Think of France

These are the sorts of deaths crass people refer to as being a good thing.

Come on, get real.

Libya hasn't been bombed for 4 years and its utter chaos and infighting. They are left alone to make the govt. they want, and what they want seem to be sectarian fighting.

Yemen was never bombed and is falling into chaos on its own accord, like Syria did. According to the "all bad comes from the west"-theory Yemen should be more peaceful than Schwitzerland. :)

Syria was in civil was for 3 years before any western countries meddled.

Yemen has been slowly falling apart for a couple of decades. Violent nutcases have been there for ages. The USS Cole attack was off Yemen.

Lack of competent government provides opportunities for insurgency. One of the ways this arises is by being destroyed by possibly well-meaning foreign powers. It is not the only way.

Note the Syrian situation arose without airstrikes against the government by the US or the UK (or other powers), because of a democratic veto in both countries.

It's the MAIN way. Foreign influence destabilising a country has only happened once in the ME, in Iraq.

If you even WANT to call Iraq stable under Saddan Hussein. With him starting three agressive wars plus the internal insergents attacked by gas it doesn't really rank high on any normal stability scale. Normally we don't call countries where the govt. is killing entire villages of civilians with poison gas "stable".

All the others fell apart all by themselves - Libya, Syria, Yemen, almost Egypt, but was converted to dictatorship in the last moment.

Yeah. And if any Western country ever gets involved, people are just gonna forget about the two decades of decline and go talking about how the west destabilized a wonderful peaceful country lol.

Frankly I never understood why so many people have a problem with oil playing a big part in foreign policy. It's a very naive and Disney-kind of way of thinking.

Off course countries are going to prioritize to keep their economies afloat and getting the raw materials needed for it. Everyone has always done that since the ol' Pharaos were at it, building their pyramids and shit. 

It's weird so many people suddenly got collective amnesia and forgot about that.

You concede then, that Western policy in the region is purely about self-interest and is nakedly imperialist in nature? It has nothing to do with 'defeating terrorism' or promoting 'democracy'?

Gassing Kurds was truly evil: the insurgency was worse (and is now worse again). To put it simply, very many more people have died violent deaths every year since the toppling of Saddam (a dictator who I despise): that's the inconvenient reality.

But you have a point about invasions. This was the reason for the first Gulf War, and the reaction was the reason that Saddam invaded no countries since that time. In the previous conflict with Iran, Saddam was the aggressor and the West sided with him against Iran. Good decision?

In hindsight it seems to me that foreign policy decisions would be made equally well by tossing a coin.

lol it's like arguing with a conspiracy theorist.

1: Libya descended in civil war all by itself.

The west decided to intervene on behalf of the rebels, bombing Ghadaffi out of comission and then retreated, leaving the Libyan rebels to form their own govt. Which they then out of their own accord failed to do.

2. Syria wasnt destabilized by things coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan, this is simply made up and you can just look up how it started. ISIS entered from Iraq at a point where the war had been going for a while. 

3. As for Yemen, you just gloss over the "been destabilizing for decades bit" and for no reason whatsoever put the beginning of the destabilization in March 2015. Like I said people would lol.

4. The idea that Bush "war on terror" started all this is just unbased and made up conspiracy stuff.

You are simply glossing over with no comment to all the mayhem that was there long before Bush even became president. There were uprisings both in Syria in the 1980ies and Algeria in the 1990ies and so on. Many many uprisings, cant be bother to list them all. The "Its all the fault of the West people" just dont know about it so you just delete it from your evaluations and pretend it never happened. And you will never look it up, because you only care to look up what th west does.

But it still happened, you cant make it "unhappen" just by ignoring it lol.

This region has been unstable since the Roman empire or so and the west didnt make it so.

The thing is

- when the West DONT intervene you say its the fault of the west, because doing nothing. Libya is just so much our fault because Cameron hasn't been there for 4 years.

- if the west DO intervene, its also our fault, because then every single violent episode that happens in the country the next 50 years is all due the the western intervention lol.

You just want to get that "all is west's fault" and then make up your evaluations and bend your own rules as you go long so you can get to this conclusion.

There was a reason for going in but it had nothing to do with the fact that Saddam was a nasty piece of work. In fact by comparison to the rest of the region, Saddam was relatively benign.

The most powerful economy in the world is that of the US and it's entirely dependant on imported oil. 

Hence the policy. It was, and still is, about oil and power, the US must maintain control over the region.

Well it's hardly an exact science. 

I guess many people think the politicians should know everything, they just dont. Some sort of parent complex i guess? I think many people see politicians as children see their parents, imagining they know everything, can predict everything and always know the right thing to do. They just dont, its impossible.

Pray to jesus assholes

1: Libya descended in civil war all by itself.

The west decided to intervene on behalf of the rebels, bombing Ghadaffi out of comission and then retreated, leaving the Libyan rebels to form their own govt. Which they then out of their own accord failed to do.

The resistance to Gaddafi was adamant that they didn't want any intervention by the West and they insisted on this repeatedly before the bombing started. I guess you must have missed that at the time.

2. Syria wasnt destabilized by things coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan, this is simply made up and you can just look up how it started. ISIS entered from Iraq at a point where the war had been going for a while. 

This is not true. Syrian unrest began in the context of Arab Spring, which was, certainly in part, a response to Western military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also worth noting that ISIS rose from the devastation in Iraq

3. As for Yemen, you just gloss over the "been destabilizing for decades bit" and for no reason whatsoever put the beginning of the destabilization in March 2015. Like I said people would lol.

Your grasp of history is poor. The entire region has indeed seen discontent bubbling away for decades, this is very largely a result of the Western powers' persistent and long-standing policy of propping up vicious dictatorships and tinpot monarchies, for purely self-serving purposes.

