In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA

Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by eru on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @03:11AM (#11379979)

> As for ethnic conflicts, there are no good solutions. If two populations hate each others, grand speeches at the UN headquarters in NYC will not change anything. I'd be incline to think we should stay away from ethnic conflicts.

The big positive example here is how the French and German `Erbfeindschaft' seems to be over. But perhaps that was never an ethnic conflict?

Does anyone have a nice lists of resolved past ethnic conflicts? That might be instructive.

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by cmdkeen on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @06:17AM (#11380515)

Two World Wars, millions of deaths and the subjugation by conquering powers of one of participants isn't a process we really want to repeat to solve other conflict zones.

The process whereby nations are built from multiple ethnic groups, and then nationalism and international tension is replaced by international co-operation seems to me to be one that we can't say reaches a stable state. The Cold War hasn't been over for that long, the European financial crisis has revealed some pretty ugly attitudes between various European polities.

Perhaps the democratic peace thesis is right, however it is also possible that France and Germany kick off again in our lifetime.

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by cm2187 on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @03:20AM (#11380005)

Catholic vs protestants (sunni vs chia is as much religious as ethnic)

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by JupiterMoon on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @03:27AM (#11380023)

I hope that is is a past problem but it still simmers away in the background in some parts of the world.

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by jacobush on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @04:52AM (#11380277)

Catholic vs protestant troubles in Northern Ireland has a large ethnic part to it.

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by eru on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @06:06AM (#11380488)

Yes. But catholic vs protestant in eg Germany has been solved for quite some time now. (The last major war of religion there was from 1618-1638.)

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by ginko on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @06:44AM (#11380588)

    The last major war of religion there was from 1618-1638

And it was one of the most destructive in European pre-WW1 history, essentially crippling Germany's economy for centuries. (Also the Thirty Years' War lasted until 1648)

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by eru on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @10:18PM (#11386522)

The destruction of the town I grew up in during that war was only really surpassed in German history during WWII. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg

The interesting 1632 series of books is set just after the sack.

(Thanks for catching the typo.)

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Re:In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those arme... by jacobush on Tuesday April 05, 2016 @08:28AM (#11429804)

Which did not have such a large ethnic part to it, as the conflict in Ireland has.

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