What We Should Do In The Mideast

I'm thinking maybe the Europe of the reformation is like the mideast today.  There you had prot against catholic like sunni vs shia, but you also had times when a prot ruler would go on the catholic side to get aid in his campaign and vice versa.  How did that finally end?  I think they put the holy roman empire together as more of a coherent state, Philip of Spain ran out of money from the colonies to buy armies.  And maybe people just got tired of it, not the peasants, because nobody ever cares what they think, but the kings, things had been sorted out, the winners had tidy kingdoms, the losers had no means to fight.

They don't have those tidy kingdoms in the mideast, they were never that much into nations in the first place, and then in their heartland they still have those bad colonial borders, though why in a hundred years they haven't been able to redraw them is beyond me.  If I was the grand emir I would create a Kurdistan, a Sunnistan, and a Shiastan in a heartbeat.

I think another thing that keeps the pot boiling in the mideast is technology, more properly weaponry.  In olden days a gang of ruffians could easily be dispatched, but in modern days a gang of ruffians with AK 47s is not so easily dispatched.

There is something inherently undemocratic about weapons.  If we are in a group of ten people and eight of us want to do something and two don't, the eight can probably beat up the two, and so majority rules.  Majority is not always the best thing, frequently the majority is wrong, but there is a certain element of fairness to it, and it's kind of a simple rule that both sides understand,  It's what keeps the dems or reps from running into the swamp with their ammo bags when they lose the election because they know four years hence, they will have their chance then, and vice versa across.

If two of the guys have knives they get a little more respect, but if we really hate what they want to do we might stand up to them. If they have AK 47s we do whatever they want to do.

But high tech weapons are good for civilization in at least one way.  Before, i don't know, the musket maybe, the barbarians invaded civilization whenever they pleased and there wasn't anything civilization could do about it.  So we want our army to be armed to do that, and i think we want it to be able to put down rebellions.  That's a little chancy, because the rebellion might be one we like, but on the other hand it might be one we hate.  I think we're better off sticking with the election thing, but hey that's me.

But then the middle east is awash in guns, so does ISIS have better guns?  Probably, but still.  But the way everybody (the politicians) look at it ISIS is the problem, but before that Al Qaeda was the problem, and if we do topple ISIS won't something else just appear? 

I guess at this point I should announce What We Should Do In The Mideast Is, but I have no idea.  It does seem to me that we are a destabilizing force pouring in weapons and supporting this guy or other.  And now the Russkies have arrived and we are kind of snarling at them, but playing a little footsie too.  It could devolve that we end up supporting opposing sides and having one of those proxy wars that were all the rage during the cold war.  Or it may devolve that we are on the same side defending civ such as it is against barbarians, but I am not so sure we win that one either.

I don't know.

I start writing these posts while drinking my first cup of coffee and finish about the third and am all coffeed up to accomplish whatever I accomplish in the day, but with this subject matter I feel like crawling back into bed.