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2011-01-28 Africa North

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Posted by Fred 2011-01-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 What is wrong with the Arab world? One could wax eloquent, but in a nutshell: Islam. Fix Islam and you are home free. But good luck with that!

Posted by SteveS 2011-01-28 00:17|| 2011-01-28 00:17|| Front Page Top

#2 The Roman Empire didn't go far enough

Posted by Beavis 2011-01-28 00:24|| 2011-01-28 00:24|| Front Page Top

#3 I've always wondered what would have happened if the Spanish, flush with gold from the New World had continued the reconquesta across North Africa instead of attacking the Heretics in Northern Europe.

Posted by rjschwarz 2011-01-28 00:53|| 2011-01-28 00:53|| Front Page Top

#4 The Arab world is drowning because the Mullahs forbid them to swim, and Muhammed forbids they even consider removing the weights from their feet.

Posted by OldSpook 2011-01-28 01:54|| 2011-01-28 01:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Ataturkism tried, and has fading but not yet lost effects in Turkey. He at least eliminated the caliphate. It would take another leader to continue secularization, a leader so far absent, but likely to arise from a fringe or small offshoot.

A small hope, but a hope.

Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2011-01-28 02:39|| 2011-01-28 02:39|| Front Page Top

#6 The Spanish did spend a lot of their treasure both fighting the Turks in the Balkans and in various colonial ventures in N. Africa, most of which weren't very successful in the long term.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-01-28 02:41|| 2011-01-28 02:41|| Front Page Top

#7 Why is the Arab World drowning?

Because they are not adapted to sharing the World with the rest of us?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-01-28 05:03|| 2011-01-28 05:03|| Front Page Top

#8 Why is the Arab World drowning?

Because ALLAN wills it..

Posted by armyguy 2011-01-28 08:11|| 2011-01-28 08:11|| Front Page Top

#9 I've always wondered what would have happened if the Spanish,..

You mean these Spanish?

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-01-28 08:20|| 2011-01-28 08:20|| Front Page Top

#10 rjschwarz... The Portuguese were the grand planners of that... they were going to sack Mecca via the ocean and Red Sea... but got sidetracked when they gazed on the wealth they could get by hijacking the spice trade....

Posted by Water Modem 2011-01-28 09:36|| 2011-01-28 09:36|| Front Page Top

#11 Arab journalists are part of the reason for the problem.

For decades they pushed Arabism, even when only 2% of the Arab world believed in it, they pretended it was the dominant ideology.

Arab journalists have also led the way with anti Zionism. They basically ignored the depravities of the arab dictators until a few years before the US ousted Hussain. Even then it was only lightly covered.

And, as noted above, the Arab journalists have, to this day, never (with a few exceptions) honestly reported on the cruelty of Islam as practiced in the Arab world.

To see why the Arab world has problems, the Asharq al Aswat (the middle east) needs to look in the mirror.

Posted by Lord Garth 2011-01-28 10:28|| 2011-01-28 10:28|| Front Page Top

#12 See previous article titled: Lurid moonbat fantasies, and what they leave out

Much of what is wrong with the left is also wrong with the Arab world. Andrew McCarthy has an interesting book entitled: The Grand Jihad; How the Islam and the Left Sabotage America that draws a nexus between the two.

Posted by JohnQC 2011-01-28 10:31|| 2011-01-28 10:31|| Front Page Top

#13 Procopius2k, thanks for the link. Still it seems defensive to me. Protect Rome from sea invasion and protect trade routes.

I was thinking more along the lines of conquering, colonizing, and converting North Africa. Literally a continuation of reconquesta, a rollback of Islam from Morocco Eastward.

Crusades should have done the same thing starting with reconquering Spain. It would have had easier logistics and likely had a longer term impact then the hail Mary conquer Jerusalem plan even if it wasn't as sexy.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2011-01-28 15:11|| 2011-01-28 15:11|| Front Page Top

#14 I'm gonna go with because they are Arabs with no sense of honor and they follow isalm.

Posted by Hellfish 2011-01-28 15:48|| 2011-01-28 15:48|| Front Page Top

#15 Arab journalists are part of the reason for the problem.

For decades they pushed Arabism, even when only 2% of the Arab world believed in it, they pretended it was the dominant ideology.

