May not like hearing it, but the argument is usually a backhanded slap against (radical?) Islam.

Consider if you give a religious exception to "widespread violation of human rights" at least as we'd describe human rights, or consider ethnic cleansing and purifying the faith as a feature not a bug. You pretty quickly start running out of reasons to consider the country a failed state, so I guess a lack of checked checkboxes means it must not be a member of the group.

The backhanded part is assuming Islamic country = Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia aka failed state. Carefully ignoring Muslim majority, or at least lots of Muslims, such as, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, UAE, France, UK, Indonesia, none of which are paradise on earth but then again not anywhere near societal collapse, at least not right now.

Maybe one way to phrase it is the vast majority of currently failed states are Islamic, but that doesn't necessarily prove anything because the vast majority of Islamic states (and/or states with lots of Muslims) are not currently failed states. Carefully ignoring the previous line is how to get in a backhanded slap against Islam.

In the case of Afghanistan, even if you were a Muslim, it would be pretty self-evident that Afghanistan is fucked.

(I certainly don't consider Kuwait, UAE, Qatar Oman, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, etc. to be failed; I'd say SA, Malaysia and Bahrain have some serious problems but are otherwise fine, etc. Pakistan is dangerously close to failed, and Sudan has some serious issues; Syria is pretty clearly over the line, along with Somalia and Afghanistan.)

Islam didn't have a whole lot to do with why Yemen is or has been a failed state, despite being Islamic. The rise in Islamic violence there is pretty recent; it was mainly a cold war thing combined with a country where everyone is a drug addict (khat).

Congo - not so Islamic. Or Angola during the Cold War. I'd argue that the cold war was a much bigger factor than Islam; Islam and Islamism only became an issue due to the cold war (where Muslim Brotherhood was somewhat Soviet allied in Egypt, and US/Pakistan/ISI funded the Taliban/Muj/etc. in Afghanistan due to the cold war. Before that, we had "Arab Nationalism" which was also co-opted by socialists/communists (mainly because the initial guys were themselves socialists, so it was pretty natural; same thing happened in India until the 1990s)

"Bad leadership" seems like an important factor in countries where neither the Cold War nor Islam were big factors (Haiti seems pretty close to failed...)

As Foreign Policy measures it, it seems like being in Africa is a bigger predictor than being Islamic, actually, too.

Afghanistan was a modern state (and do research instead of simple downvote) as recently as 1960s. They had women studying at Universities, they had modern hospitals, you name it.

War radicalized the society. Put them back in stoneage. They have had wars for the past 30-40 years.

USSR death started with Afghanistan. USA death will start with it too. The place is a graveyard of Empires.

I knew it was fine from early 1900s until around 1971-1973. I guess it was ok for 30-40'years before that, not just the 1960s (which is what I thought)

I agree with you. However, the 1960s were the peak. I don't like (ideologically) that guy: Slavoj Zizek. He did however travel to Afghanistan before all the wars started. I believe as a student. He said that at that time, Afganistan was quite often portait by the press as an example of a country in which modernization and social progress that went good. I believe he mentions this in that debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAMgVFKokk

That seems to be a long discussion about polyamory and how it applies to religion (???)

and bunch of other things. Not worth watching 1 hour worth of video just to see one guy saying something.

Try this: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-politics-religion/5...

https://www.google.pl/search?q=afghanistan+in+1970+for+women...

Or just google for "Afghanistan in 1970".

The wars caused regular people to support Islam Radicals as they were the ones defending country from outside agression. Also Iran was a country where girls in 1970s wore mini skirts and had equal rights in access to education. Exactly like in the West. The revolution there changed it all.

The more we try influence them the more it is recognized as a foreign occupational forces killing your compatriots. Obviously during the war/occupation people flock to their natives even when they don't agree with them.

Example: Let's say the US was attacked by China and Ku Klux Klan would be defending the country. Taking care of the weak, running hospitals. Organizing attacks on foreign military forces.

Would you be surprised if they gained more influence? And the more foreign occupation forces would try to destroy them, the more support they would have got. Extremism grows and feeds on war.

Another example (this time a historical one, not a fictional): underground Polish army officers were involved in terrorist attacks on Berlin subway system during the WW2. German could have been calling them 'terrorists' (as they did!) all day and night long. Polish citizenry supported them anyway. That's a war. For a war you want the most crazy, delusional, brutal elements to fight it for you - not a liberal democrat concerned about sexual minority rights. I'm talking about occupation here.

Iranian history is even more complex than Afghanistan (since Iran is actually worth fighting over; Afghanistan, not so much). Even though the Shah was a pretty good ally of the US, I'm not sure whether the Qajar dynasty vs. others who came after him were better/worse. The semi-communist guy who Anglo-Iranian oil hated (and the US stupidly followed the UK on) might have been one of their better leaders of the past 200 years.

I agree the people who turn into resistance are often extremists, and if they win, can become more powerful. But there are plenty of cases where resistance fighters came from other organized groups who weren't particularly psycho to begin with; Balkans, Arabs during WW2, etc. Organization and logistics probably trumps insanity in predicting whether a group will be effective, as long as the occupier is brutal enough that everyone hates the occupier. Sure, plenty of the leaders and groups were utterly insane (Arkan's Tigers...), but I don't think it was universal on any side.

(btw, this is kind of an interesting tv show that I'd never heard of before! I'm doing some mindless paperwork right now so it's entertaining listening to a somewhat-psycho marxist making more sense than the other people at the table, oh the irony)

I agree with you. I think that if a nation lacks in organization and logistics (de facto any nation under occupation does) - terrorism makes a lot of sense as tactics. Thinking of it just as of war tactics that happens to work when confronted with organized, stronger enemy. That's how you fight such an enemy. I know, I sound controversial here, I'm not a proponent of terrorism though, just noting a fact.

Where I would be a proponent of terror is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orv1kmkiEpk

And I'm not Marxist. I'm a liberal-conservative. Yeah, Zizek is a dangerous guy, lol.

Why we loose with Radical Islam? Because we have no teeth behind our values. It's not like we're going to guillotine muslim radicals taking away women rights. It's not like we're going to guillotine bankers and politicians destroying capitalism in the name of crony capitalism with zombie banks ran on the back of tax payer. We need a liberal revolution, and I hope one will come in my lifetime.

Graveyard of Empires? The disasters of WWs I and II surely had more to do with the decline of the British Empire than anything that happened in Afghanistan.

Have you heard of William MacNaghten? Alexander Burnes? Do you remember the massacre of the British garrison from Kabul, or the awful retribution that followed?

Yes, WWII was the direct precipitating event for the breakup of the British Empire, but the seeds of its destruction were sown long ago in that great Central Asian imperial struggle with Russia.

I haven't mentioned anything about UK. I was saying USSR and the USA.

I thought it was the Pope or Reagan?