Mark Small

& yet sometimes the simple answer is not the entire answer. United States policy in the Middle East since 1946 was part of a mindset. Our clandestine ops there did not help. How does one explain wahabi adherents w/Saudi royal family?

The US has been engaged in a campaign for decades to keep the middle east splintered, to keep them from uniting under one leader and becoming a nation that is not only the richest in the world, but needs few others for raw materials. Which country (and it's leaders) do you

think would be in the best position to benefit from it if that did happen?

I don't know. otoh I believe our incoherent policies that rely on violence are morally wrong and, as to U.S. interests as well as peace, counter-productive. Policies based on killings by drones w/90% rate of hitting innocents is big part of why ppl hate the U.S.

*snciker* Man, many of those places hated what the US was doing before the first drone (anywhere) flew.

I know. But we carried out clandestine ops, funded one country against an other or, the great way this country has sometimes, helped out both sides against ea other. Iran-Iraq '80-'88 is an example. Oil prices plummeted. Drones started up w/Bush II.

The US has been supplying arms to both sides in pretty much every conflict ever, for the simple reason that they can and make money off it. In some cases they do it through 6 or 7 layers, but that is the source for most... with a second close being russia.

I will point out that this is a 'sketchy' area though... US companies have been doing it... Have they always done it with the co-operation of the government? That part is really hard to know. In a lot of cases though, we know it was/is.