The modern science of history starts with Wilhelm Dilthey, in Germany. You continue to confuse and misuse terms. Hesiod and Thucydides are credited with writing "histories." But not history by modern standards.

So history proper starts 1850? — Asif

Circa, yes.

How did they verify the history pre-1850? — Asif

. The methods of history prior are often called cut-and-paste history - you can look it up.

You think Ceasar's history of the Gauls was accurate? — Asif

Within limits, yes.

And pray tell why is american history immune to the same propoganda of russia after 1850? — Asif

I don't know what this means. If you mean are some American versions of history are stories, I agree.

Is history an American science? — Asif

I don't know what this means either. Dilthey was a German. And there were others not Americans.

You're going to have to take a look at what history is - not a simple or easy topic. And not to be confused with stories or histories-of, any more than medicine with the outcomes of some surgeries.

ok so it started just before the mongol invasion, some sunni islamic scholars starting takfiring shiites (takfiring is basically calling them infidels)
and from there it started a little, and then post mongols, came the persian invasions, the persians were shiite, and adopted some very sectarian policies, and that all went on until the ottomans took over, then post ottoman, the ressurection of sectarianism came after the fall of the monarchy in 1958, because baathist took over and some were against shiites, then you had saddam and iran come and fuck it beyond belief

@tim wood You have a bad habit of over complicating and arguments from authority.
Are you saying before 1850 and mr dilthey nowhere in the world had "scientific history"?
If mr Caesars history is accurate within limits what of Islamic jewish and Christian history?

@Augustusea By sectarian you are referring to religion or ethnicity or tribe or what? What is the current sectarianism based on in your opinion?

It would be nice if your use and understanding of language were better. I am under the impression you claimed English your first language, but your errors say otherwise.

"History" is a word. History is the name of what is now a science, the science of history. Before c. 1850 there was history of a sort, but not as a science as understood by the science of history itself. Saying that there is a science of history is to say that historians have adopted certain methods for doing history that qualify it as a science, itself understood as an orderly and systematic thinking about a determinate subject matter.

As to matters of religion, do you mean histories of religion or religious histories? This rhetorical because I have no interest in going down any of those rabbit holes.

Religious, Sunni Shia,
currently its moving towards islamist and secular

@tim wood Yes,my Language has far too much clarity and finesse for you i agree. Must seem like another language to a pedant.
The irony is your last post was convoluted,not hegelian but pretty woolly.
Theres no rabbit holes,you are just scared of your idols being blasted.
How in the world does timmy reconcile competing histories by "scientific historians"?
Oh,btw was Marx a historian?

Be good enough to educate. I am under the impression that Iraq, the country, the nation, was invented after WW1, by people far away, and absent reason, wisdom, kindness, sense, morality, fairness, honesty. In effect planting a bomb. That is, before that, Iraq itself did not exist, although the peoples and land obviously did - and do.

Never mind my biases, in a sentence or two or three, what are the bare facts?

I'm going to have to leave you in the company of your own ego, to ruminate on your own juices. Bon appetit!

the current nation in its current form was actually made in 1920 by the British and Arab revolutionaries, it was based upon secular, multicultural, and modern values,
modern iraqi with its current religious backgrounds, borders and people, started in the 900s, it was called wadi al rafidain (mesopatamia), or Iraq (its a very very old name coming from Babylonian times)

@tim wood Your quite the snowflake.
All bark and no bite.
Academic History is an Idol. Pure propoganda.
Theres a reason marxism was a dirty word for US politicians. Marx nailed the class struggle and that official history and knowledge are ideological.

the current nation in its current form was actually made in 1920 by the British and Arab revolutionaries, it was based upon secular, multicultural, and modern values,
modern iraqi with its current religious backgrounds, borders and people, started in the 900s, it was called wadi al rafidain (mesopatamia), or Iraq (its a very very old name coming from Babylonian times) — Augustusea

Via T.E. Lawrence I supposed the current nation a betrayal of and imposition on Arab interests. I infer from your post that's perhaps not accurate. It seems from that, that the current nation might have been an attempt to acknowledge an ancient reality - an intention anyway. I don't often say this, but tell me what is correct, what I should know or think, here.

Had you waited, I'd have cited a reference in hand to Marx's entitlement "to the name of a great historian." But you have no idea what that means, because you have no idea what modern history is, how it works, what it does, or what, in this context, Marx did.

@tim wood The irony and contradiction in your position is blown to smithereens by marx and you know it. Hence your ad hominem and verbal gymnastics.
And for the record,I dont have to wait for wiki quotes from you. When will you discuss on your own merits without appeals to authority.
Naughty naughty.

it wasn't a complete betrayal, since I believe we were given more special treatment then any other nation, more support and aid,
but when they put King Faisal I in power after a referendum, they didn't assign it as the arab iraqi kingdom, but they attempted to create a unique iraqi identity which still lasts to this day

If it's you in 1920, what would you do? What would be best? Suffering against the value of nationhood and a hard-earned national pride - that's tough to balance. And if not for that decision then, do you have any sense of where and what you-all would be now?

