*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by kulpims.

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, July 8th, 2014 3:31pm PDT - doublepromote requested by kulpims.

The results/consequences of the '03 invasion was predicted and understood from the get-go, but of course, "peace" was never an intended goal.. The "weapons of mass destruction" narrative that was sold to the American public, and the concomitant "unintended consequences" of a destabilized region is, in fact, a much-welcomed result by those who stand to benefit greatly from an entrenched perpetuation of a constant war and continued unrest: the crony contractors, the kleptocrats, the war profiteers, and the politicians whose very wealth is contingent upon the continued (mis)perception of power and control.

So long as there are citizens who remain convinced of the *lies and the impoverished 'patriots' who are willing to "die for a cause" (and have their deaths revered like martyrs: "NO THANKS for your service!"), there will always be a "market" for wasted "blood and treasure" which comes to the benefit of some and at the expense of everybody else.. .. for the foresseeable future and for many many generations to come... Amen.

EDIT: Wouldn't it be more efficient if Obama funded ISIS directly and cut out the middlemen? I guess doing so would require that the administration gives up its layer of plausible deniability.

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Remember kids, America's thirst for oil and policy of playing both sides off against each other has nothing to do with all of this.

Is there a *propaganda channel?

I haven't watched this yet so this could be completely unfair, I swear I'll give this it's due. But 4 mins 36 seconds to explain Iraq? Seems a few hours short to me.

Its quite succinct in getting its message across and is otherwise a great primer for understanding and digging deeper.

I think you need a sarcasm tag for this comment.

All I could think about while watching this was a giant mushroom cloud.

Right, it's fucked. How does it get unfucked?

anyone???

I have to admit it was much better than I thought simply because it didn't go into Iraq very much at all but focussed more on the broader region and ISIS. Lot's of these sorts of videos no matter how well meaning seem to get Iraq wrong consistently.

Dick Cheney knew of this exact outcome before the Iraq invasion:
http://youtu.be/EstVJo6URdQ

So why are Sunni and Shia fighting? a few hundred years ago, there was an argument about whether or not a non-direct relative of Mohammad could become leader.

This conflict is not simply about religion, it's also about these smaller militia groups grabbing land/money/power.

The video failed to mention that the centrally elected government in Iraq never had any real control over the Kurds (Kurdistan) in the north, which were (and still are) a self-governing state.

quagmire is an apt one-word description, used a lot around 2002. without the giggity-giggity, of course.

Before the U.S. invasion, Iraq had an integrated society, with different religions inter-marrying, and different religions working in government.
After the U.S. took over, people were chosen for state work according to religious quota (something new to iraq), and religion became a 'big deal' in regards to putting food on the table.
General dislikes turned into conflicts.

The "Shia v Sunni" thing is more hyperbole for western audiences, than it is a matter of recent history.
Saddam mostly oppressed areas rife with insurgent groups. Conflict festers and spreads. People die, their families/friends become militant, then they die, and their families/friends become militant, etc, etc, etc. Families/friends live near each other, so it spreads geographically. Eventually you find cities or regions that have managed to upturn.
Like any city/region, similar people tend to live together. So you in effect have groups/cultures vs government.
Hence why the internal conflict was by city/region (just like it is/was in Syria), and why it had a cultural flavor.
Granted, there is always some backlash that spills into a community at large, when a portion of it is identified as a 'problem'. Point is, there was not some eugenic ethnic/religious conflict going on.

The real 'oppression by religion' is happening today.
Neighborhoods have become mono-religious. Minorities have left their neighborhoods and fled to regions that are mostly 'of their own kind' - because nobody wants to stick around to see if they become the next target.

Best thing that can happen now is what happened to Syria after WW2 : Some other power steps in, chops up the country into smaller pieces, and populates each piece with a particular culture (eg. Syria was taken by Britain and France, split up, and became Syria + Lebanon + Jordan - granted the post ww2 split of Syria had more to do with the the last gasps of colonialism, and less to do with stabilization. 'Fun' note : It's the Syrian expulsion the French colonial rulers in the 1970's, and the subsequent French 'black eye', that set the tone for why France is so happy to support whoever wants to overthrow the Syrian government.).

-scheherazade

I guess it's time for another war. And yes, we all saw it coming.

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.

Ice-cream. Give everyone ice-cream.
Granted the plan isn't fully thought-out, but this could be the core component.

More seriously, empowering women's rights would be the best method to improve poverty & education, while further restricting the ease and acceptance of violence.

Less seriously, maybe only give ice-cream to those who are being socially pleasant, considerate and respectful to others.

Either way, we'll get there eventually or have a great time wiping ourselves out in the process of failing.
https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence

Drop a dome around it.

I think that channel is known as *lies.

Invocations (lies) cannot be called by artician because artician is not privileged - sorry.

It's interesting to see @Sepacore and @direpickle have essentially opposing viewpoints here, one is the carrot, the other the stick.

Maybe we could combine the two approaches. Everyone who behaves gets free ice-cream, but if you start acting like a dickhead... into the fuckin' dome

Picot Agreement and the Paris "Peace" Conference started this problem; Intervention policies then and since are what created this mess.

Allow self-determination and GTFO.

No, quite a bit of it is wrong.

...because?

Many details including how all these people came to power, who was really in the region, how war in this region works, and most importantly not asking the basic question of: "Why are the borders of Iraq important?" (think about it).

Anyone reading this is fully capable of figuring it out on their own, but it takes reading historical accounts how how this region came to be in the state it is in rather than watching a couple of three minute videos and rallying behind western powers again.

- Or, as I like to put it, "things the internet doesn't have the patience for".

I don't think a short attention span is enough justification to say this is a bad example of a video. If people aren't interested in a subject you can't force them to be interested, but at the same time, the video's visualizations showed without telling where someone who wanted to know more where to look. Even in the video they annotated that this is more of a research jumping off point, that it is indeed a compressed version, and even paid a little lip service to other complications if only to get you going on your own.

I spent a good few hours looking at ISIS, trying to figure it out myself a week before this video came out, now that this video is out it did the same in about 4 and a half minutes. Granted, this is without on demand sourcing of sources, but like I said above, its a great primer. For people that want to know and don't, this is a good place to start. For those who don't care why does it matter?

I see what you're saying, but it does more harm than good. For example, the video wraps up by saying "Somehow, we have to break this circle." While it isn't called out explicitly the implication is that "we" represents anyone other than ISIS/ISIL, etc. My contention is that "we" need to stay out of this mess; this whole region is carved up in a way that served the British empire prior to World War 2. Until the people that occupy that region have the ability to carve out their land for themselves the very circle he refers to will keep occurring.

Main point: This video serves to support an undeclared media bias towards more "intervention" and softens the public to additional western military action.