mdgoonah41 wrote:

the true weapon to fight terrorism, not just ISIS, is hope. when you give people hope and make them feel like they have choices, most of them will choose a life that doesn't involve the destruction of society.

That is essentially true, but also a bit naive. People must have hope, but it's not the only thing they need to have. They need to have education, basic rights and a basic level of good life. Otherwise your assumption about what most would choose... hmm.

sure, i agree completely.

http://www.sbnation.com/2015/11/14/9735118/stade-de-france-security-stopped-suicide-bomber-france-germany-match-paris-attacks

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/11/14/paris/

jones wrote:

Meatwad wrote:

I'd rather an Egyptian situation all over the middle east than Iraq and Libya.

I somehow managed to overlook this. Do you realise that the situation in Iraq and (Eastern) Libya is only as bad as it is because of anti-democratic, Western-led intervention? Gaddafi was a dictator, but Libya had one of the highest standards of living in all of Africa, housing, education, social welfare and health services were all significantly higher than anywhere else in the region. I've been there some ten years ago and the services provided were on another level compared to my own home country. Great idea to bomb them into a civil war because of their dictator, I'm sure every Libyan out there is grateful for removing him from power.

that's exactly my point. i prefer the dictators like Gaddafi and Saddam to what we have now. the world is not better off with them dead. fuck this bombing them to freedom nonsense.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/lebanon-families-mourn-victims-beirut-bombings

There were widespread suicide attacks in Lebanon as well - ISIS have claimed responsibility for these as well.

Local media reports said that Termos threw himself at the second suicide bomber after he spotted him approaching crowds gathered outside the mosque targeted by the first bomber.

I have to mention Adel Termos who threw himself on a suicide bomber and saved several lives at the cost of his own.

When people say Islamic State is "very Islamic" (as that Atlantic article that has been posted on here before does), the term carries a theological meaning, but when people say in a global sense that "Islam is the problem" they speak demographically.

It's not fruitful to use the theological relationships between the whole world's population of Islamic believers and Islamic State to govern our understanding of populations. The "version of Islam" promulgated by Islamic State is not similar to the Islam practised by your neighbours and coworkers. 

Let's be absolutely clear, it is downright insidious, lazy thinking to draw an equivalence between the two. And it is exactly the kind of polarised thinking that Islamic State sets its hopes on. It is shit thinking, it is unscientific and unempirical thinking. And if you are an atheist, well it's exactly the kind of vague and religiose thinking that you affect to despise. 

Likewise, when speaking of "radicalisation" it's not useful to make ominous claims about the Islamic populations of western countries—saying for example that a fifth of Muslims are "already radicalised" as if innocent, law-abiding people who idly answer leading questions about the propagation of shari'a (which means something quite different to a Muslim than it does to a racially fearful westerner) are a step away from participating in a martyrdom operation.

That is contemptible. Spreading that sentiment is putting your fellow citizens in danger of idiotic and misplaced reprisals because they happen to be Muslims. It's putting Muslim refugees already in flight from Islamic State into a parlous and precarious position. 

So long as Islamic State continues to exist and control territory, it will attract supporters and "foreign fighters" from overseas. Most, as we have seen, will be extremely socially isolated or disadvantaged and disaffected boys and young men, like the Kouachi brothers, or Farhad Khalil Mohammad, or Jake Bilardi. Some of these will be sent back to attempt to carry out terrorist plots: that's a central plank of Islamic State's political strategy. 

What the attacks on Paris show is that Europe, the US and the rest of the "developed world" are unalterably connected to the violence occurring overseas, whether or not imperialism created Islamic State. (All I will say is that it's an orthodox view that the negligent withdrawal from Iraq by Coalition forces created the conditions for IS, a variant of salafist Wahhabism, to flourish.) 

This is where we need to reconsider the posture of western power (or "the developed world" or "the international community"—take your pick) towards the Middle East. We've seen a chilling demonstration that IS is not so far off that it cannot strike, that its terrorist activities are not limited to blowing up marketplaces in Beirut. There have been six or seven coordinated attacks in a European capital, none of which seem to have been registered in any way by surveillance or counter-terrorism operations.

