Islamic State is the most potent threat to the world since the Nazis.
on 03/24/2015 at 01:52 PM
Buy me a ticket, I’ll cut out his heart and eat it on TV in front of the world.
Bring an extra fork and I’ll bring the Sriracha sauce.
I don’t know what the Hell is wrong with the English ... this Choudar-head ought to be discovered drowned in the middle of a field somewhere.
They should just lock him up and use him as a crash test dummy for training torturers with.
Thanks Peiper, but to be honest I’d only give Naipaul half credit. Partially because I’m feeling generous from the abysmal gap that is the curve he can be graded on, where recognizing these savages as a problem is better than most.
However, if you still look it has the same convenient Leftist myths baked in.
Let’s start with the title itself. “Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul has warned that Islamic State are the most potent threat to the world since the Nazis.”
Where the Hell was Mr. Naipaul when the Soviet Union was around? What about the rise and belligerence of Communist China? The bloody birth of Islamist Iran up to and including perfidy against diplomats (something the Nazis actually didn’t stoop too often)/
All of these combined or combine a grotesque love of propaganda, unspeakable barbarity, hatred of Jews, ambitions for world conquest, and totalitarian hunger for control. And they all controlled vastly more territory, vastly more resources, and have killed vastly more people than IS has. And to the best of my knowledge IS is not working on nuclear reactors that America’s President is softballing.
This is something that has always disturbed me about the fixation on the IS. Not because they aren’t a threat, aren’t evil, or shouldn’t be destroyed. They obviously are. But in the grand scale of things they are and were small potatoes of evil. They might one day rise to be the greatest threat in a long time, but *right now when this was printed* they are outweighed by a ton of other things. Things that we have often been told to appease or cooperate with against IS.
So is Naipaul going to call for the military annihilation of Khomenei or Putin’s terrorist regimes?
“This Islamic ideological insistence on erasing the past may have survived but it did so in abeyance, barely regarded even in the Ottoman Empire which declared itself to be the Caliphate of all Islam.
Islamic State is dedicated to a contemporary holocaustBut now the evil genie is out of the bottle. The idea that faith abolishes history has been revived as the central creed of the Islamists and of Isis.”
This is dubious at best, especially since we still rightfully hear about things like the Taliban’s detonation of several priceless Afghan Buddha statues. And the Ottoman Turkish Empire itself began to systematically erase the past of questionable people and their things towards the end of its’ life.
Just because IS is more eager to go now doesn’t mean that has gone.
“Isis is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust. It has pledged itself to the murder of Shias, Jews, Christians, Copts, Yazidis and anyone it can, however fancifully, accuse of being a spy. It has wiped out the civilian populations of whole regions and towns. Isis could very credibly abandon the label of Caliphate and call itself the Fourth Reich.”
Which is only something half the Jihadist groups in the world have been doing for decades. Again.
“Just as the Third Reich did, Isis categorises its enemies as worthy of particular means of execution from decapitation to crucifixion and death by fire.”
“Particular” means of execution? All means of execution are by definition particular. You can’t easily kill someone by both decapitation and burning them alive. Even the oh-so-humane and oh-so-white gloved executions we have for our (pampered) death row inmates would qualify.
So you’re going to have to clarify more than that Naipaul. The Nazis chose their particular methods mostly over what was Cost Effective. IS usually follows (what it sees as) Koranic and Muslim legal canon when deciding theirs.
“That Isis has revived the religious dogmas and deadly rivalries between Sunnis and Shias, Sunnis and Jews and Christians is a giant step into darkness.”
ISIS hasn’t “revived” much, even the claim to Caliphate. Other factions took those giant steps into darkness years if not decades ago. They’re so far along into it we’d probably need a floodlight to see the Ayatollahs and Saud now.
“The Arab lands, relatively stable under the Ottoman Empire,”
:LOL:
.... wait, sorry, that was supposed to be serious?
The Arab lands under the Ottoman Empire- *especially* the late Ottoman Empire for about a century before WWI- were anything but stable. On the subject of tyrannical, murderous throwbacks to the past it’s worth noting that the Tsar justified the *first* Crimean War based off of a religious dispute in Lebanon.
