Liberté, égalité, fraternité, et la solidarité.
Here we are again. Bombs, guns, suicides, executions, the masked mass murderers... Liberté, égalité, fraternité, et la solidarité.
In your estimation:
Is it theoretically possible (I don't personally have the technique) to identify, infiltrate, and disrupt cells that plan and execute terrorist attacks?
[It seems to me the best bet, but is it possible?]
Is there an acceptable defense that can stand at the ready?
[This would probably require an onerous, burdensome, and inconvenient public deployment of a large military presence. The benefits might very well be nil.]
Is there an acceptable social strategy for France to become less of a target?
[France must not cease being France. No nation should redecorate in order to make terrorists happy.]
Is there an acceptable social strategy for France (or Japan or Luxembourg, or Russia, or Peru...) to become less of a target? Who in the world of Islam lends the most support to terrorism, directly and indirectly--Iran or Saudi Arabia? My guess is that it's our ally and not our nemesis. Is it Wahhabism that underlies the most radical versions of Islam? (The Saudis certainly have the most money...)
In your estimation:
Is it theoretically possible (I don't personally have the technique) to identify, infiltrate, and disrupt cells that plan and execute terrorist attacks?
[It seems to me the best bet, but is it possible?]
Is there an acceptable defense that can stand at the ready?
[This would probably require an onerous, burdensome, and inconvenient public deployment of a large military presence. The benefits might very well be nil.]
Is there an acceptable social strategy for France to become less of a target?
[France must not cease being France. No nation should redecorate in order to make terrorists happy.]
Is there an acceptable social strategy for France (or Japan or Luxembourg, or Russia, or Peru...) to become less of a target? Who in the world of Islam lends the most support to terrorism, directly and indirectly--Iran or Saudi Arabia? My guess is that it's our ally and not our nemesis. Is it Wahhabism that underlies the most radical versions of Islam? (The Saudis certainly have the most money...)
Comments (212)
How long into the future? I don't know, but the Arab Spring shows us that a breaking point is very near to hand (this half of the century for sure). I can see Western governments getting fed up enough with attacks, refugees, etc that they decide to cut ties with the Saudis and take out ISIS militarily (we're very close to that already), but Muslim populations themselves need to effect the change necessary to more permanently stamp out the extremism in their religion.
Recall that the Enlightenment came to Europe as a reaction against the brutal wars of religion that went on for several centuries in the early modern period, waged by theocratic absolutists. Nationalism, as a sort of replacement, then caused some nasty world wars of its own, but nowadays, Catholics and Protestants in Europe do not murder each other at all, nor anyone who isn't a Christian. The Islamic world is further behind but rapidly catching up, in part because most of the violence we see coming from it is motivated out of extremist interpretations of religion, rather than nationalism, so they seem to have leapfrogged that stage.
On the other hand, it will still not be easy by any means, since unlike Christianity, it is much more difficult to find any seeds of democratic, egalitarian values in Islam. Nietzsche among others rightly points out that Christianity by nature tends towards democracy. It is a religion of the oppressed and the common man in many ways, for two of the New Testament's constant refrains are humility and inclusivity. Islam by contrast is by nature suited to theocracy and despotism, for its scriptures and especially its proscriptions for proper conduct are inherently legalistic and duty orientated, stressing submission, prostration, and blind obedience.
Well...
... it might come as a surprise, but we do agree.
What I find odd or let's say missing in the after shock of this event is that no Islamic leader or representative has said anything whatsoever to state that this event was something worthy of condemnation or any sympathy for the victims. Rather, I have heard 3 (selfish) statements from the Islamic community making a claim (defense) that this is not Islam.
Funny that they do this, as so far there seems to be no claim of who did it, much less anything more than circumstantial evidence that the attackers might have been sympathetic to ISIS.
Can't the Islamic leaders for once make a statement of condemnation of such actions and express sympathy for the victims without selfishly first making a defense PR campaign of 'this is not Islam'?
Perhaps it's simply the community leaders who get in front of cameras who seem to pimp the image of 'this is not Islam', but there really needs to be a more pro-active effort and initiative to state, we have a cancer within our ranks and we need to deal with it, instead of a 'stick our heads in the sand' sense of denial of this is not part of us.
Meow!
GREG
Let's be perfectly clear about all this: if there is backwardness in the Middle East, then the West, including Europeans, are equally to blame for what has been happening there. Let's not forget that it was the Europeans (and I include Americans in this) that tore down that actual politically backed regimes that represented progressive values in the Middle East, or decided to overthrow political regimes that were able to contain the subsequent results of colonialism, including Saddam Hussein's regime, Gaddafi, the arbitrary creation of the state of Israel, which constantly drives a wedge in the middle of Middle Eastern politics, their constant defense of Zionist power in the region, their fight against the only faction representing any form of hope in Syria, the Rojava, American unconditional support of Saudi Arabia as their allies... the list goes on and on, but, somehow, the beacon of enlightenment and wisdom in the world exists solely in the West, if the media rhetoric is to be believed.
Fascists don't just arise in a vacuum, and people don't just become aligned to fascists en masse if there existed previously a built movement that represented some sort of freedom and autonomy for people. Islamo-fascists could only have possibly taken power if the alternative, progressives, socialists, communists, anarchists, people who believe ideals similar to that, weren't brutally massacred and shut down by outside entities, i.e. the West, throughout the past century up until the present century.
Now, the mess the West started is manifesting itself into a regional disaster, and suddenly they are all calling for the Islamic leaders to quell their people. Well, the ones that aren't fascists have repeatedly called for tolerance and peace from their people, but they are speaking to people are already convinced, i.e. the majority of Muslims. But these people offer no alternative from the Western grasp, so, of course people gravitate towards the fascists. Europeans should know this all too well, since the face of world fascism is a European face.
Sigh. Nothing ever went wrong with this reaction to terrorist activity except that ISIS consists of ex-generals from the Iraqi military, members of ISIS come from those families destroyed by the Iraq war, among others. Oh, Europe, you keep digging a deeper hole for humanity.
I hear what you are saying in the above quote ALL the time but I don't know if I should trust the people who are saying it for they are the same people who have suggested that Isis is actually being led by the CIA. Absurd right? :s
The people suggesting such an internal decision, to play both sides of this terrorist organization/movement, are they themselves cast out of main stream society as 'preppers' or doomsday believers. While the rest of society functions day after day, oblivious to what hornet nests we are stirring up around the world. I used to pshaw their ideas, I believe we are an honest country and are led by people who truly do want to help others the world over. I don't believe us to be perfect, nor do we always make the right choices.
As France decides how to handle this country altering event, I do hope they are better at satisfying Aristotle's Challenge on Anger because that is where I believe, to a degree that the USA screwed up after 9.11.
In response to 9.11 we hit the wrong person, even though he was a war criminal, Saddam Hussein didn't have any direct correlation to the events of 9.11 but he was an easy target. The rest of Aristotle's challenge was satisfied but without it ALL being satisfied, the ripple effect of our decisions are still being felt and reacted to.
Even though you cannot see movement, on my skepticism of my own government, I assure you I have.
I have to admit that this has been a new development in such matters.
Finally there has become more and more an effort for such nations to make a statement against such actions.
What I have not yet seem by any of these nations is an admission that this problem is indeed a problem within Islam and that the Islamic leaders will take action to help rid their faith of this cancer. At least I see some indications that the behavior if no longer ignored, but the pro-active part that needs to be made by these nations fails to be present.
I don't wish to be so cold regarding the bombing in Baghdad, but this is sort of viewed (unfortunately) as a typical day in Baghdad. I hate to say it, but if these nations have taken a silent approach over all the years regarding such a problem within their own state religions, it is a bit much to expect anyone from outside viewing such actions as anything but typical. I hate to say it, but these nations must finally come to grips with understanding that groups like ISIS and such terrorist attacks are a cancer that is from a misinterpretation of Islam and not something that is just 'not Islam'.
I don't wish to trivialize the bombing in Baghdad, but I feel the constant denial of these Islamic states in acknowledging that the problems of these radical terrorist organizations are indeed part of Islam (as a cancer is part of the body infected). Their denial has trivialized such attacks within their borders.
Meow!
GREG
This would do nothing whatsoever to deter terrorism.
If anything, this would give cause to violent overreactions; thus increasing the chances of people being shot for really no reason other than fear of something that may be terrorism that is not.
I'm sorry Tiff, but looking at all reasonable statistics personal protection is not increased via private firearms. If anything, the statistics show that the opposite is the case.
Quoting ?????????????
Indeed!
Remember the anthrax scares?
All one needed to do was scatter a bit of white powder at an airport and it was closed for hours, disturbing so many lives, placing them in state of fear and terror, as well as costing lots of resources.
Killing people is not the point of terrorism. Dead people have no fear and cannot be set into a state of terror. The terrorist terrorizes the living and not the dead.
Meow!
GREG
I respectfully disagree. The golden time of intervention of such a hostage taking is immediate and with force. I think of what would happen at a concert venue here in the USA, even where firearms are forbidden, those who are security at the venue would be armed and able to respond. In that massive of a crisis, the first to react would be the ones with the best window of opportunity to neutralize the threat. It is a of a lot hell faster than assembling a task force to figure out a way in. Grant you, the USA does the same in assembling task forces where hostages are involved but venues are required to provide security equal to the implied threat.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
I will not deny that what you say is a risk but not enough to discourage a citizen to take personal responsibility for their safety and those around them.
Ah yes, what would a thread like this be without the whiny proclamations from faux liberals who blame the West for Islamic terrorism?
Is it the West's fault that Muhammad himself was a military leader, who led the conquest of Mecca and destroyed the indigenous religion and culture of Arabia? Is it the West's fault that Muslims then conquered by military force the Levant, North Africa, Southern Spain, Mesopotamia, Persia, Northern India, and eventually the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia? Is it the West's fault for defending itself at the Battle of Tours and later at the Siege of Vienna when Europe proper was threatened? Is it the West's fault that the Arab Muslim slave trade lasted for almost 1300 years?
I'm sorry to break it to you, but Arab Muslims were colonialists, and vastly more effective and brutal ones at that, long before Westerners. Islam was a theocratic military machine from the start. The West's history of colonialism and slavery pales in comparison, both in terms of severity and length of time, to that of Islam's history. In fact, there couldn't have been a British and American slave trade had it not been for the infrastructure put in place in Africa by conquering Arab Muslims to enable it.
