Author Topic: Islamism  (Read 196450 times)

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Islamism
« on: October 9, 2013, 11:29:36 am »
What's the biggest threat to world peace today? Obviously it's the extremist and reactionary ideology called Islamism. The ideology has several manifestations, Shia as well as Sunni, but these share one fatal characteristic. Its proponents are so convincecd of their own virtue and so full of hatred towards heretics (most other people in the world) that they feel entitled to attack them with machine guns, grenades, IEDs, machetes and incendiary weapons. They turn their wrath on westerners, Jews, liberals, socialists, Christians and people who 'offend' them. But most of their victims are actually Muslims. These include Muslims of the wrong sect, Muslims who don't pray hard enough, Muslims who are gay, apostates, children who go to the 'wrong' schools and - of course - women. Their hatred of women is vicious and apparently boundless.

There's a school of thought (although both 'school' and 'thought' are both misnomers) which blames the rise of Islamism exclusively on the west, and particularly the United States. When Islamist atrocities occur on the streets of London or Paris or Madrid or New York they reach for the word 'blow-back' or talk of 'chickens coming home to roost' and such rot. You see it in the 'Guardian' newspaper all the time. The masochistic line is basically 'They attack us because we forced them to'. There are others who take a broader view of why these violent jihadist groups have grown and notice its indigenous roots - tribal, ethnic, ideological, theological - in the Middle East and North Africa. George Packer's 'New Yorker' column is good this week.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/10/islamist-violence-and-a-war-of-ideas.html?utm_source=www&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=20131008

OCTOBER 8, 2013
ISLAMIST VIOLENCE AND A WAR OF IDEAS
POSTED BY GEORGE PACKER

In case you haven’t kept up, below is a very partial box score of global Islamist violence during the month of September:

Kenya: Militants of the Somali jihadist group Al Shabaab attack the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, slaughtering visitors with grenades and machine guns, separating out some Muslims from non-Muslims, in a killing spree that ends three days later with an assault by the Kenyan military. Death toll: at least sixty men, women, and children, along with several soldiers and militants.

Somalia: Al Shabaab car and suicide bombers blow up the restaurant the Village in Mogadishu for the third time. Death toll: fifteen patrons and staff.

Pakistan: Suicide bombers detonate themselves outside a Protestant church in Peshawar. Death toll: eighty-five.

A remote-control bomb explodes on a bus carrying government employees near Peshawar. Death toll: nineteen.

A remote-control bomb explodes in an old, crowded marketplace in Peshawar. Death toll: thirty-seven.

Nigeria: Militants of the extremist group Boko Haram attack an agricultural college. Death toll: forty young male students, most of whom were sleeping when they were killed.

Iraq: Car bombings, suicide bombings, revenge killings, and assassinations reach levels not seen for at least five years. Death toll: nine hundred and seventy-nine. Wounded toll: twenty-one hundred and thirty-three, most as the result of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.

Syria: Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels tighten their grip across northern Syria, intimidating local residents with public floggings and executions.

Yemen: Militants from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula stage attacks on soldiers and police in southern Yemen. Death toll: at least thirty.

Afghanistan: Sushmita Banerjee, the Indian wife of an Afghan man, who converted from Hinduism to Islam and wrote a memoir about life under the Taliban which was later made into a Bollywood movie, is abducted from her home in Paktika Province, taken to a Taliban safe house, and shot twenty-five times. Two suspects are arrested and claim that they killed her because she had written about the Taliban, and because she had installed an Internet connection in her house.

Zanzibar: Attackers throw acid in the face of a Catholic priest as he leaves an Internet café, one month after two young British women were assaulted in the same way.

It was a very bad month. But the worst thing about September’s violence is how much of it was easy to ignore. The Westgate drama in Nairobi seized the world’s attention for a few days because it involved a glitzy landmark, a prolonged siege, and plenty of non-Kenyan victims. And yet scores, or hundreds, of people—shoppers, shopkeepers, worshippers, government workers, college students, housewives, children, most of them Muslims, none of them guilty of anything more than having been born in the wrong country—are being murdered every day, blown to pieces, burned alive, shot to death, beheaded, in the name of an extremely violent strain of Islam.

