RSSI am not sure where the IQ figures come from, or how accurate they are, but I have to think the low average IQ for ‘Arabs’ must be an accurate figure, judging by the way the middle eastern Islamic societies operate.
Their leaders finance terrorism and the Sunni-Shia blood conflict which has been going on for hundreds of years. They kill each other almost indiscriminately; they heedlessly destroy their near and ancient history; they loot as if they are entitled to anything they can drag away. Their leaders are so corrupt that any money or income must go through layers of bribery and corruption, end result is that there is little left to be used for actual infrastructure improvement. Their societies are either absolute monarchs or a combination of warlord and strong-man oligarchs, thus the common man or woman has no input into how government works except to take to the streets or commit assassinations. Despite the progress in the rest of the world, Arab societies today refuse to give women any reasonable place in society, though there had been some small progress in the pre-Taliban era. Even worse is their cultural acceptance and approval of pedophilia, seen in their ‘dancing boys’. The list of cultural differences between any reasonable near-modern society and Arab societies is a huge gulf which will not be spanned anytime soon.
Beware, any country allowing Arab immigration, except in very small numbers – you are accepting people who are not only culturally different, but also desire to continue to be different, *and* many of whom desire to disrupt your society through terrorism unless you A. accept their stone-age way of life, and B. make over your own society into their Islamic stone-age image.
I see no reason why the Sunni-Shia blood conflict has continued since the year 700-something, but it continues to this day. Saudis are the worst at financing and advancing Sunni-Shia conflict from the middle east to Indonesia and around the rest of the world. Until the day that those cultures, if they can be called cultures at all, get together and bind up their religious differences, and reduce their strict Wahabism to something people can live with day to day, they will all remain only a small step above stone age living, cannibalizing each other in every way possible.
Remove the oil revenue, and those countries revert to the Dark Ages. But wait – they are already living a version of the Dark Ages… with no end in sight for them.
Sure, the US had a hand in de-stabilizing the middle east, but at some point those societies have to either improve by their own efforts, or live forever with the dysfunctional culture they seem to love so much.
Hardly illuminating analysis. As for the factories and irrigation schemes, "the wreckage of which can still be seen on the outskirts of Baghdad," that surely has more to do with 140,000 tons of high explosive, courtesy George Dubya Bush, than Saddam's bad industrial planning.Replies: @Johnny Alamo
At the heart of the Shah’s downfall was ill-informed hubris and wishful thinking which led him to saw through the branch on which he was sitting.
The US played a huge role in the destruction and destabilization of Iraq. But that was a lot of years in the past.
The Sunni-Shia blood conflict has been ongoing for centuries. Until that is settled, it is a cinch Iraq or most any Arab country will never come together as a society and re-build their country.
Matter of fact, Iraq and other Arab societies are currently destroying their infrastructure more than they are rebuilding, from religious fanaticism calling for the destruction of ancient relics, to riots, rebellion, guns, bombs and corrupt politicians.
No sensible Iraqi who successfully left Iraq is interested in returning ‘home’ because in doing so they could get the killed just for being on the wrong side of the Sunni-Shia line on any given day, or killed as collateral damage from corruption, religious fanaticism, riots, rebellions, warlords, IEDs or drone strikes.
Easy to blame the victims. But unjustified. Under Saddam sectarian violence was suppressed. The US-led invasion of Iraq not only caused massive and deadly damage to infrastructure — sewage disposal, water and electrical supply — thereby causing hundreds of thousands of indirect casualties and tremendous social stress, but used saboteurs to incite violence. Civil conflict that would tear the country apart was the intended outcome. The US/UK determined to destroy Iraq because its secular government was using a trillion-dollar oil reserve to build a modern economy able to support an advance military that would threaten US/Israeli hegemony in the ME.Replies: @This Is Our Home
The Sunni-Shia blood conflict has been ongoing for centuries. Until that is settled, it is a cinch Iraq or most any Arab country will never come together as a society and re-build their country.
How old are you squirt?
The US played a huge role in the destruction and destabilization of Iraq. But that was a lot of years in the past.