This is not to condone colonialism by anyone, but the implication that Islamic terrorism as well as the hatred towards the West more generally that we see today would not exist if only Europeans didn't embark on a colonial project and if the war in Iraq was handled more competently or never waged at all is absurd. It is all the more absurd when one considers that Muslims are butchering their fellow Muslims in far greater numbers than Westerners. On the same day as the attacks in Paris, there were bombings in Lebanon and Iraq which left dozens dead. Is the West responsible for these attacks too? Do you really imagine that inside the minds of these terrorists, they're thinking, "I hate the West and its colonial legacy so much I'm going to slaughter my fellow Muslim countrymen in droves?"
No, these people have theocratic intentions and could not be more explicit about it. Read their manifestos. They hate the West precisely because it tries thwart these intentions. However much the West bungles such attempts at doing so, it remains in the right as a matter of principle.
As the late Osama bin Laden himself said: "We didn't attack Sweden and for a reason..."
(Osama bin Laden in Sweden as a teen.)
At first you might think that it isn't a good strategy for ISIS to attack a country like France. Well, it is, actually. Because as President Hollande has said, "France is in war". Hence France has to retaliate and bomb ISIS, it cannot just stand idle. Furthermore, for an organization that has this messianic objective of a creating new Caliphate, infidel France fighting them suits their cause well. They have nothing to lose. Because the likely French reaction will be to bomb ISIS with it's aircraft... but not to create a large ground contingent that is sent to Syria and Iraq to fight the ISIS.
That's the truth.
It may be simple, but it's certainly not logical.
[quote=Christopher Stokes, General Director of MSF] MSF is disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack on its hospital in Kunduz. These statements imply that Afghan and U.S. forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital – with more than 180 staff and patients inside – because they claim that members of the Taliban were present. This amounts to an admission of a war crime.[/quote]
According to the Pentagon it was "an accident". We will probably never know for sure, but I am personally more inclined to take the word of a group of volunteer doctors than that of the Pentagon. If the attack was deliberate then I don't see any reason why it wouldn't qualify as terrorist in nature (unless we mean to limit the word "terrorist" to simply mean those with more primitive weapons than us). Herein lies the problem; as long as we in the west continue to carry out terrorist attacks on Muslims under the guise of war, it's hard to see how we can hold the moral high ground when we ourselves are attacked. Hollande's comments about being "merciless" and Sarkozy's call for "total war", the results of which will likely lead to more deaths of innocents on both sides, suggest it will be a long time before we learn that lesson.
I'm not suggesting we shouldn't.
Quoting Baden
An appalling tragedy to be sure, but then only a select group of people in the Pentagon are to blame, not the US, or the West, or secularism as a whole. Attaching blame to the latter for Islamic terrorism is the tired crock I am objecting to. The West and its values are superior to those of ISIS and like-minded groups. Period.
Quoting Baden
Innocents will die, true, but ISIS needs to be obliterated. I fail to understand the reasoning that we ought not to destroy ISIS militarily merely because, only in part, they arose in the aftermath of the bungled Iraq War. Even if we are entirely to blame for their appearance, I see no justification for not pursuing their destruction.
(Incidentally, they don't need a military. All they need is a follower in one of our countries with a gun or with a home-made bomb strapped to them. How do you destroy that capability?)
No it isn't. You're cherry picking one war. If you were alive on the eve of the second world war, you might have said similar things: "the ethos of Prussian militarism and aggression is ineradicable; the more German soldiers we kill, the more we create radical groups like the Nazis. That's the lesson of the first world war." And yet you would have been wrong. There was no insurgency or pockets of Nazi resistance at the end of the war, to the surprise of Allied commanders. No such thing as "Nazi terrorism" arose at all. The Germans were thoroughly finished with war.
ISIS is an organized military force, and indeed even claims to be a state, as their name makes clear. As such, it is perfectly within the Western powers' rights to declare war against this rogue state and destroy it militarily. To think this can only be done by killing every last human being in the region is monumental hyperbole and doesn't even really deserve comment.
Quoting Baden
Like?
And there is more nuance to simply advocating "bombing them." You can't merely assert that this is all we have been doing in Afghanistan and that the "bombing" solution therefore hasn't worked. I can quite easily make the case that we need to "bomb them" better rather than not at all. There were really stupid military mistakes made in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The management in general of both wars was truly inept.
I don't know and neither do you. The difference between us seems to be that I am the one suggesting we wait until we do know.
Quoting Thorongil
Yes, it was inept, not least because the wars were started for the wrong reasons and without proper planning. It seems to me that you are advocating we repeat the same mistake. I am not in principle against bombing ISIS, but I don't see any evidence it's going to work. Quite the contrary. Every similar attempt in recent years has been a failure. The onus is on those who want to take military action to provide a proper justification for it. The desire for revenge isn't enough, particularly because of the possibility it might end up backfiring and cause more attacks like the recent one in Paris.
Indeed we disagree at the core of this issue.
Real Islam is not the issue here at all.
Perhaps one can state that the problem is political or geopolitical, but seeing that we are speaking of Islamic States without a separation of church and state how is it at all possible that any political or geopolitical problems would not involve religion (Islam) at it's core?
If the (Islamic) states themselves have no separation of church and state, how is it even possible to consider religion or politics to be a symptom, when by definition it all must be the cause, as they are both the same thing in this context?
As I see it, this claim of it being just political or geopolitical rather than religious is vacuous rhetoric and misleading.
Calling it politics in this context is the very same as calling it religion. It does the problem an injustice to weight it by European standards.
Meow!
GREG
Now you shifted the context Tiff.
There is a difference between qualified security being armed and non-qualified audience members being armed.
The main point is, you simply do not attend a concert and expect an attack by terrorists out of the blue. This sort of attack can happen anywhere at any time, so is the solution to have everyone out of fear armed with firearms in the event that something might happen? To live as such is to gives into the desire to create a life of fear allowing the terrorists to win.
I'm not too sold that the exclusive means of taking personal responsibility is to be armed with firearms. It seems the probability that there are far more times where a terrorist attack will not happen where such carrying around of weapons that can kill would create other far more common bad things.
Meow!
GREG
Meanwhile, sovereign states are threatened and enveloped, innocent civilians massacred, and one of the most brutal regimes in history will solidify power in one of richest oil producing regions on earth, and will work to plot terrorist attacks all over the world, which it is already doing. Yeah, "waiting it out" sounds like a fantastic option - for the callous defeatist who cares nothing for the troubles of others so long as his own livelihood is not threatened.
And as a matter of fact, I do know how we defeat ISIS: we put together an international military coalition and with the help of the Kurds, Iraqis, and the remnants of the secular Syrian rebels, invade the Islamic State and destroy it, along with Assad, who should then be tried for genocide and the use of chemical weapons. The air campaign is not enough; we need trained Western armies and armaments to bolster the paltry efforts of the Kurds and Iraqis. If you don't think a country like the US, which spends more on its military than many other countries' GDPs combined, doesn't have the tools to exact a military defeat on ISIS, then you simply don't know what you're talking about.
Consider that the war in Iraq, for example, really only last about 3 weeks. That's all the time it took to defeat Saddam Hussein's army and topple his regime. What you and most other people object to is the handling of the post-war occupation of the country. This is when the massive corruption, abuse, and mismanagement occurred. The war itself was a piece of cake, and so will it be against ISIS. The problem is what to do in the aftermath.
Quoting Baden
No I'm not. I'm advocating the opposite: that we don't repeat the same mistake. The US military and her allies could not have not learned anything from the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan.
A psychopath follows his own twisted logic, yet unfortunately even saying that one understands this twisted logic is usually taken as somehow the person accepts or justifies this awful twisted logic as somehow being correct and accepted. That isn't the case here at all. (The more politically correct way here is typically just to say that one cannot at all understand or fathom the evil actions and blame it all on the people simply being evil. Evil one doesn't have to explain.)
Even if these Jihadists have a nutcase ideology to "make the World a better place with their Caliphate", just like the worst communists had (that had the idea of basically killing the rich and the bourgeoisie), they do follow a logic. So you tell me what country ISIS has attacked, that has had nothing to do with the Middle East, hasn't deployed troops there or hasn't been active supported the war against ISIS (or the IS)?
Don't get me wrong, I think ISIS (or IS) is something that the West ought to fight against (perhaps in some better way than just flying drones and fighters around in the area where ISIS operates) as the whole ideology is hugely detrimental to the people and simply will not work. But this fight will happen with a cost: the IS will fight back with terrorism. That is a fact and it has been proved now. Hence anybody saying that the West should fight IS has to understand that this fight will result in terrorist strikes or at least in attempts of terrorist strikes. War seldom is this one sided thing that doesn't harm at all one side. We just have forgotten this when we can just watch from CNN when the West starts a bombing campaign against some country... and have no fear of any retaliation coming our way. This isn't the same as to say that "It's the West's fault that we have jihadism". No, muslim extremism emerged far more from the inner problems of the Muslim countries themselves, but after the disasterous way Dubya and Obama have waged this war, we have to understand that we are in this mess, and unfortunate things like in Paris will happen.
Logic hasn't got anything to do with right or wrong. Naturally attacking innocent civilians is a crime and I do feel sorry for the families of the victims. France has now gotten two attacks in a brief period, so have to wish them all luck. Naturally right after a terrorist attack it isn't actually correct to have any philosophical, political or analytic discussion of the events as it will seem as something very cold and offending. Yet if you attack and kill French soldiers deployed at some of the various places they are deployed in Africa, that will not get the media attention as a terrorist attack in Paris. Everybody understands that being in the French Foreign Legion is and has been dangerous, one can get killed. Going for a night out in Paris usually shouldn't be deadly.
Anyway, the term that ISIS/IS is behind some terrorist attack is also a bit problematic as it wellcomes any nutcase to make an attack on it's behalf. Once when there are more than one person involved, the link to IS is likely far more obvious.
- Who are you talking about when you refer to "we"? The US? The US+France+UK? NATO?
- What international coalition are you talking about?
- Isn't the West actually trying to do that, actually?
- Who are the "Secular Syrian rebels"?