My own bias is that betrayal is betrayal, compensations notwithstanding, but there's something to be said for the observation that betrayers and betrayed are all dead, their existence a shadow behind the curtain of of intervening history. That leaves the assessment of the past through the lens of the present.

I am myself as far from the middle-east in every way as possible, well, maybe not in distance but still far. And my intuition is that you have something to say worth hearing, authoritative in a way that not very many are. So I'll listen, or rather read, if you write.

I had for a brief while an e-penpal in Jerusalem, born before 1920 and lived there her whole life. She had no patience, never mind for fools and foolishness, but she had the mark of sense in her and added both color and some added understanding of her local history to my very limited understanding. She exactly and precisely predicted the second war would be the catastrophe it was, and was harsh indeed on the people making the decisions. And so forth. I value encounters of that kind.

And, as usual, you completely ignored that if Saddam (or his sons) were still in power today they would most likely be engaged in a nuclear arms race with the Iranians, which would in turn then expand to include a number of other countries in the region. — Hippyhead

As usual, I don't ignore it.

I do agree with this, especially as this is speculation of all alternative history, surely Iraq would have a similar WMD project as North Korea especially if there wasn't the Kuwait debacle. It is doubtful after Desert Storm that WMD project would have been successful as US President would have the ability to do similar preventive strikes as president Clinton did in Desert Fox. And then the project was as non-existent as the Libyan nuclear weapons project was from the start.

I also agree the American occupation was incompetent and led to a great deal of suffering. But there are outcomes worse than that which were, so far at least, avoided by the invasion. — Hippyhead

Yet the bottom line is that Saddam's Iraq was utterly incapable of posing a threat after Desert Storm at any of it's neighbors. With the exclusion zones and the UN sanctions, there was no threat.

Iraq is a real tragedy of a nation. Worse than Argentina. I remember that in my history book from the 70's it was said that perhaps Iraq would be a country that would become part of the first World in the future.

The present history of Iraq is sad story.
.

I don't believe it is a belief in destiny or karma, I believe it is an issue of how framing can create nonsensical causal arguments. — Judaka

Neither do I, but I gather that a Philosophy Forum isn't representative of what people on average think about these issues.

the case with forum clown tim wood — Judaka

Clowns know they are playing the role of a clown. I never think of people here representing their views as clowns.

The narrative can only be created in hindsight and if we look at tim's successful "defeated people" doing well, again, the intricate details of the recovery of Japan and Germany are overlooked in favour of a narrative which will never be able to predict the success of future peoples because its nonsense but as an explanation for what happened within the simplistic framing it makes sense, it's business as usual. — Judaka

Sorry, I lost your argument. Could you put this in another way?

You could add into the examples Germany and Japan of "defeated people that rose up" Carthage, but then again, Rome finally destroyed it's rival city.

Here's an open question.
What distinguishes the "scientific" modern history of the
US,Russia and North korea?
Is the implication US history is more "scientific" and honest than Russia and North korea?
A huge amount of assumptions go into this kind of thinking.
Let's see a case for this myth of objective history. — Asif

Asif, you can spot the agenda of those who are in power.

Simple as that.

@ssu Yes. And all official history is written with an agenda regardless of the country.

Saddam's Iraq was utterly incapable of posing a threat after Desert Storm — ssu

I have this idea that he was a threat to murder the Bushes. No evidence.

Clowns know they are playing the role of a clown. I never think of people here representing their views as clowns. — ssu

I didn't put that much thought into my insult.

Sorry, I lost your argument. Could you put this in another way? — ssu

History is paraphrased for convenience, to be used in arguments or positions in a way that makes the argument or position stronger. If you're focusing on the quality of the racial group's "intellect and spirit" then we need to create a narrative that supports this. The governments of Germany and Japan went from their respective ideologies to modern Western democracy. If this transition is to be held up as a template that Iraq should follow then logically we need to talk about what exactly happened in post-war Germany and Japan and whether Iraq could economically, politically, geopolitically, culturally, geographically do something similar.

Most of these things to the average person are too complicated and useless except a few - culture, race, people. It becomes the perfect target for advocating for your cultural superiority or a developing country's cultural inferiority. The narrative is created, disparaging comments of the culture or race are justified.

I think you and I both know that comparing modern Iraq with post-war Japan is pretty ridiculous but certain similarities make these comparisons useful. I think understanding a country like modern Iraq fairly is just so unbelievably difficult that easier and more self-serving narratives are an appealing option.

I have this idea that he was a threat to murder the Bushes. No evidence. — tim wood

I've heard the same thing that there was a botched attempt to whack father Bush. Well, that might not be the reason to get into a quagmire that your vice president called a quagmire a decade before.