4. The idea that Bush "war on terror" started all this is just unbased and made up conspiracy stuff.

Nobody has ever said "George Bush did it". What Bush did do was launch the 'War on Terror' in 2001. During the period since the entire region has been destabilised and much of it is now in flames. 

You are simply glossing over with no comment to all the mayhem that was there long before Bush even became president. There were uprisings both in Syria in the 1980ies and Algeria in the 1990ies and so on. Many many uprisings, cant be bother to list them all. The "Its all the fault of the West people" just dont know about it so you just delete it from your evaluations and pretend it never happened. And you will never look it up, because you only care to look up what th west does.

This is essentially point 3, repeated. See my reply above.

But it still happened, you cant make it "unhappen" just by ignoring it lol.

This region has been unstable since the Roman empire or so and the west didnt make it so.

This is not true. The region has been mostly stable since Roman times.

The thing is

- when the West DONT intervene you say its the fault of the west, because doing nothing. Libya is just so much our fault because Cameron hasn't been there for 4 years.

The west did intervene in Libya. Libya is in flames.

- if the west DO intervene, its also our fault, because then every single violent episode that happens in the country the next 50 years is all due the the western intervention lol.

You just want to get that "all is west's fault" and then make up your evaluations and bend your own rules as you go long so you can get to this conclusion.

Please stop saying "lol", it doesn't enhance your argument. The West has been maintaining a strong political grip on the region for a long time, this control is now becoming more and more difficult to maintain, and this is especially true since the so-called Arab Spring uprisings. This is the context that we all need to keep at the front of our minds. It's got nothing to do with "bending rules".

Its too messy for me with this parceled up commentary so cant comment on each and every thing.

The Arab spring didnt happen because of western interventionism, look it up.

It's funny, because at the time the "it's all the fault of the west" people intitially LOVED the Arab spring, oh it was so wonderful and hopeful, now they would get democracy everywhere and all, all journalists were camping on Tahrir square in Cairo, reporting how wonderful and non-western everything was.

And then when it goes wrong, suddenly everyone forgets what actually happened, and because it went wrong, it obviously somehow has to be the fault of the West :)

Every leftwing person that applauded it while it happend has mysteriously "forgotten" what they thought about it at the time. No self-criticism of making such a totally flawed analysis, again, just gloss over and continue with faulty ideas, "never change ideas no matter how much reaity contradicts them".

Arab Spring started in Tunisia (no interventios there!) and then spread, its fuel was the youths lack of job opportunities and general economic lethargy.

V. important reason I think is population explosion. Much to many young people for much to few jobs. That population explosion would end up with unrest and blood had also been predicted for many decades. 

As for Libya, it's a perfect example of you bending the rules.

You start out with claiming all is peace and good until the west intervenes.

When pressed, you have to admit the civil was was there before the west intervened.

But then instead of going "oh well, i guess they started this war themselves, I was wrong about this one, the west didnt start it", you bend the rules.

Now somehow its important that some rebels didnt want the interventon. Your (wrong) position that Libya was peace before Western intervention, you just abandon it without comment.

And move on to another factor that suddenly is very important - so why you didnt mention it at the very beginning? Reason is, at the time you hoped to get away with the idea "was peace untill west came" and when you see that doesnt work, you just declare that other random things are the most important causal factors to save your "all fault is western" idea.

It would have been mayhem with or without the west - Syria is a parallel development with very late western intervention.

To me seems it doesnt make much difference if we intervene or not for the general state of the country. What we can do is try to take out the fractions that want to make terroism in the west. 

Please stop putting words into my mouth. I have never claimed that Libya was all 'peace and good' prior to intervention by the west. 

Much of your last comment is pure fabrication. There is a serious dicussion to be had here. I have no idea why you're so determined to misrepresent what I say, but I wish you'd cut it out. If you can't do this I'll have little option but to disregard you completely.

@Ghostliner: I've been following your comments in this thread and I just wanted to say, good job!:)

Of course the U.S. has created most of the problems in that region for over half a century now: Overthrowing democratically elected governments and supporting dictators. The Mujahadeen was created armed and funded by the U.S., which of course became al-qaeda. Saving people's lives and fighting against oppression is not the true intentions of western intervention in that region. The U.S. government couldn't care less about those "useful ideals". Those ideals are just the cover story. Which is why terrorist groups are supported by the U.S. The U.S. supports the al-Nusra front, Jundullah, al-qaeda, and daesh. Chaos and terror is U.S. foreign policy in that region, like the gangsters who destroys a shop one night and the same gangsters go to the shop the next day telling the shop-owner that they will protect them from the gangsters. 

Of course, people who are informed by propaganda will just say "conspiracy theory" as if it's a pejorative term, even though those same people are capable of having very good reasoning skills in other areas of life. Faith in their governments good intentions allows for such blindness, I'm sure:)

Ghostliner and tryst

I f we follow your line that most of the problem in the ME is the fault of the West and we should intervene no more, there is a natural follow up to that.

We withdraw everything, including medical, charitable, and financial aid. We close our borders completely to that region, so that when the ISIS thugs gain control we have a chance of stopping them bringing their bombs to our shores. We take no refugees fleeing the worsening civil war that will inevitably occur. Let the Middle Eastern countries take care of it.

How do you suggest we stem the flow of refugees from the region? Shoot at the boats, or simply round them up from the beaches of Greece and ship them back to the nearest ME coastline and dump them ?

It is a pejorative term these days, generally used to refer to explanations involving highly implausible conspiracies rather than merely conspiracies. The term "conspiracy" on its own is common in law and in sober reporting and has no such connotation.