- You totally forget Russia here. If you start attacking Assad, you likely start attacking Russians too. Yeah, great gameplan. And Assad and the Russian's primary objective are those insurgents that the US has aided. The Turks fear the Kurds and bomb them. The Iraqis are with the Iranians. And the Saudis and others support those that are jihadists to you.
Just for starters, in the World there is a thing called "international relations", which are important. And countries usually have their own agendas and objectives, which really don't have to coincide with American objectives at all. And if (or when) you say you don't care, that is the basic fundamental problem just why US policy sucks so much.
Good, and I advocate the same. I just think that the intelligent strategy can only involve the use of military force in one way or another. Diplomacy by definition will not work with a group like ISIS, which you surely ought to know. So again, the longer we wait, the more bodies will pile up. For the most militarily advanced nations on earth to just sit on their hands while this happens is both ironic and tragic - not to mention in violation of the genocide convention and other international laws.
Quoting Baden
It would be wise not to assume much about me on account of my support for military intervention in the Middle East.
Quoting Baden
I doubt you marched against the war. In all probability, you marched against the handling of the post-war occupation.
Quoting Baden
I'm not saying you, personally, are. The use of first person singular or plural is meant to refer to the US and the West in general, which should have been obvious.
Quoting Baden
In all honesty, I was too young to have any coherent, reasoned position on it. But now in retrospect, I do support, or would have supported, the war itself, which, as I have stressed several times now, is distinct from the post-war occupation. The latter I vehemently disagree with.
I. Marched. Against. The. War. Before it started. In London. Can I make it any clearer?
Quoting Thorongil
You would have supported it and yet you have the audacity to call me callous and uncaring. You should be more circumspect in your personal judgments of people you know little or nothing about.
Yeah, more or less.
Quoting ssu
Yeah, but it hasn't adopted a strategy any more robust than simply flying drones and doing a few airstrikes.
Quoting ssu
Well, to my knowledge, there are primarily four groups in Syria: ISIS, Assad's forces, an al-Qaeda like terrorist group (I forget their name), and the Syrian opposition. I call them secular since they are the allies of the secular Western powers and would presumably want to establish democratic rule in Syria when the fighting is over.
Quoting ssu
No, I haven't forgotten them, but I very much doubt Russia would do something drastic. What do you have in mind? Do you honestly think Putin would declare war on Western Europe and the US merely on account of the latter's invasion of ISIS and Assad? The Russian economy is garbage, remember.
It is clear now, but it wasn't prior to this helpful statement.
Quoting Baden
So anyone who supports a war at all is callous and uncaring? By the way, I never called you such things. You would be if you, or anyone, only supports doing nothing as the best option. You seem to have implied that you would be open to military action were proper planning in place. Is that correct?
What was incredible was how people believed the lies and how willing they went to war... even there wasn't any backing from the neighbours and this truly was a totally different kind of war that before, or something basically similar to the one that the US started against Spain. Those extremely few voices in Washington DC that hinted that perhaps invading Iraq wasn't the best thing the US could do were simply sidelined and basically punished.
Basically the foreign relations community, that de facto makes US policy, is a tightly knit community were the neocons and the internationalist liberals don't actually differ so much.
Then read this article, which quotes heads of state and religious groups in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, among others which condemn terrorism and vow to help in the fight. I didn't see any discussion about Islam, as much as human values.
Quoting Thorongil
I am open to whatever causes the minimum loss of innocent life both in the short and long term. That will require a combination of alliance-making, diplomacy and possibly some form of military action. I am against any knee-jerk military response.
Well, I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm against any knee-jerk military response too, but I also feel serious military intervention must happen very soon. At any rate, perhaps this is a satisfactory close to our conversation here.
Quoting ThorongilWell, Putin has Russian Air Force jets and helicopters operating from Syrian army bases. The same bases that Assad's forces operate from. So what are you as the West going to do to them? You think you can attack only the Syrians on the military base, but not the Russians?
If you attack Russian troops in Syria, Putin might for instance put Russian nuclear forces on alert and perhaps do a nuclear test and simply state that he will defend Russian troops in Syria with nukes, if it comes to that. So Thorongil, will you want to go to WW3 because of Syria? That could affect even your own life, you know.
[quote=Thorongil]Well, to my knowledge, there are primarily four groups in Syria: ISIS, Assad's forces, an al-Qaeda like terrorist group (I forget their name), and the Syrian opposition. I call them secular since they are the allies of the secular Western powers and would presumably want to establish democratic rule in Syria when the fighting is over.[/quote]I think you are talking about Al-Nusra front (the al-Qaeda like terrorist group) and then the Free Syrian Army, the poster child of the West.
The problem here is that the fight in Syria isn't so much about democracy, but religion. It's the ethnic minorities, like Christians, who are on the side of Assad, and then the Sunni Majority, who here is unfortunately isn't just the Free Syrian Army.
Assad's tactic is similar to how the Algerian military junta fought it's civil war and won. First and foremost: it (Algeria) went after the moderates and left alone the extremists at first, because the extremists basically were fighting the moderates too (like in Syria) and then could portray to the Algerian people how bad the opposition was. The extremists in that war, the GIA, went after the muslim opposition leaders and also made terrorist attacks in France in order for the West to side with the Algerian government. Then afterwards the GIA was squashed and only few remnants calling themselves Al Qaeda or IS now are present.
I think we all need to recognize a distinction: What makes sense on a ranch in the arid wastes of Arizona (Anasazi word for "arid waste") or on a farm in the frozen wastes of Minnesota (Ojibwa word meaning "frozen waste") or in the hilly wastes of eastern Kentucky (Chickasaws word for "hilly waste") isn't a good idea in dense urban environments. If the Beast is slouching down the road leading to your adobe abode, shoot the son of a bitch -- then call 911. Same advice for anybody else living a long ways from the nearest patrol car.
The reason it doesn't work in dense urban settings is that there is too much friction all the time, and too many potential targets. Too many people end up getting shot by mistake (or even if the target is correct, bullets miss and often keep going long enough to run into somebody totally uninvolved). The thought of a gun fight breaking out at something as small as a rural slow pitch softball tournament is chilling.
Another reason it isn't a good idea to arm everybody to defend against terrorist attacks is that these attacks tend to be a total surprise, and there are enough variables to keep even the most agile of Navy Seals off balance, let alone your average good shot at squirrel hunting.
Like: Timothy McVey and his truck load of fertilizer and jet fuel with which he blew up the Oklahoma Federal Courthouse. Or 9/11. Or the Anthrax attack, the sarin attack (in the Tokyo subway), or the unibomber, or the crazed suicide mass murderer walking into a crowded Bagdad market and exploding themselves and everybody else nearby. Speaking of having doubt in one's government... David Koresh and his Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas were well armed and knew the feds were coming for them, but still ended up burning to death at the hands of the United States DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. (Talk about an agency with a mixed agenda!) That's what led to the Oklahoma bombing. (Oklahoma is an Arapaho word for "gawd awful waste".)
This plays into my point in my first post about the need for an Enlightenment in the Islamic world. The problem indeed stems primarily from religion, not from Western imperialism.
I believe you brought up bin Laden a while ago. Well, one of the principal reasons why he hated the US (as opposed to Sweden), was because we backed the East Timorese resistance to Indonesian occupation with military aid. He and like-minded Islamic terrorists could care less about Western imperialism or its history, so long as it doesn't thwart their plans for instituting Islamic theocracy, their real aim. That many liberals in the West seem to take these terrorists' word for it that they're really just miffed about the legacy of Western colonialism is hilarious to me.
Quoting ssu
Sure, I suppose it could happen, but I very much doubt that it would. In any event, I'm neither a utilitarian nor a pacifist, so yes, I would take out Assad, the Russians be damned. The West sat idly by when genocide occurred in Rwanda and in Sudan, which I find unconscionable, and it infuriates me that we're now doing the very same thing in the case of Syria. Well, now we know the consequences of inaction: large scale attacks in Europe and a truly massive influx of refugees (not to mention endless carnage in the Middle East itself).
Strong military intervention should have occurred a long time ago. And do not forget that ISIS, Assad, and even Russia (in light of the annexation of Crimea) are the aggressors here. There is no good reason not to stamp out ISIS and Assad except for the fear that it will turn into another Iraq/Afghan quagmire. That's a legitimate fear, but not good enough to convince me that no serious military action should be taken.
So it really doesn't make any sense. Or actually it makes a lot of sense... because the American policy is basically as totally nonsensical as this. And this is why Putin gets so much credit by many on his policy in Syria: because he put Russia to help one side in the conflict. Basically Russia, Syria and Iran share similar objectives here. (Hence Iran had no trouble of Russian cruise missiles flying over it's territory to hit targets in Syria) As Assad, views the various opposition groups (that also fight each other) the enemy, there is no trouble of finding just who is an acceptable actor (as with the US).
This nonsensical foreign policy can be seen for example in Egypt.
First Mubarak was a friend. Egypt was an ally of the US (after the peace accord with Israel). Then he wasn't. Then democracy was supported. Then that democracy gave in elections the "wrong" people the power. Then it wasn't supported. Then Egypt wasn't an ally, but wasn't a foe either. Then came the military coup in 2013 that got rid off the Muslim Brotherhood and then the US condemned the action and cancelled some weapon sales. Egypt then started making arms deals with Russia and France, with 46 MiG-29 and S-300 Surface-to-air-missiles. Now I have really trouble to know just where the US policy is towards Egypt. The Egyptian view is basically a lot of distrust and suspicion. From a Congressional Research Service memo;
There's no need to exaggerate. We have the Syrian rebels as our allies, as well as the Kurds and Iraqis. Turkey might also change their stance and aid efforts at combating ISIS more directly.
I agree that policy concerning Egypt has been ridiculous.
Liberal democracies went through centuries of struggle before such principles as the right of free speech, freedom of assembly and conscience, the practice of government with a 'principled opposition' became established. Along with these was the principle of pluralism, which is that it is possible for people with very different points of view to actually co-exist.
But I don't know if there is any inherent recognition of these principles in Islamic political systems. If you look at Iran, for instance, which is kind of coming into from the cold, after the nuclear deal was signed, it is still basically a theocracy, and people still routinely dissappear for being critical of the government. Turkey is a secular democracy, but it seems perilously unstable much of the time. And it doesn't look as though democracy, as such, is remotely possible in Egypt. (Tunisia remains a bit of beacon, but overall the Arab Spring doesn't seem to have culminated in the sudden establishment of liberal democracies in the Middle East.)
