"Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Upthorn » Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:31 am

How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Büge » Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:11 am

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 07, 2020 3:01 pm

#NotTheOnion
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Sun Dec 27, 2020 5:19 pm

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Friday » Sun Dec 27, 2020 6:49 pm

I remember when I used to think (as a child and teen, because that was the propaganda) that the Israelis were the good guys.

It's amazing how many lies we feed our children about the world. I mean. I hardly got any accurate information about anything regarding politics and history. "Sanitized" doesn't even begin to cover it. We feed our children a version of the world that is not only blatantly false, but also incredibly racist and destructive.

And that's the liberal, "good" version that gets fed to most people.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Sun Dec 27, 2020 8:03 pm

The Israelis are the quintessential modern example of exactly what happens when the abyss gazes back.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:08 pm

The comments link more of his shit and many others simply reply with "Zionist.", but I think there's a more fitting term to hang around his neck.

A nazi.



(Never mind that this is a sitting US congresswoman, on top of everything else. Holy shit.)
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Sun May 09, 2021 11:13 pm

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jun 02, 2021 1:59 pm

So, Iran's largest refinery AND their largest warship caught fire today (the ship sank).

I'm sure this is just an unfortunate coincidence.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Büge » Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:31 pm

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Sun Aug 15, 2021 3:40 pm

Priorities!

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby zaratustra » Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:45 am

sadly it's fake, because for a moment there i respected the troops

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 16, 2021 5:12 pm

Damn, and we were just six months away from winning.

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby mharr » Mon Aug 16, 2021 5:47 pm

Obviously millions of people being trapped in a hyperconservative theocracy is an apocalyptic human disaster, but it's long term helpful for most players on the international politics level, right? If the Taliban are a country now they become vulnerable to a thousand subtle weapons that didn't apply last month, and they have little experience of this new battlefield.

Would be nice if some nerd made a gravitics breakthrough that let people fly on the power of an AA battery all the same. There'd be no women in the region by lunchtime.

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 16, 2021 6:52 pm

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 16, 2021 7:03 pm

Büge wrote:

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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:05 pm

A small circle of well-sourced and diligent folks have been continuing to follow what's going on in Afghanistan post pull-out (big spoiler: It's bad), with each posting primarily on their preferred platform (twitter/reddit/imgur/instagram/etc.).

The series put out but this imgurian (link to the most recent entry, #5: https://imgur.com/gallery/5h4CnYN) is one of the more comprehensive ones (and he refers to several of the other Afghan-watchers as well if you prefer a different format).

Anyway, the short version is that not only are things catastrophically bad (obv), but that the Pakistani military is finally, after decades, learning in the hardest way possible that, no, no extremist regime in Afghanistan is going to serve as their puppet government, and that terror attacks in Pakistan are escalating enough that a Pakistani-Afghan war (Possibly also involving China, Iran, or both!) is a real possibility later this year.

Russia invading Ukraine is going to go down as a pretty historic blunder, but Pakistan playing "fuck around and find out!" with the Taliban is also riiiight up there.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:08 am

WSJ has an article up (paywalled) describing Jake Sullivan's meeting with Shithead bin Salman last year.

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Someone really needs to remind bin Salman who's the client state and who's the international hegemon here.

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On the upside, just about everyone's going with "there goes Sullivan's chances for a post-administration 'business investment'." jokes.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby Mongrel » Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:30 pm

You may have seen headlines that a Persian woman was beaten to death by clerics and hard-liners in Iran for the crime of showing too much hair in spite of wearing a chador (Persian term for hijab). Mass protests subsequently erupted over the next couple says against the regime, with frequent (deeply illegal) shouts of "Death to the dictator".

While the large protests may or may not be abating, Persian woman are now carrying on an unofficial civil resistance campaign, constantly reminding the menfolk over there why - in spite of a clerical regime arguably a lot more repressive and extremist on paper - the country's never actually dared to turn into Saudi Arabia: Persian women have had literal millennia to perfect the ancient asymmetric gender warfare art of "Fuck with me and I will turn into the harridan of your WORST NIGHTMARES. Kill me and every relative I know will take my place." There is a Network. They get shit done (or die trying, where the cause of death is usually NAGGING).







Veiling arguments have been a thing since the revolution, with my mom telling me early on about the daughter of one of grandma's friends being blinded in one eye after a bunch of whacknuts went after her with scissors for the same reason. If they haven't been a target themselves, every Persian woman knows at least one other who's had to suffer similar shit. The tolerance for skirting the rules tends to ebb and flow, so this also complicates things.

The difference this time around is that - whether it's simply anger with the shitty job the clerical regime's been doing for years running the country into the ground, or actual solidarity with their mothers and wives and sisters and daughters - they're getting a good amount of support from men too. Also, the Persian disapora is humongous and extremely anti-regime (duh), as well as generally being very well-educated, so perhaps there's been a long trickle effect from ex-pats chiding relatives back home.

Of course, periodic protests have come and gone in Iran without significant lasting consequences for the regime (the Quds and other extremely corrupt military cadres like the current system just fine), as they crack down - to a point - and then back off. But it's always good to see people sticking up for themselves, and sooner or later one of these large scale protests will bring in change; after all, that's exactly what happened in 1979.
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Re: "Unrest In the Middle East" - a valid headline for over 2000 years.

Postby atog » Wed Sep 21, 2022 5:43 pm

It probably wouldn't take much to disguise women in beards and take over some of the local police and media stations

But that's assuming there's not saturation with surveillance cameras everywhere to track and report illegal female headgear behaviours.
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