Another argument for staying in Iraq

[Cynthia]

My god, the bottom line here, and it seems like a common sense view....

I don't think that Humans in the USA are a diffrent sort of creature , we are involved in a diffrent sort of dynamic.

Our history includes no less ignorance and violence , how did we escape the dark ages?

I beg to differ, plane

[Plane]

My god, the bottom line here, and it seems like a common sense view....

I don't think that Humans in the USA are a diffrent sort of creature , we are involved in a diffrent sort of dynamic.

Our history includes no less ignorance and violence , how did we escape the dark ages?

I beg to differ, plane

Of course ,
that is what we do here,
have fun .

[Cynthia]

My god, the bottom line here, and it seems like a common sense view....

I don't think that Humans in the USA are a diffrent sort of creature , we are involved in a diffrent sort of dynamic.

Our history includes no less ignorance and violence , how did we escape the dark ages?

I beg to differ, plane

Of course ,
that is what we do here,
have fun .

Come on, Plane.

Here's how to measure the dark/light ages......

How many patents do they have vs those in the west?

That'll tell ya how sophisticated we are... and  how they................ are not.

History tells a tale; those who invent, thrive!

Those who don't....do not.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't think that Humans in the USA are a diffrent sort of creature , we are involved in a diffrent sort of dynamic.

Our history includes no less ignorance and violence , how did we escape the dark ages?

===========================
The Christian Dark Ages ended in the late 1400'd through the early 1600's. By the time the US was a functioning colony, the Dark Ages were over. I suppose the Salem Witch Trials were the closest thing to the Dark Ages that occurred here.

The Muslim Dark Ages are still going on, and seem to be crumbling faster in various places, depending on prosperity and other factors. Tunisia is the most advanced Arab nation culturally, but The UAE, Bahrein and Qatar have retained more of the power of religion and because of the vast amount of oil wealth, have advanced more technologically.
Saudi Arabia, Oman, Sudan and Yeman are the most backward, along with several of the Sahel countries: Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad
 

[Plane]

My god, the bottom line here, and it seems like a common sense view....

I don't think that Humans in the USA are a diffrent sort of creature , we are involved in a diffrent sort of dynamic.

Our history includes no less ignorance and violence , how did we escape the dark ages?

I beg to differ, plane

Of course ,
that is what we do here,
have fun .

Come on, Plane.

Here's how to measure the dark/light ages......

How many patents do they have vs those in the west?

That'll tell ya how sophisticated we are... and  how they................ are not.

History tells a tale; those who invent, thrive!

Those who don't....do not.

I suppose you know why many stars are called by their Arabic name and why Algebra has an Arabic connection?
A lot of the scholorship that fueled the rennasance became availible When Spain became Christian again a lot of Jew and Arabic Scholors  translated a lot of stuff from Arabic into Spanish or Latain , makeing it avaliible to Europeans, the placeholder Zero and the Arabic number system for example streamlined European math a lot, I don't even know the method for multiplying Roman numerals , it was so inferior that it is nearly forgotten.

The Renassance made use of many things learned from Islamic science and Math to leapfrog ahead of the Islamic world into the advantaged position we enjoy today , more advanced above their science than they ever were above ours. Is team play over ?Just haveing to ask the question implys that it isn't.

Our learning is no longer closed to them, I don't see what there is to prevent their learning all we know and advanceing further again perhaps leapfrogging ahead as we once did by dint of great motivation.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The placeholder Zero and the Arabic number system for example streamlined European math a lot, I don't even know the method for multiplying Roman numerals , it was so inferior that it is nearly forgotten.

==================
By the way, the Arabic number system was not invented by any Arabs. Observe how Arabic is written from right to left and everyone, Arabs included, writes numbers the other way, from left to right.

The origin of the so-called Arabac numbers, which are clearly superior to Roman and Hebrew numeric notation, was India.

The numbers can be written as follow:

No angles: 0
One angle:1
Two angles:2
Three angles: 3
Four angles: 4
Five angles: six
Six angles: 6
Seven angles: 7 (hence the cross through the upright as the Europeans write 7)
Eight angles: 8 (two boxes)
Nine angles: 9

The Arabs do not write numbers exactly as Westerners do, but the principle is the same. The Arabs discovered these in India/Pakistan, and brought them back.

