KURD is the word - and the word is KURD

by Terry 65 Replies latest jw friends

  • Terry
    Terry
  • eyeuse2badub
    eyeuse2badub

    "If you don't follow (read) the news, you will be uninformed. If you follow (read) the news, you will mis-informed."

    Mark Twain (sort of loosely quoted)

    just saying!

  • Terry
    Terry



    Let's take being a JW as an example.

    On the outside the Org looks to be one way, on the inside it is another.
    Once you are IN ... the mindset is self-confirming and rules out EVERY other source of information.
    Then too, you are taught how to REFUTE even good sounding arguments and absolutely to avoid EX-Jdubs. (We know why).

    (I keep that in mind when I'm warned away from certain commentators.
    I see for myself and make up my own mind (often requiring research).

    If you leave the Org you can become so upset and biased it becomes impossible to see any aspect of the fellowship as having value at any time. Or, you might remain friendly, kind, and reasonable in your attempts at dialogue.
    ______
    Lists of MEDIA include:
    the frivolous, the liars, the clueless
    as well as:
    genuine fact finding.
    So many YouTube channels peddle POV analysis. And many, if not most, are simply crap.
    There ARE good ones. Ya gotta search.

    I prefer Documentaries when I can find them and books by "been there/done that" authors.


  • cofty
    cofty
    I prefer Documentaries when I can find them and books by "been there/done that" authors - Terry

    What books is that Terry? Videos featuring Glenn Greenwald don't count as research. This thread - your OP in particular - are full of misinformation that is nothing short of gaslighting. Your sympathy with Assad and Erdogan and your lack of concern for the Kurdish people is sickening.

    Here, in no particular order, are the books I have read (some of them more than once) in the last two years on Middle East history.

    • A History of the Modern Middle East - Wm/ Clevland & Martin Bunton
    • The Iraq War - John Keegan
    • Iraq; The Cost of War - Jeremy Greenstock
    • ISIS; The Stare of Terror - Jessica Stern & J.M. Berger
    • The Battle for Syria; International Rivalry in the New Middle East - Christopher Phillips
    • The Looming Tower; Al Qaeda's Road to 9/11 - Lawrence Wright
    • The Great War for Civilisation; The Conquest of the Middle East - Robert Fisk
    • The Arab Uprisings - Jeremy Bowen
    • The New Middle East; The World After the Arab Spring - Paul Danahar
    • A Line in the Sand; Britain France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East - James Barr
    • The Palestine - Israeli Conflict - Dan Cohen-Sherbok & Dawoud El-Alami
    • Cursed Victory; A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories - Ahron Bregman
    • Revolutionary Iran - Michael Axworthy

    All of these are here on my bookcase and represent countless hours of recent research on this issue from outstanding sources. If you doubt my word I would be happy to post a pic of this collection of books.

    You have taken the obvious fact that the West meddles in the Middle East and spun a complete fabrication based on a few minutes or hours of Google clicks. As you may guess I feel passionately about this.

    Diog - you can apologise any time.

  • Terry
    Terry

    Cofty: "This thread - your OP in particular - are full of misinformation that is nothing short of gas lighting"
    ______
    gas-lighting (verb) :     manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.
    ______
    Terry: If you feel psychologically manipulated to the point you are questioning your own sanity -- I can only shake my head astonished I could cause you so much pain and suffering.
    It is not my intention to hurt you.

    However, may I bring to your attention my perception?

    Your tone and rhetoric are unnecessarily provocative, Cofty.

    No need to get personal. If you disagree the world still spins.
    If I were allowed to prescribe pills, I'd give you a scrip for "chill" pills.
    ___
    cofty: "    Your sympathy with Assad and Erdogan and your lack of concern for the Kurdish people is sickening."
    _____
    Terry: So, now I've made you 1. Question your own sanity 2. Manipulated you psychologically and 3. Sickened you.
    Gosh.
    I don't assume you are paranoid and thin-skinned just because your language brims over with indicators of your assigning malevolent animus to me --and over what? My opinions based on my reading?
    Your stack of books is BIGGER than mine. You win? Okay, if that is therapeutic for you.
    _____
    EXAMPLES of DISAGREEMENT below
    _____
    Cofty: "    Kurds have no oil Terry - they do not have a square yard of earth to call their own."
    Terry: Source The New York Times Oct. 8, 2018 :
    Quote from above:
    "    What makes Kurdistan — and Kurdish oil — so important?Kurdistan is crucial because of its vital location — straddling Iran, Syria, Turkey and Iraq. Ever since the Kurds were denied their own state after World War I, they have been focused on a search for self-determination. The Kurds’ key leverage is oil: Kurdistan has roughly one-third of Iraq’s total oil reserves, much of it located under the sands near the city of Kirkuk, which was once a stronghold of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria."