As others have noted, the end of Saddam's Ba'athist regime had serious repercussions for which the rhetoric of "regime change" and the Bush administration's stated democratic mission did not allow. Ten years ago we did not hear from anyone that if the secular tyrant was deposed, an Islamic cult with ties to Al Qaeda would rise up in the territories liberated from rule. 

It's worth calling that to mind when thinking about the present day calls to end Bashar al-Assad's regime and to support "moderate" Syrian rebels. As was the case with Iraq, western nations are playing out many-splintered strategies in relation to Syria—strategies that encompass such questions as the extraction of oil, the continued trade in arms, and the futures of Iran and Israel. 

Reading Dabiq, it's clear that Islamic State regards secular nationalism—such as the Ba'athism of the former Iraqi regime, and Syria—to be one political strain capable of impeding its progress in the region. 

I'm not an expert on the Middle East by any means, but based on what I have read I'd predict that if Assad's regime is ended (a process that would start with the imposition of a no fly zone over Syria) then Islamic State will see an increase in its influence.  In Europe, the US and the rest of the developed world the public needs to think very hard about this possibility when asked by its leaders to support an increased bombing campaign in Syria. 

At this point people in the developed world should be focusing with real intent on tragic events in Paris, and in Beirut, and trying to work out how to stop this violence from continuing to affect their lives, and the lives of their children. We shouldn't be allowing ourselves to get caught up in a phony ideological confrontation with a half-cooked and ignorant notion of Islam, as we'll be encouraged to do by every shitty tabloid rag in the coming days.

Isis are as selective as anyone when it comes to following Islamic text. There's a load of stuff they wilfully ignore that doesn't fit with their methods (of their members' perversions) but they justify it by citing other excepts with their own brutal spin and interpretation. There's very clear guidance on how prisoners are supposed to be treated for example which is about as far away from how they treat their prisoners as you could possibly imagine.

Mirth wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/lebanon-families-mourn-victims-beirut-bombings

There were widespread suicide attacks in Lebanon as well - ISIS have claimed responsibility for these as well.

Local media reports said that Termos threw himself at the second suicide bomber after he spotted him approaching crowds gathered outside the mosque targeted by the first bomber.

I have to mention Adel Termos who threw himself on a suicide bomber and saved several lives at the cost of his own.

Shout out to the great man.

I'm fairly certain that if the media focuses on these stories than just the negative ones and fear mongering all day long(something they have in common with all the extremist organisations everywhere) it'd be a far different world. Completely different mentalities from totally opposite incentives would ensue. Names like Adel Termos should be the household ones, not Jihadi John.

A great poem from india 

Oh and yea, how fox news are trying to score over obama with this horrific event, by showing a soundbyte from a day ago when he said IS was contained in the middle east and wasn't gaining ground(which probably is true anyways)- running it every half hour or so- is beyond me. That is one fucked up place,that fox news. 

thats a very good post, burnwinter.

i spend a lot of time thinking about issues like this. i was in the beginning of my third year of college when 9/11 happened. i grew up in a very small town and for the first 18 years of my life, i didnt know much about the world outside of my town. i grew up in a fractured middle class household with an abusive father, but i made it a goal to get out of that environment and try to understand the rest of the world. i chose to go to college far from my home. i wanted new friends, new experiences, and to understand so much. i ended up getting a degree in political science, which was a mistake (it was a precursor to law school, which i did not end up attending) but i did take a few interesting classes, including a class on middle eastern politics. and though i spent 3+ months devouring texts and information about the region, i felt as helpless at the end of the class as i did at the beginning.

