This was an interesting read & I certainly consider your points valid, except for one thing: My fiancee is a family medicine physician in Gulf Shores. She drives an Toyota X-Terra and, most assuredly, does not file her nails in front of anyone but I.

I wonder how you feel about the intervention now.  Libya went from being one of the richer and most modern nations in the world — 59th in the Human Development Index, the highest in Africa, higher than much of Europe and higher than Brazil, Russia and many other nations–with free electricity, medical care, higher education and subsidized rents, cars, and many other features.  The intervention brought the deaths of at least 30,000 people and probably more than 50,000, with over 150,000 wounded.  It brought the total or partial destruction of most of the major cities along with ethnic cleansing and lynching of black Libyans and chaos and incessant violence, much of it against women and minorities.  It brought polygamy and Sharia law.   And, it brought back indebtedness to a nation that had one of the largest reserves in the world.

Dr. El-Kikhia’s family was part of the monarchy that ruled Libya when the vast majority of its citizens were poverty-stricken and illiterate … and was replaced by the peoples’ congresses and tribal councils that ruled Libya for four decades and lifted her from her depths.   Five million Libyans (70% of the population) are estimated to have rallied for the Jamahirya Green government in the summer to try to keep NATO  from destroying their nation–to no avail.

By the way, some people have been looking for you on Wikipedia recently, you haven’t been around for a month, and your messages are piling up.

This is in short the story of why Iraq has its present borders.  For more information, please refer to the references mentioned below.

Munaf Yassiri, P.Eng.
Alberta-Canada

Toby Dodge, the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, ” Inventing Iraq”

“The British saw the Shia religious establishment in the 1920’s as a
direct rival for power, so they fled back into the arms of the Sunni elite”
(Inventing Iraq).

Christopher Catherwood , Professor of Continuing Education, Universities
of Cambridge, England and Richmond, Virginia,

“At the insistence of Faisal, a Sunni Arab and first king of Iraq, the
British integrated the predominantly Sunni Kurds into Iraq to better balance
the Shia Muslim majority in Southern Iraq with the Sunni Arabs in the centre”
(Churchill’s  Folly: How Winston
Churchill Created Modern Iraq).

Also, the library of the American Congress says the following regarding the sectarian plan the British followed in Iraq:

“The British decision at the Cairo Conference to establish an indigenous
Iraqi army was significant. In Iraq, as in most of the developing world, the
military establishment has been the best organized institution in an otherwise
weak political system.  Thus, while Iraq
body politic crumbled under immense political and economic pressure throughout
the monarchic period, the military gained increasing power and influence.
Moreover, because the officers in the new army were by necessity Sunnis who had
served under the Ottomans, while the lower ranks were predominantly filled by
Shia tribal elements, Sunni dominance in the military was preserved
(The U.S. Library of Congress). 

Jim
McMahon Jersey
I
am agree with this view.

The magazine is online at http://www.neotropica.info

My email address is stephen.duplantier@gmail:disqus .com 

Thanks,

  Stephen