Wikileaks to release 400,000 Iraq war documents on Saturday

[Elvis]

Saying the socio-politico-cultural landscape of the middle east is entirely a product of external forces seems a little disingenuous

The conflict between us and them is anti-colonial. During the Cold War, we were fighting against Pan-Arabism, that is - Arab nationalism. Why should Arabs be nationalists? Anyways, it's not just the Arab world, it's most of the world where we have tampered with. That's what empires do. It's not rocket science.

Why do we support the most fundamentalist Islamic STATE (pay attention, State) in the region? Saudi Arabia. Why do we continue to support the colonial-settler State of Israel? Why do we support support repressive 'family dictatorships' in Egypt and Jordan? Why did we overthrow the blah blah in Iran and put in the blah blah we approved of? Why did we do similar shit everywhere else?

That's what empires do. I don't even think of 'us' having an 'identity' or a concept of patriotism anymore. It's like, we're so all-encompassing and pervasive. The US economy is the world economy. So listing all our faults isn't even 'anti-anything' because there's so much to us. Within our country there have been so much struggle for equality and blah blah. These movements challenged the Establishment, and I feel like a lot of the people - if not a majority of them - would disapprove of the wars we've fought. Look at MLK Jr. The NY Times, for example, loved him until he began talking about the Vietnam War.

So when you parse 'us vs them' it's no contest. It's an anti-colonial conflict. Why the fuck do we care about Arabs? Because of the oil. We don't give a shit about women over there. Who gives a fuck? Think of all the poor people in THIS FUCKING COUNTRY. How about we take care of OUR women (look up domestic abuse stats) and the poor and blah fucking blah.

[Zilong]