All this killing is taking place at a time when America is getting out of the Muslim world. There have been no troops in Iraq for almost two years. The U.S. military is drawing down in Afghanistan, and by this time next year there might be no American combat troops there, either, for the first time since 2001. The Syrian civil war has become a stage for foreign fighters from many countries, as America keeps its distance. Egypt’s political crisis is homegrown, with the White House just trying to keep up with events. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a central concern of U.S. foreign policy and a source of grievances for Muslims (and others) around the world, but anyone who imagines that a resolution in the Middle East—or an end to drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, or the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, or an African Union drawdown in Somalia—would end the violence catalogued above isn’t thinking very hard about its causes.

American wars in Muslim countries created some extremists and inflamed many more, while producing a security vacuum that allowed them to wreak mayhem. But the origins of the slaughter are overwhelmingly internal—sectarian, tribal, political, economic. At its source, the violence flows from ideas, terrible ideas, about the meaning of Islam, the character of non-Muslims, and the duties of Muslims. These ideas are promulgated in mosques and coffee shops and schools, and on satellite TV and the Internet, with the aid of conspiracy theories, half-truths, deceptive editing, and lies. They are remarkably impervious to the ebb and flow of U.S. foreign policy.

Far from letting Americans off the hook, this realization puts us to a very difficult test.

When Islamist violence finally got Americans’ attention on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government responded in the simplest, most familiar way: with military power in tandem with intelligence operations. Twelve years later, Osama bin Laden is dead, Al Qaeda central is heavily damaged, and there’s been nothing close to a repetition of those attacks on American soil; but the wars were human disasters that failed to achieve most of their strategic goals. In the greater argument over prisoners, drones, security, and surveillance, Americans show far more interest in what their country does than what people do in Somalia or Pakistan. The verdict of the past dozen years is in: no more wars, including (according to the President) the one on terror.

This verdict still leaves a lot of room for armed American action overseas, as we saw over the weekend, with the abduction of a top Al Qaeda figure from the streets of Tripoli, in Libya, by U.S. commandos and intelligence officers, and a failed Navy SEAL raid on the stronghold of a Shabaab leader on the Somali coast. The Administration clearly regards the Nairobi mall massacre as a worrying sign of Al Shabaab’s desire and ability to hit soft targets around the world. But what about the kind of violence—like most of the incidents listed above—that doesn’t seem to threaten us directly? Why does this have to be our problem?

Some of the U.S. commentary on reports of last month’s violence took this thinking even farther: so let them kill each other. In the bipolar habit of America’s attitude toward the rest of the world, we’ve flipped from grandiose missionary zeal to sullen disengagement. The U.S. seems safer than it did on September 11th, the rest of the world less safe. Most Americans will take that trade-off.

While jihadism tends to start with the near enemy, however, there’s often a far and farther enemy. Every global jihadist group, including Al Qaeda, was born of a local conflict. It is an extraordinarily ambitious ideology. Beyond that, countries where suicide attacks targeting schoolchildren are common have a way of becoming the problem of their neighbors, and perhaps the world. It’s dangerous and dehumanizing when Americans grow inured to the regularity of mass shootings of innocents at home. Why should we be comfortably indifferent to Islamist violence against innocents abroad?

War turned out to be far too blunt an instrument against the complexity, volatility, and durability of Islamist violence. Targeted kidnappings and killings are effective against the leadership but do nothing about the next generation of recruits, perhaps only galvanizing it. And yet one approach that impatient, action-loving, results-oriented Americans have not given enough thought to is addressing the heart of the violence: the terrible ideas that license massacres in the name of religion. Americans are slow to believe in the importance of ideas—they seem like flimsy pretexts rather than root causes. The history of recent years and the news of the past month suggest otherwise.

At the end of September, the State Department announced the creation of a joint U.S.-Turkish fund to combat Islamist extremism, called the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience. The goal is to raise two hundred million dollars over ten years, from governments and private donors, and to identify and finance grassroots groups around the Muslim world that will do the difficult work of opposing extremist ideas at home. These groups would take on the Islamists where they live, in mosques and community centers, in chat rooms and on social media. The American role would be very much in the background; citizens, organizations, and governments of key Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, would take the lead.