Arab journalists have also led the way with anti Zionism. They basically ignored the depravities of the arab dictators until a few years before the US ousted Hussain. Even then it was only lightly covered.

And, as noted above, the Arab journalists have, to this day, never (with a few exceptions) honestly reported on the cruelty of Islam as practiced in the Arab world.

To see why the Arab world has problems, the Asharq al Aswat (the middle east) needs to look in the mirror.

In Arabia, there is no such thing as a free press. Any criticism of other Arab governments would eventually lead to criticism of the journalist's own government. This is why al Jazeera is pretty unique. The problem is blowback. I think Qatar's emir will come to regret his decision to unleash al Jazeera.

On the other side of the coin, the Arab countries don't have a journalist problem. They have an audience problem. Western-oriented views are seen as treasonous and akin to apostasy. What is the audience for a samizdata publisher / blogger like Sand Monkey? Mainly Westerners who see what they want to see.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-28 16:38|| 2011-01-28 16:38|| Front Page Top

#16 Procopius2k, thanks for the link. Still it seems defensive to me. Protect Rome from sea invasion and protect trade routes.

I was thinking more along the lines of conquering, colonizing, and converting North Africa. Literally a continuation of reconquesta, a rollback of Islam from Morocco Eastward.

Crusades should have done the same thing starting with reconquering Spain. It would have had easier logistics and likely had a longer term impact then the hail Mary conquer Jerusalem plan even if it wasn't as sexy.

The reason the Spanish went no further in the Mediterranean was the discovery of the Americas. Why attempt to overcome near-peer adversaries in the deserts of North Africa when you can have free rein in an entire continent of Stone Age kingdoms? I think the Spanish made the right decision, and we are better off for it.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-28 16:44|| 2011-01-28 16:44|| Front Page Top

#17 I was thinking more along the lines of conquering, colonizing, and converting North Africa. I'm not thinking on those lines. The Muslims in that part of the world have fouled their own nest, and they can clean it up themselves for all I care.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-01-28 16:58|| 2011-01-28 16:58|| Front Page Top

#18 Spain didn't have the manpower to conquer North Africa. They wouldn't have had the manpower for the Americas, either, except that disease did so much to wipe out the population disparity, leaving the remainder of the natives in disarray and despair.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-28 17:37|| 2011-01-28 17:37|| Front Page Top

#19 Yet the Spanish had the money and manpower to dominate France and the Netherlands and support proxies in Germany during the 30 years war. I think the Idea of Protestant heretics drove them a bit nuts.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2011-01-28 18:21|| 2011-01-28 18:21|| Front Page Top

#20 Supplying an army large enough to win in North Africa would have been a challenge, as well as having enough desert beasts to defend territory.

Now controlling the pillars and some surrounding area would have made sense, but I am hands-on unfamiliar with the terrain as it would affect military operations. No reason to control anything other than coastline and ports, but each garrison would invite an attack by overwhelming forces, and if each garrison had to be resupplied by sea better make sure they control the sea.

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-28 18:37|| 2011-01-28 18:37|| Front Page Top

#21 Oh: heavy government authoritarianism, religious sponsored paranoia, and both using ignorance as social control policy.

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-28 18:43|| 2011-01-28 18:43|| Front Page Top

#22 Re: Spain
Philip II was so narrowminded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.

He drank in all the prejudices and fanaticism of Castile. Despite being king of half a dozen ethnic groups, he never learned another language, spent less than four of his seventy one years outside Castile, and by his pigheadedness drove the Netherlands into rebellion. He squandered the wealth of the New World in his dynastic wars.

Why attempt to overcome near-peer adversaries in the deserts of North Africa when you can have free rein in an entire continent of Stone Age kingdoms? I think the Spanish made the right decision, and we are better off for it

The Spaniards transferred the same narrow-minded, brutal Castilian attitudes to the New World. Why bother to develop industries, learn new ideas, create infrastructure, get out of the Middle Ages, when you have a steady stream of gold and silver coming in?

Philip II set a pattern that doomed Spain to three extra centuries of medievalism, and transferred it to the New World. This is the sort of rigidity, pigheadedness, and government by corrupt caciques that turns people toward populist blowhards like Chavez and Morales.

Posted by mom 2011-01-28 19:30|| 2011-01-28 19:30|| Front Page Top

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