see how this situation can be resolved any time soon the way I'd want it; peacefully. I have this stupid dream of the Third Temple being a Holy site to all peoples. Like it says so in Torah; world-wide peace. As longs as peace is not there I will deeply long for my country in my heart but cannot see it as "ready".
That said, I do love my fellow Jew and cannot leave them at the mercy of those trying to destroy them.

If you have studied the ME you are bound to know of the Oslo Protocol and many other peace-treaties that were offered wherein Israel generously offered huge amounts of land(almost half of the country!), yet those in power continue to refuse this as it's clear that they want the entire land and us Jews...well, dead. The Fogel family tragically proved that two weeks ago and if you read the manifest of Hamas you'd never call them freedom fighters ever again which is how most media portray them nowadays.
Obviously not all of them are like this and as in any conflict the good people suffer as well and my heart bleeds for every innocent who dies because of the idiocy and fanaticism of others(on both sides).

I'm always a bit of a fence-sitter in these issues, especially the ME, as it's not so black and white as most people want to portray it. My father, whom I had on the phone last night, was pretty clear "we should leave it well enough alone" and my mum well...she's a bit harsher and think we should bomb the whole of Libya. I don't have any answers...

[TxCat]

I'll elaborate more when I'm more coherent and can locate my resources. For now, bit of background:

My Pa was, by race, what they called a Mediterranean Jew. That means that we could trace his ancestry back to one of the countries whose coasts lie on that body of water. As you may have guessed, it's a lot of territory to cover and includes some Middle Eastern countries as well as the traditional Greece and Italy. Because of that, our family always had a vested interest in those countries. I grew up with a respect for Middle Eastern religions and practices ingrained and the evolution of the politics there were part of my upbringing.

When I was in college, my minor was in Middle Eastern history. I had, at one point, to take an independent study course which comprised study of the key Arab countries and involvement in Model League of Arab States (which is just what it sounds like --- a model debate society centered around Middle Eastern political practices and issues). The country to which I was assigned wasn't one of the important ones (Mauritania, which I believe has since broken off into two separate countries) but I got the chance to learn about all of them --- their culture, their religious practices, their social structure and beliefs.

It goes without saying that since this area encompasses one of the cradles of human civilization that it's a rich and complex history and lore with rich and complex cultures to match. For a year, I lived, worked, and played as they did just as if I had been an inhabitant of the region. At the climax of the course, we were invited along with the other Model League classes from across the nation, to a mock summit session held at the Air Force Academy. There I met my first Arabs. They were not allowed to represent their own countries as the purpose of the exercise was diversity. The young man from Iraq, who was a son of Saddam Hussein (now sadly deceased, killed in the initial bombings of the country), had to represent Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian princess had to represent Iraq.

Some of the young men from Annapolis hadn't taken the assignment seriously. The darned near caused an actual war by putting a proposition on the floor severely restricting women's freedoms and rights and blatantly suggesting that the only thing they ought to be allowed to do is produce babies! I knew, by this time, that this was a very grave insult and I entered a protest and --- as would actually have happened in the real summit --- walked out of the session.

Let's just say that because I had supported our Arab guests, I had a fist-assisted medical emergency and the conditions were such that no one from 'our' side was willing to render assistance. I will be forever grateful to the Husseins and to the Saudi royal family for the kindnesses they rendered. The young man, by touching me, had technically violated quite a few of the Islamic tenets. He did so because I needed help, as did she. If you want to be direct about it, I owe them my life.

Since then I have avidly followed the Middle Eastern events --- read up on their history, past to current, studied the various countries, worked at learning the language, made an effort to understand the source of the conflicts (which are ancient and go far back beyond American and British colonialism or the creation --- and I use that term loosely because it's so inadequate --- of Israel).

The short (if this can be called short) response is that no, their problems cannot be traced simply back to the creation of Israel. As I said, they're old and ancient and complex. The Tigris- Euphrates and the surrounding area has been a source of contention since people first learned to grow food. Unfortunately, the area, unlike Egypt's Nile, is wide open on most sides because of those fertile alluvial plains. The cultures which centered there had no natural protection from invaders and one of the ONLY truly fertile areas in the region. Most of the conflicts have been fought over that particular asset. The discovery of oil beneath the desert (an asset which the Arabs initially found worthless and puzzling since it was not water and often fouled what little there was) in recent years only added to the existing tensions.