The idea was partly the brainchild of Ed Husain, the London-born author of “The Islamist,” an autobiographical account of his years as a young man in radical Islamist organizations and his turn to a more liberal version of Islam. He’s now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where his policy paper, “A Global Venture to Counter Violent Extremism,” went online last week. Husain pointed out to me that the key participation of Turkey and other Muslim governments in the fund would not have been possible without American initiative. The U.S. is radioactive across Muslim societies, but it still plays a central role in the political and ideological fight against extremism

“Done properly,” Husain writes, “within eight to ten years al-Qaeda’s theology and ideology can become as unattractive among young Muslims as communism became to East Germans.” I imagine that this forecast is too sanguine. Religion is rooted in Islamic countries far more deeply and historically than Communism was in the Eastern bloc. To argue against Islamist extremism with young citizens of countries where people are overwhelmingly pious and the non-Islamist ruling regimes are dismal failures is a much tougher challenge than arguing against Marxism in countries where the failing regimes were Communist. But Husain—a living example of a convert to moderation—is surely right in pointing to the ideas of the Islamists, and not just their circumstances or tactics: “Unless such ideas are challenged and discredited, extremist groups will continue to regenerate no matter how many terrorists are killed.” Americans are not in a position, morally or practically, to lead this effort, but it remains our business; we’re still on the hook.
"If you want the world to love you don't discuss Middle Eastern politics" Saul Bellow.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #1 on: October 9, 2013, 12:10:59 pm »
There's a school of thought (although both 'school' and 'thought' are both misnomers) which blames the rise of Islamism exclusively on the west, and particularly the United States. When Islamist atrocities occur on the streets of London or Paris or Madrid or New York they reach for the word 'blow-back' or talk of 'chickens coming home to roost' and such rot. You see it in the 'Guardian' newspaper all the time. The masochistic line is basically 'They attack us because we forced them to'.

That's not quite true. It's more "they attack us because we attacked them", a point which your article supports later, albeit as a lesser factor.

Quote
American wars in Muslim countries created some extremists and inflamed many more, while producing a security vacuum that allowed them to wreak mayhem. But the origins of the slaughter are overwhelmingly internal.

I've read in many places that Islamist recruitment was difficult after 9/11 but became much easier after Iraq and Gitmo.

Overall, though, your piece is spot on in its depiction of how many Muslim deaths are caused by Islamists and how little the West cares.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #2 on: October 9, 2013, 12:21:42 pm »
Can't see this lasting long. So for what it's worth, my two cents...
While I'm no supporter of zealots of all religions, I'd encourage people to look at the JuedeoChristian war on Islam from the Crusades to the modern day, especially the Balfour decleration. Until we done that to them, Muslims and Jews lived side by side with no great troubles in Palastine.

Yep. Killing people in the name of religion is one of the greatest ills in the world. I honestly believe Religion is a form of mental illness, even though I have sane religous friends.

But one good word for Islam... there is no Usury. It's outlawed in the muslim faith. So, see why we suddenly whacked Quadaffi after being after him since Lockerbie. And why we whacked Sadam Hussein... we sold him the chemicals to gas the Kurds. But when he decided to stop trading oil in the petro dollar... no, can't be having that.

There will be no peace in the middle east until the oil runs out. But then, Israel will not be satisfied until it has control of the water... which it has none of it's own.

Islam.... nah, Zionism, is the problem. It's the worst thing that ever happened to the Jews. But while we've got Socialists like Milliband proclaiming themselves Zionists, I expect no peace.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #3 on: October 9, 2013, 12:24:03 pm »
PS... how many Muslims have we killed in the past month?
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #4 on: October 9, 2013, 12:34:11 pm »
That's not quite true. It's more "they attack us because we attacked them", a point which your article supports later, albeit as a lesser factor.

September 11th?
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Offline JTK

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #5 on: October 9, 2013, 12:40:36 pm »
PS... how many Muslims have we killed in the past month?

