a few days ago, i went to work and had occasion to talk to some lebanese/aussie guys there and they were all adamant that america invading iraq was absolutely the right thing to do, whether out of a sense of fait-accompli i don't know, but it's interesting to see how some lebanese might say that
now benji is most definitely no expert to say anything of value about the middle east.... all we can think of are scattered random and useless factoids: napoleon's syria campaign - using bayonets for massacres to save artillery supplies.... alexander the great invaded syria and iran....... mohammed waged a number of military campaigns from within saudi arabia, mecca or medina i guess, around there, to subdue infidels.........
as a complete non-expert and ignoramus on the whole topic, and quickly glossing over winston churchill's importance in drawing map-lines at the birth of petro-chemical/oil importance time; touching on mohammed, a lot of people see to think the sunni-shi'ite difference is a big thing --- hard to understand why it would be, and certainly there must be over a thousand examples of this difference not being an issue -- i would go far as to say it's not an issue
instead, what we have is saudi arabia has all the money, along with UAE; some of this money funds terrorists wherever, how much goes to humanitarian relief for syria is unclear.... there is no democracy there.... but in iraq there is.........the two big nations, america and russia are now propping up revolutionaries (yes, that's a better term than the meaningless moslem extremist or terrorist which is inappropriate) -- america is propping up her major interest/investment - iraq - now to subdue a rebellion in fallujah which is now connected to syria --- russia, on the other hand is propping up syria's president............
syria is now the key issue -- refugees are spilling over to turkey, lebanon, jordan, and from turkey into bulgaria/the EU...... the president of syria has been aerial bombing and shelling 'the enemy' for the past two years, probably hundreds of thousands dead by now and displacements possibly over a million i would guess......... refugee camps with come and go fighter dads and brothers scattered all around syria's border....... the kurdish question of kurdish nationhood has not been answered and it's unclear if kurds can travel to northern iraq from turkey freely or if they have the rights they wanted from iraq's govt. most likely no.......... having more kurdish autonomy or outright statehood in northern iraq seems desirable, e.g., with a shared arrangement for oil revenues with baghdad.........
benji doesn't know how many weapons from china and iran go through to syria, who exactly would use them, and how much exactly the syrian rebels are being armed, mostly clandestinely by cia i guess, or what the chances are for an outright victory for either side are but they seem slim
this war could drag out for years, america is not bringing enough pressure to bear to topple assad and do not necessarily see it as in their interest.... the new dynamic is the cross-border 'revolutionary' field now between fallujah and syria which america doesn't like but which is, the rebels, whom they say they back against assad, and whom they refer to as 'rebels' and not terrorists or islamic fundamentalists
clearly the entire situation is a real clusterfuck and the only clear winner is israel as there's now less pressure on them from lebanon who now has to sweat all the syrian refugees swamping their nation and taking their jobs
insert south park soundbite here: they took our jobs..... they toooook our jobs
just a real mess with an overlapping mish-mash of different interests, like russia's in assad, just for some oil and a navy base........ mess
anyway, it's what lebanon went through in the 80s, so the people will just kill themselves like crazy and then relax, some of them can migrate to australia after that and became the next generation of angry arabs until they become fattened with money and women here and start to mellow out
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