Because Mount Lebanon and the communities around it- including into Syria- exploded at terrifyingly regular periods in feudal revolts and religious strife. Which could only be quashed by the Ottoman Army itself marching in and killing even more people indiscriminately. If you thought modern Lebanon has bad sectarian strife it is actually far better than it was in the 19th century (though worse than it was under the French Mandate).
A huge swath of the current Arab Palestinians we know and “love” today actually came from people fleeing to greener pastures down South from the messes that were Ottoman Syria and Lebanon. Think about that. But while Lebanon got much of the Western attention because of its’ major Christian populations, Western-influenced markets and evangelical missions, and the like it was actually one of the less momentous bits of strife in the Arab lands.
In Arabia- the literal arse end of nowhere- the entire region was wracked by bloody quasi-dynastic, quasi-jihadic fights that would eventually create the Saudi Empire we know as “Saudi Arabia.” Starting with a covenant between the Saud and proto-Islamist philosopher and scumbag named Ibn-Wahhab. The Saud patriarch offered him the protection of the Saud clan, in turn Wahhab promised the support of his followers for the clan. His followers were and are known as Wahhabis, and this agreement marked the start of an alliance that has lasted- with ups, downs, and cracks- to the present day. But more immediately, it gave the Saud a large enough army and power base to make their play for Arabian supremacy. The wars sparked by it would not end for a full century.
The Saud jumped in during a general period where various Arab tribes, cities, and the like were rising up and seeking greater power for themselves and independence from Ottoman Turkish overlordship. So what began as a mundane tribal and dynastic war in deepest Arabia spread like wildfire across the Peninsula and out of it into Mesopotamia. In doing so it managed to drag in pretty much every major power even remotely involved in the region at one point or another. I’m not going to go into the details of shifting alliances, but before it was all over Damascus was razed and Medina and Mecca (the holy cities of Islam!) ransacked by Wahhabist proto-Islamist Ikhwan(the guys the Muslim Brotherhood got their name from) fighting for the Saud, two Saudi empires rose and fell (largely because of disgust at the aforementioned), several branches of the Saud family tree were chainsawed off, and entire kingdoms, cities, tribes, and orders were destroyed before Abdul Aziz finally brought it all under control. Well *after* the end of WWI, with British help.
Egypt and the Sudan got shocked by multiple turnarounds in leadership, but few came harder than what happened in the early modern era. Starting with the fact that the French sent shockwaves through the entire Muslim world when (supposedly acting as allies of the Ottoman Sultanate) they threw out a supposed warrior elite that had governed for centuries and was famous throughout the region. The Mamluks that everybody remembers as the gaudily-dressed lunatics running into French cannon/musket/bayonet had once been the Middle East’s finest cavalry and victors over Western crusaders, Ottoman Turkish Janissaries, and the Mongol Ordas. Their slaughter in front of Embahbeh and the Pyramids erased one of the great certainties of local politics and war.
And then before the region could catch its’ breath, the French evicted the Turkish army from much of the Levant. Only to be evicted by the British in turn. Who were nudged out by one Albanian named “Muhummad Ali”. Who proceeded to exterminate vast swaths of the pre-existing aristocracy for good measure, institute his own dynasty, and begin jockeying to be a regional power. He stretched out tendrils of conquest West into Libya, SOuth into Sudan and Arabia (he was the main muscle that exterminated the first Saudi Empire), by building up a navy in the North, and by jockeying with his nominal liege the Turks for power over the Levant.
Things start going wrong when the Porte offered him Syria if he helped send an expedition to put down the Greeks in the 1820’s and it all turned into an Athens-in-Sicily debacle thanks to the Greeks at land and Russo-Western navies at sea. Then Since the Turks didn’t want to pay up with the province, MA began warring against them throughout the 1830’s in a massive, bloody see-saw that tore an already battered regional stability to pieces and saw impressive early gains but no result. Only for the West to eventually mediate a peace through their cannonbarrels where the Turks got the Levant and Muhummad Ali got a hereditary governorship. Which sounded like a far better idea than it was because Muhummad Ali’s successors were… not cut from the same caliber.
