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Nation states are pretty new all over the world really if you want to look at it in a historical context. You had countries and states with borders roughly corresponding to the modern nation states in Europe for quite some time but those borders usually weren't that well defined and the culture or nationality of these states tended to be quite diverse, particularly in the border regions. Nationalism really is only around as old as the French Revolution and didn't really become a huge thing in Europe until the early to mid-19th century, and that's when you start to see countries define themselves more by nationality and policies and such are put in place to synthesize and homogenize a unitary national culture (especially in many of the younger countries). Also when people speak about huge multi-cultural empires it is important to remember that we are talking about pre-modern or early modern states which were nowhere near as centralized, organized or powerful as any modern nation state. People in the Middle East may have lived under the rule of the Ottomans for 500 years, but it is important to remember that for most, maybe all, of these people existence was decidedly local as was government when or if it made an impact on their lives.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 09:29 |
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# ? Jun 15, 2024 15:18 |
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Yeah, I don't have a particularly rosy view of the Ottomans, their reign started in conquest and repression, ended in genocide and ethnic strife, and was mind-bogglingly dysfunctional for most of the time in between. Of course, the pre-Ottoman period was loving horrific, so they'll always look good in comparison. Likewise, the peace of the Islamic Golden Age has always been more myth than reality. Any real unity in the Muslim world died when the Ummayads ran off to Spain (if not well before) and there were three distinct Caliphates (one of them Shia) and numerous independent and quasi-independent feudal states by the time of the Crusades. Then the Turks, the Mongols, and the Black Death came in to just keep making things worse, of course. What I find most interesting about the Medieval Middle East is the extent to which states were vaguely defined with shifting boundaries and numerous local warlords, nobles, magnates, and holy men effectively carving out little domains for themselves within imperial frameworks that ranged from firm to loose to nonexistent and just how often that arrangement... sort of worked. Even the Ottomans basically kept a lot of the same systems of local control, just with the Turkish nobility grafted on in most of the major centers. I don't think the Arab world really needs a Caliph or similar figure to keep everyone from killing each other, and I definitely don't think it benefits from getting bossed around by outside empires, but I do think that "we're all in the same boat" mindset is important and something the region clearly has a yearning for. Both the secular pan-arabists and the Islamists (plus Erdogan's weird neo-Ottoman deal) have established their identities around nostalgia for a half-imaginary past where "their people" weren't divided by borders, pushed around by Europeans, or played against each other by callow nationalists. I think so many states in the modern Middle East have failed because the nationalist identities of their dictators have run directly contrary to that deep seated yearning for cultural unity. If I had to write the hopeful future version of the Middle East, it would be one where maybe the borders had changed, maybe they hadn't, but it wouldn't matter as much because local autonomy, open societies, and regional cooperation or confederation had made militarized borders obsolete. Also, I'd have a pony.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 12:26 |
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Duckbag posted:If I had to write the hopeful future version of the Middle East, it would be one where maybe the borders had changed, maybe they hadn't, but it wouldn't matter as much because local autonomy, open societies, and regional cooperation or confederation had made militarized borders obsolete. Also, I'd have a pony. Looking at China and the EU it's not impossible, it just requires the right circumstances and a lot of blood for the blood god.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 12:51 |
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Duckbag posted:If I had to write the hopeful future version of the Middle East, it would be one where maybe the borders had changed, maybe they hadn't, but it wouldn't matter as much because local autonomy, open societies, and regional cooperation or confederation had made militarized borders obsolete. Also, I'd have a pony. So basically you're in favor of democratic confederalism?
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 13:40 |
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MiddleOne posted:Looking at China and the EU it's not impossible, it just requires the right circumstances and a lot of blood for the blood god. I'm not sure any of the words 'open society that has demilitarised its borders through regional cooperation' apply to China. I guess you could argue that some of its borders are less militarised now than they were 40 years ago?
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 17:15 |
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ModernMajorGeneral posted:I'm not sure any of the words 'open society that has demilitarised its borders through regional cooperation' apply to China. Uh, you're forgetting about world war 1 and 2. It didn't take nothing for the EU to take shape. I mean I guess you're emphasizing the willing part here? Because there wouldn't have been a will if not for all of the preceding bloodshed and the common threat of the USSR.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 17:19 |
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Footage from liberated Mansoura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFjBH248q4I edit: another video from Mansoura, focusing on the YPJ fighters (there seem to be a lot of them) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcR9hUzSpJ8 3peat fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jun 4, 2017 |
# ? Jun 4, 2017 17:24 |
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Anyone know what the ratio of male/female in front line fighters for YPG/YPJ is?