None because of their religion, I think that's an important point.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #6 on: October 9, 2013, 12:41:51 pm »
Please can we see some examples from the Guardian newspaper of their use of the terms "blow-back" or "chickens coming home to roost" in relation to this topic. You shouldn't find it too hard to find some examples, since apparently you "see it there all the time".

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #7 on: October 9, 2013, 12:49:06 pm »
Incidentally, I don't disagree with the article you posted, nor with most of your introduction. I just don't think it's especially useful to use this subject as a stick with which to beat the moderate press, which is an important voice of reason in the face of the thinly veiled islamophobia seen in the S*n, for example.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #8 on: October 9, 2013, 12:52:22 pm »
None because of their religion, I think that's an important point.
Ahh, so that's that sorted then.

Not being sarcastic. Have a look at some pictures of Baghdad, before we went to set them free and give them democracy. Look at the death count before and after we helped them.

But you're right, none of it has anything to do with Religion.

Al Qeada literally means Data Base. It's a CIA movement. The "Freedom Fighters" that we helped to run the Soviets out of Afghanistan were called the Mujahadeen until we stepped in and re-branded them, as is our wont.

Yep. There's organised evil in this world. Some of it is inside Islam. But that doesn't mean God fearing Catholics like Tony Blair are blameless... Tony Blair, middle east peace envoy. I think that sort of says it all, right there.

PS... forgive me spelling mistakes. This is off the top of my head, and I'm a rather simple man. But I do know when I'm being conned.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #9 on: October 9, 2013, 12:57:04 pm »
Please can we see some examples from the Guardian newspaper of their use of the terms "blow-back" or "chickens coming home to roost" in relation to this topic. You shouldn't find it too hard to find some examples, since apparently you "see it there all the time".

Sure.

This was two days after September 11th, the fires still smouldering, the corpses still rotting, the nation in shock.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/sep/13/september11.britainand911
They can't see why they are hated
Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad
by Seamus Milne

And this was columnist Simon Jenkins a few days ago after the Nairobi attack.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/23/kenya-mall-attacks-david-cameron

Kenya mall attack: David Cameron's rush to 'solve the crisis' won't help
Cameron has helped send al-Shabaab to the top of the terrorist charts by summoning Cobra. Shopping malls, like Westgate, are easy targets for extremists.

The years in between, naturally, have been littered with similar articles which blame Islamist massacres on ourselves.


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Re: Islamism
« Reply #10 on: October 9, 2013, 12:57:21 pm »
Loads of usury FS. They call it Islamic finance. Loopholes exploited big time.
Maybe so mate, but look at the people we want to whack... the axis of evils. Funny how none of them had central banks. Funny how we shouted a lot about Quadaffi until he wanted to trade oil in African Gold Dinars and not the petrodollar. Funny how we sold Sadam Hussein gas until he refused to trade in the petrodollar.

Believe me, I have no love of Islamist extremists. But that doesn't mean I want to back our Christian Crusades.
"A peasant you are. A peasant you will remain. And we shall use all our wealth and power, to make your lot even worse and keep you exactly where you are, Bondage!"    The Boy King, Richard II, after  putting down the The Peasants Revolt in 1381.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #11 on: October 9, 2013, 01:11:08 pm »
September 11th?

An atrocious act that deserves to be condemned in every way possible. Nor should there by any rhetoric along the lines of 'maybe we deserved it because of our foreign policy'.
Having said all that, however, the perpetrator of the act, Bin Laden, quite clearly states in his admission video that the motivation was political and not religious. It is too simplistic reducing such an act down to religion and trying to dismiss the political motivations.
Again, I am in no way defending such actions, but think it is important we understand why they were committed rather than concocting a monolithic enemy, the Islamist Satan, that is solely responsible. The situation with all these attacks, as is always the case, is always more nuanced and complex than such reductions.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #12 on: October 9, 2013, 01:17:26 pm »
It is too simplistic reducing such an act down to religion and trying to dismiss the political motivations.

I didn't. Nor did George Packer in the article I quoted.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #13 on: October 9, 2013, 01:21:29 pm »
Ahh, so that's that sorted then.