Incompetence, infighting, brutality, and Obama-esque overspending all made domestic and colonial uproars in it likely, and gave the West openings for influence. Sa’id and Isma’ll managed to build up a significant amount of infrastructure and dig the Suez Canal, but they also dug the state deep into debt, ugly colonial wars in the Sudan with Ethiopians (who generally handed the Turco-Egyptians their butts), and dependance on Western support, as well as into local turmoil. Which is why in 1882 ultranationalist and anti-British rebels under the Minister of Defense tried to overthrow the dynasty, causing civil war that required British occupation troops to put down. Just about the same time Islamist proto-terrorists rose up in the Sudan against the Egyptian government under the infamous Madhi, brushed aside the Khedieve troops not bolstered by the British, conquered the region, and threatened to march on Egypt and beyond on an alleged mission from Allah.
Then the Madhists got pushed back from Egypt, their Madhi died, and the British moved back in to clean up the Khedieve’s mess and instute a protectorate. But not before hundreds of thousands had died. Then for good measure the Sultan they newly promoted turned out to be pro-Turkish rather than pro-Western, so on the advent of WWI they threw him out and imposed a new one.
And this is before I go into what the Ottoman Imperial government proper was doing. Since the Greeks and Napoleonic Serbs had started the process, national and ethnic groups dissatisfied with being stepped on by the pointy slipper started breaking away. While the Russians and Habsburgs sought to use it for the best possible cause. All of this came to a head when Turkish atrocities crushing some North Balkan revolts in the 1870’s caused a generalized revolt from Romania to Bosnia and war with Russia that didn’t stop until the Russian army was at the gates of Constantinople and several nations were independent.Seeing this, Sultan Abdul Hamid II decided that the non-Turkish, non-Muslim people of the Ottoman Empire could be problematic and he had to find a way deal with them.
All of them. Permanently.
Which is why his “Hamidian massacres” marked the start of the Ottoman government waging war against its’ own people for half a century under at least three different governments. The Armenians are the most famous, but most studies of that only focuses on them and their suffering under the Young Turks (who had overthrown the Sultanate) in WWI. The truth was *much* worse than that, and the Arab Middle East saw massacres of Chaldean, Assyrian, Syriac, and Levantine Greek populations in the South while the larger festival of blood against the Armenians and the Ionian/Pontic Greeks was carried out. Which only worsened when Armenians and Greeks started being transported to death camps in the Syrian desert with the intention of having them die of starvation, third, and exposure.
Meanwhile, the Turks had to station more and more troops not only to do that, but to oppose newly nationalist rumblings in the Arab metropolitan areas from Mesopotamia to the Hejaz. And nowhere was it more important than in that last one, the home of the Hashemites and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Keeping control of the cities is essential to the legitimacy of any Caliph or his Caliphate, and it was why at the time the Turks were trying to cement their secular dominance over the area. That meant butting heads with the Mufti of Mecca who held spiritual jurisdiction over it.
Which was an issue because even on the level of Muslim priests with the ability to call holy war, the Mufti was no average holy man. He was a warlord that had dipped his feet into the bloody, chaotic vortex of war in Arabia at the time and had been looking for ways to expand the power of his clan and himself for years. But he was starting to get more ambitious than that or just Arabia. The Turkish garrison build up in the holy cities- complete with a railroad construction (note: the holiest of holies in Islam did not have any railroad before this) to bring in more troops- made him look uneasily at possibly being reduced to a figurehead. The secular Arab intellectuals he consorted with for support- sometimes from as far as Baghdad- had started to widen his grasp, and made him interested in possibly more than just the Hejaz and just self rule. But in uniting all of Arabia under bona fide descendants of Muhummad (which of course meant the Hashemites). This would eventually lead to his alliance with the West against the Ottomans in WWI.
All while the Turkish government itself fell into dissent over who would have power.
And I could probably go on from here for pages and pages depending on the definitions of “Arab Lands”, “under”, “The Ottoman Empire”, and “Stable.” But I’m not going to since I’ve probably written enough already.
But the reason I go into so much detail beating this one thing to death is to make a point. The chaos and bloodshed during WWI and after it were NOT freak occurrences. They were continuations of situations that had festered and bled under the Ottoman period, and which had been getting worse for decades if not a century. Attempts to say otherwise are Oriental fairy tales, not sober analysis.
