Let's get nuts
Submitted by EdMass on Mon, 06/12/2017 - 5:06pm
Here's a wild ass idea.
Let's draw some lines.
Outside:
Israel and Jordan and Egypt.
Mediterranean, excluding Turkey and Northern Africa.
Russia and southern former Soviet States bordering Iraq and Iran.
India
Inside:
Every one else. Especially Syria, Lebanon, Afghan and Pakistan
Forget about the rest of SE Asia for now.
Everyone pull out that is not native to the inside area.
No one comes across the lines.
After 1,000s of years let them work it out.
We're just in the way and screwing ourselves.
So there.
Comments
Smallish problem with the Med.
A great deal of the Mediterranean is inhabited by, well, "us". Greece, the Balkans, Italy, France, Spain, Gibraltar (whose people are ardently insistently British, thank you!).
Basically, the whole northern shore of the Med.
This, of course, is why "we" in our various incarnations from Alexander's Macedonia to the Roman, French, and British Empires, to the adventures of the American and Russian Empires in the 20th and 21st Centuries, have kept trying to straighten out the Charlie Foxtrot that the Middle East -- the Eastern and Southern shores of the Med and the areas of Africa and Asia adjacent to them -- has always been. Carthago still delenda est!
But what you said goes 1000 times over for us English-speaking peoples. We no longer need the Suez Canal for much; our railways, highways, and the Panama Canal serve quite well to connect us to Pacific Oceania and East Asia.
You are correct: it's time for all Northern Powers to dump the Levant!
EDIT: I re-read the Essay. You did say "excluding Turkey and Northern Africa". I also would put India "outside" for the same reasons I suspect you put Afghanistan and Pakistan "outside". India is a developing democracy (in some ways more of a democracy than we are!) and is doing a pretty reasonable job of not exporting its social problems. (A better job than either Afghanistan or Pakistan, in fact!)
But yet again, you're right about that fucking Levant and Near East.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Too simplistic.
Therefore it will never work.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
But first, export anything "US" back to North America.
And muzzle it. Shut the blinds and lock the doors.
Otherwise, I think the OBOR (China's One Belt One Road) has the best shot at settling things down and making it possible to sort things out. Improving the standard of living for everyone.
If the US is against it, then it has to be as promising and evolutionary as it looks.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
The following is a good historical record of how
the US and it's allies, the UK, France, Qatar, KSA and others entered Syria in an attempt to bring down its secular government.
The ONE country that needs to learn to stay the fuck out of MENA and Central Asia is the FUCKING United FUCKING States of FUCKING America and half of its FUCKING idiot citizens who know shit and don't give a FUCK about their government killing FUCKING millions of innocent people in every FUCKING corner of the world.
This is the war
we were born for. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.