The anarcho-syndicalists prepare to fight for their lives.

[Yukaphile]

Like it or not, things were a lot more stable prior to 9/11. Then Bush invades because Americans are calling for blood even though he insists it's just the war on "terror," not Muslims, yet he does so anyway, in a misguided attempt to bring democracy everywhere and be heroes, and... look how that turned up. Look what we fucking did over there to ordinary civilians. That's the danger in feel-good politics. You NEED rationality and logic over emotionalism. Saddam falls, it's like a domino effect, and I don't even like Saddam Hussein. But he might have been a necessary evil for that region. Now it's worse than ever. It's safe to say they have legit grudges against us, and I feel bad as an American for that - within reason.

[LittleRaven]

Like it or not, things were a lot more stable prior to 9/11.

Uhh......you're gonna want to qualify that statement a bit, or it's going to sound like you forgot about what went down in December of '91.

[Robovski]

The real cause of this all was the Big Bang and the beginning of time.

[Yukaphile]

You talking about the World Trade Center bombing or the fall of the USSR? I meant in the Middle East and here, not Russia. I know they had famines. Otherwise, what you talking about, Willis?

LOL. Curse that Big Bang! (shakes fist)

[LittleRaven]

I'm talking about the notion that "things" were more stable before 9/11. It's not that the statement is necessarily false, it's just overly broad. If what you meant to say was that the Middle East was more stable between, say, 1989 and 2001, then ok, that's probably accurate.

But stability and humans do not make good playmates.

[Yukaphile]

That's what I meant.

[CmdrKing]

To me the larger issue is the wonton betrayal of existing treaties and on-the-ground alliances, both in terms of being a trustworthy actor in future negotiations and in the long-term stability of the region (‘Cuz... hoooo boy win lose or draw the Kurdish people being actively hostile is not a good place to be.)

Obviously if we’re gonna trace blame, the biggest share is with the rapid and slapdash “decolonization” post WW2 that just took existing lines in the map and said “fuck it, you’re a country, you got two weeks to form a government” with little regard for existing ethnic, religious, and national identities or alliances.

[clearspira]

Like it or not, things were a lot more stable prior to 9/11. Then Bush invades because Americans are calling for blood even though he insists it's just the war on "terror," not Muslims, yet he does so anyway, in a misguided attempt to bring democracy everywhere and be heroes, and... look how that turned up. Look what we fucking did over there to ordinary civilians. That's the danger in feel-good politics. You NEED rationality and logic over emotionalism. Saddam falls, it's like a domino effect, and I don't even like Saddam Hussein. But he might have been a necessary evil for that region. Now it's worse than ever. It's safe to say they have legit grudges against us, and I feel bad as an American for that - within reason.

If you lived in America or Britain, yeah, our lives were pretty great in the 1990s compared to post 2001. Other places however...

The Bosnian war which started in 1992 is officially the most devastating conflict in Europe since WW2, it is estimated to have killed 100,000 people. In addition to mass genocide and ethnic cleansing, it also holds the dubious honour of being one of the finest real world examples of the Handmaids Tale that you will ever find. I would like to share this rather sad paragraph from Wikipedia:

An estimated 12,000–20,000 women were raped, most of them Bosniak.[26][304] This has been referred to as "Mass rape",[305][306][307] particularly with regard to the coordinated use of rape as a weapon of war by members in the VRS and Bosnian Serb police.[305][306][307][308] For the first time in judicial history, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) declared that "systematic rape", and "sexual enslavement" in time of war was a crime against humanity, second only to the war crime of genocide.[305] Rape was most systematic in Eastern Bosnia (e.g. during campaigns in Foča and Višegrad), and in Grbavica during the siege of Sarajevo. Women and girls were kept in various detention centres where they had to live in intolerably unhygienic conditions and were mistreated in many ways including being repeatedly raped. A notorious example was "Karaman's house" in Foča.[309][310] Common complications among surviving women and girls include psychological, gynaecological and other physical disorders, as well as unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

[clearspira]

To me the larger issue is the wonton betrayal of existing treaties and on-the-ground alliances, both in terms of being a trustworthy actor in future negotiations and in the long-term stability of the region (‘Cuz... hoooo boy win lose or draw the Kurdish people being actively hostile is not a good place to be.)

Obviously if we’re gonna trace blame, the biggest share is with the rapid and slapdash “decolonization” post WW2 that just took existing lines in the map and said “fuck it, you’re a country, you got two weeks to form a government” with little regard for existing ethnic, religious, and national identities or alliances.

Yeah, it is fair to say that the British Empire really dropped the ball on that one I am sad to say. And creating Pakistan.

[Yukaphile]

OMG... that's disgusting.