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 18:24 |
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lollontee posted:Anyone know what the ratio of male/female in front line fighters for YPG/YPJ is? I would say that good numbers for this are hard to find. But if you want a very quick and rough estimate you could start by just looking at the listed strength of the YPG and YPJ. Which gives 50,000 for the YPG and 24,000 for the YPJ. That's according to wikipedia, which also in another article states 36,000 YPG and 24,000 YPJ in an article on the SDF, saying these are May 2017 numbers. The article on the SDF also gives a number of 20,000 non-Kurdish SDF fighters (which I am going to assume are mostly men). As well as a total strength of 50 000 - 80 000. So I guess from that you can say that there are between 36 000 - 46 000 YPG fighters, 24 000 YPJ and appromximately 20 000 non-Kurd SDF. Assuming all of these are frontline fighters, the male to female ration then is somewhere between 3-to-2 and approximately 2-to-1 if you discount the non-Kurd SDF. I would venture forth a guess that not all this strength is frontiline fighters and that the percentage of fighters employed in the rear for policing and other non-frontline duties is higher for the YPJ compared to the YPG (because such a trend seems to be common in military forces which contain a large number of women).
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 18:49 |
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Randarkman posted:Assuming all of these are frontline fighters That's sort of the thing, they most certainly are not. It probably includes support and political personel, and also makes no difference between them. Not to knock on support in any way, but if YPJ in practice doesn't follow the same ratio of support-to-fighter as YPG, the ratios on the front line can't be deduced just by nominal membership count in the organisations.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 19:01 |
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It would deffo be immensely interesting to see the specifics of it. Right now, they're probably one of a handful, if not the only, all-women's units engaged in a conflict where every set of hands is needed and which is of a representative sample. So to see the specifics on, if the report on American Special Forces praise is correct, what constitutes such an actually efficient unit would certainly do a lot to dispel a lot of misconceptions as to this topic, both the sexist ones as well as those utterly divorced from reality.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 19:33 |
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lollontee posted:That's sort of the thing, they most certainly are not. It probably includes support and political personel, and also makes no difference between them. Not to knock on support in any way, but if YPJ in practice doesn't follow the same ratio of support-to-fighter as YPG, the ratios on the front line can't be deduced just by nominal membership count in the organisations. If the ratio of frontline fighters to support are roughly the same for YPG and YPJ then listed strength is enough to work out the ratio at the frontline though. I have a suspicion that this is not the case, but can't really look any more into this. You could also maybe get some more info by looking up specific operations and such and see if there is anything like an order of battle available for the SDF forces, that might say something more. Though it often seems like those list YPG/YPJ strength together. CrazyLoon posted:It would deffo be immensely interesting to see the specifics of it. Right now, they're probably one of a handful, if not the only, all-women's units engaged in a conflict where every set of hands is needed and which is of a representative sample. Somewhat related to this "every set of hands needed", it is interesting to note that according to most estimates it seems that the YPG and SDF easily outnumber ISIS by quite a comfortable margin, hell the YPJ alone seems to be larger than total estimated ISIS strength. Estimates seem to be 15 000 - 20 000 total, with 5 000 defending Raqqa, I wonder how many of the remainder are in Mosul and then how many are facing the SAA.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 19:54 |
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Randarkman posted:see if there is anything like an order of battle available for the SDF forces, that might say something more. Good idea, but I got no idea where to get that info. This thread is my primary source for Syria news anyway.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 19:56 |
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This dead gay comedy subforum is my primary source on the Syrian civil war.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 19:56 |
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lollontee posted:This dead gay comedy subforum is my primary source on the Syrian civil war. This thread serves as a pretty decent RSS feed.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 20:01 |
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I'll make the QCS request threAD for RSS integration.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 20:04 |
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Randarkman posted:If the ratio of frontline fighters to support are roughly the same for YPG and YPJ then listed strength is enough to work out the ratio at the frontline though. I have a suspicion that this is not the case, but can't really look any more into this. You could also maybe get some more info by looking up specific operations and such and see if there is anything like an order of battle available for the SDF forces, that might say something more. Though it often seems like those list YPG/YPJ strength together. Just because the YPG has so many thousands of troops doesnt mean all are oriented towards Raqqa or are combatants, and 5000 defenders is likely the number of combatants only excluding support and auxiliaries. Not to mention, I doubt the SDF's logistical ability to simultaneously field all 50,000+ soldiers.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 20:22 |
