Has a book ever changed your political ideology?

Reading Zhuangzi made me profoundly indifferent to political matters. Indifferentist? Apathist? Whatever.

Fun fact: the word 'idiot' comes from the greek ἰδιώτης, which literally means "one who is disinterested in political matters".

redpill me on this. Saddam was an asshole, but at least he kept the country somewhat stable. I cheered like everyone else when his statues got pushed over but the cure was worse than the disease. I don't know anything about Assad except that his father was utterly ruthless and that his wife is a qt

Says something about their priorities.

kek

>Saddam was an asshole, but at least he kept the country somewhat stable.
A great summary: youtube.com/watch?v=reCns0ejQbI

Also remember that the Kurds (who are our best allies now against ISIS) are the ones who Saddam literally tried to genocide, and who Turkey is bombing right now.

As for Assad, while not on the same level, he's literally (L I T E R A L L Y) dropping bombs on civilians from helicopters so that his blood-line dictatorship (inherited from his father) keeps control.

The argument against intervening in Syria is just that it will take too much of a commitment (i.e. an actual army) when Assad is deposed to keep away the Islamist forces which are Assad's cover and his excuse.

The forces of Islamic Jihad are our enemies, and Assad is (in a sort of way) against them too. It's practically the same argument for keeping Saddam in power.

What we lack in the 21st century is the commitment to war that we had in the 20th.

Our enemies are not lacking in commitment.

>Also remember that the Kurds (who are our best allies now against ISIS) are the ones who Saddam literally tried to genocide, and who Turkey is bombing right now.

so what? yeah kurds suffered, but there was no way isis could even exist in the time of saddam

americans love to destabilize the whole regions pretending that they bring good there meantime they simply pursue their political goals and leave a wake of suffering and deaths behind, not only middle east, europe too (like the sponsored by them orange revolution in ukraine, a part of those reasons which later led to a civil war which they obviously blamed on russia)

also, do you think somebody in the american government cares that assad shoots people from helicopters? it's for the sheep, a picturesque blame to put on him to support their actions. were he pro-american they would sell him better helicopters to shoot more people with, but since he is pro-russian he is a potential target to get rid to lessen the russian influence there

>so what? yeah kurds suffered, but there was no way isis could even exist in the time of saddam
Saddam's Iraq which was responsible for genocide and the attempted annexation of a UN member stated
Saddam's Iraq which paid cash rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
Saddam's Iraq which incubated such figures as Zarqawi long before Saddam fell from power.

But you're right. Just as Chomsky says: America is the bad guy.

And the people who died in Iraq? Those hundreds of thousands who died? Yep, American soldiers killed them, not Islamist Jihadis.

And don't worry, because once ISIS is defeated, Islamic Jihad will no longer be an issue. We can sleep easy because ISIS is the problem, not Islamism.

This tripfag obviously knows what he's talking about.

and who made those jihadis possible? and who made them popular? you know when your country is raped thrice in two decades people begin to hate the rapist and begin to join anything which promises them a hope for revenge

Can the people sustain more than a dictatorship, though? It seems like we're assuming modern democracy will fit onto completely different cultures/races with no justification

>Islamic terrorism is our fault
>We deserve this
Cultural suicide

Kurdistan has had peaceful, secular rule for decades on the faultline of Iraq and Syria, in part thanks to a US/EU enforced no-fly-zone (that was instated back when Saddam was in power, primarily to prevent him from gassing the Kurds again). The main obstacle to peace in the region is not evil America.

The soft racism of low expectations that tells us "it is wrong to assume these people are capable of ruling themselves" is not an excuse to allow tyranny or genocide.

The two forces that are shaping the state of affairs in the cradle of civilisation today are the forces of Islamic Jihad and the general indifference and ennui (NO WAR IN OUR NAME!) engendered in the West, by the West, since mid-afternoon of 9/11

>inb4 basic economics

Joke's on you, as the Kurds have proven themselves to be Communist retards ever since being 'saved'.