Yet the bottom line is that Saddam's Iraq was utterly incapable of posing a threat after Desert Storm at any of it's neighbors. With the exclusion zones and the UN sanctions, there was no threat. — ssu

That was almost 20 years ago. Even when Saddam was alive and in power Western nations were losing interest in containing Saddam, and starting to do deals with him etc. Containment was an unsustainable mechanism. Obama was determined to avoid another mid-east war, Trump wants to bring all the troops home, American voters are fed up with the whole subject etc.

Did you notice how your claim that "there was no threat" ignores the threat Saddam continued to pose to the Iraqi people? This is the moral bankruptcy of the Iraq war critics at work. So long as they can claim Bush was wrong, bad, stupid etc they don't care what happens after that.

The Iranians are riding the edge of having a bomb. And there appears to be little we can do about it. Even Obama's treaty only delayed the inevitable. So why should we assume Saddam and his sons would never have done the same?

Where we have a meeting of the minds is that I agree that the Bush administration was utterly incompetent in it's occupation of Iraq. That seems a valid criticism to me. But it's not enough to just make that valid case over and over again while ignoring all other factors.

I didn't put that much thought into my insult. — Judaka

Fair enough, judaka.

History is paraphrased for convenience, to be used in arguments or positions in a way that makes the argument or position stronger. If you're focusing on the quality of the racial group's "intellect and spirit" then we need to create a narrative that supports this. The governments of Germany and Japan went from their respective ideologies to modern Western democracy. If this transition is to be held up as a template that Iraq should follow then logically we need to talk about what exactly happened in post-war Germany and Japan and whether Iraq could economically, politically, geopoliticaly, culturally, geographically do something similar. — Judaka

Or refer to the story of Carthage.

You see, Carthage did surrender to Rome and did adapt to it's lesser role as a peaceful city and got rid of it's "imperialism" just as post-war Germany and Japan did. But unlike the US, Rome wouldn't tolerate even that and finally destroyed the city.

So the real question is if Iraq is a similar country, capable of after an invasion getting it's shit up together and transforming to a better state. Well, Iraq has had a lot of problems and after personally meeting Iraqis I do believe that Iraqis think of themselves as Iraqis, there's all the problems of the Sunni / Shia divide, the Kurds being in the north and the various tribal elements. Yet as said himself, there really is the idea of Iraq. Still, that's a lot to ask from any people.

Who said Bush 2 was reasoning or reasonable? On the other hand, if so, Sadam was the quintessential man bringing a knife to a gun fight - he just didn't know it. Arguably he should have.

c. Containment was an unsustainable mechanism. Obama was determined to avoid another mid-east war, Trump wants to bring all the troops home, American voters are fed up with the whole subject etc. — Hippyhead

The US is withdrawing from the Middle East, yes.

That is one reason why now everybody is fighting for their piece of the pie.

Did you notice how your claim that "there was no threat" ignores the threat Saddam continued to pose to the Iraqi people? — Hippyhead

Same threat posed by the North Korean dictatorship to it's people. How many have died there because of famine, I should ask.

The Iranians are riding the edge of having a bomb. And there appears to be little we can do about it. Even Obama's treaty only delayed the inevitable. So why should we assume Saddam and his sons would never have done the same? — Hippyhead

To be blunt: countries that think Israel is an enemy to them will seek to have nuclear weapons to have a miltary balance with Israel. Syria had it's own nuclear program (WMD program) and Israel dealt with it with it's Operation Outside the Box, I should remind people here. What is there to see?

Just look at Gaddafi. He tried, but his dictatorship simply wasn't able to go through with a nuclear program. Making nuclear weapons is still a thing that not every country can do. Which btw tells how unequal First World and Third World countries are.

On the other hand, if so, Sadam was the quintessential man bringing a knife to a gun fight - he just didn't know it. Arguably he should have. — tim wood

He didn't have a gun anymore.

Actually there was a great article about this in Foreign Policy. The fact was that Saddam was lying to his own people (meaning his regime) that he did have an ongoing WMD program when he didn't. it was basically for him a way to be in power. In a real tragicomedy, Saddam uphold the idea of having WMD program and the Bush administration neocons eagerly took that to be reality. Saddam Hussein, just like your typical dictator, was far more afraid of a coup attempt from within of his own state and army than an invasion of the US. In a similar fashion Ghaddafi was far more worried of his own armed forces staging a coup than the Western powers attacking him after he had made peace with the West (sort of).

A good reply. Education is a problem everywhere.

Same threat posed by the North Korean dictatorship to it's people — ssu

Yes, agreed. Psychopathic despots are a curse upon humanity. We can debate the best way to rid ourselves of them, not all options are equal for sure, but we need not apologize when we succeed in ridding the Earth of their existence.

countries that think Israel is an enemy to them will seek to have nuclear weapons to have a miltary balance with Israel. — ssu

The Gulf States have plenty of money for making nukes. They have not tried to match Israel. Because they are not afraid of Israel. Because Israel is not a psychopathic dictatorship.