SPQR, (can't resist)

Your hero, George W. Bush, dolt that he was, happened to find himself in control of a lot of very powerful weapons and the personnel to deploy them. He and his cohorts are the experts at wrecking joints - or do you consider bombing one of the most advanced middle-east nations back into the middle-ages to achieved dominance over their resources as "not wrecking the joint"?

and, SPQR, it's difficult not to concentrate on the fact that this rather vacant individual gained so much power.

Here's a great example of Enlightenment values being jettisoned and replaced by "the word of God as justification and righteousness".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

So there we have it, the largest invasion of a superpower in modern times, rests on a message from God to the president (and a few other helpful fabrications) - and is undertaken under the guise of altruism. It kills scores, destroys infrastructure and creates a vacuum which rapidly degenerates into a free-for-all between various groups.

Which goes to show that even in the advanced West, it's still a game of whoever wields the power and the commentary is the one who gains the kudos.

SPQR any info on csteele?
I left the loony left behind 49 years ago.
And never looked back unless I wanted Laugh

Poirot: I thought you were talking about 'common ground' with Islamists.

So you WERE talking about finding common ground with the Islamists?

Poirot: do you consider bombing one of the most advanced middle-east nations back into the middle-ages.

Advanced Country? Iraq? They never left the Middle Ages. They had an opportunity for a few years recently but they refused it & have clung tightly to their Middle Ages once again.

I agree GWB was an idiot in more ways than one. Ah ha! Common Ground.

BTW, hear's a few quotes from that last website I gave you. Just in case you refused to look at it.

Muslim Brotherhood 'Crucifies' Opponents, Attacks Secular Media

El Balad adds that the supporters of Tawfik Okasha, another vocal critic of President Morsi—the one who widely disseminated the graphic video of a Muslim apostate being slaughtered to cries of "Allahu Akbar"—gathered around the presidential palace, only to be surrounded by Brotherhood supporters, who "attacked them with sticks, knives, and Molotov cocktails, crucifying some of them on trees, leading to the deaths of two and the wounding of dozens."

In reality, there is little reason to doubt this crucifixion story. Militant Muslims crucifying their opponents is a regular feature of the Islamic world—recent cases coming from the Ivory Coast, where two Christian brothers were crucified, similarly by supporters of a Muslim president who ousted a Christian; Indonesia, where Islamic separatists crucified a fellow Muslim for being a military informant; and in Iraq, where Muslim militants crucified Christian children.

According to Allah, "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this: that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off…" (Koran 5:33).

And wait! There's more...

Egypt's First "Sex-Slave" Marriage

The owner-husband, Abd al-Rauf Awn, then appeared on the show, identifying himself as an Islamic scholar and expert at Islamic jurisprudence who studied at Al Azhar. He gave several Islamic explanations to justify his "marriage," from Islamic prophet Muhammad's "sunna" or practice of "marrying" enslaved captive women, to

Koran 4:3, which commands Muslim men to "Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four… or what your right hands possess."

Even stripping the sex-slave of her hijab, the way Awn commanded his concubine-wife, has precedent. According to Islamic jurisprudence, whereas the free (Muslim) woman is mandated to be veiled behind a hijab, sex-slaves are mandated only to be covered from the navel to the knees—with everything else exposed.

it is certainly not the first call to revive the practice. Earlier, Egyptian Sheikh Huwaini, lamenting that the "good old days" of Islam are over, declared that, in an ideal Muslim society, "when I want a sex-slave [I should be able to go] to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."

Likewise, a Kuwaiti female politician advocated for reviving the institute of sex-slavery, suggesting that Muslims should bring female captives of war—specifically Russian women from the Chechnya war—and sell them to Muslim men in the markets of Kuwait.

I feel sure you will enjoy your life with your friends.

Jayb,

I haven't bothered reading the rest of your post/s.

Just wanted to say, despite you maintaining that Iraq "never left the Middle-Ages" - that prior to sanctions and invasion, Iraq possessed some of the highest standards and outcomes in education and healthcare in the Middle-East.

That's a fact.