Renzatic on 17/4/2019 at 22:01
On the surface, the idea that Islam was responsible for the fall of classical civilization is ignorant, considering that the western Roman empire fell to Germanic barbarians ~200 years before Mohammad started doing his thing. And Greece? It was conquered by the Romans.
Now if Vae and his current favorite youtuber were arguing about the fall of the Byzantine empire, he may have a point. It was absorbed into the very Islamic Ottoman Empire.
...but that happened during the Renaissance, around 1500AD, give or take a century. Not exactly classical antiquity.
heywood on 17/4/2019 at 22:34
Quote Posted by froghawk
Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's a VERY major leap to go from 'this particular action by this country was a direct result of our involvement' to 'all actions by this country are a result of our involvement', and I NEVER implied the latter. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
And Tocky, are you kidding me? The west has been heavily involved in the middle east since at least the treaty of Versailles, when the region was arbitrarily divided into countries without any regard for cultural boundaries and plunged into chaos. There hasn't really been a time since when the west hasn't been involved in the region, and you're entirely ignoring that history by claiming that 'we tried not being involved' and saying that we weren't involved prior to Hussein, which is ridiculous. You call me a propagandist then claim the Taliban's motivation was purely religious. It wasn't. It was a response to decades of western imperialist action.
The answer is pretty simple in both of these cases, guys. Imperialism caused literally all of these problems, from our own imperialism to Europe's to Russia's. So we either keep doing the thing that created the problems in the first place (sometimes under the guise of 'fixing' the problems we started, but that's never really the reason and it literally never works), or we stop trying to control the world for our own benefit.
It's easy to say everything is our fault because we're imperialist. I don't believe it's that simple, but imperialism certainly has consequences. But isolationism doesn't solve problems either. It just enables the aggressors.
When a crisis arises, it's hard to know when it's right to intervene, and when it's a mistake. But if you're a world leader, you have to make a choice. You can't just say "well, there wouldn't be a crisis if we hadn't done such and such..." You can't go back in time and undo the actions of your predecessors. You have to weigh the risks of getting in versus staying out. But if you take the position that we shouldn't get involved in anything, that pretty much green lights Russia and China to walk all over their neighbors.
And I agree with Tocky that every crisis that happens in the Middle East is pretty much a no-win situation.
froghawk on 17/4/2019 at 22:41
You're assuming that some imperial actions are altruistic, though. If that were the case, it would be a different story, but virtually no country is ever going to use their resources to just 'do the right thing' - and at the very least, the US never has. There's always an ulterior motive there, and that's why imperialism always creates a mess. I'm not fundamentally isolationist, and I'd be in support of selfless, altruistic intervention (assuming that it was requested by the country in question) if it ever happened, but I don't think that's the world we live in. There's also a frequent misunderstanding of the nuances of a situation's dynamics when we intervene and it ends up being a bit like bringing a sledgehammer to a sowing party.
icemann on 18/4/2019 at 02:23
The Egyptian empire was the only one that you could say was destroyed via "Islam", though from memory it was technically the Turks that did that. Though a (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt#Middle_Kingdom_(2134%E2%80%931690_BC)) Wikipedia search tells me that it was due to a whole bunch of different empires who invaded and wrecked the place over time. So I'm likely wrong on the Turks.
Tocky on 18/4/2019 at 04:45
Islam took over the whole of the middle east which was Jewish so you could well say they destroyed that empire. It wasn't a totally peaceful takeover either.
And it's quite possible to have a vested and even capitalistic interest in a place and perform a good deed at the same time. Desert Storm. Protecting the Kurds. Siding with the northern alliance in Afghanistan. Pushing ISIS out. Scattering that rats nest of Al Queda and keeping them beat down. Ridding Iraq of Hussein. None of those are bad things. We spent billions doing those and got back very little. It might not be altruism but when you don't make a profit it's not exactly greed either is it?
Sure, sure, we are ideologically opposed to the Taliban who ARE a religious organization (student does not mean student of philosophy but of religion- it's in the name FS) but we didn't create them. They came about in Pakistan where we had no dealings other than aid and then tried to spread their shoot them in the head if they don't follow our strict unforgiving view of the Quoran ways outward. Were they spreading it with throw pillows and teddy bears? You want to blame everything on imperialism as if that were some magic fountain from which all evil spreads. It isn't. Plenty comes from sources other than the west all on it's own.
And yes, after we had helped Afghanistan with Russia we left it alone. I wasn't speaking of all time since men crawled from caves or anything. Did the region blossom with brotherly love on it's own?
nbohr1more on 18/4/2019 at 06:59
What is this hogwash Islamic issues chatter?
Let me guess, too much illumination about Assange in this thread so some CIA or DNC shill group needs to smear all Assange discussion
as "Alt-Right" racist stuff. So now we're all in this honeypot and every poster in the thread is an "alt right poster"?
Such a primitive ploy.
I can't wait 'till Shareblue \ Media Matters etc have their day in front of a civil lawsuit about these tactics.
They basically killed voat this way. If I were a voat investor I would issue a FOIA lawsuit to know what gov agencies are being paid to be fake racists online
to slide social media and forum sites.
icemann on 18/4/2019 at 08:16
Huh?
Renzatic on 18/4/2019 at 17:19
It's nbohr, Ice. Everything's a conspiracy.
Tocky on 19/4/2019 at 00:21
Quote Posted by nbohr1more
What is this hogwash Islamic issues chatter?
Let me guess, too much illumination about Assange in this thread so some CIA or DNC shill group needs to smear all Assange discussion
as "Alt-Right" racist stuff. So now we're all in this honeypot and every poster in the thread is an "alt right poster"?
Such a primitive ploy.
I can't wait 'till Shareblue \ Media Matters etc have their day in front of a civil lawsuit about these tactics.
They basically killed voat this way. If I were a voat investor I would issue a FOIA lawsuit to know what gov agencies are being paid to be fake racists online
to slide social media and forum sites.
You got me. I'm CIA sent here to convince a dozen folks from around the world that Assange is an ass lozenge. I've been hiding out for seventeen years just so I could point out the obvious.