Posted by Turtler
03/26/2015 at 07:24 PM
"were divided up by the British and French victors the First World War into the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Jordan at the Cairo Conference of 1920. Borders were drawn in straight lines and the sons of the Mufti of Mecca imposed on the newly carved territories as kings.”
Ah yes. So it’s All those EVIL, Western colonial-imperialists’ fault.
Actually, no it was not. They had their share of responsibility for problems, sure. But they were by no means alone and I’d probably say they were some of the more responsible actors.
Let’s start with one major thing: the sons of the Mufti of Mecca were officially and supposedly welcomed by the local leadership in Syria/Jordan/Iraq and beyond. That was the basis for the idea of a unitary Arab state. But as it turned out the Syrians and Iraqis- along with most others outside Jordan- got alienated by the way the Hashemites acted so high handedly and imperiously. That and they basically acted like hick warlords in regions that viewed themselves as more sophisticated and cosmopolitan. So suddenly most of the region wants to reconsider the whole “King of all Arabia” thing. The Pan-Arab dream was collapsing long before Sykes-Picot was implemented.
And again, while int he early days the Western Allies did help the Hashemites, they did not foist them on the population.. In fact, the French had to chase one of the sons out of Syria when he revolted against them.
Secondly: some more clarification about the need to deal with the Hashemites and the straight lines.
Around this time Ibn Saud was taking advantage of the fruits of victory in WWI to finish off the pro-Turkish “dogs” in the fight, and the general “familiarity breeds contempt” issue with the Hashemites from both the West and their erstwhile subjects. So the Saudi warbands started a march West that would take them into Hejaz, and worst of all the Ikhwan started probing North into Mesopotamia with the hopes of expanding the Jihad. This alarmed everybody in their right mind, including the Saud themselves, and the British had to chase them away with armored cars, aerial support, and veteran troops.
Which brings us to why the borders of Sykes-Picot with Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria are the way they are. Though they themselves give you a hint. With logic that Cold War planners would have recognized, they were designed to contain the Saud and by extension the spread of the Ikhwan and Wahhabist jihads. And above all, they were designed to prevent a Wahhabist jihad from razing Damascus again and engulfing the entire Middle East. And in that they were right to be worried and successful in their remedy. They managed to contain the Ikhwan with that network of local clients and British armor and air until Abdul Aziz was able to finish them off. In doing so the evil Western imperialists saved hundreds of thousands- if not millions- of lives and earned the gratitude of the Iraqis in particular.
Furthermore, it was obvious that the Hashemites were losing and losing badly by this time. Within a few years they would lose their home turf of Hejaz and be unable to return on pain of a terrible fate -or just as likely, being married into and clientized by the Saud. So suddenly the British had to keep control, hold the Ikhwan and possibly the Saud in Arabia, find a way to reward the Hashemites for their wartime support, and do so without alienating the locals or making a new threat to them.
They did fairly well.
“Winston Churchill was advised at the Cairo conference by T. E. Lawrence and by Gertrude Bell, who should have known that the Shia would not readily welcome or acknowledge a Sunni king and vice versa.”
Two problems with this. First, there weren’t a ton of leading Shiites involved in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The movement was supposed by most of them, but they didn’t actually possess anybody of the stature of-say- the Hashemites or even Abdul Aziz. This was not helped by the Ottoman Empire’s attempts to grind down and neuter all potential Shiite Arab leaders and intelligentsia (which if anything lasted longer than their persecutions of Christians).
So the Western Allies believed they pretty much had to work with what they had.
“After upheavals, rebellions and military coups, the region settled down under dictatorships in the 1950s and 1960s. “
This.... this this this this this....
I just want to underline JUST how cowardly and intellectually dishonest Naipaul is being by typing this. Because by having it come in right after he implies that it was a direct result of the Evil Western Imperialists dividing up the Tranquil Ottoman Arab areas, and began immediately after said divvying up.
The truth is not only that that implication is false, but what he says is untrue o the face of it. The truth is that in the three or so decades between the fall of the Ottoman Empire and Western decolonization, the region enjoyed FAR more tranquility than it did before.