as a citizen of the united states, i often feel conflicted about my government and my place in society. the united states has only been around for about 240 years. we're a melting pot of ideas and people from all over the world. and we've spent a lot of time, especially in the last 100 years, intervening in the troubles and conflicts of others. in most (all?) cases, we've done this to preserve our own interests. that is normal, right? presumably most nations in the world act in a way that is self-serving. im sure everyone is familiar with the history, especially the recent history, of US intervention around the world. as i'm not terribly old, my first memories of our foreign escapades come from the first gulf war. i was 20 when 9/11 happened. i've read extensively about the USA's involvement in the afgan war in the 70s, funding the mujahideen, and essentially helping to create what became al qaeda.

the US, in my point of view, has been rather myopic when deciding when and where to intervene. in the 70s, russia was the enemy, so we propped up anyone willing to fight russia for us, not considering what those same people might do after the russians were no longer around to fight. the CIA has a long and unfortunate track record of propping up rebels in foreign countries who overthrow their government, a government that may be hostile to the US, only to see a new, more troublesome regime installed. i do think, in a lot of cases, the US does have good intentions. think about somalia in the early 90s. the UN wasn't able to manage the efforts to restore order. the US stepped up, volunteered to send troops and provide coordination, and the result was the loss of a lot of US special forces lives. but what should the US have done? what is the obligation of any nation? if you see a civil war break out in a sovereign nation, and you see leaders of one faction trying to eradicate an entire sect of the population, what is your role?

one of the common things i see is "the US should just leave the middle east"....would that solve any of the problems? would standing back and allowing the region to completely melt down be beneficial for anyone? would the fighting stop in the middle east if the US withdrew all troops and went home? these conflicts pre-date the birth of this nation by hundreds of years, if not more.

i honestly dont even know what else to say. im not an old man, and im not a child. i theoretically have another 40-50 years on this earth, maybe even more, but at this point, im wondering how i'll possibly be able to leave this earth a better place than when i arrived on it. and i wonder if the generations before me felt the same way, and if, unfortunately, the generations after me will also feel the same way. sometimes it feels like human existence is a mistake, one that cant actually be fixed.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/14/politics/paris-terror-attacks-donald-trump-guns/index.html

such a punk.

Of course it would be wrong to point at Islam and muslims* as natural suspects just because some radicals pick their desired quotes to serve their hateful and destructive agenda. 
They could easily do the same with quotes from the bible, the new testament and probably a million other innocent sources (and indeed we have seen horrible hate crimes "in the name of" christianity, judaism and others).

The source of confusion is the attempt to try to do things the old, tribal/traditional/spiritual way in a modern, civil context. Modern societies are designed according to principles
favoring individuals as the significant, or core entities, with liberal/tolerant/plural ideas as it's essentials. Humans simply cannot coexist in their varying plural ways without making room for others, without following civil, tolerant ways. The old (traditional, spiritual, whatever) ways were not aiming for any of that.  Theirs was a monistic outlook, designed to guide all people in one universally right way. This by nature excludes, rather than accommodates, anything different, plural or free.

Following traditions should surely be left as a spiritual choice for all - everyone should be free to wear traditional cloths, lead a traditional private, and even small scale societal life. That is exactly what a tolerant civil code prescribes. But that should never be on the same level - on a level that might interfere with other people's lives, on a civil level.

Talk about separation of religion from state affairs is hardly a new thing. The emerging global circumstances are just serving us new examples for why it was always a necessity.

• Muslims do, however, have a role to play in making themselves heard and distancing themselves from any hate or violence in the name of islam - there should not be a grey area left for the haters, and muslims should make it clear to both the radicals and the rest of the world that there is no issue of "world vs Islam" but only "world (including all muslims) vs terror". 

yuv wrote:

• Muslims do, however, have a role to play in making themselves heard and distancing themselves from any hate or violence in the name of islam - there should not be a grey area left for the haters, and muslims should make it clear to both the radicals and the rest of the world that there is no issue of "world vs Islam" but only "world (including all muslims) vs terror". 