So the question is, should 'the principle of tolerance' accommodate political ideologies that don't actually recognize tolerance themselves? Ought not that be part of the deal? What if the principle of tolerance were extended by a liberal society, towards a totalitarian ideology, with the result that the totalitarian ideology was able to abolish the principle of tolerance?
I seriously doubt that any of the Islamic governments we see today would be really capable of presiding over a genuinely pluralist and democratic social order; among other things, Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state.
Incidentally, the overall aim of the various Islamic terrorist organisations is to precipitate the battle at the end of the world and the establishment of a universal caliphate overseen by the Mahdi (roughly equivalent to the 'second coming' for Christians.) 'The West' is seen by the conservative Islamists as being under the control of Satan and the battle is a cosmic battle of good and evil. (Of course not every or even hardly any Muslims believe any such thing, but there is a radical core that does. And when those are the stakes, there is nothing that seems unreasonable, I would think.)
If I get Marx right, one of the reasons the present countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere didn't develop liberal democracies is that they did not go through a long period of industrial development which could have helped them build more inclusive communities, a more secular society, more tolerance, and so forth.
The fissure of Islam is sort of (crudely) like the major fissure of Christianity into Roman and Greek wings. The conflict between these two wings was unproductive. It wasn't until the Latin church was split by Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, Jan Hus, Peter Waldo, and John Wycliffe that the benefits of reformation began to accrue to the western churches. Islam hasn't had its reformation, yet.
Islam has existed, for the most part, in relatively poor countries where there has been strong tribalism. In the last century oil, of course, lifted the prosperity of various nations, while maybe not doing all that much for the individual citizen.
So we have... a couple billion people who follow a moderately to extremely conservative faith, do not have democratic traditions, do not have a lot of prosperity, do not have a strong secular education system, and so forth. Thanks to technology, they are now drenched in access to all sorts of culturally abrasive content, some of which they probably like, and some of which they don't.
Fundamentalist Islam is as bound to be as resentful as fundamentalist Christianity. By its nature, extreme conservatism is a resentment against all that is modern. The conservative Christian preachers who backed the clock up to some vague pre-20th century point in time and are always calling down damnation on so-and-so or affirming that an earthquake is the result of rampant sodomy and pornography, or what have you, is of a piece with the ranting mullahs. A conservative Christian enclave would be about as pleasant as the ISIS caliphate.
it might be a good idea if liberal, secular, and democratic areas such as North America and Europe became more articulately supportive of cultural virtues and more explicitly proactive about cultural evils. The world needs tolerance of fundamentalism (Christian, Islamic, or Hindu) like it needs a return of the black plague.
Outrages like the mob murder of a Moslem in India for allegedly eating meat from a sacred cow shouldn't be swept under the cultural relativity rug. India should investigate and punish the mob. There are religious outrages in America instigated by fundamentalists that shouldn't be tolerated either -- like teaching creationism in schools (secular or religious schools). Maybe liberals should get off their duff and wreck the place. Anyone advocating, teaching or recruiting suicide bombers and terrorists should, perhaps, be executed forthwith. Prospective suicide bombers and terrorists can go to the same wall. If madrasas in Europe or the US (or anywhere else, as far as I am concerned) are teaching anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-secular doctrine, then be gone. If moslem prisoners are being radicalized in prisons, then isolate the teachers and subject the students to political reeducation.
I can't think of any effective way to change Saudi antediluvian theology. If there is so much oil around, maybe we should organize a boycott of Saudi grease. Maybe the remotely controlled self-destruct mechanisms in the AWACS we sold them should be activated.
Too harsh? Too violent? Not enough cultural sensitivity and respect? What's your suggestion?
- Bittercrank
I think 'the teaching of creationism' ought really not be compared to 'beating people to death'. I personally think 'teaching creationism' is a matter of free speech, and if the market place of ideas is not savvy enough to recognize it for the bollocks that it is, then that marketplace will not win the contest of ideas, and in true Darwinian fashion, it will become extinct. But if you legislate against it, then you have a scientific theocracy! (Of the kind that the ridiculous 'Freedom from Religion Foundation' would gladly foist upon us.)
You're entitled to make false claims within the limitations of the law. Others are not obligated to believe you. If you can't see the difference between making an argument for creationism vs talking someone into setting themselves on fire or someone being beaten to death then I'm not sure what else could convince you.
I can hardly imagine a sentiment further from the spirit of science and free enquiry.
Quoting WayfarerIf a country is democratic and has a somewhat functioning justice system and electoral system, that doesn't mean the people have similar liberal thoughts as you might have. Above all, a democratic system doesn't mold the people to be permissive liberals. There might be that university grad who studied philosophy who thinks the same way as you do. Yet this idea, that democracy will inherently make people Western liberals, to make them think like we do or whatever we have in mind as the objective is an unrealistic idea filled with hubris and self-centered egotism.
One could argue similarly then that because the US has capital punishment, tortures people and doesn't respect habeas corpus when it comes to "war on terror", that indeed this what you are telling is happening in the US. So should we then start a discussion on what is wrong with Americans contrary to "real permissive liberal democracies" we have in Europe? No. Because that kind of talk would be simply condescending. The majority of Americans do favour capital punishment. They are OK with the way the War on Terror is fought. And their liberal democracy functions quite well. Americans have what they want. Period.
Now there are indeed those universal values of what is right and wrong, all the cultures or religions don't differ so much in the end, yet still, if the Muslim countries would be functioning democracies and justice states, a lot of the laws would be different from ours basically because of democracy. And thus there would be the liberals here that would accuse them of not being liberal and democratic enough.
Yet the obvious fact is that the vast majority of these countries aren't functioning, have huge problems and that is the real cause why some extremists think that going to the roots of their religion will solve the problems. (Which it won't, but so didn't communism either...)
ssu
Yes, very clever people, too. Adaptable, industrious, and principled. Would that there were more like them.
You can make as many arguments for creationism as you want. Full stop. I wouldn't like a government deciding what I can and cannot say.
In the US, one of the most important values espoused by the government is the freedom of speech.
If you're talking about it being taught in schools as god's truth, then I agree. But if you're saying that no one should be able to teach creationism in any setting then I do not.
I am thrilled that you can see my skepticism because it took a lot of years, a lot of layers to peel back and a LOT of heavy lifting by international friends like Benkei and Tobias to get to the point I am yet I recognize I have a long way to go.
I didn't want to have to shift the context and I will tell you why I did. It is a point of clarification to make sure that those who do not live in a right to carry a concealed weapon state, understand that even though it is YOUR right to legally carry a firearm, carrying a firearm onto private property (Concert Venues/Movie Theaters/Starbucks/Bars) or into a Federal/State government building (Airports/Military Installations/Court Houses/Police Stations/Motor Vehicle Departments,ect) is still strictly forbidden.
In an effort to balance the forbidding of attendees from legally being able to protect themselves, if someone decides to hold a Muhammad cartoon drawing contest in Texas, they are implored (not mandated) to provide protection equal to the implied risk. It does not give the desire to create a life of fear, quite the opposite happens, it allows a sense of security that is yours to uphold, if you chose to do so.
This leaves me speechless...
... the SIOA (AFDI) is a horrible organization. Such hate groups should be illegal.
I really cannot comment on this any further.
Meow!
GREG
In a terrorist strike I think it would be extremely dangerous defend oneself or other people with a gun. The simple problem is that you may be shot yourself as a terrorist. People will likely not know just who are the terrorists and likely some idiot will define you as one of the terrorists. Hope then the police or the security forces aren't trigger happy, but in a terrorist attack they will likely shoot first and shoot to kill.
Now I don't have anything against gun ownership or people carrying guns, but what I would be really offended are these civilians "demonstrating their rights" by carrying their semi-automatic rifles as they would be patrolling a warzone, with their rifle at the ready and their finger close to the trigger. That goes way overboard. It's one of the basics of security personnel not to intimidate others.
And to Tiff's fear of her government (which is an interesting and deeply American thing): in one voluntary excersize we had, our reservists were taught how to make a VBIED, vehicle-born improvised explosive device and detonated it using a smart phone. And boom went the old car. There is something relaxing about it when a western government instructs it's citizens that aren't government employees techniques like that. It tells that at least the government (the armed forces here) still trusts it's citizens. That trust between the government and it's people is a two way thing.
Again, you're saying the the establishment gets to set the rules about what is fact and what is not. Anyone who says different should be criminalized? That is censorship of free speech. Ideas should stand or fall by their own merits. A great way to perpetuate non-scientific baloney is if you have a governing power making rules about what can and cannot be believed, e.g., the Roman Catholic Church, North Korea.
We live in a time where almost anyone has access to the greatest library ever conceived. If the argument for creationism is founded on lies about it's acceptance in the scientific community, it's quite easy for the deceived to find out.
My point is that someone who teaches creationism should not be classified in the same category as someone who murders another for eating 'holy' meat.
1. Declare war on the caliphate and treat citizens who have dealings with it under the good old statutes of treason, etc..
2. As the caliphate depends on holding territory, give maximum aid to alternative claimants to the territories they have a legitimate claim to and can control.
3. Selectively destroy munitions, military infrastructure, administrative centers etc. as we would do with any conventional enemy.
4. Above all avoid any rash changes in foreign policy. I see no need to change our policies on Syria, for instance. Assad needs to go, the refugees need help.
N.B. Some further clarification of Wood's position can be gleaned from his discussion with Sam Harris:http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-true-believers .
The US certainly has an interest. Russia lost over 200 in the airliner attack. France has now been attacked on home soil(twice). Japan has had journalists executed. the UK has had journalists/aid workers executed. Almost every country or people in the vicinity have been negatively effected by ISIS.
They're making an already complicated situation in Syria even more complicated, which is causing the refugee crisis to become even worse.
It would seem that the only reason Assad is being supported by Russia is because Russia wants to retain its leased naval base in Tartus. So why doesn't the US make a deal with Russia and the FSA to ensure they'll get to lease it for another decade so long as they help rid the world of ISIS?