Al gebra (literally, "the calculation") was used to discover the position of the mihrab/mithrab, the place in every mosque that always faces Mecca. Mohammad once had everyone face Jerusalem, but then he got pissed at some Jews and changed it to Mecca.

Most of modern astronomy, medicine as well as the reintroduction of Aristotle's philosophy was developed in Cordoba, the site of the most intellectual center of learning in the XI Century. All manner of writings were translated from and into Latin, Arabic and even Greek there.

[Plane]

The placeholder Zero and the Arabic number system for example streamlined European math a lot, I don't even know the method for multiplying Roman numerals , it was so inferior that it is nearly forgotten.

==================
By the way, the Arabic number system was not invented by any Arabs. Observe how Arabic is written from right to left and everyone, Arabs included, writes numbers the other way, from left to right.

The origin of the so-called Arabac numbers, which are clearly superior to Roman and Hebrew numeric notation, was India.

The numbers can be written as follow:

No angles: 0
One angle:1
Two angles:2
Three angles: 3
Four angles: 4
Five angles: six
Six angles: 6
Seven angles: 7 (hence the cross through the upright as the Europeans write 7)
Eight angles: 8 (two boxes)
Nine angles: 9

The Arabs do not write numbers exactly as Westerners do, but the principle is the same. The Arabs discovered these in India/Pakistan, and brought them back.

Al gebra (literally, "the calculation") was used to discover the position of the mihrab/mithrab, the place in every mosque that always faces Mecca. Mohammad once had everyone face Jerusalem, but then he got pissed at some Jews and changed it to Mecca.

Most of modern astronomy, medicine as well as the reintroduction of Aristotle's philosophy was developed in Cordoba, the site of the most intellectual center of learning in the XI Century. All manner of writings were translated from and into Latin, Arabic and even Greek there.

That is some detail I didn't know , so some of the Arabic system was captured to beginwith?

[Michael Tee]

<<It is as though you don't know any of the facts.

<<They think with good reason that Saddam was driveing them from their ancestral lands and shooting them often.>>

Excuse me, but I happen to know quite a bit about Iraq.  What the Kurds may think Saddam was doing to them (according to you and/or their PR agents) and what was actually going on are two very different things.  The Kurds have had a dream of their own nation for a long time now, which was denied to them by the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Republic of Turkey, as well as by the British colonial authorities in Iraq and the Hashemite dynasty set up by the British to inherit their authority.  Kurdish autonomy was finally granted by the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party after it had finally seized power in Iraq.

The shooting you refer to was in the course of an armed Kurdish separatist movement split into three main splinter movements shooting and being shot at by each other and the Iraqi and Turkish armies.  Many countries at one time or another have to deal with the phenomenon of armed separatist movements, your own country included. 

It is ludicrous to claim that the suppression of armed separatists equates to an "extermination" attempt.  Similarly "forcing them off ancestral lands" is absurd.   Almost all of the Iraqi Kurds live on their ancestral lands or would still be living there were it not for the dislocations caused by war and rebellion and the natural lure of the capital and other big cities.  The sole exception would appear to be Kirkuk, where there is some evidence that the Saddam Hussein government was forcing Kurds out and populating the area with Arabs to secure the oil resources of the region in the face of Kurdish separatism.

The story of Kirkuk is complex.  It is not and never was a Kurdish city, although it is very ancient.  It was founded by Assyrians in the days of the Assyrian Empire and since then has been settled by a great variety of people, including Arabs and Kurds.  The Assyrians have always been a significant part of the population up to the present time.  The fate of the Kurds in Kirkuk and surrounding areas has absolutely nothing to do with the "extermination" of the Kurds, and everything to do with a Kurdish-Arab power struggle to secure an oil-rich region's resources.

The claim that Kurds are being forced off their ancestral lands sounds to me like a huge fairy tale.  They were being forced out of Kirkuk by Saddam and now they are in turn forcing out the Arabs and others who are also laying claim to the city.

[BT]

They were being forced out of Kirkuk by Saddam and now they are in turn forcing out the Arabs and others who are also laying claim to the city.