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Regarding women in YPG/J, here's some posts by PKK1978, an YPG fighter who posts in the SCW subredditquote:If men think around the world women cannot fight and cannot lead, they should see this picture. Women are very over-represented in the YPG/SDF command structure, and that's probably because thay join the party (PYD/PKK/PJAK) when they're younger, and the party raises and educates them, including education in military/guerilla tactics quote:yes that is bendava taqba and the commander there is very smart, very experienced. She is only 28 but she joined the party when she was 12. If you go through his posting history here https://www.reddit.com/user/pkk1978 he has a lot of interesting posts, but also hilarious stuff like quote:the commander of liwa umana al-raqqa is the dumbest, fattest arab I have ever met in my life. quote:western puts on Jaysh al-Ḥurr photo and now calls himself expert. Never been to Syria. Probably does not speak Arabic.
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# ? Jun 4, 2017 22:26 |
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E: 3peat's post above mine is very good. PKK1978 is a very interesting on-the-ground source. The noose tightens: https://twitter.com/CivilWarMap/status/871441759884148741 quote:SDF captured Khatuniyah, Hawi Hawa, Mazraat Rabia and Mazraat Qahtaniyah. 6 villages besieged - west of #Raqqa https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/6f6tlz/assassination_on_liwa_altahrir_sdf_commander_has/ Assassination on Liwa al-Tahrir (SDF) commander has failed (June 2) No word on who tried to do it. The US is http://aranews.net/2017/06/us-reassures-turkey-we-will-keep-account-of-weapons-provided-to-syrian-kurds/ quote:The US-led coalition against ISIS will keep account of every single weapon supplied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in order to allay Turkish concerns, a coalition spokesman said. Saladin Rising fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jun 4, 2017 |
# ? Jun 4, 2017 22:26 |
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https://mobile.twitter.com/W7VOA/status/871558982971928577 Bahrain has followed Saudi Arabia's lead. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2017/06/05/Bahrain-announces-it-is-cutting-ties-with-Qatar.html quote:Bahrain has announced it is cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, according to a statement carried on Bahrain News Agency. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/01/whats-going-on-with-qatar/ Edit: https://mobile.twitter.com/W7VOA/status/871562056259993600 https://mobile.twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/871562443532771328 Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Jun 5, 2017 |
# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:02 |
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What the gently caress is going on?!?! What's Happening with Qatar so that things get THIS bad?! holy gently caress this is either a giant attempt at a palace coup in Qatar or Doha mustve done something to REALLY piss off the other royals.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:08 |
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I dunno but WU TANG!!!
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:09 |
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Al-Saqr posted:What the gently caress is going on?!?! What's Happening with Qatar so that things get THIS bad?! holy gently caress this is either a giant attempt at a palace coup in Qatar or Doha mustve done something to REALLY piss off the other royals. It's probably literally petty infighting and dick waving over prestige between royal families. Wasn't there a tussle between whose allied faction got to control Egypt post Mubarak's overthrow?
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:12 |
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this is a giant giant incident, like, holy cow I've never seen such a suddent and inexplainable breakdown in gulf relations like this, I wish there was some clue as to what really happened!tekz posted:It's probably literally petty infighting and dick waving over prestige between royal families. Wasn't there a tussle between whose allied faction got to control Egypt post Mubarak's overthrow? No, this is different, like a complete total and public breakdown like this is unprecedented, the last time a massive cutoff of a gulf country happened was when Iraq invaded Kuwait. something big is going on, usually it's less public and more hidden.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:12 |
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Now Egypt, which is essentially a slave state, has followed suit with their masters in the gulf and cut off relations with Qatar. some clues are appearing, apparently some leaks have happened with the private communications of the Emirati ambassador to the U.S. that revealed some embarrassing stuff and they're blaming Qatar for it? That's so far what might explain it.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:18 |
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Al-Saqr posted:Now Egypt, which is essentially a slave state, has followed suit with their masters in the gulf and cut off relations with Qatar. Linkkk
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:19 |
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There's zero chance of this escalating and they just want to ostracize Qatar, right? I can't imagine the Qatari military is particularly potent, but with Saudi forces getting their asses handed to them by Houthi guerillas, surely they know better than to jump into another conflict. That WaPo article didn't really go at all into the why of the matter...