This did not mean that everybody swung hands together and sung Kumbayaya. Syrian rebellion that made France throw he Hashemites out, the start of violence in the Palestinian Mandate (including a jihad against the British and Jews by the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem), and WWII with the subsequent Axis attempts to take advantage of it- along with a Kurdish revolt in Iraq around that time and Egyptian discontent- all played a role. But the rampant bloodshed, imperial conflict, religious war, and genocide of the late Ottoman period almost completely went extinct. Going into the post-war era the Middle East looked promising and potentially even peaceful thanks to the British and French investing int he region and putting down the l st savory and peaceful elements.
But it was not. When the West started disengaging from the region newly independent Israel and the newly independent Arab league nations went to war with each other in a climax to the building tension and as an attempt by the Royalist governments to avoid public tension.
It backfired and like dominoes, a good half of the Arab Kingdoms collapsed into dictatorships in the 1950’s and 1960’s. And not only did they *NOT* bring peace, quiet, or stability, they brought more coups, more dictatorships, and more war than had existed before they came in. Along with an Arab Cold War along the global one (which was similarly bloody but less decisive or moral). Syria in particular had nearly an annual coup for years.
It would only be in the later 1960’s and 1970’s that the various dictatorships and royalist governments settled down into a state we could even start to describe as stable. True, across the board stability of a kind only came in the early 1980’s, especially in the Levant.
It is true that the West and the post-WWI settlement was not angelic, and it did undoubtedly have an influence on the problems of decolonization. But the fact remains that it no more caused the instability, dictatorships, or the like than “Western money” caused even Yanukovych’s supporters to turn on him in Kyiv. It is Ignorant, Lazy, And Dishonest for Naipaul to insinuate this about the region’s history.
But it’s still better compared to what comes after this hogwash.
“The Ba’athist Party was, in some senses, a modernising force and Saddam Hussein,”
Uhuh. In some senses. And in others he turned the place into a mini-Middle Eastern collapsing Yugoslavia that was unlike anything the British had caused or dealt with at the time. And also killed hundreds of thousands of people and functionally set the economies of several regions (like the MArsh Arab South) back decades.
Funny how Naipaul isn’t mentioning that.....
Is it possible to talk about Saddam Hussein and his dictatorship as a modernizing force without being either stupid or willfully lying? I think so, especially given the improvements to “core Iraq” and the massive military buildup. But in general when I hear this sort of claptrap, it’s setting things up to mythologize and whitewash him and his regime. Especially since he *wasn’t that good a modernizer>8
“though a Sunni, ruled the predominantly Shia and partly Kurd nation of Iraq with a ruthless hand. Wherever two or three were gathered in the name of the Almighty, he sent in his police.”
“Ruthless hand” is an understatement.
As for that, it’s not even true. There would have been no functioning mosques if that were the case. He just kept them under very tight control. And he certainly didn’t call the police in to his private prayer sessions with trusted (and rare) members of his inner circle.
... and he also murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, tortured more, and ruined even more lives. I wonder, why is Naipaul not mentioning this?
“He may not have been a savoury character but his overarching policies were holding on to power and modernising Iraq. “
... and bringing Iraq to hegemony in the Middle East and Muslim world, while completely exterminating several ethnic and religious groups inside it. Like the Kurds, Jews, and “Marsh Arabs.”
Those last points were far more a part of his identity than “modernization” (whatever that means) ever was. And in fact often went contrary to modernization. But did that ever stop him? Of course not.Why. Is. Naipaul. Not Saying This?
“He was the cat that kept the rats of Islamism at bay. His invasion of Kuwait, another artificial sheikdom, poor in territory at the knee of Iraq but rich in oil, triggered the international reaction against him. The Bush-Blair alliance invaded Iraq and the puppet regime they set up executed Saddam. In the absence of the cat, the rats ran riot”
Ahhhhh. Now I see what lies Naipaul is trying to peddle! It’s ALL Bush and Blair’s Fault! Woe unto the World! Let me get my tiny violin......
... so I can smash it into Naipaul’s thick skull.
To put it lightly,this is all a bunch of hogwash. Where do I start?
“He was the cat that kept the rats of Islamism at bay.”
No, he did not. This is a common bit of pro-Saddam propaganda that gets peddled around by his apologists or the Bush-Blair derangement syndromes to villify the downfall of a murderous tyrant, terrorist sponsor, and the freeing of a country, messy and imperfect as it was.
