I'm glad to see this thread has swung back to intellectual discussion, and totally without outside (cough mod cough) intervention. Some other lists could learn from this.
Spyke;
I understand your pragmatism, but I have a few points I'd like to raise.
- We invaded Iraq. We fucked over their whole world. If we pull out, we'll still be attacked because the Iraqis have a truckload of payback owed. If we cantonise into armed laagers and focus on reconstruction, mortar sales will be the hot shares in the middle east. If we disperse into the community and try to go 'softly softly' as per the British model, we'll be involved in RPG attacks, car bombs and running gunfights with militias and the very forces we're training there. If we sponsor one power and then hover nearby in another country, we in effect colonise the host nation and we can get their homegrown guerillas as well as cross border attacks and ambushes.
We have stuck our dick in a blender.
Akrasia;
I'm a democratic (soviet consilliar) socialist, I understand your point. It may well be that we're viewing arrested development in the Middle East, we're prolonging the birth pains through intervention and stabilisation. When the powers pulled out, they tried to install traditional rulers and stabilise the situation (the Shah et al) through innate cultural conservatism, but the population base was far larger than such structures could maintain. With affluent Western cultures just across the Med, many Middle Eastern people thought it might be a good idea to come up with Islamic democracies, but the Ba'athist nationalism theme was usually attacked by us (as it favoured nationalising our oil assets incountry, see JimBob's interesting mini-essay on our oil addiction) until it could become moderate and economically globalist.
In essence, we'll never see democracy in the Middle East while we coerce their governments into giving us their one and only resource on our terms.
Anyone attacking the First Division Handbook;
You are making a major mistake.
The title of the handbook is not 'a perfect guide to every Arab/Islamic culture on earth'. It is a an avenue for soldiers, many who are recruited from culturaly homogeonous and poorly educated areas (and there's many who aren't, I'm not hassling the US Army) to be able to think outside their cultural box and get a handle on some of the motivations of a foreign culture. I assume, and I haven't read it, that no allowance is made for Persian cultural influences as that is outside the scope of the book. The same handbook is consulted if you're in Saudi Arabia, Turki or Iraq, three radically different places. To bridge this gap troops are given orienteering lectures by specialists.
View the material for the reason it was written. It is not a scholarly work bent on definitive cultural analysis, but a handbook for soldiers who get shot at and want to have some idea why.
History;
This current fetish with The Crusades as an evil war of mindless aggression in isolation against a peaceful people is, to be technical; bullshit.
Just as much Islamic territorial aggression occured before and after The Crusades, something Islamic scholars are just as willing to agree. The pop history about that time really, really shits me. It also forments cultural bitterness, something out of place with the actual events. Please, if you must cite The Crusades, learn a bit of mediaeval history or you just come off looking stupid.
Islamic Ghandi
This is just personal; but I dont think he should have glasses, but definitely should have boots with turned up toes.