Anyone else got a real bad feeling about the ISIL bombings?

[scherzkeks]

toppstuff said:

I dont agree. While IS has been given the freedom to exist it lacked when the regions oppressors were around ( the ones we rather unwisely destroyed ) the origins of the caliphate predate any Western excursions into the region.

Islamic fascism and its quest to destroy non believers is way, way older than Bush and Blair. It goes back to when Baby Jesus was a toddler.

I don't think we should really beat ourselves up about it too much. We should have left Saddam and Gaddafi well alone, but the past is another country.

IS exists to kill you and me and impose its values everywhere it can. All we can really do is kill as many of them as we can and contain them as much as possible.

I've little time for Fox News analysis. Ideologically, that may be true for some of them, but it isn't what drives them as far as the aggression toward the West goes -- it's blow back for decades of primarily oil-driven nation-building. It really is that simple. OBL even stated this publically, and given the history, who would argue?

You can't expect to covertly and overtly attempt to expand power in pursuit of natural (and eventually human) resources without encountering resistance. And you can only get others to do some of your work for you so long as they have sufficient incentive to do so. The region has become so destabilized that I would be quite shocked, if as the OP contended, this war won't consume a generation. The chickens may have finally come home to roost.

Edited by scherzkeks on Monday 29th September 15:32

[anonymous-user]

I hate all this "we should support dictators" stuff. Blithely consigning whole populations to remain at the mercy of tyrants is easy for us, living as we do in flawed but mostly free polities. It's also a deeply pessimistic policy which supposes that people are stuck in a state that does not allow them to move forward to better government. You can rescue a society that has no or no strong tradition of liberty from tyranny, as WW2 shows, but to do that takes a vast commitment first of arms and then of reconstruction finance. No one has the will and maybe the resources for this nowadays.

[HonestIago]

Digga said:

HonestIago said:

Yes I am sure there is a Buddhist Terrorist cell decapitating people as we speak, it must just be a media cover-up preventing word getting out...

Seriously, Buddhist-on-Buddhist violence is rife, and Buddhist against other religion violence is also not unheard of.

There are protests pretty much everywhere the Dalai Lama goes: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/video/dalai-l...

Point taken, I'd still argue that Buddhism doesn't pose a threat to society in Western liberal democracies in anything like the way Islam does. Buddhists are not encouraged to be violent by their religious teachings.

[toppstuff]

Breadvan72 said:

I hate all this "we should support dictators" stuff. Blithely consigning whole populations to remain at the mercy of tyrants is easy for us, living as we do in flawed but mostly free polities. It's also a deeply pessimistic policy which supposes that people are stuck in a state that does not allow them to move forward to better government. You can rescue a society that has no or no strong tradition of liberty from tyranny, as WW2 shows, but to do that takes a vast commitment first of arms and then of reconstruction finance. No one has the will and maybe the resources for this nowadays.

Playing devils advocate, would someone living in Mosul agree with your view, or would they think back fondly to when Saddam was in power, the lights were on and there was food to eat?

[clonmult]

HonestIago said:

Digga said:

HonestIago said:

Yes I am sure there is a Buddhist Terrorist cell decapitating people as we speak, it must just be a media cover-up preventing word getting out...

Seriously, Buddhist-on-Buddhist violence is rife, and Buddhist against other religion violence is also not unheard of.

There are protests pretty much everywhere the Dalai Lama goes: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/video/dalai-l...

Point taken, I'd still argue that Buddhism doesn't pose a threat to society in Western liberal democracies in anything like the way Islam does. Buddhists are not encouraged to be violent by their religious teachings.

Muslims aren't encouraged to be violent by their religious teachings.

ISIL are extremists. Extremists - of any religion - are not representative of their alleged belief system. The sooner you realise that, the better. The view that you hold that seems to believe that ISIL are representative of muslims is like something taken from Fox News.

[anonymous-user]

toppstuff said:

Breadvan72 said:

I hate all this "we should support dictators" stuff. Blithely consigning whole populations to remain at the mercy of tyrants is easy for us, living as we do in flawed but mostly free polities. It's also a deeply pessimistic policy which supposes that people are stuck in a state that does not allow them to move forward to better government. You can rescue a society that has no or no strong tradition of liberty from tyranny, as WW2 shows, but to do that takes a vast commitment first of arms and then of reconstruction finance. No one has the will and maybe the resources for this nowadays.

Playing devils advocate, would someone living in Mosul agree with your view, or would they think back fondly to when Saddam was in power, the lights were on and there was food to eat?

Things were grim under Saddam and we should not underestimate the extent to which people want to be free. Anecdotal evidence suggests that people in Iraq are not yearning for the return of the good old days of Saddam. That doesn't mean that they like the current situation any more.

[HonestIago]

clonmult said:

Muslims aren't encouraged to be violent by their religious teachings.

ISIL are extremists. Extremists - of any religion - are not representative of their alleged belief system. The sooner you realise that, the better. The view that you hold that seems to believe that ISIL are representative of muslims is like something taken from Fox News.

Yes they are.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violen...

