Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Isis was quick to understand a truth the West must now confront -- EDIT: Now with fun WWI MAP!
Last edited Mon Nov 23, 2015, 01:21 PM - Edit history (2)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-a-borderless-world-the-days-when-we-could-fight-foreign-wars-and-be-safe-at-home-may-be-long-a6741146.htmlThe bloody repercussions of the borders that the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, drew in secret during the First World War originally giving Syria, Mount Lebanon and northern Iraq to the French, and Palestine, Transjordan and the rest of Iraq to the British are known to every Arab, Christian and Muslim and, indeed, every Jew in the region. They eviscerated the governorates of the old dying Ottoman empire and created artificial nations in which borders, watchtowers and hills of sand separated tribes, families and peoples. They were an Anglo-French colonial production.
The same night that I saw the early Isis video, I happened to be visiting the Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt. The end of Sykes-Picot! he roared at me. Rubbish, I snorted. But of course, I was wrong and Jumblatt was right. He had spotted at once how Isis captured symbolically but with almost breathtaking speed what so many Arabs had sought for almost exactly 100 years: the unravelling of the fake borders with which the victors of the First World War largely the British and the French had divided the Arab people. It was our colonial construction not just the frontiers we imposed upon them, but the administrations and the false democracies that we fraudulently thrust upon them, the mandates and trusteeships which allowed us to rule them that poisoned their lives. Colin Powell claimed just such a trusteeship for Iraq's oil prior to the illegal Anglo-American invasion of 2003.
We foisted kings upon the Arabs we engineered a 96 per cent referendum in favour of the Hashemite King Faisal in Iraq in 1922 and then provided them with generals and dictators. The people of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt which had been invaded by the British in the 19th century were subsequently blessed with mendacious governments, brutal policemen, lying newspapers and fake elections. Mubarak even scored Faisal's epic 96 per cent election victory all over again. For the Arabs, democracy did not mean freedom of speech and freedom to elect their own leaders; it referred to the democratic Western nations that continued to support the cruel dictators who oppressed them.
The same night that I saw the early Isis video, I happened to be visiting the Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt. The end of Sykes-Picot! he roared at me. Rubbish, I snorted. But of course, I was wrong and Jumblatt was right. He had spotted at once how Isis captured symbolically but with almost breathtaking speed what so many Arabs had sought for almost exactly 100 years: the unravelling of the fake borders with which the victors of the First World War largely the British and the French had divided the Arab people. It was our colonial construction not just the frontiers we imposed upon them, but the administrations and the false democracies that we fraudulently thrust upon them, the mandates and trusteeships which allowed us to rule them that poisoned their lives. Colin Powell claimed just such a trusteeship for Iraq's oil prior to the illegal Anglo-American invasion of 2003.
We foisted kings upon the Arabs we engineered a 96 per cent referendum in favour of the Hashemite King Faisal in Iraq in 1922 and then provided them with generals and dictators. The people of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt which had been invaded by the British in the 19th century were subsequently blessed with mendacious governments, brutal policemen, lying newspapers and fake elections. Mubarak even scored Faisal's epic 96 per cent election victory all over again. For the Arabs, democracy did not mean freedom of speech and freedom to elect their own leaders; it referred to the democratic Western nations that continued to support the cruel dictators who oppressed them.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-a-borderless-world-the-days-when-we-could-fight-foreign-wars-and-be-safe-at-home-may-be-long-a6741146.html
EDIT: Map of Sykes-Picot plan in my comment below (#3).
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
3 replies, 1824 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (12)
ReplyReply to this post
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Isis was quick to understand a truth the West must now confront -- EDIT: Now with fun WWI MAP! (Original Post)
dogknob
Nov 2015
OP
dogknob
(2,431 posts)1. Found this. From 2014. Has anyone here seen it? Al Jazeera documentary on WWI (video)
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)2. Good find. Thanks for sharing.
dogknob
(2,431 posts)3. Smithsonian: The Origins of the World War I Agreement That Carved Up the Middle East
Russia's change of status, brought on by the revolution and the nation's withdrawal from the war, removed it from inclusion. But when marauding Bolsheviks uncovered documents about the plans in government archives in 1917, the contents of the secret treaty were publicly revealed. The exposé embarrassed the British, since it contradicted their existing claims through T. E. Lawrence that Arabs would receive sovereignty over Arab lands in exchange for supporting the Allies in the war. Indeed, the treaty set aside the establishment of an independent Arab state or confederation of Arab states, contrary to what had previously been promised, giving France and Britain the rights to set boundaries within their spheres of influence, "as they may think fit."
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sykes-picot-agreement-180957217/?utm_source=facebook.com&no-ist