It's true that Iraq did take the US attention away from Afghanistan, but the US was not the only country involved there. The other countries that had soldiers there were managing quite well.

Racist terms
 

Ila, as moderator, has asked me to retract my use of the term "camel jockey" in a post and I do so. My intention was not to offend anybody, I was referring to the past plight of Arabs. I regret the use of the term and apologise to forum members and anybody else who saw it. Camel driver is what I should have used.

Israel
 

The next few years are going to be quite exciting in the middle east. Israel's isolation and continuing intransigence regarding settlements is causing divergent Palestinian groups to consolidate and prepare to confront Israel. I am sure Iran will be glad to provide them with increasingly more sophisticated and accurate missiles. Israel seems to be on a suicidal path.

News --This does not bode well for the Arab Spring.

Will the Arab Spring result in secular states being established thruout the middle east? Let us hope so especially for the Christians living in predominately Muslim countries. The Islamists are determined to take over and impose sharia law. This could result in whats happening in Nigeria where Christian churches are being destroyed and Christians being massacred. These crazed Islamists are even destroying ancient Muslim mausoleums in Timbuktu, a world heritage site. All this in the name of their God, Mohammed.

No, it's Allah.

You are right but Mohammed "created" a god named Allah based on Jehovah.

Let me refer you to the quote below.

Muhammed did not create a god. Muhammed was the prophet.

It seems that most religions have been "created" by a profit or profits. These are unique individuals that claim to be capable of communicating with God. Thus, they are the messengers of God, preaching what they claim to be the true word of God. It seems strange to me that God would do this. Why would he/she select numerous individuals to communicate his message when his "message" varies dramatically with each profit? I would suggest that profits are very clever con men that use the concept of God to satisfy their egocentric delusions that they are something special. They also use this delusion to get control of a congregation of worshipers. Humans are easily intimidated by the idea that a powerful being is looking over them. It becomes easy for the profit and his disciples to get people to do things that they would never do otherwise (crusades, evangelize, kill dissidents, etc).
Needless to say, I am not into religiosity. I see life as a miracle and if anybody is a profit it is Charles Darwin.

Prophet-- sorry I am a lousy speller.

Darwin wouldn't like to be called a prophet I bet. Once he lost his little girl, coupled with his study of evolution by natural selection, he lost whatever taste he might have had for religion as a divinely inspired instrument.

Wow, did you ever miss the point of my post!

Apparently, you are posing the question whether I believe all God based religions are created be prophets or I have a bias against some religions and believe they are created by prophets. Personally, I believe all Gods, pagan or Christian or any other organized religion are created by man (prophets). There is not one shred of physical evidence in the real world for Gods, humans just seem to enjoy having them around. Buddha got tired of all this and created a religious system without a "God".

Darwin, on the other hand spent years carefully documenting evidence in the real world for the concept of evolution. I do believe, however, there is still alot of mystery regarding life. there is more to it than just molecules somehow managing to replicate. The ability of subatomic particles to communicate instantly, at a distance, offers a clue. Also, some animals seem to have amazing abilities to communicate (telepathic?).

Anyway, this is drifting away from the Arab Spring discussion.

It's called Faith, for a reason.

So are you saying an individuals irrational belief somehow becomes rational in a religious context?:confused:

For a reason? Can you elaborate? :respect:

It is interesting to speculate that if Constantine had not made Christianity the state religion,paganism would have continued, Christianity would have remained an obscure sect and Islam would not have happened.

Islam is not an offshoot or a result of Christianity.

The quote below, about Muhammed, from this website gives the beginning of Islam.

Continuity of Religious Thought
 

But Paganism was not eliminated, although that's another story. What may be at the back of Randolph's mind is the shared heritage of the respective written traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

Whether or not early Islam would have flourished less successfully in co-existence with multi-faith Pagan religions against its militant evangelism of ' Christianised ' lands over the two centuries from its founding is open to debate and considerable speculation.

:respect:

Islam is an Abrahamic religion which is closely associated with Judaism and Christianity. All three are monotheistic and share many features. Mohammed's design of Islam was based on the early Judaism and Christian faiths along with concepts appropriate to the Arabic community. Of course Mohammed would have come up with many features that would distinguish Islam from other religions.
From Wikipedia --

Quote:
This quote from Wikipedia doesn't make sense even in a religious context. Abraham existed 2,000 years BC while Mohammed got his word from God around 600 AD. Oh well, I guess religious history should be taken with a grain of salt. :)

You should read the definition of Islam:

(quoted from the same source as my previous post)

Randolph, you're showing your own ignorance of Judeo-Christian history here. Muslims consider Abraham to be their father, and Mohammed their prophet. It goes back to the promise that God made to Abraham that he would have a child, through which his heirs would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. At the time, Abraham was roughly 90 - 100 years old, and his wife was equally as old. Not trusting God to bring child through his wife Sarah, Abraham took their maidservant and conceived Ishmael through her. His wife Sarah later ended up conceiving and giving birth to Isaac. Jews trace their lineage through Isaac to Abraham. Muslims trace their heritage through Ishmael to Abraham.