It’s also not true. Saddam Hussein was not the cat that kept the rats of Islamism at bay, he was the cat that gave the rats in the bay Iraqi state ships, cash, and explosives so that they could *sail out of the bay* and attack their mutual enemies the Dog. All with only the caveat that they did not linger in the bay long or try to overthrow him.
He sponsored Islamo-Marxist psycho for hire Abu Nidal and sheltered him in Baghdad (where he eventually was killed). He gave open-ended funding promises to the PLO up to and including paying money to the families of suicide bombers that attacked Israelis. He adopted Hamas as his Palestinian/Levantine proxy of choice and nearly came close to making the entire PLO one when he collapsed in Desert Storm (which is why Kuwait and plenty of others evicted hundreds of thousands of Palestinian migrants).
And most perverse and relevant of all, he allowed ZARQAWI to base himself out of Baghdad and even recieve treatment there.
Zarqawi- as you all probably know- was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Which was in turn the origin of the IS.
So there is something REALLY God-Damned perverse about Naipaul describing Saddam as anti-Islamist when he allowed the Spiritual Godfather of IS to operate.
Perverse and stupid.
To this day, the most credible claim that Saddam and AQ were not allies is that in spite of years of meetings, several Al Qaeda safe houses in Iraq, and one of its’ higher ups being more welcome in Saddam’s capitol than UN inspectors or Israeli diplomats were…
... is that they never actually trusted each other enough to qualify as allies.Which I can believe. Saddam’s Islamist terror sponsorship was a bit of a side project; he always trusted secular terror groups more and was suspicious of religious unrest under his boots. And what records we do have of the AQ-Saddam meetings are remarkably chilly.
But it still means that he was willing to let one of the leaders of an Islamist terror cell *he didn’t trust* base out of his capitol. Oh no, it wasn’t an alliance! Saddam was just that comfortable *letting unaffiliated terrorists work in his capitol.*
Do I really need to comment more on this?
“His invasion of Kuwait, another artificial sheikdom, “
This is not true. In fact of all the 19th century Arab kingdoms to pop up during the ottoman decline I’d say that Kuwait has one of the least artificial and most long lasting identities. And in fact without that longstanding identity a lot of key things in Middle Eastern history would have gone quite differently.
The best comparison I can make is that Kuwait was something like the Venice or Rhodes of the Persian Gulf and Arab World (my apologies to Venice and Rhodes). It started as a tiny, sparsely inhabited spit of land with a bay smack between Ottoman Turkish Iraq and Safavid Persia, making it influenced by both but hard to claim by either. In the era before oil it had virtually no room and a minimum of natural resources.
But it did have some luxury pearl diving, indifferent fishing stocks, and a natural harbor with an envious position in the Persian Gulf trade networks. Which is why the Portuguese briefly occupied the place while trying to keep control of Oriental spice trading and colonization in the 16th century. They didn’t stay very long due to Persian and Western pressure, but they did leave behind proper fortifications to the region. Several enterprising tribes popped in in the early 1600’s and saw potential.
A few years later, and it was already taking off as a highly valuable mercantile city-state by the mid 18th century. Just around the time that Persian threats sent a lot of Basra merchants, shipbuilders, and other traders to seek shelter under Kuwait’s tribal chiefs. This marked the point where Kuwait outstripped its’ rival to become the single greatest trading port in the entire Persian Gulf. As a haven from both Turkish and Persian imperial sanctions and persecutions and with shipbuilding and sailing expertise that was supposedly the best in the region it was well equipped to dominate trade.
It also made both empires eager to grab it, especially the Ottomans in Iraq who the little principality was supposedly the territory of, and who were being the most adversely affected by that freewheeling and dealing. On the opposite side, the Kuwaiti leadership- who had already been well established for decades- were equally determined to safeguard their autonomy/independence and widen it. And as luck would have it, just as the confrontation started heading to a boiling point the British East India Company and Royal Navy show up in the Gulf in the 1800’s.
