Out of Pod Experience

This is less of a history lesson and more of a "If you know nothing about what is going on, here are some main points in simple terms, so you can get the gist of it" -article. Useful for people who are not really interested, but who still want to understand what is happening.

Also, you can say it isn't about politics all you want, but what are we supposed to discuss exactly? There are 2 options. The situation in Iraq, which is politics or how accurate/comprehensive your posted "history lesson" is, which inevitably leads to talking about politics. All I have to say is, that I had great youtube conversations about this when the initial invasion was over. I know, it's a God damned miracle to get a great civil argument on youtube between people who had very different views about how things were going to end up. Most people were high on the ease of the invasion and positive about future prospects for Iraq. I was the pessimist there and explained why it was all likely to fall apart soon after US leaves the country and stops propping up that facade of a modern democracy. I'm sort of glad it's happening so closely to how I predicted it, but I would have liked to see it go a different route.

Having the country split in to multiple parts wouldn't probably be the worst option in the long term at this point. The only reason it didn't happen earlier was the strong central government suppressing people and the states in the region being opposed to a kurdish state. There has been a lot of bloodshed between the groups since then though and at some point you cross a line where reconciliation isn't a realistic option anymore for the foreseeable future. It's either a split in governing or a proper civil war where one group gets annihilated or severely oppressed by the winners. The US will likely settle for any end game, where the Sunni faction isn't the winning side. Having Shias and Iran wield power there isn't optimal for them, but at least they're rational and can be influenced by familiar means, so they're the preferred option.

IBTL

And then the 5% of the population that were not motivated to take over the country but to co-exist and survive as they have done for millennia, which have been decimated over the past decade; ancient communities rich in history and culture. Interestingly, many have been fleeing to my area of the world, and where I now have a few friends from there. Pretty horrible stories they have actually.

Mods should lock this. The political undertone is obvious.

It would also be interesting to examine U.S. involvement in removing the governments of Iran in 1953 and again in Iraq in 1963. People love to blame religious ideologies for the mess in the middle east but we tend to gloss over how much meddling our governments do there and maybe, just maybe....that might be a tiny part of the reason why people hate us over there.

That's only a microcosm. The US has had dealings in the region ever since the war of independence was concluded. The first international US war was waged in the region shortly after the closure of the the war of independence. If you examine the USMC anthem song, this mention of it was written into the song. As well, a big factor in the current safety of the oceans and commerce is due to the US Navy, and that is enough involvement for haters to hate in itself. In certain situations, like or hate is irrelevant, this is where fear tends to work best. This is more the failure if failure were to be discussed here... which I'm not.

And they wanted to do the same thing to Syria, and came very close to doing do, and still might,

The current crisis is not a centuries old problem, it started in 2003.

We gave Osama exactly what he wanted.

August 2, 1990

November, 1920