Are Trump supporters Bush supporters?

Yes, the various elements imprisoned there made common cause with them.

 

Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the mid 1970s when the Afghani communists overthrew the monarchy.

 

Absolutely and we had no interest in it beyond exploiting its' rebels to bleed the Sovs dry, hence why after they left we lost all interest.

 

Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the mid 1970s when the Afghani communists overthrew the monar

 

The Soviets didn't get involved until 1979. Pity. Afghanistan was literate and even had cinemas and cafes.

 

Oh they were involved but they didn't invade until 1979. Yeah, it's like Iran under the Shah it had some promise.

 

I don't know how you can compare Afghanistan to Iran. The Brits were paying less than 13% in oil revenue share to the Shah while every other country in the region AND VZ were getting a 50-50 revenue split.

The Iranians were getting screwed and the Shah was a stooge .

 

But the Shah was progressive, recognising Israel, increasing women's rights/education etc

 

For his elite circle. I was in Iran in 1953.. and while I was just a kid, I remember the adults who were all in the oil business and supporters of Eisenhower talking about what idiocy Operation Ajax was. The burgeoning democracy of the Mossadeegh needed Iran's oil revenues for healthcare, education and infrastructure. We absolutely missed a window of opportunity for grassroots democracy to take root in Iran.

 

Yes but we feared it was beginning of a Communist takeover, with some justification, he suspended elections, ruled autocratically and allied himself with the pro-Moscow Tudeh party

 

LOL.. That was a ruse.. Those idiots didn't want to stop cheating the Iranians and give them a square deal so they painted the Mossadeegh as a communist puppet of the Soviets. Britain was still recovering from WW2 and wanted cheap oil at any cost. They sure made a mess of things in Iran, Iraq and Palestine.

 

Or we did out best whilst also fighting the Cold War and overseeing the end of the Empire. You could also argue all those countries had underlying problems which were suppressed in the battle against colonialism but re-emerged once we were gone. Plus nothing I've said about Mossadeegh is untrue he's sort of the Salvador Allende of the Middle East.

 

I don't know what you have been reading.The Mossadeegh was not like Allende. He didn't proposed nationalizing Iranian oil until the Brits refused to deal honestly with the Iranians. The British model was always terrible.. They treated the people like wogs, didn't educated them up into the labor pool and took all the wealth. That's why Iran and Iraq have developed so differently from KSA and have had so damned much conflict.

 

It's a bit of a sidetrack but I must correct the commonly understood mythology of Bush43. There was no question that Saddam was a bad guy who supported terrorism. He invaded and raped Kuwait. He threatened weapons inspectors. He repeatedly violated UN sanctions. He threatened our military flyovers. He had and had used WMDs. He actively supported Palestinian terrorists with large money rewards for terrorist acts and suicide bombers. Every national leader and every country's intelligence service knew Saddam had WMDs and was working on developing nuclear capability. His SCUD missiles were more than capable of delivering WMDs, and they were launch ready. We never said that he would launch them against America -- SCUDs had nowhere near that capability. We knew that he was talking with Bin Laden about delivering WMD including nuclear to him. But, the administration readily admitted publicly that we didn't have evidence that proved Saddam was involved with 9/11.

On the other side of the coin, he did overstep things with the Patriot act, although that is easy to see in hindsight. And Bush43, like his daddy, was not conservative as you aptly point out.

 

But you could argue that of every colonial power, the US included? If the British model was so terrible why are so many of our old colonies still in the Commonwealth and our friends and allies today? Mossadeegh wasn't standing on the podium with Castro but he was far from a liberal democrat. Forgive me, KSA?

 

Isn't it true that democracies in Muslim lands tend to descend into theocracies with little to no regard for human rights? The future of civilization seems to hinge on whether Islam has a reformation. If Islam becomes the majority religion in Europe without a reformation, do you think their Western secular institutions will survive?

 

Majlis is a form of democracy that is ancient and Islam has an international declaration of human rights. The Baathists are not representative of Islam.. Are you lumping all Muslim countries together or do you acknowledge they have evolved differently?

Have you read the Libyan Constitution under Idris? Positively enlightened.. Of course Gaddafi threw it out.

 

I just look at the world as it exists today and there isn't a single majority Muslim country that I would want to live in. Is there one you would want to live in? On the other hand, it is readily apparent that many Muslims would move to Western secular countries if they were given the chance. When half of Muslims in Great Britain want to outlaw homosexuality, that demonstrates the power that the religion has on its adherents and the difficulty Muslims have in accepting Western secular values even when they live within them.

 

I have lived in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait. Matthew Shepard wasn't murdered in Saudi Arabia. He was murdered in Wyoming.

 

I didn't ask where you lived. I asked where you would WANT to live. Muslims seem to prefer to live in Western secular nations. If Muslims want to live in Western secular nations, should they respect and revere Western secular norms instead of attempting to replace them with Islamic norms?

 

Im a Christian and I enjoyed living in the middle East.. the Koran teaches Muslims to abide by the laws of a foreign country or leave.

 

Once again I did not where you liked to live, I asked where you WANTED to live. It is clear to me that you want to live in a Western secular nation. That is not something you should be ashamed about. Western secular countries are superior to live in if you care about human rights.

If Muslims want to live in Western secular nations, should they respect and revere Western secular norms instead of attempting to replace them with Islamic norms?

 

You have missed a couple of posts.

 

If anyone still supports Bush 43, you are dumber than a box of rocks. No Bush should ever be in office again.

 

We never should've been in Iraq to begin with, why people elected that idiot in 2000 is beyond me.