With the advent of British colonialism and control, Westerners began artificially dividing the tracts of land up according to which assets they most wished to control. There was little consideration for how the peoples living there were to survive or under what conditions. It was not unusual to find warring tribes with deep blood feuds crammed together into the same area, where they promptly began killing one another. TE Lawrence --- and I highly recommend that anyone studying the Middle East read his Seven Pillars of Wisdom as well as Doughty's Arabia Deserta --- remarked upon this detrimental colonial trend several times as the primary reason for the unrest there.

You may also, at this point, wish to look up the MacMahon Correspondences and the Sykes-Picot Agreement because it is from these two WW1 era documents that our modern troubles begin. Basically, the French and the British wanted to maintain control of their colonial empires. They promised the Arab tribes as well as the Jews their own governance and their own countries, free of western influence. At the same time, they promised the Jews living in Europe a place in the Middle East to be their own. The Arabs do not deny that some of that land belongs to the Jews and did not object to partitioning a country off for them. The problems arose because none of these Middle Eastern peoples were given any input as to HOW this would be accomplished. The state we now know as Israel, which is of religious significance to the Arabs as well, was granted the Jews. Those who came in from Europe immediately demanded the removal of the Arabs.

And so it goes to this date.

Furthermore, the US, which became involved at the end of the Treaty of Versailles after WW1 has been trying to establish its own colonial influence in the area. Without attempting to understand the Arab and Islamic view of democracy, within the context of their cultures, the US has been deposing and rearranging governments for years. Again, I highly recommend reading Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men. It's a well documented account of the first ever coup engineered by the CIA in which we deposed the only democratic government Iran had ever had and put the current oppressive government in place. The same is true for Afghanistan. We originally removed the Mougadishu (sp?) and put the Taliban into power. Now, we're ousting the Taliban and will probably attempt to put in place another faction. Hussein originally had the backing of the US. So did Kadafi.

I believe the Middle East needs left to sort her own affairs out. I don't care what governments they settle on --- and I'm not naive enough to think that it will come without bloodshed (ours did not) --- as long as it is a government those people chose based on their beliefs and their religious tenets and their lifestyle. It certainly won't be governments fair to everyone (our own is not fair to everyone) but it WILL be theirs.

That, to me, is all that counts.

[Blackwidow]

As a lot of us know, there was a massive tornado in Alabama on April 27. It destroyed miles of houses, neighborhoods and plazas. The weather channel has said that this was only the begining. Tornado season has only started, and it is said that there are more massive storms to come. The people in the paths of these storms, and the people who have been affected are in my heart and prayers, and hopefully yours.
Personally, this terrifies me. I am petrified of the future.

[CelticSong]

2011's Spring has harbored many weather problems; tornadoes, electrical storms, flooding.
I can not imagine how terrible it is to lose a home. As long as the people have strong families
willing to help tornado victims through tough times I believe they will find a way. I hope we all
are willing and ready to help the victims of tornadoes and other life threatening issues (fire, floods,tornadoes)
I sincerely hope NO more Lives and houses will be taken this year and years to come.
Tennessee and other States have lost lives do to tornadoes as well.
I am SOOOO afraid of Tornadoes. Fires too but Tornadoes especially.
I have met people who have lost everything in tornadoes,
It was family that helped them though it.
Hang in Alabama, my prays are with you.

[TxCat]

This isn't really a discussion. I'm going to lock it and delete it. If you would like, you can reorganize it into a discussion of these events.

ETA: I had forgotten about the Current Events thread. I'll put it there for you.

[wolfeyedangel]

This thread has been stickied so it no longer gets lost. "Hot current News Topics" should be discussed here. If a particular sidebar discussion gets in depth enough to start getting off topic (such as a detailed discussion of plate tectonics in general that results from an earthquake thread) it may be spun off from the original on a case by case basis.

~Wolfeyedangel