The Iraqi's have their own Palestine?

How delicious.

[Plane]

<<It is as though you don't know any of the facts.

<<They think with good reason that Saddam was driveing them from their ancestral lands and shooting them often.>>

Excuse me, but I happen to know quite a bit about Iraq.  What the Kurds may think Saddam was doing to them (according to you and/or their PR agents) and what was actually going on are two very different things.  The Kurds have had a dream of their own nation for a long time now, which was denied to them by the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Republic of Turkey, as well as by the British colonial authorities in Iraq and the Hashemite dynasty set up by the British to inherit their authority.  Kurdish autonomy was finally granted by the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party after it had finally seized power in Iraq.

The shooting you refer to was in the course of an armed Kurdish separatist movement split into three main splinter movements shooting and being shot at by each other and the Iraqi and Turkish armies.  Many countries at one time or another have to deal with the phenomenon of armed separatist movements, your own country included. 

It is ludicrous to claim that the suppression of armed separatists equates to an "extermination" attempt.  Similarly "forcing them off ancestral lands" is absurd.   Almost all of the Iraqi Kurds live on their ancestral lands or would still be living there were it not for the dislocations caused by war and rebellion and the natural lure of the capital and other big cities.  The sole exception would appear to be Kirkuk, where there is some evidence that the Saddam Hussein government was forcing Kurds out and populating the area with Arabs to secure the oil resources of the region in the face of Kurdish separatism.

The story of Kirkuk is complex.  It is not and never was a Kurdish city, although it is very ancient.  It was founded by Assyrians in the days of the Assyrian Empire and since then has been settled by a great variety of people, including Arabs and Kurds.  The Assyrians have always been a significant part of the population up to the present time.  The fate of the Kurds in Kirkuk and surrounding areas has absolutely nothing to do with the "extermination" of the Kurds, and everything to do with a Kurdish-Arab power struggle to secure an oil-rich region's resources.

The claim that Kurds are being forced off their ancestral lands sounds to me like a huge fairy tale.  They were being forced out of Kirkuk by Saddam and now they are in turn forcing out the Arabs and others who are also laying claim to the city.

I plan to quote you on all of this next time we are talking about Palestinians.

[Plane]

They were being forced out of Kirkuk by Saddam and now they are in turn forcing out the Arabs and others who are also laying claim to the city.

The Iraqi's have their own Palestine?

How delicious.

hahahaha

The screen warned me that there was a new reply while I was typing , I should have looked.

[Michael Tee]

<<The Iraqi's have their own Palestine?>>

As I tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to indicate, the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan and Kirkuk is a lot more complex than the situation in Palestine.  One game is two-dimensional, one is four or five-dimensional.

[Plane]

<<The Iraqi's have their own Palestine?>>

As I tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to indicate, the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan and Kirkuk is a lot more complex than the situation in Palestine.  One game is two-dimensional, one is four or five-dimensional.

Which one is the simple one?

Is it better for being simple?

[Michael Tee]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is relatively simple, it involves two parties and one patch of land.

The Iraqi-Kurdish thing involves Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians, land, oil, autonomy, rebellion, separatism, and neighbouring governments with a stake in preventing an independent Kurdistan anywhere.

"Better" is a subjective term.  Better for whom?  I think when I challenged your version that the Kurds were weighting an Iraqi poll, you claimed they were facing "extinction," which I challenged and you then seemed to think that what I said vis-a-vis the Kurds not facing extinction would apply to my views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I was merely pointing out that you are confusing two very different situations.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Everyone in the Middle East exaggerates. It is normal to hear all of them, Kurds, Palestinians, Israelis cry about "extinction" and "genocide". But none of this should be taken seriously. Each area has a unique situation, and solving one will not provide a solution to solve the other.

I would think that an accord would be easier in Kurdistan, because there is a huge pile of money involved. There is a lot of money involved in Israel, too, but it is in the form of charitable donations by World Jewry to Israel, which Israel cannot promise to share, and US aid money, which does not depend on Israelis to divvy it up.

It will take cooperation by all the people in Kurdistan to exploit the oil and maximize the gains, or it will just sit there and all will fail to benefit.