The Civilisation Of The Middle East

I was at my friends house and I saw a book on the chair called The Conquest Of The Middle East by Robert Fisk. Only reason i noticed this book was because of the fucking size of it, its a lot pages. Fuck even looking at a book like that never mind reading it (it's the thickness of the book thats the problem, the rest of its dimensions are normal). You wouldnt realise how thick this book was until you seen it in the flesh.

Anyway, it caught my attention so i used it as a talking point, takes a brave guy to start reading a book that size so i thought i should mention it, plus i thought i could possibly educate myself a bit from what he'd read so far and maybe pass on to him (from a few Middle East Conflict war films I had been watching).

Apparently the guy who wrote the book was a weapons expert and a prisoner held by Afghanstan in the early 90's, and they tortured him and used him for his knowledge and tried to get him to build wepons for them). This reminded me of the opening scene of Iron Man, so i mentioned it to my mate and he could see where the comparison could be drawn. Then I began thinking about the movie Charlie Wilson's War, story of a small town politician who armed Afghanastan to blow the shit out of the Russians and make them retreat back in the Cold War. He never thought about the end game.

Then as the conversation went on i began thinking about De Palma's "Redacted". I did like that fim.

Basically, i was intrigued by the story of the book i enjoyed talking about it, aspects of the story brought back memories of films i had watched so i filled in the gaps and spoke them out as words. It was a great conversation though. Thats the beuaty of the literature world. I never even touched that book, yet it instigated a great converation.

Anyone read this book or heard of this book?

the sorted history of war and conquest in the middle east goes waaaaaaayyyyy back. the more you learn about it the more the current situation starts to make a lot more sense and you can see why everybody's so crazy about it. the area has been conquered so many times by so many people, groups have been exiled, let back in, exiled again, let back, oppressed, come back to power only to be conquered again. probably the most inconvenient place to be born for the last 3-4,000 years.

i dont remember which fisk work I read but it is fucking mindblowing reading....he really seems to go unbiased in what he sees most of the time( which is wonderful because most journalists fail at that)

id heartily recommend dedicating your time to it.....i remember a particular passage about the Iran-Iraq war where I think the Iraqis were building a gigantic bridge across the disputed waterway.

  catsonearth said:

the sorted history of war and conquest in the middle east goes waaaaaaayyyyy back

Exactly the words my mate used.

So i went a little Michael Moore and said "Yeah, i know about the Bush family history and their links to oil to Iraq"

And he said "No, i mean, it goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back further than that"

He blew my mind.

At that point i started thinkin about a scene i saw in W. but didnt mention it. I thought it might take the conversation in a different direction. Thought i should keep the conversation on the safe path.

you might be interested to see the movie 'the objective' it's kind of sci fi horror movie about american soldiers trying to find the mythical giant 'flaming shields' that Alexander claimed to have encountered when he tried conquering it

i know a lot about Afghanistan but only really president carter years and beyond. mostly the involvement of Zbigniew Brzezinski with the mujahadeen

he wrote this book in the 1990s and in it has a future war prediction he calls 'the war of eurasia' and in it he circles a map of israel,afghanistan,iran and iraq as where the war will take place

  Dr Clitterhaus said:

  catsonearth said:

the sorted history of war and conquest in the middle east goes waaaaaaayyyyy back

Exactly the words my mate used.

So i went a little Michael Moore and said "Yeah, i know about the Bush family history and their links to oil to Iraq"

And he said "No, i mean, it goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back further than that"

He blew my mind.

At that point i started thinkin about a scene i saw in W. but didnt mention it. I thought it might take the conversation in a different direction. Thought i should keep the conversation on the safe path.

it definately goes back to the beginning of civilization, the longer states exist the more complications arise from them

you have the judean exiles from assyria into egypt, all the way to the persian empire, to the early islamic caliphates, to the ottomans, to the mandates and on and on and on

really, it pisses me off when people dispute the middle east "problem" in terms of purely 19th-20th century events....only a tiny part of the story.

  Awepittance said:

you might be interested to see the movie 'the objective' it's kind of sci fi horror movie about american soldiers trying to find the mythical giant 'flaming shields' that Alexander claimed to have encountered when he tried conquering it

I knew there would be an Oliver Stone connection.

Alexander was trying to conquer the exact same territory as W. I recall Achilles showing Farrell the map of Persia in the opening credits.

Hence, SM4 is correct when he says this conflict goes back further than people realise. This is a war that goes back to the beginning of time.

now that i'm a little bit older and i look back on my high school history lessons it really pisses me off how awful teachers are at making that shit seem interesting. going over the history of that region (and most others) in school was painfully boring, but now i'm obsessed with it. i find myself googling or wiki'ing history shit in my spare time at work, watching history/discovery channel shows about the shit until 3am when i have to go to work the next morning, etc. it's crazy.

  Dr Clitterhaus said:

This is a war that goes back to the beginning of time.

which if you take this into account and also the fact that no western societies have mounted a successful invasion and occupation of afghanistan it makes very little sense why we are still there, the 'trying to keep us safe' mantra holds very little water if you are familiar with afghan history.