I'm sorry but that's nonsense. Does every protestant have to denounce Anders Breivik for his acts Islamophobic spree in Norway in order to "stem the tide of Muslims coming into the country"? It's funny how first reports of that attack (like quite a number of others) all said that this was a Islamic terrorist attack, but right after finding out it was a white, extreme right wing protestant, the narrative died down and changed to mentally ill lone gunman goes on a massacre. The guy alone killed more than half the number of people that were killed the other night.

I mean where does it end? Do Jewish people worldwide have to denounce the constant terrorism the Israeli government commits against civillians on the gaza strip? Regardless for the reasons behind his attack does every Catholic have to denounce Timothy McVeigh and any links to terror, because he did terrorise people. Do white people have to denounce and come out in their condemnation of the KKK or the Germans and Hitler, or Africans against the Rawandan massacres. Do all parents have to distance themselves from those who beat their children? Do we all as humans have to release statements denouncing cruelty to animals when some sick bastards torture their pets?

There are small minority of evil people in the world using religion, race, gender and many other reasons to propogate their agenda. If people just watch the news and buy into whatever is fed to them then that's their prerogative. In any case it's not the job of everyone who has any passing connection to these people to denounce them. Plus if you look at news reports in the middle east you will find that almost every paper has 3, 4, 5 and up to 8 page specials covering the news all stating that they condemn these actions. You will find similar statements from the leader of the OIC as well as from the biggest muslim clerics all advising the youth not to be brainwashed by these idiots.

Thing is the world we live in is not really a good place to be. It's sad but it's life, and would have been much worse for a lot of us if we'd lived hundreds of years ago, with the things people in those ages had to go through. There will always be terrorism and evil people playing the propaganda game, the same way there has been for thousands of years. All it is doing is creating a bigger divide between people until everyone in the middle has been isolated, demoralised and frightened into going one way or the other. And this not only has to do with religion either like Hitler and his cronies and their race and facist based war, the "Americans" and the "Australians" and their war against the natives over land and the all the previous empires of the world. Similar things happen to those in prison who join one side or the other because of fear but end up believing the hype they were sold.

Who knows, in 50 years time this could all be in the past with the new flavour of the month being football extremists with all the old hooligans crews being re-established.

Burnwinter wrote:

Likewise, when speaking of "radicalisation" it's not useful to make ominous claims about the Islamic populations of western countries—saying for example that a fifth of Muslims are "already radicalised" as if innocent, law-abiding people who idly answer leading questions about the propagation of shari'a (which means something quite different to a Muslim than it does to a racially fearful westerner) are a step away from participating in a martyrdom operation.

At least 20% of Muslims (look at any poll or election in the Islamic world) can be categorized as Islamists. That is a massive problem within Islam and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Islamism is as bad as Fascism and Communism.

Islam? A problem? Nonsense, Kel, Islam is the #religionofpeace

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Burnwinter wrote:

Likewise, when speaking of "radicalisation" it's not useful to make ominous claims about the Islamic populations of western countries—saying for example that a fifth of Muslims are "already radicalised" as if innocent, law-abiding people who idly answer leading questions about the propagation of shari'a (which means something quite different to a Muslim than it does to a racially fearful westerner) are a step away from participating in a martyrdom operation.

At least 20% of Muslims (look at any poll or election in the Islamic world) can be categorized as Islamists. That is a massive problem within Islam and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Islamism is as bad as Fascism and Communism.

So there are 300m odd Muslims running around the world dreaming about (and actually) plotting an attack. Sounds legit.

Don't be so naive Loyls. They're just biding their time and waiting for their numbers to grow before they take over the world.

Loylz wrote:

Kel Varnsen wrote:

At least 20% of Muslims (look at any poll or election in the Islamic world) can be categorized as Islamists. That is a massive problem within Islam and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Islamism is as bad as Fascism and Communism.

So there are 300m odd Muslims running around the world dreaming about (and actually) plotting an attack. Sounds legit.

Boring straw man... Anyway, start here: 
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/

A photo of the aftermath at the bataclan has been leaked, NSFW: