Political Memes

I used to play Civ III a lot and one of my favorite strategies was to borrow a bunch of money from a neighbor and then attack and destroy him, which would of course wipe away the debt with the only consequence being that everybody else hated you. It was amusing to learn that this was actually Hitler's strategy with his invasion of the Soviet Union (minus the "destroy him" part, of course). Part of the nonaggression treaties between Germany and the USSR was actually a massive loan to Hitler, adding to the debt that Hitler had already racked up to achieve his "economic miracle".

AIPAC, it funds politicians on both sides. Our gov't is set up like a mafia payout, and the Zionist are running the show.

I don’t know how they did it

This is one of the dangers of having a corrupt government in the modern world that is openly for sale. Conservatives might think it's fine that money can and should influence politicians, but they're dead quiet about the fact that the money doesn't have to only come from American sources.

You don't know how they did it? I thought it was obvious, Israel lobbies all of the US politicians: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S

AIPAC - that’s how.

I believe the Russians refer to it as "kompromat"

The area has a deep and rich history, but also a violent one. Countless of peoples have been actually genocided (as in: nothing remains of them) there several centuries before rest of the world had civilization and therefore any means of manipulating them.

European colonialism lasted roughly during years 1400-2000. A significant time, but also significantly shorter than the history of Middle East.

Why do you act like it was aliens coming from space? It was just humans doing what they've always done. Do you think they didnt know what war was? They had been warring for millennia with other people from Europe, Asia and Africa.

Almost certainly the former. Same with Africa.

Almost all major conflicts and broken political situations can be traced back to colonialism and/or organized religion.

As with other regions, the wars between neighbouring(ish) countries subside with cultural & economic development - if the countries (ever) get to that point (cross several big thresholds). And we don't even have enough data to verify if this is even actually true.

But like Europe, constant warring for millennia up until 19th century, then sure, two really big wars, but you could already see how culture & economy of the masses shifted & favoured peace over war ("even with the stinking neighbours who we are racist towards"), it became harder to entice wars and/or to convince people we need a war with a neighbour.

I feel like this sort of rule of majority (in practice) & low scarcity is the natural equilibrium where huge efforts for maintaining peace aren't required.
(Even both WW were because of this equilibrium shifted massively into huge inequalities.)

African countries (so lower industrial development & big inequalities even on small scales bcs scarcity for basics, like food & life opportunities, exaggerates those) see constant proper wars (1 on 1 skirmishes between two countries or even regions), but since mass starvation became a thing of the past, so did the fighting become less intense.
(Africa is huge tho, generalisations like this aren't representative of actual issues.)

With that I think Middle East would definitely be a much more peaceful place without massive colonialist fuckery over the centuries, or at least without Russia & USA (which covers establishing Israel). Longer lasting stable culture & increasing trade dependency & prosperity + no foreigners financing radical terrorist groups (which comparatively quickly become the dominant power by sheer asset value), yes, I think it would be a much better place & wars a lot shorter.

Now, imagine that Middle East but if the world was already off of fossil fuels for the last century (so less inequality between countries).
Maybe a great (and accessible) active cultural hub between Europe & India?

Everything improving for the better is part of that "equilibrium." Peace and stability improves education which just makes everything better over time.

When Taliban first took over Afghanistan they had banned women from attending highschool. They later opened up "training courses" with same curricilum as highschools that women are allowed to attend.

Progress is slow, but the many economic sanctions placed on the country doesn't help.

Overall situation is still extremely bad there but the reason Taliban got to run that country in the first place is two centuries of imperialism (The British) so more of it isn't gonna help.

I believe Russia and Israel are currently enjoying joint custody of the US, though Israel has the majority of custodial rights.

two things can be bad at the same time