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:20 |
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Cugel the Clever posted:There's zero chance of this escalating and they just want to ostracize Qatar, right? I can't imagine the Qatari military is particularly potent, but with Saudi forces getting their asses handed to them by Houthi guerillas, surely they know better than to jump into another conflict. That WaPo article didn't really go at all into the why of the matter... let's not go too crazy here, there's no threat of war, but essentially the entire GCC and Egypt have ceased all relations with Qatar. it's insane. some english links:- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2017/06/media-attacks-qatar-170604190713001.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/analysts-leaks-threaten-emirati-diplomacy-170604112335740.html Holy poo poo it's even ALL AIRSPACE is blocked they'd have to fly civilians planes outside of GCC airspace.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:23 |
Is AJ a trustworthy source on this? WaPo sez the propaganda push looks to be partly aimed at a US audience.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:25 |
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Discendo Vox posted:Is AJ a trustworthy source on this? WaPo sez the propaganda push looks to be partly aimed at a US audience. I dont know, We're in a north korean levels of media control how the gently caress am I going to figure out what's going on?!
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:26 |
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Guess it's time for the Qataris to start funding Assad. :itshappening:
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:31 |
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details about the hacked emails https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/hacked-emails-show-top-uae-diplomat-coordinating-with-pro-israel-neocon-think-tank-against-iran/
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:31 |
Intercept enabling Russian foreign policy. Some things never change.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:33 |
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Randarkman posted:Nation states are pretty new all over the world really if you want to look at it in a historical context. You had countries and states with borders roughly corresponding to the modern nation states in Europe for quite some time but those borders usually weren't that well defined and the culture or nationality of these states tended to be quite diverse, particularly in the border regions. Nationalism really is only around as old as the French Revolution and didn't really become a huge thing in Europe until the early to mid-19th century, and that's when you start to see countries define themselves more by nationality and policies and such are put in place to synthesize and homogenize a unitary national culture (especially in many of the younger countries). I long for the day that the last flag can be burned. That a new nation of all humanity can emerge from the ashes of the destruction of the old. A nationstate is nothing but a confederation of sociopaths
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:37 |
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Discendo Vox posted:Intercept enabling Russian foreign policy. Some things never change. More emails of powerful people should be leaked especially if they make morons like you cry, it's really cool to see what's going on behind the scenes.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:40 |
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rear end struggle posted:I long for the day that the last flag can be burned. That a new nation of all humanity can emerge from the ashes of the destruction of the old. I've been reading a book on the history of nuclear weapons (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) and it's fascinating that we almost had a true World Congress/World Government. Around 60% of the US was in favor of it in 1946, but it hinged on giving the World Congress/UN control of all nuclear weapons. Then the Soviets took control in Poland and the US realized they couldn't win a land war with the USSR and needed their nukes and welp, now we're here
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:45 |
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aljazeera the channels themselves are dead silent on the topic, as if nothings happening.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:46 |
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Al-Saqr posted:details about the hacked emails quote:Hannah and Otaiba are frequently chummy in the exchanges. On August 16 of last year, Hannah sent Otaiba an article claiming that the UAE and FDD were both responsible for the brief military coup in Turkey. “Honored that we’re in your company,” Hannah wrote to Otaiba. what the gently caress ?
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:46 |
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axeil posted:I've been reading a book on the history of nuclear weapons (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) and it's fascinating that we almost had a true World Congress/World Government. Around 60% of the US was in favor of it in 1946, but it hinged on giving the World Congress/UN control of all nuclear weapons. and now people see a "one world government" as some evil conspiracy. WW2 could have been the end of war, WW1 should have been, but instead, we've put ourselves back to the path to destruction. All because of a few mens greed.
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:49 |
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# ? Jun 15, 2024 15:18 |
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as we all know, this is all about terrorism:- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40155829
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# ? Jun 5, 2017 04:50 |