It's the Tribes, Stupid

[rpm]

Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
Could you try a new shtick? That one is beginning to reek of rancid feet left in old gym shoes too long. A new and different canned response would be almost, well, refreshing.

I see you get the point of my post.

[-tronski-]

Originally posted by Toad
You do know how we treated Geronimo, right?  

He was thrown out of a C-47 Dakota over normandy wasn't he?

OT, I thought it was a very interesting take on a difficult subject - especially considering a country like Iran...but of course it doesn't have quite the fox news angle popular in the west right now...

 Tronsky

[SGT. SHLITZ]

What squad are the sunnis in?
I challenged OBL to a duel in the duel arena and he declined.
He claims to have a bad net connection at the moment.
Booock,bock,bock,bock......

[Ghosth]

Yeager has a point.

Declare war on terrorism over, bring troops home.
Publish speech to the world. Ok you guys win but, the next time a terrorist bombs a building, or kills people, we are going to drop a tomahawk on mecca.

Do it again, and it will be a nuke.

No discussion, no apologies, nada. This is the rule, break it and you guys pay for it.

[Gunthr]

interesting idea, tribalism at the root of our problems with Islamists...  could explain also why no pan-arabian leader has ever emerged, and also why they are always fighting each other, as they are now doing in Palestine - however, i think it is an oversimplification.

[storch]

the arabs are at war with themselves and have been since God created ishmael.  they will be at war with each other forever but they occassionally take a break to war with the rest of humanity.

[lazs2]

I think I am coming around to the authors thinking.   I have lately been thinking that the real solution is to divide up all the countries there into pre your-0-peean tribes.    let them butcher each other in the manner they like.    

Now that the sadman is gone we can start by dividing up iraq.

A lot of the guys here who think the war was wrong think that we were better off with the sadman and that iraq was a paradise with him...  this is of course not true.. It is true that he was able to bring the people under one hobnailed boot but..  he did it with an iron fisted rein of terror and genocide.   His solution was to wipe out one tribe and use slightly less terror tactics on the other two main ones to keep em in line.

Primitive stuff for a people steeped in a primitive ignorant, religion and tribalism... yeah... it works for the strong arm leaders and sheiks there.

lazs

[Rooster]

makes you wonder how these tribes managed to get it done

Aemilia, Aniensis, Arnensis, Camilia, Claudia, Clustumina, Collina, Cornelia,
Esquilina, Fabia, Falerna, Galeria, Horatia, Lemonia, Maecia, Menenia,
Oufentina, Palatina,  Papiria, Pollia, Pomptina, Publilia, Pupinia, Quirina, Sergia, Stellatina, Suburana, Teretina,Tromentina, Velina, Voltinia, Voturia

[john9001]

Originally posted by Rooster
makes you wonder how these tribes managed to get it done

Aemilia, Aniensis, Arnensis, Camilia, Claudia, Clustumina, Collina, Cornelia,
Esquilina, Fabia, Falerna, Galeria, Horatia, Lemonia, Maecia, Menenia,
Oufentina, Palatina,  Papiria, Pollia, Pomptina, Publilia, Pupinia, Quirina, Sergia, Stellatina, Suburana, Teretina,Tromentina, Velina, Voltinia, Voturia

it took about 200years of war.

[CptA]

Mr. Pressfield has hit the nail right on the head.

While I was in Iraq during OIF III-IV, I spent time in several different regions...In Baghdad itself, East of Baghdad near the Iranian Border, Up to the North at Tikrit, and Soutwest in the Ramadi-Habaniya-Falujah area.

One of the things that stood out wherever we went, was that the Tribe was always paramount. A man's standing in the Tribe came before himself, his family, and even his own wife and children.

If we happened to be in a region where a single Tribe predominated, then things were usually quiet and peaceful. In general, we usually had friendly relations with Tribal leaders, the local population went along with the leaders, and we were able to do many good things for and with the local population.

However, if we happened to be in an area where multiple Tribal groups or outsider insurgeants were present, things were not so peaceful...in fact they were downright ugly.

I am of the belief that there is no real hope of keeping the Republic of Iraq intact as a large single State, at least not without imposing another Sadaam-like dictatorial leader.

Rather, it probably needs to be split up into separate autonomous mini-States along Tribal/Religious lines.

Kurds in the Far North, Iraqi Sunnis in the more densely settled urban areas of the so-called Sunni Triangle (Tikrit-Ramadi-Baghdad), and Iraqi Shias in most of the primarilly rural East and South.

Leave them to themselves, and they will find their own balance...as they always have.

CptA

[storch]

Originally posted by john9001
it took about 200years of war.

and an iron fist, SPQR

[JB88]

Originally posted by Toad
At least there's never been any problems in these African countries.  

Sudan
Lesotho
Botswana
Cameroon  
Cape Colony South Africa  
Egypt  
The Gambia
Ghana
Kenya
Mauritius
Natal South Africa
Nigeria
Zambia  
Malawi
Orange Free State South Africa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Zimbabwe
Somalia
Namibia Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Ghana
Transvaal South Africa  
Uganda

i wanna go to the one with the free oranges!  

[Gunthr]

the tribal explanation obviously pertains to the middle east, and it explains a lot about the intractibility of that part of the world, but it doesn't appear to account for all Islamists/terrorists -    Chechnya for instance - I don't think Chechnians have a tribal social structure ... although there are tribal Islamists from outside who travel to fight in Chechnya.  Then there are all the other non-tribal Islamists worldwide, like those in Malaysia for instance, and the Islamists are definately intractible there - and then we have the home grown non-tribal Islamists...

... the one thing they all have in common is Islam.  I don't disagree with the author, but i think there is a little more to it.

[oboe]

They're not like us. Tolerance and open-mindedness are not virtues to them; they're signs of weakness. The tribe is too rigid to bend, and it can't be negotiated with.

Methinks Mr. Pressman should visit this board before making such generalizations.    

[lasersailor184]

Originally posted by Toad
You are absolutely right; there are no tribes in Iraq and tribalism is totally unknown there.

U r teh GrEaTeSt an mostest bestest.

Thank you for your insights!

Now run along and let us discuss this.

If you were a little more skilled and knowledgeable of world and specifically middle east history, you'd realize how blatantly racist these statements are.  

But you're not that knowledgeable, so I'll chalk it down to ignorance.

Mesopotamia, which is exactly where Iraq is, is the founding of modern civilization.  Cities, sewer systems, governments, irrigation... All these were common in Iraq way before they were even wet dreams any where else in the world.

This continued up until about halfway through modern Islam's times.  But since then modern Islam has literally progressed backwards.  Tribalism is a ridiculous theory because as a religion and a people they existed for thousands of years outside of any stereotypical desert wandering arab tribe you can conjure up.