Not being sarcastic. Have a look at some pictures of Baghdad, before we went to set them free and give them democracy. Look at the death count before and after we helped them.

But you're right, none of it has anything to do with Religion.

Al Qeada literally means Data Base. It's a CIA movement. The "Freedom Fighters" that we helped to run the Soviets out of Afghanistan were called the Mujahadeen until we stepped in and re-branded them, as is our wont.

Yep. There's organised evil in this world. Some of it is inside Islam. But that doesn't mean God fearing Catholics like Tony Blair are blameless... Tony Blair, middle east peace envoy. I think that sort of says it all, right there.

PS... forgive me spelling mistakes. This is off the top of my head, and I'm a rather simple man. But I do know when I'm being conned.


First of all, from what I have read of your posts, you do not seem like a simple man at all!

I know we went to war in Iraq for the wrong reasons, but I just never thought it was for religious ones.

I know how the USA and ourselves have exploited countries for our own needs, I know it goes on. We give groups power, they become our puppets but then they become as bad as the groups we attempted to defeat in the first place.

Going back to 'Islamism'. Of all the religious ideologies I have come across, Extremist Islam is the most profound. Sharia Law for example is the one which I really dont get. They still publicly execute people, and lash women in the street for driving.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #14 on: October 9, 2013, 01:22:09 pm »
Not disagreeing with the second part of your point.
I think it all stands, meself, Tom. But I've had my say, there's really no point in going on. And I'm in full agreement, the world would be a better place without religious fanaticism. I just can't agree that it's one way traffic. And if we're going to fix that, we should start closer to home instead of invading other people's homes. And if we're going to draw up a list of evil religions and force them to our point of view, I'd prefer to start with the Zionists. As, like many Rabbis, I honestly do think, Zionism is just about the greatest organised evil in the world. But then, as Donald Rumsfeld said, you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. In fact, Zionism had nothing to do with Juedasim. It's just a cancer that found a host.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #15 on: October 9, 2013, 01:43:59 pm »
If there was no zionism there'd be no islamism.

I have no time for anyone who hides behind religion. live free or die.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #16 on: October 9, 2013, 01:56:38 pm »
If there was no zionism there'd be no islamism.

Ha, so Islamism is just a movement of Palestinian nationalism? Try telling that to massacred Sufis in Pakistan or firebombed Copts in Cairo. Try explaining that to gang-raped Afghan women who are then beheaded for adultery. Try explaining it to butchered western holiday makers in Bali. Yeah sure, it's all the Jews' fault.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #17 on: October 9, 2013, 02:15:02 pm »
An atrocious act that deserves to be condemned in every way possible. Nor should there by any rhetoric along the lines of 'maybe we deserved it because of our foreign policy'.
Having said all that, however, the perpetrator of the act, Bin Laden, quite clearly states in his admission video that the motivation was political and not religious. It is too simplistic reducing such an act down to religion and trying to dismiss the political motivations.
Again, I am in no way defending such actions, but think it is important we understand why they were committed rather than concocting a monolithic enemy, the Islamist Satan, that is solely responsible. The situation with all these attacks, as is always the case, is always more nuanced and complex than such reductions.

 If you take the time to analyse the key aims of Bin Laden, it becomes immediately clear that religion is not just a motivating factor but is also the cornerstone of the very existence of the AQ movement.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #18 on: October 9, 2013, 02:17:28 pm »
If there was no zionism there'd be no islamism.

I have no time for anyone who hides behind religion. live free or die.

So really we should blame the Jews for the thousands of terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda and its affiliated organisations since its emergence in the late 80s, and the tens of thousands of deaths than are attributed to them? Are you for real?

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #19 on: October 9, 2013, 02:18:52 pm »
Not all one-way traffic, no, and will never be fixed. And they're not the only whack jobs doing the rounds. But I think the OP is right. They are the biggest threat to world peace and I don't feel much need to blame that on myself.
Sorry mate, but if you really believe Islam is the biggest threat to world peace, all I can say is... do a bit more rooting for those weapons of mass destruction. Start by looking at what David Kelly and Robin Cook say about them... oops, said about them.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #20 on: October 9, 2013, 02:22:37 pm »
Sorry mate, but if you really believe Islam is the biggest threat to world peace, all I can say is... do a bit more rooting for those weapons of mass destruction. Start by looking at what David Kelly and Robin Cook say about them... oops, said about them.