So where does one go to see these ‘many cases’ in which smaller blacks are ‘whupping’ bigger whites? Is there an underground bare-knuckles economy out there somewhere? YouTube fights? Schoolyard brawls? Boxing without the weight categories? Sure, a look at American TV sports would leave one to believe, inaccurately, that blacks are better at sports through genetic heritage, but that is only looking at one small subset of all sports.
Americans see a big population of blacks playing (and excelling) in football, basketball, track and field, boxing, and often baseball.
So, yes, there are popular American TV sports with a lot of blacks playing well. But the sports where few blacks compete at a high level (compared to the percentage of blacks in the population) include almost every national, regional, and Olympic sport not related to basketball, boxing, baseball, football, or track and field. Any athlete in these ‘whiter’ sports could benefit from your supposed hereditary genetic black advantage of speed, explosive power, and rhythm.
And it is very long list, those sports where the best are not black, some of which I give you here:
Tiger-less golf, shooting sports, fencing, all the many snow and ice sports, horse racing, hockey, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, speed skating, rugby, volleyball, water polo, wrestling, archery, weightlifting, cycling, all motorsports including motorcycles, Indy League, Formula 1, Daytona, and NASCAR, and don’t forget that silly game played by boys and girls at elite Eastern schools (the one where they wear big helmets to protect themselves from the balls they send flying using a net on a stick – it’s called flying pucks, or something). And more.
Current science says all humans came out of Africa. No doubt their skins were highly pigmented black to protect them against the fierce African sun. Think about that next time you denigrate black folks, or make more of them than they are, because your many-great-grandfather’s skin was pigmented black, after all.
It is a sad fact that President Obama has been one of the worst at imprisoning whistleblowers. There is a chill on – anyone attempting to show corruption or illegal activities by the military or the government is at risk of lengthy and expensive court cases, which are likely to result in prison terms, loss of livelihood, and perhaps loss of health or early death.
This chill has an effect – people who opine on topics they feel the government might not approve of are now making their speech as anonymous as they can, within their technological expertise. People are afraid to speak their minds, because Big Brother is here, and he is very mean and very active.
If anything ruins our country it will be the chilling effect on free speech by things like the NSA, secret courts, and imprisonment of whistleblowers who are only acting in what they think is the best interest of America and have no desire to harm their own country.
Unfortunately, it might be a long time until the next information hero like Snowden or Manning makes secrets public. Ordinary people do not have the strength of will to subject themselves to the results of such whistle blowing type activities – the government is just too powerful and too willing to use that power against private individuals. The government wants to shovel acts of torture and corruption out of sight by making bogus prosecutions against those who dare to bring those unpleasant and damning facts to light of day.
It is so sad that not one national candidate sees these whistleblower prosecutions as a bad thing, as something to fight against to show Americans one way to improve America.
In the U.S we will get to choose between Hillary Clinton and apparently Donald Trump. What a choice… what a tragedy for a nation. Our so-called political leaders can’t even find two people of integrity who are able to win their party’s nomination to run for president. More than anything, that unlovely choice shows the terrible condition of the political process – only demagogues and hucksters can get the funds needed to run a national campaign, and they have to sell every little bit of their personal integrity (if there is any left) to raise those funds from the banksters, corporatists, Zionists, militarists, and Christo-fascists.
Lorettta Lynch proposes a puerile solution of love, love, love. This author plagiarizes her comment with his own much more retro solution, that being hate, hate, and more hate. Nowhere is there anything like reasoned responses, thoughtful consideration, or interactions leading to understanding. But of course, Islam is still a 13th century misapplication of a severe local tribal code, now claiming to fame as the be-all and end-all of religion, and anyone not on board with the codas of that ancient century deserves to die die die, the sooner the better, so it really is difficult to find middle ground with the likes of Shia and Sunni who, forced together in a pit, forced to choose between one or the other of the two religious versions, would likely kill each other to the last man, woman and child rather than compromise in the least.
I can't tell, is this sarcasm or accidental self-parody.
... that being hate, hate, and more hate.