http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2003w08/msg00017.htmExcerpt(*emphasis added by me*):
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Games With Frontiers
With a red pencil and an empty map of Arabia, an exasperated Sir Percy Cox
drew some lines and produced the new Middle East borders. The West was after
oil and said it knew best but nobody was happy ... sound familiar?
By Trevor Royle
The Sunday Herald, 23 February 2003
(....)
It was late November 1922 and the map of the Middle East was about to be
redrawn by a middle-aged British colonial servant who was determined to put
an end to the impasse. Otherwise, he told his aide, Major Harold Dickson,
*'at the rate they were going, nothing would be settled for a year'.*
(....)
Sabih Beg declared that Iraqi authority ran south to a point 12 miles south
of the city of Riyadh and that the southern frontier should be drawn from
Yanbu on the Red Sea to Qatar on the Persian Gulf. Ibn Saud replied by
claiming that his kingdom should have the Euphrates as its northern border,
deep in Iraqi territory. What followed next was captured by Dickson, who kep
t a record of this astonishing moment in Arab affairs.
Fearing that neither side would give ground, an exasperated Cox produced a
red pencil and an empty map of what was known as Arabia. *Telling the
delegates 'gentlemen, there are your borders,' Cox drew the angular lines
which are today's frontiers of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.* Nobody got
what they wanted: Ibn Saud felt cheated of his desert inheritance, Iraq was
denied access to the Gulf, its outlet being almost blocked by two adjoining
Kuwaiti islands, Warba and Bubiyan, and Kuwait was sandwiched between two
potential enemies."
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All this fucking bullshit over a few strokes of a red pencil and a few happy fat racist elitist white imperialist aristocrats and a few Western-educated Arab elitst assholes acting as if this whole "nation-carving" was nothing and would lead to no problems in the future.
This *entire* mess is their fault as far as I'm concerned since it's their child so to speak since they drew the borders with the sole intention of raping the land for their own selfish financial gain.
Now, my reply to your post:
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(me:)> Britain is the reason we're in this big mess in the 1st place!!
> If they hadn't carved up Iraq without any regard for ethnic, tribal,
> or religious factors we wouldn't be in that miserable shithole right
> now cleaning up the huge mess they made.
If you look into the facts, I think you'll find that your glorious
leader and his oil-powered cronies had a little more to do with getting you into the mess than anything Britain has done in the past couple of centuries.
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Bullshit. As shown above in the article, they were the ones who drew the map without the input of anybody except themselves and with no critics except a few rich Saudi sheiks attempting to further the expanse of their own imperialist ambitions and not speaking for the people who were being affected but for themselves. The "Iraqi" people had no represenatives for their side. They were completely cut out by foreign powers - be they British or Arab.
The border was carved up without regard *BY THE BRITISH EMPIRE* of any ethnic, tribal, or religious sensitivities for the sole sake of maximizing the raping of the oil fields in Iraq for the benefit of the crown.
As for "my glorious leader" I assume you're speaking about Bush?? Or Wilson?? Or Harding?? Harding was president when the border was carved up in 1922. I fucking hate Woodrow Wilson. He was arguably the worst president we've ever had and a racist imperialist bigot himself who suppressed socialist activists and revolutionaries in the United States(includ. Eugene Debbs) - but that's another issue for another day. I'm sorry but I don't know which president you're talking about. We didn't control that land when the good old fellows in Parliment were carving up another peoples' land with the sole intention of stealing all their resources. So I don't see how you can blame America. F. Roosevelt did suck up to the Saudi royalty - but that was to secure oil against Nazi attacks on shipments. Again, I don't know which president you're talking about. It can't be Bush - he wasn't even born when the country was carved up by British "Royal" officers. Please specify which leader you mean.
You wrote:
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The "huge mess" was caused by an illegal invasion of a sovereign country for the pursuit of oil. Oops?
The Iraq "carve-up" was just another phase in the regions tribal fights that have been going on from long before the British Empire was born.
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No it wasn't just another "phase" for the tribal fights of the various groups who lived in the region. You had a Western power invading a poor 3rd world shithole full of nomadic camel herders and farmers. Wasn't exactly a fair fight was it?
The British knew the region had oil and other resources. And their first several years in Iraq they made sure that their own oil corporations sucked as much out as possible to fill the greedy coffers of the crown.
I'm sorry, but with all due respect, to justify a racist imperialist incursion onto another peoples' land and just call it a 'phase' in their development is a little condescending towards all those millions of natives over there don't you think?? We have no right to impose our government type onto another people without their consent - especially when our sole goal is to imperialize and rape that country of everything we can get out of it in the short time we control it.(which is what Bush and Co. is doing now in Iraq, but I digress)
Besides, do you know how many "Iraqis" were killed by the British in various "revolts" and "keeping the peace operations??" I've heard up into the tens of thousands!! That's a lot of blood for oil wouldn't you say? And to invade an area full of farmers, fisherman, and small-time barterers and traders with tanks and the full force of the Imperial British Army doesn't sound exactly nice and fair does it?
You wrote:
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(Or did you mean that Britain should have been harsher on those
"insurgent" colonials two centuries or so ago? :evilgrin:)
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Uh, how's about we treat them with dignity and give them their independence like good decent people and not treat them like slaves to exploit and pillage?? And yes, I am keenly aware of my own country's evil imperialist past so please do not bring that up.
The point I'm making is this: I love England. I wouldn't mind living on the English countryside myself. The problem I have is with the government of the UK. Especially the government of 80 years ago that raped and violated so many nations around the world it isn't even funny. Same thing goes for our actions in places like Iran, Vietnam, Chile, etc. I oppose all imperialism - no matter where it might come from. And the British have been the greatest profiteers of human suffering in the history of the world. They controlled and ruled a quarter to a third of the globe at any one point or time. I think that's pretty degrading and elitist.