Senate The Middle East Discussion Thread

Yes I wasn't going to bother Googling but I see an Iraqi Christian leader had made the comparison, as has Breitbart.

If the goal was to convince me that people who make these analogies understand nothing of the history they're referencing, then... success?

 

Darth Mane: ...you realize that's the most ridiculous standard of evidence ever, right?

 

Because fear was my comparison to them. Actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the podcast was when he talks about how the Mongols took a defeated enemy laid the prisoners down in the grass, put boards over them,and then sat down and had lunch.

Isis is not unique in history.

 

Except if you read Ender's posts and actually listened to your own sources of evidence, you'd see that fear wasn't as large an aspect as you're making it out to be.

 

Yes, they are. Because they are parts of a dozen or more composite movements. Given such an analogous beast is literally nothing more than the sum of its parts... I'm still not convinced you're close to right?

 

double post

 

Actually there were also a couple articles detailing actual comparisons.

 

Yes, but there are comparisons to similar types of situations throughout history.

 

Didn't say it was a BIG factor, I said it was factor.

 

Even if we did decide to look at fear as a strategy and tactic... both groups are met with resistance, and both used excessive force on captured enemies... yeah, no. In fact, didn't Subutai spend 2 years besieging Henan, make an alliance with the Song Emperor, only for the Song Chinese to take a few cities and force the Mongols to come and kick them around a bit?

How effective is fear if your most respected and able General is betrayed?

 

Like what, Hong Xiuqian's Taping rebellion against Qing rule? It was a religious state-within-a-state.

(Except of course they weren't conquerors, and were socialistic and pacifistic in nature.)

My point is, you can take bits and pieces from history and mash them together to have an analogy for IS, which defeats entirely the purpose of making an analogy in the first place.

EDIT: Oh, ok, so fear was a factor.

Were British in the US colonies afraid of rebels? Therefore, the American Revolutionaries are like ISIS. #ManeLogic

 

How effective was fear when the Mongols moved West?

Also didn't I earlier say that by comparison of fear was population control?

 

Americans didn't use death and Murder as a fear tool to control terroritory.. Thus the American Revolutionaries were not like Isis.

Either way you can pull from history and make comparisons with IS with historical situations. If you think that's a cheat, then you thing thats a cheat.

Find it hard to believe that in any point in history there has never been a Army(loose nit group or not) unlike Isis. My knowledge of Middle East history is very limited, but perhaps I could pull something from there.

 

I assume you refer to the bloody sacking of Urgench as an example of the fearful nature of the Khanate as warriors and butchers? If so, care to explain why Mstislav the Bold rode out to meet the Mongols and why Subutai's emissaries were executed?

And even if Urgench is the point at which people realise the extent of their brutality - or if it's later, when Gianni of Plano Carpini is writing back to the Pope of what he sees, it's fear born out of a number of victories the likes of which the world has never seen. Contrast that with ruling an area by force and extreme Shari'a after it's already been weakened by war...

Yep, still not seeing it.

 

Ah, I see your looking for an exact comparison. Which I even think I said I didn't see Isis as the Mongols reborn, I just said there were similar qualities.

I believer there was more than one occasion where the Mongols sacked a city, killed everyone in it, and as a result other cities in their path gave up without a fight.

and I believe I've been comparing the situation in Iraq not Syria.

 

No, I'm actually not. I'm pointing out that making a stupid analogy is, in fact, a fairly silly venture.

If you can compare the Mongols under Temujin and Ogedei to IS, then I can compare the American Revolutionaries to IS.

You say both used fear; sure. I say both used underhand tactics and are proxies for wider concerns.

Both analogies are, by Darth Mane standards, totally valid and legit and awesome.

By real-world standards, both analogies are piss-weak and superficially address the situations at best.

 

Actually I compare Isis to the Mongols. Mongols are nothing like Isis. Isis is nothing like the Mongols, but Isis has used similar ideas. Not on purpose probably.

and I don't just say they use fear, I say they use MURDER. Did hte American Revolutionaries use Murder to put fear in to the British. Did they cut off heads, have mass killings, or have a strick set of laws to control the population so they wouldn't rise up against them?

 

Mane this is mildly exhausting, mostly because I could be more effectively wasting this time arguing with a talking parrot or ****ing into a sock.

Your analogy fails because it's wrong. It takes an element that was not unique to one historical group, and assigns it for the purposes of comparison and illustration to another group that is not as heavily reliant upon it as it is other factors.

Fear was not used by the Mongols, in your way of recalling things, in the way IS uses it. By that alone, a comparison with the American patriots in the Revolutionary War is apt because I choose to selectively focus exclusively on the fact both were brazen rebels against a recognised government. That a number of other factors speak - no, scream - out against the comparison is irrelevant to me; thanks to my DarthMane branded ear plugs, I can be deaf to all the cries!

Let me put this in terms which simultaneously stop wasting everyone's time and leave no room for ambiguity - anyone who wants to compare IS to the Mongols under Temujin and Ogedei is an idiot of epic proportions; historically vapid and conceptually insipid.

 

LOL!!!

Board needs a middle finger smiley.

 

Did someone compare the legendary Mongols to those ISIL religious cranks in Iraq?

I see too much apples and oranges here.

 

Extremist Sunnis-- especially those who want another caliphate-- probably wouldn't appreciate being compared to Mongols, so have at it.

 

"Steel is just like water in that they are both made up of atoms."

 

Also have very good food, by airline standards, even in economy.

 

Yes but... both examples had scared people.

 

Actually, the American Revolutonaries most certainly used fear to win the Revolutionary War. They took a page out of the "how to battle a numerically superior force" playbook that every guerrilla group has.

The American colonists didn't have the resources, didn't have the personnel, and didn't have a large army. How did they use fear to dominate the British? It was called the Kentucky Longrifle. The American revolutionaries would snipe at selected targets within British formations, well out of range of the muskets the British carried, and generally installed a sense of "ghost warfare" and a sense that any British soldier could be killed at any time. Especially in the early part of the conflict, before the US started fielding military units on their own, this sniping would occur and the revolutionaries would blend back into the countryside. If airplanes and cluster bombs were around in the 1770's/80's, then the British would have to cluster bomb civilian homes to get at the snipers. One such unit, the Morgan's Riflemen, used this tactic to perfection. There's an excellent book written by Richard LaCrosse which explores this. (although it is more historically focused, ie...dry.)

Besides the fact that the US had brilliant small unit tacticians and leaders, and the British had quite dismal officers, it was the fear of the Longrifle that probably won the conflict. It also had the long term effect of installing America's love affair with the gun, but hey, at least it was cultivated right from the beginning.