Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Toad on January 08, 2007, 07:47:24 PM
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It's the Tribes, Stupid (http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pressfield_tribes.htm)
An interesting view by the author of Gates of Fire on what our problems are in dealing with the Iraq/Afghanistan situation.
The thesis is simple:
In other words, the clash of East and West is at bottom not about religion. It's about two different ways of being in the world. Those ways haven't changed in 2300 years. They are polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.
The West is modern and rational; its constituent unit is the nation. The East is ancient and visceral; its constituent unit is the tribe.
I found it thought provoking and interesting. I think many will disagree with his assessment of what to do.
In the end, unless we're ready to treat them they way we did Geronimo, the tribe is unbeatable. They're just too crazy. 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.
The theory does align with why Saddam didn't kneel to the UN sanctions or inspections. It predicts what Iran will do as well.
I enjoyed it.
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The problem isn't the societal structure of the tribe. The muslim religion was at the most power ever and advanced in the world several hundred years ago. Since then, it has gone into the ****ter.
The problem isn't muslims, it's the muslim religious and political leaders. Once you figure out how to get rid of them, I think the muslim people will get back to their original glory.
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I guess you didn't read it then.
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Interesting article. You can add Africa to the tribes section as well. Quite of bit of the strife we see in modern Africa is directly attributed to the borders that were drawn by the colonial powers, often splitting up tribal territory. The genocide that took place in Rwanda is a perfect example of this problem.
ack-ack
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If we could just get this tribe to assemble all in one location......lets say Mecca, for instance....then we could set off a really big flash bang and be done with it.
Or we could do like the liberal socialists want to do, and be friends with them, sympathetic to their inbred ignorance....heck they might even let us into the tribe, or at least be slaves......
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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
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Originally posted by Ack-Ack
Interesting article. You can add Africa to the tribes section as well. Quite of bit of the strife we see in modern Africa is directly attributed to the borders that were drawn by the colonial powers, often splitting up tribal territory. The genocide that took place in Rwanda is a perfect example of this problem.
ack-ack
yeah, blame it on the europeans, the tribes were killing each other long before the "colonial powers" got there.
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No Toad, you are simply an Ameri-hater. President Bush knows what God wants the United States to do. If we just stay the course we will win the hearts and minds of the Arab world. Why don't you support the troops? Are you sleeping with Nancy Pelosi?
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Interesting read Toad. I have wondered about something like that though I never thought of Tribes as being the root of it.
Mark
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We are all tribal. Some tribes are just bigger than others.
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Perhaps the problem is that, unlike the western world, they've yet to experience war on so vast and horrible a scale as to make the idea unpalatable. They've had relatively small, regional conflagrations in the recent past, (and truly massive and horrible in their history) but nothing so terrible lately as to truly lay waste to a large part of the region, say on the scale of World War II. True, in much of the region, they've yet to reach the level Europe did before World War II, but there is enough industrialized and truly civilized territory that they could probably learn the same lesson. It may be that nearly every civilization/culture/region must experience something that horrendous to make them decide armed conflict of one sort or another is not the most viable and enjoyable method to resolve differences. They may actually be working towards bringing about that very thing now, though.
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Originally posted by rpm
No Toad, you are simply an Ameri-hater. President Bush knows what God wants the United States to do. If we just stay the course we will win the hearts and minds of the Arab world. Why don't you support the troops? Are you sleeping with Nancy Pelosi?
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.
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Originally posted by rpm
No Toad, you are simply an Ameri-hater.
At least I'm not one of the "blame America first!" crowd. :)
And you may have drawn the absolutely wrong assumption about my view of the author's conclusion. You do know how we treated Geronimo, right? :)
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Oh, I read it. I also noted how the author lost any semblance of credibility when he made this claim:
The people we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan live that life 24/7/365 and they've been living it for the past ten thousand years. They like it. It's who they are. They're not going to change.
Iraq is the perfect antithesis of this, as well as most of the middle east that is west of and including Persia.
What I said still stands true. There was a time when Islam was the pinnacle of civilization. And that wasn't because everyone else was slacking. It was because they worked their butts off to get there.
Now we have Islam being several centuries behind the rest of the world.
The only cause of this is the Islamic religious and political leaders. They hold their people back so they can gain power and money
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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.
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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.
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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
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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......
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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Originally posted by john9001
it took about 200years of war.
and an iron fist, SPQR
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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!
:p
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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.
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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. :p
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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.
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Run along, youngster.
You've missed the point of the article and missed the point of the post you quoted.
You add nothing to any thread but self-glorified opinion. You don't support your arguments. You make decrees and expect others to accept them without question.
You offer nothing worth reading in any thread you've ever entered.
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Here's my support:
http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Engineers-L-Sprague-Camp/dp/0345482875/sr=8-1/qid=1168397193/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9588873-2844638?ie=UTF8&s=books
Now, where's the support for the thesis written? Not once was credit even given, much less support or a bibliography.