This also might be the time for the Kurdish people to carve out a state for themselves if and when ISIS falls. If they do most of the suffering and fighting for this territory that the Iraq government can't keep and Turkey doesn't seem to care for I don't see why not.
What is totally wrong in that article is that it actually doesn't say a word about the situation in Iraq and Syria and the reasons just why some ISIS loonies were so successfull (other than hinting that Muslims and/or Islam is inherently violent and fall for this stuff). Because it's not like that every supporter has come from the outside only after a television appearance by the Caliph. If I'm correct, Graeme Wood never even mentions the Shiites or the bloody Civil War going on in Iraq or in Syria. That in both countries, Syria and Iraq, the fight basically goes through the Sunni/Shia divide. That in Iraq the Sunni minority is in a very bad situation. This is crucial and totally elemental to understand just why some ex-Al Qaeda leader could get this whole IS thing going.
Let's first remember how the whole Sunni uprising in the Anbar province was "defeated" when the US was around. It wasn't "the Surge" that took care of it, it was what was called the "Anbar awakening", basically that the US negotiated in the fall of 2006 with other Sunni groups it was fighting to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq and these locals fed up with Al Qaeda themselves drove out with US assistance Al Qaeda. And after that the "Sunni triangle" came to be a peaceful place for the Marines to operate. Case solved! But then the US went away and the Shiite leader of Iraq that acted like a dictator didn't want anything to do with Sunni's or incorporate them to the new Iraq. And hence the Muslim extremists were given a second chance.
Anbar awakening back then: Sunni insurgent with an American soldier
And furthermore, what is then victory and liberation from ISIS? Tikrit, the hometown of the late Saddam Hussein is still a ghost town after it's liberation. And the reason is obvious from this article from the Independent
Just to take a quote from that article mentioned:
You can dismiss this that it's only a reaction because of IS, but I wouldn't be so sure. Because this is basically an internal war in the Muslim community. And thus to talk about the loonies on one side, how about the Shiite militias loyal to Iran in Iraq?
[quote=photographer]2. As the caliphate depends on holding territory, give maximum aid to alternative claimants to the territories they have a legitimate claim to and can control.[/quote]Those alternative claimants to the territories are the state of Iraq and the state of Syria. So, you want to help Assad, the Shiite regime in Iraq and basically Iran? What about the Kurds? Are you going to give them land (and infuriate Turkey)?
Then there was the whole Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq, and W standing on the aircraft carrier with the Victory banner behind him. That was more than ten years ago - and now everything is even worse! After racking up $6 trillion dollars, thousands of servicemen dead, tens of thousands affected for life, Iraq/Syria is a roiling morass of chaos, far worse that it was on Sept 11 2001, and with no will left to really be able to do anything about it.
Anyway, I reckon they should simply disable all internet connections into the ISIS region, and then jam all the mobile phones. That would be a good start.
Outrages like the mob murder of a Moslem in India for allegedly eating meat from a sacred cow shouldn't be swept under the cultural relativity rug. India should investigate and punish the mob. There are religious outrages in America instigated by fundamentalists that shouldn't be tolerated either -- like teaching creationism in schools (secular or religious schools).
And Wayfarer responded saying he shouldn't equate the two.
This was your original comment that directly followed that.
Quoting ?????????????
Here's where you broke it down in your second to last comment.
Quoting ?????????????
There is clearly no scientific consensus on the side of creationism so why are you going on about this? Even if someone did deliberately present it as such, who cares? You want to legislate lying? When it comes to ideas or products that can harm people, such laws already exist. For things as benign as what you're talking about I really don't see a need for the government to get involved. Let them live or die in the arena of ideas. They're already dying anyway.
*Edit*
Should probably start a new thread if you want to keep going. I'm guessing you don't though.
My point here is that people aren't actually on the ground so ideologically motivated as we tend to think. And those fighters aren't all extremists, not those that have joined from outside the region. For the people there their family and tribe are the things important. ISIS has gotten a lot of support because it filled a vacuum and seemed victorious or simply so dangerous that one would have to go along just from fear.
There simply isn't just a military solution of destroying ISIS and leave it there. The basic question is what is the place for the Sunni's in Iraq, for example. Or for that matter, their role in Syria too.
To take another example, just how quickly the Taleban regime fell tells this... as many warlords simply changed sides. Now this is something that might be possible in Iraq/Syria too, assuming something credible could be given to the Sunni population. US did that and it proved successfull, but Nuri Al-Maliki didn't tolerate at all armed Sunni militias that were fighting Al Qaeda.
To this recent attack. I'm one of those "pansy liberals" who thinks the only good reaction to what happend in Paris is absolutely no reaction. Society should get on with life. The government can make a statement that - like any other criminals - they will do their best to catch them and bring them to justice in front of court. Every time the social conclusion (by which I mean, that which is put into effect by government, media and public support) is that this is "special", requiring a military reaction, requiring a hollowing out of our rights through increased surveillance or limiting our freedom of movement. These terrorists are winning little by little. We let them disrupt our societies and by doing so it disintegrates piece by piece.
We already see that Muslims living in Western countries feel more loyalty towards people thousands of miles away then their neighbours and countrymen. This process of radicalisation is the most threatening to our society because if we do not prevent it, we can barely stop it - attacks can come from any where at any time. Luckily, a lot of research has been done and it has shown that ideology alone does not guarantee radicalisation; that means that whatever people believe it doesn't mean that has to result in violent action.
I'll reiterate what I've said time and again; Islam is not the problem but Islamic-inspired terrorism is an accident to the geopolitical tensions existing in this world. Anti-western sentiment is not limited to Islamic countries, it's pretty much relevant, and in many cases prevalent, everywhere but in the West. The West is trying to impose its values, its narrative and its history on the rest of the world.
And no, that's not an apology for violence by terrorists but if you don't get that it is a reason for them, then you cannot engage the underlying consequences because in the end, terrorism is a symptom.
The most pathetic, neo-colonial claims in this respect are those claiming Islam should have an "Enlightenment", which really is just another way of saying Islamic countries must "get with the program and share our values". Well, the fact is they don't have to share those. And it's not as if "Christianity" had an "Enlightenment" either and equating Islam with culture is just emblematic of not having a clue. If Islam really was such a problem, we would've seen violence by "them" on "us" much sooner.
I urge everyone to read this a large part of the world hates us (use google translate)
Now as to the OP.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It is done and some cells are rounded up but it's not 100% effective. Like any other criminal organisation, you cannot think to stop every illegal activity. We have to live with a certain amount of insecurity or submit to a police state.
I would think efforts would be misguided here in the larger context that I don't believe terrorism is the main problem but a result of international politics and social changes in our own countries.
Yes. Don't get fucking involved in military interventions abroad on the basis of being allied with one country and not the other but make a sincere judgment each and every time the question comes up. It's valid to say "no" to your allies if you don't believe their cause is just.
Internally, politicians and media have to reevaluate how they address this problem. It has to move away from an "us" versus "them" and away from a military interpretation of this conflict. It has to offer Muslims a narrative that they can be vocal and critical of France's values and empower them to embrace non-violent solutions to their real and/or perceived problems.
Wahhabism and other interpretations of Islam have existed for some time. It's relatively recent that this has led to violent action and therefore not the only cause. It's definitely a contributory factor because of the harsh condemnation of Western values.
I post this story as a challenge, since it posits a way of dealing with terrorism most of us would find brutal and savage, and against all notions of human rights. Those of you who demand a 'response' might want to start with this one, since it is the most extreme I have heard.
[quote=Kenan Malik]
The terrorists did not target symbols of the French state, or of French militarism. They did not even target tourist spots. They targeted, rather, the areas and the places where mainly young, anti-racist, multiethnic Parisians hang out. The cafes, restaurants, bars and music venue that were attacked – Le Carillon, La Belle Equipe, Le Petit Cambodge, and the Jewish-owned Bataclan – are in the 10th and 11th arrondisements, areas that, though increasingly gentrified, remain ethnically and culturally mixed and still with a working class presence.
[...]
What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people, drinking, eating, laughing, mixing. That is what they hated – not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism.[/quote]
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/after-paris/
And if left liberals really do want to halt the "clash of civilizations" narrative and to stand up for the rights of ordinary Muslims, then they must stop reacting to attacks like these by saying, in effect, "look what happens when you push a Muslim to breaking point." It doesn't take a genius to see how racist this attitude is.
Yes, that article was an education for me too. It casts doubt on the oft-heard opinion, expressed already in this thread, that military action is useless because the ISIS fighters will just melt away into obscurity for a while to bide their time, i.e. that ISIS is just like al-Qaeda. If Wood is right, everything hinges on their holding of territory. And that is something that can be taken from them.
I am sure there are leftists and liberals suggesting that this is the case, but, being a leftist myself, I would modify this statement to the following:
I don't think most leftists would not instantly denounce ISIS for what they represent, but certainly what happened in France is to be expected. At least someone that suffered in the Middle East as a result of Western imperialism would rally the people under some ideology and hammer a series of "let's fight back" propaganda. As Georges Sorel would say: all organizations with power have with it a mythological endpoint in which the people unite under, which provides the hope and purpose for those within the organization. ISIS's myth is the establishment of some bullshit caliphate, and in creating this myth also designed it with anti-Western imperialism embedded into it.
So, of course we should expect some group to rise up. But which group? Well, the West has since dismantled the left, massacring them, and has historically provided active support to right-wing groups like ISIS, whether directly or indirectly. In this case, we should expect something like this to happen.
My argument isn't a tu quoque one; it is simply a matter of political fact that this would happen.
Furthermore, people in the Middle East actually dislike Western governments as a whole, look at Westerners with suspicion, and haven't forgotten what the West has done to them in the past century. It isn't any surprise to think that an environment such as this would be a breeding ground for people who would cling to misguided and repugnant answers presented to them by religious extremists when there aren't many answers to what they had to suffer.