A very good point.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #21 on: October 9, 2013, 02:25:01 pm »
Do you feel more threatened by the British Labour Party than Al-Qaeda FS?
I'd rather feel less threatened by anyone, and I think that would start if we had a proper Socialist Labour party that wasn't led by a self-confessed Zionist.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #22 on: October 9, 2013, 02:30:17 pm »
Anyway, I'm going to try and stick to my own guns and stay out of here. I reckon, I've made my point. I don't want to back a government that created Al Qaeda, and want to arm them again as we speak. I do not feel threatened by Iran wanting to go nuclear. I feel more threatened by the hundreds of nuclear war heads that are pointed at them right now. I also feel more threatened by the Zionist and their control of western democracies. I feel more threatened by the Zionist terrorists than a few kids throwing bricks. I think it won't stop until Israel has access to, and control of, the water it needs. And that won't happen until we've lost thousands more of our own kids, fighting for BP, Shell, Chevron and so on.

Shame the world is the way it is. Mankind, my arse.
"A peasant you are. A peasant you will remain. And we shall use all our wealth and power, to make your lot even worse and keep you exactly where you are, Bondage!"    The Boy King, Richard II, after  putting down the The Peasants Revolt in 1381.

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Offline ۩ Imperator ۩

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #23 on: October 9, 2013, 02:42:37 pm »
Sure.

This was two days after September 11th, the fires still smouldering, the corpses still rotting, the nation in shock.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/sep/13/september11.britainand911
They can't see why they are hated
Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad
by Seamus Milne

And this was columnist Simon Jenkins a few days ago after the Nairobi attack.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/23/kenya-mall-attacks-david-cameron

Kenya mall attack: David Cameron's rush to 'solve the crisis' won't help
Cameron has helped send al-Shabaab to the top of the terrorist charts by summoning Cobra. Shopping malls, like Westgate, are easy targets for extremists.

The years in between, naturally, have been littered with similar articles which blame Islamist massacres on ourselves.




Again, I invite you to find examples from the Guardian of their use if the terms "blow-back" and "chickens coming home to roost". You have so far failed to do so. You have, however, found two rather well-argued articles which make the point that invading Islamic countries is not an effective way of combatting Islamist extremism, and I thank you for sharing them.

The excellent article you posted in the original post of this thread in no way disagrees with this viewpoint.
« Last Edit: October 9, 2013, 02:45:48 pm by ۩ Imperator ۩ »
Quote
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #24 on: October 9, 2013, 02:47:39 pm »
Again, I invite you to find examples from the Guardian of their use if the terms "blow-back" and "chickens coming home to roost". You have so far failed to do so. You have, however, found two rather well-argued articles which make the point that invading Islamic countries is not an effective way of combatting Islamist extremism, and I thank you for sharing them.


You are a pedant I see. Not happy with Seamus Milne's phrase on September 13 2001:  "the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed"?

An even viler phrase (and idea) than mere 'blow-back'.
"If you want the world to love you don't discuss Middle Eastern politics" Saul Bellow.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #25 on: October 9, 2013, 02:49:35 pm »
You are a pedant I see. Not happy with Seamus Milne's phrase on September 13 2001:  "the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed"?

An even viler phrase (and idea) than mere 'blow-back'.