The Kuwaiti leadership almost *immediately* recognize the opportunity they’ve been given for protection, and pretty much jump into Britain’s lap. Signing a bunch of treaties and the like that they will adhere to British interests and suppress piracy in the Gulf, and in turn any threats to it will be met by the cannons of the British Navy. In effect, cementing defacto Kuwaiti independence within the dejure Ottoman territory.Kuwait was still under threat for Ottoman resurgence, but the local elites played for time and waited for the inevitable falling out between the West and the Turks. At which point they sided with the former and were declared “independent” (of Constantinople) early in WWI
Firstoff because it was majorly important to the Saud of all people. The Saud had been fighting Turkey’s Southern Arabian allies and suffered a pretty catastrophic defeat, losing their capitol again and getting a sizable chunk of the family tree shaved off (again). The survivors like Abdul Aziz were sent scurrying for their lives, and the place they decided to flee to was Kuwait. Kuwait was involved in some more tense diplomatic crises with the Turks, and so they decided to take him in and give the Saudis shelter.
They stayed there for years while they recouped and built up strength behind the fortifications of the city-state and the cannons of the Royal Navy until they deemed the time was right. At which point Abdul Aziz and a war party slipped out of the city walls and marched out on the campaign that would eventually be successful, and see him to creating the green-flagged monstrosity we all know today.
Had Kuwait not been just about the only neutral port in the Persian Gulf, Abdul Aziz would have had to flee North to the Turks or West to the Hashemite realms of Hejaz. In both places sacrificing his independence and becoming a vassal were just the less bloody possibility for his fate.
Secondly, Kuwait was the advanced springboard of the British in the Persian Gulf. When WWI did come between their erstwhile Ottoman sovereigns and their British protectors, the Kuwaitis declared for Britain and the Raj immediately began landing troops. Then like nearly a century later, Kuwait would be the main base for Western Allied troops fighting in Mesopotamia.
I do not mean to glamorize Kuwait nor excuse it’s government.It has done a lot of very nasty things. But the fact remains that this was not some coastal tribe the British awkwardly slapped Western-style sovereignty on in order to subdue piracy (like they did with the UAE). By the time the British arrived Kuwait was already a well developed and fiercely independent merchant city-state that competed with the big empires and tribes of the region and realized its’ continued prosperity required independence. That will remain the same no matter what its;’ morality.
Which is also why Iraqi and Iranian apologists and mythmakers have taken such pains to claim it doesn’t exist. Because an independent Kuwait hurt Basra trade in particular, and dictators from the Turkish governor to Saddam Hussein saw the need to destroy Kuwait and its’ competition.
Naipaul not knowing this is So, So IGNORANT.
Posted by Turtler
03/26/2015 at 07:25 PM
”...triggered the international reaction against him.”
No, the international reaction ahd already started in the 1980’s with his war with Iran, attempts to get the bomb, and support for terrorists. It was a major reason why the West and even his ex-allies chose to support Kuwait.
“The Bush-Blair alliance invaded Iraq and the puppet regime they set up executed Saddam. In the absence of the cat, the rats ran riot.”
Once again, we get into the realm of convenient Leftist mythology. That the new Iraqi government (the same one that asked for Western PMCs to be withdrawn and is now having detente with Iran) must be a puppet. In spite of being elected by the first honest, free election in Iraq’s history (outside of maybe the Kurdish areas).
That it executed Saddam like Saddam executed his countless enemies, dissidents, and in-laws he hated in just as an illegal manner. And that once this was done like karmic justice, the Islamist terrorists that Bush-Blair claimed were there but weren’t come down like God’s fury as if in direct retribution for murdering the “modernizer.”
Because that is the only possibility that allows them to feel the least bit justified now that even the New York Times is admitting that Saddam actually was hiding chemical WMD.
It’s also not true. I already detailed Saddam’s ties with terrorist organizations and Islamists. When the invasion happened those groups were forced to go to dirt to wage guerrilla war or relocate across the border into Iran/Syria/Turkey or in-country boondocks, from which they could call for reinforcements to bolster their men and infrastructure already in country. Including that of Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq, which set up rear bases in Syria and Iran. Which turned out to be a Big Problem for Syria when the Surge broke the main Islamist militants, and AQII went back to Syria, turned on Assad, and coined itself the “Islamic State” Naipaul supposedly condemns when he isn’t damning the West or democratic justice systems.
The Iraqi government and constitution-imperfect as it is- were legally and democratically established by the Iraqi people in a free election. They chose to legally try Saddam Hussein in a trial that was so transparent and legally scrutinized that the Left has had a field day picking out the imperfections with it. But in which the Butcher of Baghdad was allowed legal representation, the right to face his accusers, and a transparent trial with legal rights.