Once again, I don't understand how you fail to see this fact. ISIS could not possibly exist in this day and age if there was no Western imperialism in the first place. The thousands of Iraqis wouldn't have joined them, they wouldn't dare do shit in Iraq if Saddam were still in power and the Iraqi state and infrastructure weren't in tatters, if the West and Russia weren't fighting a proxy war in Syria, if the West didn't fund and protect the Saudis for the past couple decades... all these factors go on and on. I mean, you are so quick to try to place a complete moral blame on Muslims and would like to frame ISIS as some sort of group that just came to be in a vacuum because they hate laughter and puppy dogs. ISIS doesn't recruit kids simply by schooling them in a Mosque. They go to communities and set up circuses and fairs and shit. People don't just join up with them all solely because they're scared. ISIS uses salesmanship on top of propaganda.
Once again, you can't get thousands of people to back your bullshit caliphate if all you do is bring the hammer of fear. You can see this in all forms of dictatorships. Look at Thailand: the first thing the current military dictator did was release a rock ballad praising his regime, gave out free movie tickets, paid off the farmers, and so on. This is typical behavior of dictators that get into power without the people's consent. You slowly integrate them into a system through childish bribery. ISIS is doing that exact same thing.
Just a note to point out that I did not say anything remotely like this, nor would I.
I mean let's face the facts: The US is very safe. It has no rival. It has two large oceans separating it and it's totally in control of it's own continent, basically. It's population is basically not actually thrilled to be entangled everywhere with every dispute there is. Yet it's foreign relations community at large, the real community that sets the goals and policies of the US, favours this interventionism. The neocon isn't so far off from a liberal internationalist, actually. That even might be the correct way for a Superpower to stay as a Superpower. And the way to sell this thing is through fear.
(Taken directly from your post).
Quoting discoii
You're joking, right?
Please define what you see as the problem? Is it terrorist attacks here, in the West? If so, then what should we care about IS holding territory in the ME? The Taliban wasn't much better (if at all) and they never attacked the West. So why is IS different?
What makes you think that defeating IS solves this problem and doesn't exacerbate it? How much worse do things actually have to get before it's clear that military intervention so far has only gotten us more problems - aside from a refugee stream we're going to have a hell of a time to accomodate in Europe?
Radicalisation of our youth isn't just caused because IS exists and it isn't caused by the simple existence of morbid interpretations of Islam. To draw an analogy, anti-semitism existed well before Hitler, it wasn't exactly a novel idea. It took additional circumstances to make a society turn on an ethnic/religious group just as that it requires more than just ideas to radicalise people.
It wasn't IS that attacked us but our own.
Also, are you suggesting that the defeat of ISIS is not a worthy goal?
All of a sudden it's about IS, hence, what is the problem you believe requires a solution?
As for your quoting Kenan Malik, I read it as your introducing the usual emotional-inducing "they hate us for our freedoms", which is generally vacuous as an explanation, as opposed to "they are carrying out an overall strategy". Terrorist strategy has rarely been about attacking government symbols, it has always been about creating fear that brings about a costly overreaction. This further marginalizes the Muslims in the West, which then leads to more recruits for the only groups that have the reach and answers for them.
I think that to have an expectation of defeating ISIS is to set an unobtainable goal. The ISIS reach is into the homes and phones of people around the world. If the enemy lay within each country, how do you defeat them?
There is a romance, slick and cool factor that is attracting these kids to find purpose within the ranks of ISIS. It is very similar to the gang codes of inner cities or out here in the West with the Hell's Angels and the Dirty Dozen where the initiation often involves taking out another from the rival gang.
The problem is that there is a bunch of bloodthirsty genocidal dickheads with power and territory who plan to kill millions of people in the Middle East and destroy any traces there of secular values, freedom for women, reason and the diversity of cultural heritage, democracy, dissent, and religious difference, and who are sometimes willing to take that war overseas, making this not just a problem for the Middle East. If people in the West, who benefit from the freedoms that ISIS is trying to eradicate, do not show solidarity with those in the Middle East who are fighting them or who are too scared to fight them, then they are morally bankrupt.
I did read it, I just don't find it very interesting or very relevant to the Paris attacks.
Quoting jamalrob
You're privy to their plans? You know what they want to accomplish? Do you believe they directed the attacks in Paris?
I don't know their plans. I suspect they'd be happy to hold and control and set up a Caliphate and there might or might not be an affiliation with IS. Suffice is to say that the attackers have been living in France or Belgium for quite some time, some of them have travelled to Syria to fight - which means they were radicalised in France well before getting into contact with IS - others never did travel there.
In other words, I think you're grossly overestimating IS and their influence on radicalisation but I do think there is rather broad support for their ideas and broadening as a consequence of our recent actions.
Also, the "Western man's burden" apparently is to show solidarity with people by bombing the shit out of their countries. You're under this naïve romantic notion that war can be clean. That we can "take their territory" in a vacuum where ordinary people don't suffer. You apparently lack the imagination as I wouldn't wish the reality on you by saying you should experience it.
I'm not even certain they want our support. You blindly assume that Western values are wanted there. There are more ways to social justice than Western democracy and imposing Western-style institutions. Imposing our values, our narrative of modernity isn't working and we need to open ourselves up to solutions that are specific to the area. Whatever intervention on our side, even if it were successful in eliminating IS, would be oppression in itself and therefore not solve the underlying problem.
So again, what do you see as the problem? I want you to spell it out.
Frankly Benkei, this is rancid. I mentioned "secular values, freedom for women, reason and the diversity of cultural heritage, democracy, dissent, and religious difference". Are you suggesting that these are just our values? This reveals, more than anything I have said, a patronizing and essentializing "us and them" attitude to people in the Middle East. Are Kurdish women equal to men because this was imposed on them by the West? Did the Iranian people build an innovative music scene in the 1970s because they were agents of Western Imperialism? Did the people in Tahrir square demonstrate in favour of democracy because they were told to do it by the CIA? Are the women in the Middle East who bravely campaign for women's rights merely imposing an alien culture on a naturally barbaric people? Have Shias and Sunnis lived in peace together for many decades in many places only because they were brainwashed by Americans?
I did not call those values Western. You did, and that two-faced imperialism underlies everything you say. They are values that are up for grabs for anyone who wants to grab them, and people around the world have grabbed them and continue to want them. They are universal.
What I said about them is based on what they have said they want to do and what they say motivates their actions, which are in turn consistent with those motivations. Maybe you should read Wood's article again.
The West may claim to have superior values to ISIS, but their leaders most certainly do not, and there is a plethora of evidence to support this claim (including the fact that the existence of ISIS is due to Western imperialism).
I think there is a lot of truth in this. I don't know what can be done about it.
I'm not just suggesting it. I'm telling you that these are most certainly very particular to our tradition and culture and therefore not necessarily shared. Ask people in former colonies what exactly "democracy" has brought them. Not much if not most of the things they hate and blame on the West.
If you say so. I wasn't aware this thread is now about my character while you continually dodge one simple question. What is the problem.
I think they are. I wouldn't claim to know what that means in their culture though nor whether they aspire to "Western" equality in the first place.
Pffff... this is rather laughable. There's a difference between people taking away from other cultures what they like and making it their own and propping up or installing dictators to enforce Western style capitalism. Or to replace traditional processes with Western-style democracies and institutions (Afghanistan and Iraq, most former colonies) when it clearly doesn't work.
Having studied international law it's quite clear where these values came from. Apparently, you just bought "universal rights" hook, line and sinker.
Please continue with the judgments; makes this discussion so much more interesting to me. These values are not universal. They're a fucking luxury. Take a look around you in the world if you will. I wish they were universal. And it's very Western of you to think they are universal or that they should be so.
Has it ever occured to you that some people just might come to a different hierarchy of values and rights than we did in the West and still consider the end result just? It's not set in stone and just the shift in how rights are recognised, which trump which, in the past 60 years in the West itself should have informed you of this.
Finally, what is the problem according to you? You still haven't answered.
PS: I agree, by the way, I'm not very consistent when I on the one hand want to dismiss the us-them dichotomy (I don't think it's helpful) and on the other hand find myself forced to use it to make certain points clear.
Quoting jamalrob
Otherwise your post is so confused I wouldn't know where to start.
If you're done throwing a tantrum? How do you expect to have a discussion if you ridicule another person's positions or continually judge their positions. It's isn't a schoolyard where whoever shouts the loudest is the one people listen to. It's too easy to simply dismiss it and say it's confused.
What exactly is confused about my post?
Jamalrob, perhaps you don't see the excessive simplicity you argue for. What you describe above is the typical "Islamo-Fascists that hate our freedoms" -jargon back from the Dubya days. But then you make there in between the accusation of the moral bankruptcy in the West of those who don't show solidarity to those "in the Middle East who are fighting them".
OK, show then your moral support and solidarity to Hezbollah and Iran and Shiite militias loyal to it, the Assad regime and the Al Nusra front for starters then. Or even Putin, for that matter (as some of the targets Russians have bombed have indeed been ISIS targets).
(Lets show solidarity to these guys!)
Furthermore, if you say that the reason to attack ISIS is because the territory it holds is crucial to it, then please say just who comes to replace them? An answer "I dunno, somebody will have to sort that out" isn't a proper answer. First and foremost, anyone arguing for attacking ISIS has to have some kind of gameplan what to do then. The problem here is that the West doesn't have that. And just ranting about how evil ISIS is and demanding military action isn't at all enough here, even if it seems to be enough for the greater public. Because there has to be some political solution, some actual discussion what really should be done there and not just an emotional response of bombing some targets after a terrorist strike.
This is a good point. I did not mean to suggest that women had gained emancipation throughout Kurdish society.
No, I described what ISIS are doing and what their motivations are. Again, it is frustrating to discuss this with people who want to think I'm saying something I am not. Do not try to fit everything into your ready-made templates.
I think nobody here nobody has any objections about that the ISIS or IS is made of extremist zealots that have this messianic message. That's a message like the US is committed to fight terrorism in the "War on Terror". That's the reason some Boko Haram in another continent says it's part of the IS.
The real thing is what to do here. If you demand that they should be attacked, just what is your gameplan? Just bombing possible IS fighters is enough? Because it really feels that it's enough.
Afghanistan was treated in exactly the similar way and hence the war continues. The idea that you just get rid off the bad guys... whoever they are and not have the slightest care what your actions otherwise do or what the underlying dilemmas in the region are is the problem here. That's the thing you aren't answering.
Really? That's what you take away?
The idea that this is somehow centrally planned by IS, can be tossed in the bin. It's an issue of radicalisation. The idea this can be resolved by doing something over there (bombing) instead of over here just baffles me, which is why for the life of me I cannot imagine why IS needs to be brought into this. They're largely separate problems.
