Who really created the modern jihad?

[htpcl]

Nice speech, Donnie. I'm sure the turban-clad towel-wearing moustached folks with the long names sitting in their gold thrones driving their Rolls Royces must have nodded a few times in agreement with you, Donnie. Now trot along, and keep feeling good about yourself.

Well, the conflicts are not going to end any time soon. Especially those involving

Comments

Statue of limitations on historical causality?

[policraticus]

I'm skeptical.

I'm not saying that Sykes-Picot has nothing to do with the current turmoil in the Middle East. I grant most everything you've written is accurate. I just think it isn't necessary, under old Ockham's Razor. It's kind of like when people would trace the Troubles back and back through the Easter Rising to Wolfe Tone, to Oliver Cromwell, to even (Saint's preserve us) Henry II. Like Lupus, it is a diagnosis that fits too many sets of symptoms. An answer for everything, is often a good answer for nothing

RE: Statue of limitations on historical causality?

[johnny9fingers]

You have a point about proximate causes, but context is, in its own way, a proximate cause; and an ever present one.

Like very many English folk I have Irish rellies. To them, Cromwell is a real and current bogeyman. They got over Henry II because the Normans went native and became, in their words "more Irish than the Irish" (Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis or Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin for those who read Gaelic.)

The plantation of Ulster, however, is perceived as one of many direct causes of what happened. Which is why, even though I have many beefs with Tony Blair, he did help to achieve one really amazingly good thing in his tenure.

RE: Statue of limitations on historical causality?

[mikeyxw]

Looking at proximate causes is also much more effective in trying to prevent such things from happening again. The Middle East is full of corrupt, authoritarian dictators who underachieve at providing opportunities for their young people and overachieve at holding onto power. They have also had a baby boom in the past few decades and so they have a lot more young people than opportunities or young people to realize their potential. There are also a lot of outside powers who are messing far too much with the countries in question. All in all, there are plenty of causes that folks can address today without a time machine.

That said, blaming Sykes and Picot has a distinct advantage in that they're dead and can't defend themselves.

RE: Statue of limitations on historical causality?

[policraticus]

Yes. A huge cohort of young, relatively well educated people who have no political or economic opportunity is a recipe for unrest. There are reasonable and tested ways to channel this kind of energy into economic growth, but that would require a commensurate amount of political liberty. Since the education most of these young people have received has skewed them violently against liberty, even is Assad wanted to be enlightened, chances are Syria was fucked.

That said, blaming Sykes and Picot has a distinct advantage in that they're dead and can't defend themselves.

Yep. It is very much "the road not taken" fallacy, that is, in criticizing Sykes/Picot there is an underlying premise that there is some other agreement that was perfect and just and wouldn't have contained its own seeds of division and conflict. I think I would venture to speak for Messrs. Sykes and Picot and demand that the critics produce the plan that was both equitable and possible in the post WWI reality.

RE: Statue of limitations on historical causality?

[johnny9fingers]

Have to agree with everything you write here.

Though the powers that be did screw Lawrence's ideas good and proper. Gertrude Bell and her main disciple T.E. Shaw (as he became) did have a few ideas that may have made for an easier post WWI future.

I still want a Brough Superior, though. To go with the Rolls-Royce and unlimited fuel.