Showing posts with label Christopher Hitchens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Hitchens. Show all posts

Monday, April 7, 2014

Christopher Hitchens: Will the Middle East Ever Find Peace?






The Middle East lies at the juncture of Eurasia and Africa and of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Bahá'í Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area.
The worlds earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia) and ancient Egypt, originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite, Greek and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor, Elam in pre-Iranian Persia, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Phoenicia and Israel), Persian and Median civilizations in Iran, North Africa (Carthage/Phoenicia) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. However, it would be the later Arab Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The Mongols, the Turkish Seljuk and Ottoman empires, the Safavids and the British Empire would also later dominate the region.

The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards.

In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries.
During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Of course, besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...][21] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict and war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East

Blog Archive

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” Henry Kissinger


once a standing army is established, in any country, the people lose their liberty.”
George Mason

“Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger

“If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised.”
Henry Kissinger

"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?" Joseph Stalin

The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Joseph Stalin

Governments keep a lot of secrets from their people . . .
Why aren't the people in return allowed to keep secrets
from the government?

PHILIP ZIMMERMAN, DER SPIEGEL

“Some call it Communism, I call it Judaism.”

Rabbi Stephen Weiss

“Anti-Communism is Anti-Semitism.”
Jewish Voice, July - August 1941

Taxing People is Punishing Success
UNKNOWN

There's the rich, the poor, and the tax payers...also known as the middle class. Robert Kiyosaki

The Tax you pay is The Bill for Staying Stupid

Stefan Molyneux


“The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is, perhaps, the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and un-mint the modern ledger-entry currency.” Major L L B Angus

The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent on its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system will bear its burdens without complaint and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.
The Rothschild Bros

"Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers.

This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world.

By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished."

USA Banker's Magazine, August 25 1924


Cutting Tax Rates stimulates Economic Growth creates more Profit , more Jobs and therefore The Treasury ends up with more Tax Money
UNKNOWN

Taxation is legalized Theft
UNKNOWN

"The Objective of the Bank is not the control of a conflict , it's the control of the debt that a conflict produces . The real value of a conflict , the true value is in the debt that it creates . You control the debt , you control everything . this is THE VERY ESSENCE OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY , to make us all , whether we be nations or individuals , SLAVES TO DEBT " An UNKNOWN Banker

Patriotism is the last refuge... to which the scoundrel clings .... Steal a little and they throw you in jail ..steal a lot and they make you king ....

Bob Dylan


"Corporations are stealing billions in tax breaks, while the confused, screwed citizenry turn on each other. International corporations have no national allegiance, they care only for profit." Robert Reich


There is NO political answer to a spiritual problem!
Steve Quayle


Po
litical Correctness is a Political Stand Point that does not allow Political Opposition , This is actually The Definition of Dictatorship
Gilad Atzmon

The modern definition of racist is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal
Peter Brimelow


When People lose everything and have nothing left to lose , They Lose It !

GERALD CELENTE

Your Greatest Teacher is Your Last Mistake
DAVID ICKE

The one who Controls the Education System , Controls Perception
UNKNOWN

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."

Albert Einstein

In The Left Nothing is Right & in The Right nothing is Left
UNKNOWN


No man escapes when freedom fails; The best men rot in filthy jails. And those that cried 'Appease! Appease!' Are hanged by those they tried to please
UNKNOWN

Freedom is not Free
UNKNOWN

Don't Steal The Government Hates The Competition

Ron Paul

"Buy The Rumor , Sell The Fact " Peter Schiff


You can love your Country and not your Government

Jesse Ventura


" The Government Works for ME , I do not answer to them They Answer to ME "
Glenn Beck

"Tyranny will Come to Your Door in a Uniform "
Alex Jones

"The Government is not The Solution to our Problems , The Government is The Problem "

Ronald Reagan


"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato


The world is a tragedy to those that feel, and a comedy to those that think...Beppe Grillo

"The people should not fear the government for it is the government who should fear the people" UNKNOWN

"If You are looking for solutions to the world's problems , look in the Mirror , You Are The Solution , You have the power as a human being on this planet " UNKNOWN

"They don't control us , We empower them " UNKNOWN

"Serial Killers do on a Small Scale What Governments do on a large one..."

Serial Killer Richard Ramirez

There is a Class War going on in America, & unfortunately, my class is winning." Warren Buffet

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

Thomas Jefferson

"College is a waste of Money"
Albert Einstein

Schools manufacture people who think that they're smart but they're not.
Robert Kiyosaki

Education is what you learn after you leave School
Robert Kiyosaki

" ‏Schools were designed to create employees for the big corporations."
Robert Kiyosaki


"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey, he is obligated to do so" Thomas Jefferson

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism
Thomas Jefferson

“True education makes you feel stupid. It makes you realize you have so much more to learn.” Robert Kiyosaki


"One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching." - Gerard Way

"Aspire not to have More but to be More "
UNKNOWN

The losers in life think they have all the answers. They can’t learn because they’re too busy telling everyone what they know.
Robert T. Kiyosaki ‏

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. -This time more intelligently." Henry Ford

What You Own Owns You
UNKNOWN

If you expect the government to solve your problems, you have a problem. Robert Kiyosaki

"Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security." Benjamin Franklin

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Always trust someone who is seeking the truth , never trust someone who found it" Jordan Maxwell

Be The Change you want to see in The World
UNKNOWN

Failure inspires winners but defeats losers
Robert Kiyosaki ‏

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people” A Chinese Proverb

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me." UNKNOWN