Embarrassing when you get shown up by a "Youngster," isn't it?
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Found this a good read too
http://www.slate.com/id/2157314/?nav=ais
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Tribalism is a large part of it. If you read T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia). It was one of his biggest problems. Getting tribal enemies to unite long enough to fight the Turks was a headache for the British. It was also used by Turks as a means of dividing the Arabs who in any case tended not to see themselves as Arab at all.
If you think that's not relevant. Remember this was less than a hundred years ago. A dot in time for many cultures.
Tribalism can be very persistent. In my own country it still exists although mostly in a sporting context. It was the reason we were so easily conquered by the English hundreds of years ago. I can even tell you what tribe I belong to: The Dalcassian. Even the city I live in at the moment is known as the 'City of the Tribes', although those tribes were in fact English families. Even in America, people identify themselves as German, Irish, Hispanic etc. That is a form of tribalism.
I wouldn't underestimate the power of tribalism in the Arab world. I suspect Iraqi is less of a national identity more of a geographical description.
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I don't think his tribalism reasoning is far fetched. He's using what he knows and has studied to support a conclusion that is not surprising. That's something we all do.
Does western nationalism wrap itself more in inanimate symbols than than non-western cultures? I would say so. Even languages reflect this. The words for "love" in non-western cultures is not usually used for inanimate objects. It's reserved for people, not cars, hamburgers or sweaters. Older cultures don't equate a colored ribbon as a symbol of their culture as much. Emotions are stronger for their own people, their culture, their "tribe."
Even the word "culture" is used more for these older societies. It's getting very difficult to define "culture" for western societies now. How would you describe your "culture" to a visitor?
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Embarrassing when you get shown up by a "Youngster," isn't it?
I wouldn't know; perhaps someday you'll manage it.
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laser.. do you ever think? reason?
You are saying that once a civilization reaches a certain point it can never go tribal no matter how many centuries it lives under a primitive and barbaric religion? That if ever you were civilized you can never go tribal?
Yet... you claim that government (like the civilization you pointed to) is vastly inferior to tribalism (the real result of your half baked anarchy political views).
When civilizations crumble they fall into anarchy and tribalism and bands of criminals led by warlords. We see it in africa.
You act like a sewer system is the end of civilization.. the peak.. Like, once you have developed a sewer system you can just sit an rot because...well.... it don't get any better than that. How many men did they put on the moon?
in other words... yeah, great, but what have they done lately? Oh wait... I know.. they formed tribes.
lazs
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Some tribes are more civilized than others but I still believe we are all "tribal" by nature. Take a collection of tribes working together towards common goals and you get a nation. Take a collection of tribes working against each other and you get war.
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The phrase: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" pertains to the tribal situation. The pertinent word is friend. Not brother or some real relation but friend. Family is more important than friends and will trump friend every time. Even in our society we have a phrase for that as well. "Blood is thicker than water". Just another tribal reference.
We saw an attempt by saddumb to use that situation when he sent his aircraft to iran. He was hoping they would hold them for him and if he was successful in holding off the coalition would get them back. He knew darn well leaving them in country would guarantee destruction of the planes so he took the long shot knowing iran was also an enemy of America.
I see the big difference bwetween the "western world" and the one in the middle east is that the west has surpasssed the need for smaller tribes and supplanted them with the tribe of nation. The ME countries have not done so at the individual level of the population.
The western thought is that you have a base obligation to the family "tribe" and that the national tribe does not conflict with that obligation. Indeed, the national tribe tries to work with the family to maintain the national tribe feelings of the individual high enough to maintain that individuals usefulness to the nation. In supporting the national tribe you also support the family tribe.
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Excellent read.
Charon
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Would splitting up the territory between tribes really do anything? It's my belief that they would still fight over more territory. I'm not sure they want their own little country rather then the whole region but I don't know the background or anything else about the people there and what they want.
I feel the same about Africa but once again, I don't know much about the people.
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India throws a monkey wrench in this whole "blame it on the tribes ****." India is working and working very well, even though the country is divided into hundreds of tribes (maybe thousands). Hell, they got more muslims than Pakistan does.
But India works - sure its got some issues.....a muslim will get crazy and burn down some temple, then some goofy Hindus will kill a few muslims. However, India works and proves that article flat wrong.
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so...it took a novelist to figure out the quagmire.
all bush had to do was send his daughters over to marry a few tribesmen.
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Originally posted by nirvana
Would splitting up the territory between tribes really do anything? It's my belief that they would still fight over more territory. I'm not sure they want their own little country rather then the whole region but I don't know the background or anything else about the people there and what they want.
I feel the same about Africa but once again, I don't know much about the people.
They can't just split Iraq up among the factional regions. Only one of the regions has significant amounts of oil. Can't remember which one off the top of my head.