And so far the war on terror hasn't gotten us much. I have no doubt we can flatten the area but I have zero confidence that it will stop their appeal to new recruits here and over there. So the solution isn't a solution and therefore you and jamalrob don't seem to understand the actual problem.
That said, I think I would support photographer's proposals, despite having opposed all Western intervention for the past few decades:
Quoting photographer
Yes, because there is a battle of ideas.
I can tell you already: these people have rejected your type of narrative about democracy and universal values because they see time and again it's just words and not acted on.
Sanctity of life? Only if you're western. Equality? Al animals are equal but some are more equal than others. Non-discrimination? Only if you're western. Prosperity? Only if you're western. Democracy? Begets corruption. Your narrative is simply not true for the majority of people in this world so why bother repeating it? It has already been utterly rejected by them due to our praxis.
The successful (from our point of view) competing narrative will be something similar to Islamism but without the violence where it concerns radicalisation as they have already distanced themselves from their own societies and what you refer to as Enlightenment values.
And just the narrative isn't enough, it's how they relate to the state and official institutions as well. And if I see 40+% unemployment and poverty within the banlieus and the Bruxelles' district we have one of the more important other conditions often necessary for radicalisation.
Quoting Benkei
What narrative?
Mindless terrorists? The truth about Isis is much worse
Suggesting "absolutely no reaction" to a terrorist action in which 129 (+/-) were killed, about 100 were critically wounded, and 200+ more sustained serious to moderate injuries (mostly from gunfire) and x number of near-by eye-witnesses were traumatized, is just not creditable. It doesn't make any difference whether such actions are in Paris, Nairobi, Madrid, London, Beirut, Bagdad, Mumbai, or Timbuktu. "Absolutely no reaction" would never be an appropriate or sensible reaction.
The public policy we follow does need to be based on careful distinctions:
Terrorism isn't an accident (a train derailing); it isn't gang activity (fighting over turf); it isn't ordinary criminal behavior (knocking off a convenience store); it isn't subversive political activity (changing the government by covert political means); it isn't rioting (spontaneous outbursts); it isn't a game of political uproar.
Terrorism is a unique kind of intrusion (state sponsored or not) which is aimed at people who are not responsible for one's grievances. Terrorism is a specialty of guerrilla war; it is a powerful lever in the hands of the relatively powerless. A handful of operators can do a tremendous amount of damage.
Whether an open door policy for a flood of refugee/migrants is a good idea or not is a tangential issue. So also is the question of religion and terrorism: Tangential, but not irrelevant. The long history of Europe and the Middle East is tangential. Yes, we could go back to the Crusades, or to the conquest by Islam in the first place. But... let's not. More recent history will do.
Yes, it is true that that the colonial British, French, and Americans et al have all had a hand in creating the 20th century mess of the Middle East and Northern Africa. I was opposed to the war on Iraq and Afghanistan (and I said so at the time that if Iraq or Afghanistan were a mess, the USA definitely did not have sufficient expertise to straight it all out. And nobody else does either.) Plus, it has been stated US policy since WWII to control oil in the Middle East.
Do the actions of the UK, US, France, et al justify whatever happens next? I suppose one could say we had it coming. Everybody has some sort of unpleasant recompense coming. THERE ARE NO VIRTUOUS STATES. Not Saudi Arabia, not Iran, not Syria, not Israel, not Belgium, not Germany, not US, UK, Russia, or anybody else.
Appropriate responses for social disruptions. Who has an interest in the well-being of the Islamic State, outside of small circles of friends? It is likely that destroying their extremist enterprise will leave the world better off, particularly the world of those who live near by.
How do you rationalize with people who advertise the desire for fresh American blood?
To use a bad medical analogy, if an external pathogen triggers a devastating auto-immune effect, you don't usually ignore the pathogen and simply focus on the immune system. Sure the French are imperfect - and don't get me started on the mischief that Dubya caused in Iraq - but they have been attacked and ISIS is claiming responsibility. Should they invoke Article 5 - and I think they should - every NATO state is bound to support them.
We have bombed the piss out of ISIS for the last 12 months, but it has only grown in size. They want us to react strongly to their actions, they want to die as a 'heroes', martyrs to their cause. We have tried in the past to blast populations into the "stone age", only to see them crawl out of their 'caves' renewed, with their renewed resilience drawing new blood to their cause.
I think boots on the ground is the only way to defeat them and I think these boots must be Muslim led. Not any coalition, but a coalition of Muslims nations willing to fight to take back their honor. If this kind of coalition is possible, it should receive world wide support.
ISIS is not a state, they don't even recognize that as a concept, they don't want to negotiate, that is against their unbelievably traditional ideology.
They want to fight, to die, to go to heaven.
Especially from where I sit... I just don't feel comfortable committing much in the way of military endorsements. There's too much noise, and I am not personally familiar with the situation, enough so that I don't think it right to commit. If I've learned anything in my involvement with politics it's that being personally involved really sheds light on the situation, and since I am not -- and I don't have access to people I know I can trust with respect to the situation -- I remain skeptical, overall.
Even though it was cream cheese by comparison, quite a few young Americans were attracted to various leftist organizations and radical loony groups in the 1960s. The old-line communists called it "infantile adventurism". As you note, young people like the slick (or not so slick) cool factor. So did I, back in the stone ages. Adventure! "Let's see just how far out we can get!"
A few Somali youth have left Minneapolis for Syria, much to the horror of their parents. It hasn't worked out well for them. But, given their cold, upper midwestern cultural milieu, Syria is hot.
I bet Kurdish women who are equal to men, even if it was imposed on them by Western Imperialists, would be reluctant to give up their equal status. I bet Hindu women in India who have been gang raped and beaten to death because the appeared to be gaining personal sovereignty, would disagree with you. I would guess Chinese women who have gained rights under the Chinese Communist Party would be reluctant to go back to the days when their feet were still getting bound (a century or so ago).
The Afghan women who had lived relatively public and interesting lives before the Taliban took over parts of Afghanistan, didn't seem to be thrilled to be put back into their burkas and were sort of expected to stay 'barefoot and pregnant' again.
The women in sub-saharan Africa who are gaining control over their fertility and education for themselves and their children don't seem to resent western aid imperialist's efforts on their behalf.
Men and women everywhere generally like to have options in life if that is at all possible, whether they are Moslem, Hindu, Communist, Christian, Animist, fundamentalist Protestant in Central America, or what have you.
Universal Rights are universally a good thing, whether the reactionary local yokels like it or not.
Western imperialist rubbish, obviously. (Not to me)
Gee whiz! If all they want is to die and go to heaven, don't they realize we would be more than happy to arrange their demise?
When I criticized Western liberals for failing to show solidarity with those who are fighting ISIS, I had in mind not only those who are actually fighting them but also those who are too scared to fight them and those who are suffering at their hand. I had in mind the Muslims of Europe who struggle to challenge the Islamists in their midst; the Kurds, who have mostly been unsupported by the Western left (as an example take the UK National Union of Students voting against a motion to condemn ISIS and support the Kurds, because it would be "Islamophobic"); and the Sunnis of Iraq who refused to swear allegiance to ISIS or who have been forced to live under its regime; and especially now, the significantly pro-French people of Raqqa in Syria, where ISIS is being targeted by the French air strikes. Against the reports posted by the anti-ISIS campaigners of Raqqa, European leftists are eager to spread pro-ISIS fabrications about civilian deaths. I urge you to read the Twitter feed to get an idea of what's been going on in the territories where ISIS holds power.
Quoting raqqa-sl.com
Against this, @Benkei says: "You blindly assume that Western values are wanted there".
But no, I'm not a fan of Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, or Assad.
And one has to be either simply ignorant or in possession of a broken moral compass to say this:
Quoting discoii
1. The first condition: Offer youth something that makes them dream of a life of significance through struggle and sacrifice in comradeship.
2. The second condition: Offer youth a positive personal dream, with a concrete chance of realization.
3. A third condition: Offer youth the chance to create their own local initiatives.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-atran/violent-extremism-social-science_b_7142604.html
ISIS is winning in this area because it has a supreme confidence and idealism that is currently lacking amongst the liberal defenders of cultural diversity, freedom of speech, democracy, equality for women and gay people. That lack of confidence, if not outright scepticism and equivocation, is very apparent in this thread.
Why is there even the mention of invading another country or nation?
Why is that even consider a viable option? :s
As far as I can tell these leader of the caliphate do not represent a particular country or nation. They represent countries and nations that are as mythical as Narnia or Pandora. These lands exist in their (delusional and disturbed) minds.
The blame game is getting (fucking) old.
Who gave them support? :-d
EVERYONE!
Indeed if we trace back the supports to their cause for caliphate, nearly every country and nation (East, West, North or South) will probably have some sort of hand in this support (whether intentional or unintentional), so maybe it is time to stop play the blame game and go after the individuals.
------------------------------------------------------------
Here's another question that maybe the (generalized) West needs to ask itself:
Why are youth from the (generalized) West even considering joining such an organization as ISIS or whatever the next new kid of terror on the block happens to be in vogue?
What is missing or present in this current (generalized) Western society that causes this to even be a consideration?
I mean specifics and not just a bunch of generalized rhetoric of boo these (vague) values and boo these handful of leaders.
-------------------------------------------------------------
My personal perspective is that the attack on ISIS that will be the most effective and might do the most to dull their progress will be the attack by Anonymous. Their attack is aimed at the individuals and not countries that have 'supported' them (which would be every country) or nations where they come from or have been last seem to have inhabited.
In terms of values and notions of truth...
... I also view this circumstance to be the best evidence to show how idealism and literalism are flawed and cruel systems in both the 'east' and the 'west'...
... but as this debate is not about philosophy, but rather use and abuse of politics and religion as pimped by self-justified megalomaniacs and followed by his/her cult via personality**, be they in Syrian or the USA... I suppose were back to the 'petty penis measuring contest'. Introducing any philosophy would be an act of castration.
Maybe they should make this a new world anti-national anthem?
[i]"Closer To Fine"
I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine[/i]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway...