    Cofty: "Kurdistan is a region not a state. The oil belongs to Iraq."
    ______
    Terry: The NYTimes quote says "Kurdish Oil" and says it is what makes the Kurds important. "The Kurds' key leverage is oil."
    ______
    Cofty: "    There are so many fanciful assertions in this thread. Typical, myopic, self-loathing rhetoric."
    _______
    Terry: Why do you have get so personal so quickly, Cofty?
    It is unfriendly and non-productive, imho.
    _______
    Cofty: "    your assertion that the Syrian conflict was not triggered by Assad's violent reaction to popular protest against his oppressive rule is the most outrageously biased and wrong-headed statement in this entire thread.

    It is straight out of Putin's playbook and the sort of gas-lighting spewed daily by RT.

    You are more guilty of subjective and manipulated opinions than your readers."
    _____

    Cofty, Community Guidelines on this discussion group indicate its purpose is friendly discussion. That's really important.

    Be nice

    We're a global community of people from many different cultures and backgrounds. Not everyone is going to share the same beliefs or opinions but everyone has the right to feel comfortable using and visiting the site.

    So please be polite and respectful in your interactions with other members. This includes the moderators who work hard to keep things on track.

  • cofty
    cofty
    Your stack of books is BIGGER than mine. You win? Okay, if that is therapeutic for you

    Actually the disagreement is between a stack of books by academics and a video by Glenn Greenwald.

    You are citing the NYT out of context. The oil is in a semi-autonomous region of Iraq. It is ultimately controlled by Barham Sali's government of Iraq. The Kurds have no independence and no state but are now faced with more persecution and possible ethnic cleansing from Turkey.

    Your claims about Syria and your victim-blaming are appalling. But you would rather lecture me about tone.

  • Terry
    Terry

    COFTY:
    “...the disagreement is between a stack of books by academics and a video by Glenn Greenwald.”
    _______
    TERRY:
    Have I somehow missed a citation from you and your academics? I don't see any quotations - only Cofty assertions.

    What has Greenwald said with which you vicariously disagree?

    You can’t rob a liquor store by showing a pistol with no bullets unless the proprietor succumbs to mere intimidation :)

    Did you miss my non-Greenwald citations somehow?

    Tim Anderson (The Dirty War on Syria) April 2016
     Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, (Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria) March 1, 2016
    The New York Times (Oct. 8, 2018)
    James F. Tracy (Global Research) Jan 30, 2018
    Steve Kangas (A Timeline of CIA Atrocities) Feb 3, 2019
    James Joyner (James Clapper not charged with lying to Congress) Mar 13, 2018
    Media Benjamin (The Guardian)

    ______

    So far, I've seen a listing of your book collection and no quotation from these books.

    This isn't rebuttal from you - is it? Rebuttal requires actual effort rather than mere remonstrance.



  • cofty
    cofty

    I would no more invest time and effort debating with somebody who sides with the moral monsters Assad and Erdogan against a persecuted minority facing ethnic cleansing - and sheds doubt on the perpetrator of 9/11 - than I would debate a Holocaust denier.

  • Terry
    Terry

    Watchtower tactic alert.
    Label the "mentally diseased apostate" and shun them.

    No facts offered. No actual exchange of ideas. Only caustic opinions and posturing name-calling.

    social media troll is someone who purposely says something controversial in order to get a rise out of other users.

    Let me quote a person you MUST AGREE with: his name is Cofty
    ________

    cofty2 years ago

    So many examples recently of posters who imagine their subjective opinions have as much validity as objective facts.

    Laziness and arrogance.

  • cofty
    cofty

    Here is the thing Terry. You have been clicking around the internet and fallen for the bullshit that the Kurds have only got themselves to blame, Assad is not a moral monster and Erdogan is only protecting his country from terrorists. You slyly cast doubt on the source of 9/11 and assert that the biggest problem with the Middle East is western meddling.

    By contrast I have spent the last few years researching ME history written by people whose whole professional lives have been invested in the region. As a result I think I have achieved a bit of breadth and depth of understanding of how we got where we are today.

    Your narrative is so egregiously wrong that I have no ideas where to begin. It literally would be like trying to convince a conspiracy theorist that the earth is not flat and NASA isn't hiding the truth. I would need to invest huge amounts of time and effort, and for what? Your random style of prose makes it even more difficult than usual to converse.

    You have called a troll and Diog dismissed me as 'historically ignorant'.

    I don't care enough to argue it.

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