Why do you think there is a war in the Middle East?

[AngryAmish]

These people hate each other. That is why there is a war in the Middle East.

For over 20 years there has been a race war of extermination in central Africa. Millions dead. Nobody cares. Except for the people in the middle of the war.

The Middle East is in the beginning of such a conflict.

We can't fix it. It is arrogant to even try.

Humanity sucks.

[tecelote]

1. For over 20 years we have been fighting in the Middle East.

[arcane1]

9. We've been fighting over there since world war one in some way or another.

Pretty much ever since we and the UK invented those countries.

[tecelote]

13. Lawrence of Arabia

[SummerSnow]

19. T.E. Lawrence: "There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians."

[Cleita]

2. Profit.

The ginning up of hatred is the means to an end. If there were profit in peace, the profiteers would be bending over backwards making sure everyone gets along.

[DrDan]

3. Beginning?????

[AngryAmish]

5. Yes, rhis is the beginning of the real war.

This is a war of extermination. It will get much worse. And a few us bombs are meaningless.

[Cary]

4. Because there are thousand of tribes and sects

Before Mohammad, about 700 AD if I am not mistaken, there were all kinds of Arab tribes and sects. Mohammad tried to unite them and after he died they simply reverted back.

We are a nation that is some 230 years old. They have existed as we see them for thousands of years and they don't have any wishes or desires to be a Jeffersonian democracy.

It is Sunni versus Shiite, but also much more.

[Phlem]

6. Well at the very least

We shouldn't be dumping more weapons into the country. Let them shoot till they run out of bullets.

But I'm also pretty sure it's also about oil and also one of our many strategic footings around the world.

[AngryAmish]

11. The Panama canal was important ...until it wasn't.

Between Canada, fracking and Mexico, we are freeing I ourselves of those primitives.

[BeyondGeography]

7. Humanity did give us the Holy Modal Rounders

&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[randome]

10. And candied corn. So it's a mixed bag.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[bhikkhu]

8. In 1940 you could ask why there was a war in Europe, conclude that they hate each other

- always had, always will, proven by centuries of conflict. And then you could say it would be arrogant to even try to fix anything.

Humanity may suck, but people desire peace more than they hate each other, and history proves that there is always hope.

[AngryAmish]

15. Between ww1 and 2, two generations were more than decimated

Western Europe learned that lesson for a while. Same could be said for the Treaty of Westfalia after the Thirty Years War.

[AngryAmish]

18. And I see the problems of the Middle East more intractable

I keep banging on about the cousin marriage thing but it is a thing.

[Euphoria]

12. There's a war there

Because we keeping invading, bombing, finding and supporting those who apply violence, occupying, extracting, stealing, leaving behind or giving others major pieces of armaments. (Have I left anything out?)

That's why.

[AngryAmish]

20. No. They hate each other

Does the US make it worse? Maybe. But they have hated other for hundreds of years. The Ottomans kept a lid on it, then the various dictators but now they want to have it out.

[customerserviceguy]

21. It's true

The only time they don't fight is when there's an iron boot on their throats. Every once in awhile, we 'righteous' folks in the Western world wring our hands over how a dictator is treating "his people", but they are clueless as to who that despot perceives as "his people".

Every once in awhile, we do something that reverses our previous stand, and either supports an Assad, or reviles an ally, like OBL. We just don't have enough sense to get the hell out of their way while they settle their own shit.

[JI7]

14. "these people" , btw, we are involved in Africa also

[upaloopa]

16. The people who hate each other sit on the supply

of oil the rest of us use. If we didn't burn oil I doubt we would even give a shit who kills who over there .

[malthaussen]

17. Been that way a long time.

The hubris of our government is that we can fix problems that have been in existance since before we were a nation.

-- Mal