Or is that all made up?

[toppstuff]

clonmult said:

Muslims aren't encouraged to be violent by their religious teachings.

ISIL are extremists. Extremists - of any religion - are not representative of their alleged belief system. The sooner you realise that, the better. The view that you hold that seems to believe that ISIL are representative of muslims is like something taken from Fox News.

I think that is an oversimplification.

Christianity has its fire and brimstone stuff - Leviticus for example - but generally speaking, Christians have evolved to take an allegorical view of the book.

In contrast, there is an active and violent minority who use the teachings of the Koran as justification for murder, rape and mutilation. And there are many of them.

Fox News just doesn't come into it.

[Bill]

toppstuff said:

Islamic fascism and its quest to destroy non believers is way, way older than Bush and Blair. It goes back to when Baby Jesus was a toddler.

Er...

[Bill]

HonestIago said:

I feel a little sorry for non-Muslims here who desperately defend Islam...just as they've been brainwashed to do by the political establishment, Common-Purpose and the MSM. The sad thing is that they genuinely feel they are in the right and that anyone opposed to Islamification is a bigot/racist/xenophobe etc. They have no concept of how unbearable their existence would become were they to live in a Muslim-dominant country. Nor the existence of their gay/lesbian/female friends...

No one is defending Islam, but plenty aren't falling for the hate-filled rhetoric. Which is, ironically, just like most Muslims.

[Zod]

Breadvan72 said:

I hate all this "we should support dictators" stuff. Blithely consigning whole populations to remain at the mercy of tyrants is easy for us, living as we do in flawed but mostly free polities. It's also a deeply pessimistic policy which supposes that people are stuck in a state that does not allow them to move forward to better government. You can rescue a society that has no or no strong tradition of liberty from tyranny, as WW2 shows, but to do that takes a vast commitment first of arms and then of reconstruction finance. No one has the will and maybe the resources for this nowadays.

I agree. There's a sort of race-based judgement inherent in this view: democracy is not right for these people or perhaps they are just not ready for it.

[anonymous-user]

It's a paternalistic and condescending view, I think. Some appear to think that political culture is somehow innate to certain ethnic groups. Others accept that political culture is situational, but still take what may be too pessimistic a view of the possibility of change.

[KareemK]

Zod said:

I agree. There's a sort of race-based judgement inherent in this view: democracy is not right for these people or perhaps they are just not ready for it.

Or maybe they just don't want it.

[Bill]

They also ignore the possibility that the backlash could be a reaction to the oppression they seem to think is necessary.

[Mojocvh]

REALIST123 said:

I fear that you may be right. But is there a real alternative? They can't be left to carry on as they wish and .

Yes they can. Let them build their caliphate . Let them become centralised. Then, turn them to dust.

[Octoposse]

Mojocvh said:

REALIST123 said:

I fear that you may be right. But is there a real alternative? They can't be left to carry on as they wish and .

Yes they can. Let them build their caliphate . Let them become centralised. Then, turn them to dust.

Also we are leaving them 'to carry on as they wish' pretty much - we're just going to occassionally blow something up. Anything past that it's up to the Iraqi Army. Bum. And the Syrians . . .

There will come a point when IS may very well have all the charcteristics of a State, and then we should consider talking to them. Accomodation may be possible, who knows? That will allow the establishment of boundaries (in every sense of the word) - if IS oversteps them, then there's a casus belli.

Fair to say the Caliphate is likely to be a sthole . . . although there will be a percentage in our society who either won't recognise it as such, or blame us for it being a sthole . .

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

toppstuff said:

Islamic fascism and its quest to destroy non believers is way, way older than Bush and Blair. It goes back to when Baby Jesus was a toddler.

How do you work that out, given that Islam postdates Christianity by over 500 years?

[anonymous-user]

KareemK said:

Zod said:

I agree. There's a sort of race-based judgement inherent in this view: democracy is not right for these people or perhaps they are just not ready for it.

Or maybe they just don't want it.

The Arab Spring suggests otherwise.

[toppstuff]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

toppstuff said:

Islamic fascism and its quest to destroy non believers is way, way older than Bush and Blair. It goes back to when Baby Jesus was a toddler.

How do you work that out, given that Islam postdates Christianity by over 500 years?

Fair point. Well made. Doesn't neutralise the argument though - lets just say that people of Islamic faith have been pretty violent toward each other long before Tony Blair or even TE Lawrence discovered the place. It seems to me that they are merely reverting back to type now they are released from their oppressive rulers.

Ironically, it seems that one oppressive force ( Saddam, Gaddafi et al ) has simply been replaced by another oppressor - Islamist fundamentalist doctrine. The sad thing is that islamists don't seem to realise they have merely replaced one culture of oppression with another.

[davepoth]

Breadvan72 said:

KareemK said:

Zod said:

I agree. There's a sort of race-based judgement inherent in this view: democracy is not right for these people or perhaps they are just not ready for it.

Or maybe they just don't want it.

The Arab Spring suggests otherwise.

Does it though? It hasn't resulted in what we might consider a "proper" democracy in any country yet.