love your writing, can anyone recommend blogs like these
Readit Newsfoobarbazbarfoo commented on What is the inverse of a vector? mattferraro.dev/posts/geo... · Posted by u/mkeeter
foobarbazbarfoo commented on A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas economist.com/the-america... · Posted by u/Michelangelo11
I thought that was mostly due to Islamic scholars. Weren't the monks mostly erasing and repurposing old scrolls to make copies of the Bible?
A lot of those scholars were not "Islamic" or "Muslim", just happened to live in the area. Many of them were christians (Church of the East), Sabians, Jews, or local hellenistic inspired cults. Also some of those translations were translated to other local languages (eg. Assyrian, Hebrew...) then to Arabic.
Of course, in todays world, one could say Arabic/Islam becoming the dominant culture/religion minimized the work and exposure others get.
Here are some of the more famous ones
Christians: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunayn_ibn_Ishaq - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaq_ibn_Hunayn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergius_of_Reshaina - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masawaiyh
Sabians: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinan_ibn_Thabit
Cult of Sin: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thābit_ibn_Qurra
> A perfect example is Iraq -- the US installed Saddam Hussein, then armed him, let me rule the country to despair, then the US spent two decades removing him and re-destroying the country. All the while, cheap to free oil was extracted from the nation for the benefit of western powers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme
As an Iraqi I am tired of people absolving us of agency as if the US just walks in and installs rulers left and right. There was no let there be Saddam, there were a lot of power grabs, internal struggle, and consolidation that happens before someone like Saddam becomes Saddam, and the most a western power can do is provide funds or international legitimacy
Thank you for your insight.
no problem!
I'm British actually. :)
I only commented on the US policy as that is what's holding things up here. The EU (and even the uk) are happy and ready to trade.
Where are you from?
I'm all for a more peaceful lawful middle East. The status quo is shit.
50+ years of being tough on Iran and easy on Saudi hasn't gotten us there. Regime change in Iraq has not just failed, it was actively counter productive. The same in Afghanistan.
Maybe now is a good time to sit down with the Iranians (about the one thing no one has tried) and find a better way.
Im Iraqi-American :)
coincidently, Iran was pro regime change (to be clear so was I, terrible execution though) in Iraq.
For example, here are two ways I can list to show how detrimental Iran is to the stability, safety, and progress of my home country
1. Political assassinations (most recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hisham_al-Hashimi, an outspoken political scientist who published reports on corruption)
2. Massive corruption that inhibits the growth of the country
- For example: Per the last head of the Commission of Integrity (CoI) [0]. $250 Billion "lost" oil money only by Sabotaging Iraq's oil industry so you have to buy from them (under the table now, overt before). How? - There are 12 crude oil pipes exporting Iraq's oil. 6 of them go to Um-Qasr port [1] - 2 main ways to steal, either you poke holes on the pipe (small sized oil cartels, $250k a week or so) or political mafias that own "illegal" ports and shipyards. There are more than 60 of those (per the last head of the CoI) so they can load/unload from the ships, these mafias makes ~$5 million a week. - When the CoI would try to send inspectors, the inspectors receive messages warning them if they enter the port of Basra they would be beheaded.
This is only 1 sample of an industry where Iranian backed terrorists run to the ground. If you look at any others (from communications, to even milk) have a similar theme.
Unfortunately the sources are all in Arabic, if you would like the Arabic sources I can point you to the interview with the last head of the CoI. I have contemplated translating those to make them more widely available but that risks the lives of my relatives back home
---- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_of_Integrity_(Iraq) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Qasr
The sooner Biden is back in, the sooner relations with Iran can be normalised, the sooner they can sell their oil and buy power station parts from us and the happier everyone will be (except for the religious right and arms manufacturers)
please stop your America-centric view world
look at how Iran is funding terrorist groups that brutally oppress people in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Syria is murky because they back the "official" government.
Just keep in mind the world is big and America is small and viewing the whole world in orange-man-bad shades is a really simplistic model and very very wrong
edit - example: read your last sentence: "except for the religious right and arms manufacturers"
- religious right: actually don't care much about Iran, they supported the christians Armenia over the Shia Azerbaijan 2 months ago. Secular Assad over islamist (insert 20 Al Qaeda variations). So no, Iran (and its government) shouldn't hated by the religious right
- arms manufacturers: a stronger Iran = arms race in Mid East = more sales to Irans neighbors. So relaxing sanctions will be booming business for them
https://ctc.usma.edu/islamic-state-drones-supply-scale-futur...
In a nutshell, the Irani-backed militias and their political parties did terrible in the elections and are now saying the results were fake and threatening war if a government is formed. The PM is seen as someone who isn't pro-iran so he is hated by them, however, it is possible he gets a second shot at being PM given the Sadr faction did very well and is open to having him come back so this is likely by them.
Also the types of the drones are ones that were known to be used by certain militias (Iraqi Branch of Hezbollah)