It is used in reference to the CIA training of Al Quaeda. I think that's fair enough.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #26 on: October 9, 2013, 02:53:45 pm »
Not that I can't satisfy your pedantry either Impy.  ;D

Seamus Milne absolutely adores the concept of 'blowback'.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/18/violent-protests-blowback-us-intervention

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/22/mali-fastest-blowback-war-on-terror

Yes folks it's all our fault.
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Offline Sir Afghan

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #27 on: October 9, 2013, 03:06:03 pm »
I'd just like to say this thread has thus far been excellent reading. I'm not going to venture an opinion for numerous reasons (predominately my own ignorance of the subject) but i do find i agree with pretty much everything FS has got to say on most things and this appears no different.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #28 on: October 9, 2013, 03:13:27 pm »
but i do find i agree with pretty much everything FS has got to say on most things and this appears no different.
That's scary, mate. You really should jib that. I'm a loon.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #29 on: October 9, 2013, 03:14:39 pm »
That's scary, mate. You really should jib that. I'm a loon.

 ;D

But now you have a disciple mate.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #30 on: October 9, 2013, 03:18:07 pm »
;D

But now you have a disciple mate.


Noooo, that's how they all got started....
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'Grammar' and no apostrophe in 'nazis'.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #31 on: October 9, 2013, 03:20:20 pm »
That's scary, mate. You really should jib that. I'm a loon.

Ha if i'm going to be disciple to anyone you better believe it's going to be loon, where's the fun otherwise?

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #32 on: October 9, 2013, 03:28:11 pm »
Does anyone's opinion ever change in these threads? I know mine doesn't.

I used to think they did. Now I don't though.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #33 on: October 9, 2013, 03:29:42 pm »
;D

But now you have a disciple mate.

Fuck it. That's the answer. I only need another 11.
"A peasant you are. A peasant you will remain. And we shall use all our wealth and power, to make your lot even worse and keep you exactly where you are, Bondage!"    The Boy King, Richard II, after  putting down the The Peasants Revolt in 1381.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #34 on: October 9, 2013, 03:35:20 pm »
Fuck it. That's the answer. I only need another 11.

It'll all start lovey dovey, freedom from tyranny to all, an all that.

500 years time though Fats, they'll be atomising Apostates in your name. That's how it goes.
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Re: Islamism
« Reply #35 on: October 9, 2013, 03:40:40 pm »
Does anyone's opinion ever change in these threads? I know mine doesn't.

I can flip flop from post to post.
Although to be fair I don't really have very strong opinions about anything. I'm reading pol pot's biography at the mo and up to now (1970) he seems alright. And there's all kinds going on ethnic cleansing fellas eating other fellas livers, mattresses getting banned etc (the first 2 examples weren't him).

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #36 on: October 9, 2013, 03:43:57 pm »
Militant atheism is one of the biggest problem in our world today. They chose to ignore actual big issues and just focus on attacking religions. More innocent people have died from western invasion and wars than Islamic terrorists could ever dream of. if Islam didn't exist then people would be just fighting back the US invasion in the name of nationalism or other reasons.
« Last Edit: October 9, 2013, 03:46:00 pm by KUNGFUDANCER »

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #37 on: October 9, 2013, 03:47:36 pm »
Does anyone's opinion ever change in these threads? I know mine doesn't.

I’m sure some have, I know mine have at times, not drastically, but a little more understanding and clarity may have been found or prompted by discussion here. There are some very fine minds that congregate here and I am very proud they are reds. I’m sure it’s not in any way biased or inaccurate to suggest that we have the most enlightened fans there is to be found anywhere. But I think we’ve all known that for some time.  ;)

Or yes, if you want the short answer.
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it is in the minds of men where such distinctions are made, and then they believe them to be true.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #38 on: October 9, 2013, 03:49:13 pm »
Militant atheism is one of the biggest problem in our world today. They chose to ignore actual big issues and just focus on attacking religions. More innocent people have died from western invasion and wars than Islamic terrorists could ever dream of. if Islam didn't exist then people would be just fighting back the US invasion in the name of nationalism or other reasons.

See, I told you!
The sky does not know of east or of west;
it is in the minds of men where such distinctions are made, and then they believe them to be true.

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Re: Islamism
« Reply #39 on: October 9, 2013, 04:00:23 pm »
Militant atheism is one of the biggest problem in our world today.

Poverty, starvation, economic inequality, terrorism, slave labour, systematic child abuse, climate change, human rights abuses, women as second class citizens, racism, war, oppression, disease....tell me. Where would "militant atheism" rank among those problems?