This quote is from the source you mentioned with my emphasis.

Then read the definition of what Islam is and the quote will make sense.:frown:

From "Islamic beginnings"

Don't blame Abraham. Blame organized religion.

The exclusiveness of some religions
 

Wherever any religious group claims exclusivity, follows that its followers reject and condemn out of hand anybody who is not of their religious persuasion or approved by them. The most extreme form results in religious-cleansing. This may be prompted as much by political imperatives as religious ones. A typical example is the fate of the Cathars, but the Middle East promises unfortunately to provide more.

Exclusivity is divisive and socially polarising, and per se must be the enemy of any democratic system.

I would like to get back to a renewed discussion of the ' Arab Spring ' and its significance to the balance of power in the Middle East. Any offers ?

:respect:

Yes, I agree, perhaps we should have a religious thread.

The Arab Spring is the momentous event in recent history. The politicizing of religion in both the east and west is going to have a major bearing on whether the middle eastern countries can achieve a truly democratic state.

Although many of us would like to see the US get out of foreign countries and mind our own business, many political scientists don't agree with this.

For example the Harvard Political scientist, Dr. Samuel P. Huntington asserts:
"A world without US primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth that a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country in shaping global affairs. The sustained international primacy of the United Stated is central to the welfare and security of Americans and to the future of freedom, democracy and open economies and international order in the world."

So, in a sense, our actions around the world are somewhat similar to the local strongman. We, with our enormous military power and financial influence help maintain some degree of stability in the world.
With the emergence of radical Islam, our hegemony in the Middle East is threatened. Again political scientists, including Zbigniew Brzezinski believe if we lose influence in the Middle East our influence thruout Eurasia would diminish leaving this critical area open to other aggressive powers such as Iran and China.

Egypt
 

Before Morsi made his power grab numerous companies were interested in investing in Egypt and large loans were being prepared to help make Egypt's transition to a democratic country. Well, Morsi blew it. Much of the potential investment and loans are now on hold. Egypt has a bloated bureaucracy, high unemployment and it is losing the ability to export oil. If Egypt decends into chaos and Islamist take over, it's likely that the Middle East will come unglued (my opinion) and Israel will be in the middle of a firestorm. :eek:

The spread of Extremism
 

Any observations from you regarding the development of Al Quaida training areas in both the Yemen and Somalia ? Any correlation to Iraqi destabilisation ?

:respect:

Unforseen consequences
 

The Libya revolution seems like a good idea. Get rid of Quaddifi and establish a Westward leaning democracy. Now Islamists, well equipped with sophisticated arms gathered up in Libya are taking over the country Mali. France has decided to put a stop to this and is bombing Islamists strongholds and putting troops on the ground. The troops have been surprised by how well trained and well equiped the Islamists are. The fall of dictators that have been supported by the West and Russia and loaded up with advanced weapons has unforeseen consequences as we are seeing in North Africa. I suspect the same thing will happen with the fall of Syria.

Yemen has been an unstable country for decades. No one has ever been able to control the whole country. Al Qaeda was able to set up there because the central government can't control the whole country.

Somalia hasn't had a national government for more than twenty years because of the civil war. It is due to this civil war that Al Qaeda was able to move in there, but I don't think there influence is as great as it was even five years ago.

Some of the problems in Iraq are due to Al Qaeda, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Iran is alos a destabilizing force there. Iraq has had internal tensions for a long time, but Hussein was able to keep his country stable although the tension was always just below the surface.

Stumbling in to this discussion searching for something totally different,
and mostly not so much into this kind of discussions (my english too poor?)
I did read the very well elaborated contributions of SMC.
and it was a flow of recognition.
In the early sixties I was alraedy confused about the notion of the horrors of Hitler and the unbelievebable atrocities of the Israeli occupation (demolitions, murder, etc.) But many called any doubt in that matter as anti semitism. Never got this straight. When I visited a goed friend in 2000 in Israel he and his wife put a stone on the grave of Ben Gurion. I did so too, as an act of courtesy to my friends wife, but with mixed feelings.
I knew it is wrong what Israel does. But all the evidence SMC put together is a eloquent and scholastical piece of historical prove of theis.

Thank You for this.