He was tried and convicted in accordance with the law for all the world to see. And then he was sentenced- in accordance with the law- and duly Executed for the crime he committed against the Iraqi people and was convicted for. All in a way that he rarely if ever allowed his victims to have.
I personally have major issues with the Iraqi government in general and with the way that trial took place (especially the fact that he was only tried and executed for one major crime out of a lot). But again, that was the decision of the independent, freely elected, de-Baatized Iraqi judiciary. Bush and Blair did not demand it happen like they were wielding a puppet, because THEY COULD NOT.
It was a trial by the Iraqi people, for the Iraqi people, in Iraq, and done by Iraq.With all that entailed.
And to see Naipaul vilifying these people so callously and SO IGNORANTLY sets my blood on fire.
“And so it has proved throughout the region. The Libyans, with the assistance of a European alliance, overthrew Gaddafi. The country is now at the mercy of Islamic militants.”
Again, more whitewashing.
Gaddafi was an Islamic Militant, and a host to event more. He sponsored terror groups throughout the world and proxy armies and expeditionary forces as far South as Uganda (in support of Udi Amin). The fact that some Islamist militants also opposed him (for being a kleptocratic thug, a quasi-socialist, and an egomaniac with monarchist inclinations) is not surprising. What is is that they have not and are not the only ones around.
Though again, not like Naipaul is capable or willing to admit that. Or admit the THOUSANDS of people Islamist “militants’ and proxy armies loyal to Gaddafi have murdered abroad. Let alone those he killed in his own back yard.
“The same Arab Spring saw democratic protest against the Egyptian dictator and resulted for a while in an elected regime veering towards the repressions of Islamism.
It was overthrown by a military coup whose leader, General el-Sisi, speaking to the clerics and supposed scholars of the authoritative Islamic university Al-Azhar, called on them to denounce Isis as the greatest threat to international peace and exhorted them to declare the ideology of Isis a heresy. The mullahs of Al-Azhar have not as yet complied.”
To be honest, I’M SYMPATHETIC to the Mullahs of Al-Azhar Mosque in this case. Because if nothing else, ISIS IS NOT THE GREATEST THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE. It will be a Long, LONG time before it can ever even think of claiming that title. What is depends on your point of view. You could make good arguments for China, Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Venezuela, or the Sauds. But it certainly isn’t an upstart Islamist terror organization with pretensions of grandeur, minimal state support, and far fewer numbers and resources than the bigger Islamist terror organizations in power in Tehran.
And that’s before I even get into the Koranic scriptural issues, because unlike a lot of morons of the Islamist, Leftist, and Islamophobe kinds the IS actually did their homework. I’ve noted a few probable heresies from their doctrine, but I would have to take a closer look at things in order to say more. Which is more than I can say to the average Leftist apologist or even the Saud, who I can refute with my eyes closed.
“In Syria, the conflict of groups opposed to the government of Bashar Al-Assad resolved itself in the formation of a Sunni Islamicist militia, which in turn evolved – after a significant bloodletting – into Isis.”
“Resolved itself”?
What kind of academic balderdash is that?
The formation of IS has not resolved anything, and certainly not the fighting. But saying that allows Naipaul an easy out from detailing how Assad sponsored Zarqawi and IS’s progenitors, how he saught to radicalize opposition by injecting Islamists into it (to avoid being Gaddafized), and how IS formed from AQII.
Which in turn might raise issues about how the Nazi-influenced, Soviet flavored, Islamist-supporting dictatorships like Iran and Syria are even more pressing threats to humanity, world peace, and civilization. And by extension, what Naipaul (correctly) prescribes for IS be done to them.
Beyond all of that, I actually agree with the article. But this stuff needs to be called out.
IS did not evolve in a vacuum, and if we don’t know our enemies or where we operate we will never be able to exorcise them.
Posted by Turtler
03/26/2015 at 07:26 PM
Also, AhChowder needs to be hung, drawn, quartered, and gibbleted old school style. Because sometimes hanging or beheading is too good.
Posted by Turtler
03/26/2015 at 07:29 PM