... this is what I except to have to deal with in 4 weeks when I fly to Washington DC leaving my rather safe and secure home with my Islamic neighbors who are just as shocked over the circumstances and they themselves have a new fear to deal with... the witch hunts... I just have to turn on the TV and I can smell the smoke of stupidity mixed with the sweat of fear:
[i]"Hunting For Witches"
I was sitting, on the roof of my house
With a shotgun
And a six pack of beers, six pack of beers, six pack of beers.
The newscaster says, "The enemy is among us"
As bombs explode on the 30 bus,
Kill your middle class indecision,
Now is not the time for liberal thought,
So I go hunting for witches
I go hunting for witches
Heads are going to roll
I go hunting for..
90's,Optimistic as a teen.
Now its terror
airplanes crash into towers, into towers, into towers.
The Daily Mail says the enemies among us,
Taking our women and taking our jobs,
All reasonable thought is being drowned out by the non-stop baying, baying, baying for blood
So I go hunting for witches
I go hunting for witches
Heads are going to roll..
I was an ordinary man with ordinary desires
I watched TV, it informed me
I was an ordinary man with ordinary desires
There must be accountability
Disparate and misinformed
Fear will keep us all in place
So I go hunting for witches
I go hunting for witches
Heads are going to roll
I was an ordinary man with ordinary desires
I watched TV, it informed me
I was an ordinary man with ordinary desires
There must be accountability
Disparate and misinformed
Fear will keep us all in place[/i]
Maybe it's me, but I consider FOX NEWS to be a radical terrorist organization as much as ISIS.
Then again, I'm not really from anywhere anymore, but I do like this Austrian Laws:
[i]Article 283
The Austrian Criminal Code contains provisions aimed at combating racism and intolerance.
These include Section 283 (para. 1) - which punishes incitement to hostile action against a
church or religious community established in the country or a group determined by their
affiliation to such a church or religious community, or to a race, nation, ethnic group or state -
and Section 283 (para. 2) - which punishes publicly agitating against such a group or insulting or
disparaging it in a manner violating human dignity.5
With effect from 1 January 2012, the scope of the offence of hate speech defined under section
283 of the Criminal Code had been expanded. Section 283, paragraph 1, characterized advocacy
of or incitement to violence against a church, a religious society or any group defined in terms of
race, skin color, language, religion, belief, nationality, descent, national or ethnic origin, sex,
disability, age or sexual orientation, or against a member of any such group, where the
incitement was expressly motivated by membership of the group, as an offence punishable with
imprisonment for up to 2 years.6[/i]
Meow!
GREG
** [i]"Cult Of Personality"
Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality
Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set you free
You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your God's name
I'm every person you need to be
I'm the cult of personality[/i]
Sorry all the 'POP' references, but this problem is a part of the culture... the POP culture.
Maybe that is the better location to seek out a solution and than impersonal and abstruse ranting of political and religious rhetoric? ;)
Well, let's just think about another time when the way terrorism was handled was different and the outcome of that.
On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb was detonated under the Twin Towers with the intent that the northern tower would knock the south tower too. They didn't fall. Had it worked, about 20 000 people would have died (as the towers wouldn't had the time at all to evacuate as in 9/11). Now only 6 were killed and over 1000 were injured. No war wasn't declared, no country invaded. The strike was dealt as a police matter: The New York police lead the investigations and caught the terrorists, some of whom were from the same family as the the 9/11 attackers (hence Al Qaeda was a really small community). The FBI later caught (with the Pakistan officials assisting) the lead perpetrators in Pakistan. The terrorists were convicted by the ordinary way in the US judicial system and now sit in a prison inside the US.
Now the real question: During the time between 1993-2001, how much of the present problems we had with Muslims and Islamic jihadism? How much fear there was out about Muslim extremism? How many trains were stopped because a Sikh with a turban just happened to travel in them? Was the muslim community viewed as a problem? Because those times the Al Qaeda did desperately want to get noticed, get America to attack it. And there were the bombings of US Embassies.
Really, the main objective for these terrorists is to get the West to attack Muslim countries. This is basically the way that terrorists think. Nonstate terrorists that aren't a part of some real war in some country see themselves as a vanguard, somebody who have to get the struggle underway. They very well understand that their actions, the terrorist strikes, have a response from the government. And they hope that this response will go in their favour. Think for example about the Red Army Faction in Germany. These people, starting as the Baader-Meinhoff gang, saw West Germany as still basically a Nazi state. Hence with their actions, they wanted to awake the proletariat, make the real "Red Army" from Germany to emerge and fight this Nazi State called West Germany. At it's height, the terrorist organization had 14 active members. They really would have been thrilled if West Germany would have declared a state of war. But they got only the police looking for them and a special border guard unit to be formed (which also was formed because of the Munich massacre). The Bundeswehr wasn't mobilized to fight them. But they, the under twenty people or so, would surely have liked that. That was the old way to fight terrorism, the European way: through police and the justice system.
Hence when after some people from Belgium (right?) have made a terrorist strike, your answer is to bomb more in the Middle East and say that the problem are people like Benkei. I don't think the attitude of Benkei is the problem here. What has gotten us to trouble is the "get the murderous jihadists at all costs!", the Jack Bauer mentality, the occupation of countries and bombing campaigns in various countries that focus on getting some individual perpetrators that has done this mess (alongside the Iraqi occupation). I mean really, what really did Afghanistan and Iraq have to do with a bunch of Saudi nationals? Because somehow, we actually were going after the same terrorists prior to 9/11 and the Middle East didn't explode and costly wars didn't happen. Yes, perhaps then Dubya didn't care enough about the fight, but Clinton surely had noted the problem.
Because now we haven't cared the sh*t about what happens to the countries when we have gone to these countries and started our War on Terror. And now the Middle-East has now blown up. ISIS wasn't formed because a successfull terrorist strike in 2001, ISIS happened because of the occupation of Iraq. If any nutcase where ever can claim to be part of IS, get "the official IS merchandise" from the net and make his terrorist attack on the name of IS, is really the best answer then bomb the Middle East more? So my point is this: the way we have gone on with this War-on-Terror is itself the reason we are failing. There are other ways to combat terrorism than it has done by Dubya and Obama.
It would be similar as if (when) a guy in South Dakota or somewhere thinks he's gotten enough of paying taxes and declares himself a new country independent of the US, the response wouldn't be to have the police handle and the court handle this case, but to call in the USAF and take him out with guided weapon shot from a drone... to "send a message that the US doesn't tolerate this kind of behaviour". Yeah, that would really sink in correctly to militia-people and the prepper-comunity. That really would make Tiff here trust her government more. But that's the reality we are doing, because the governments here have done the bombing campaigns to please the crowd demanding revenge in their own countries and not caring about the backlash it will have in the targeted countries.
But we could keep doing this or you could suggest what we should do with the American terrorists that bombed the hospital.
Where do you get this from? Don't take my refusal to engage with your post as an endorsement of the American military's bombing of a hospital.
And that means that actually we have to accept their objectives also. And here lies our real problem. Now as ISIS is a Sunni problem, then Sunni states should take care off it. This is a part of the Sunni/Shia conflict. Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the GCC, those actors should get to be committed to work together. We should start then treating them as equals in this war as the bear the brunt of this war. Have them the mandate of the UN. With the UN mandate, you could get the Iranians, Syria and Russia to be in this. Heck, the UN has forgotten it can go to war. First thing would to get at least a cease-fire agreement and some peace agreement in Syria. Then have the UN lead war against ISIS. Have then the Sunni areas in Iraq a peacekeeping force, because I wouldn't trust the Shiite regime in Iraq to be capable of handling the area at least yet.
As for the cause, I think it's a combination of things, and I wouldn't want to put the blame for the success of ISIS entirely on Benkei's shoulders. You're right that the Western intervention has been in many ways counterproductive, has eroded trust in the West among the people of the region, alienated many ordinary non-fundamentalist Muslims, and left a power vacuum that led to the rise of ISIS. But the question is why this sort of outcome. Why ISIS? Whence the international appeal of this kind of organization? And it's here that I think you have to look at the lack of alternatives, both the lack of secular alternatives in the Middle East--which discoii has already described--and the lack of strong liberal voices in the West arguing for values opposed to those of ISIS, i.e., the reluctance to stand up for the principles that used to be fundamental among liberals and the left. And this goes back to my post above about radicalization.
You don't know what to do and, unfortunately, the governments doing things don't know what to do either. But they're still doing them because like you they feel the need to do something. That's understandable but it's a very questionable ethical position. Much more effective would be to make an argument that showed how such actions would cause more good than harm, and that argument needs to address the political complexities that posters like @Benkei and @ssu have raised rather than just gloss over them. I don't see that being done here. I see the aspiration that ISIS be punished for what they did and that's an aspiration we all share but a retributive form of justice isn't enough here. If immediate military punishment of ISIS is more likely to cause more attacks like the one in Paris then it's probably not the best option. I don't know for sure that that is the case but as things stand right now I personally would not want to risk that kind of outcome just to kill some madmen for whom death is little more than a path to paradise.
Just want to add too that what unites us on this thread is far more important than what divides us. No doubt all of us would like to see the end of ISIS, and no doubt all of us appreciate the fact that we don't live in the nightmare they have created in the Middle East and the one they want to spread across the world. Sickening stuff keeps happening here and over there and I think that's thrown us all off kilter. I think the most useful approach now would be to put our heads together and ask the difficult question as to what really would work not only to defeat ISIS militarily but to remove the fuel that fires these types of movements (as you're touching on in your second paragraph above). Continuing to bang our heads against each other because of our different political views isn't going to get us very far.
Quoting jamalrob
When moderates cannot give what people want, radical elements take over. And you're correct that there isn't an alternative. Actually, there isn't much of any kind of alternative to let's say the Sunni minority in Iraq... especially when it's shown that the Shiite regime has nothing to offer them.
And when the defence of a country dissolves into voluntary factions, the "resistance" or "insurgency" is usually taken over by radicals, who usually are the most effective, most highly moralized and don't adapt to the new rulers. For instance during German occupation of France the most effective if not the prominent resistance group were the communists and their FTP. Yet as a political party in France the communists have been a minority.
So yes, it's about the will to fight. And if your aim is to recreate a historical new Caliphate, and hence those fighting for it will be "a grand part of the glorious history of Islam", someone can fall for that crap easily.
I think two things need to be distinguished here. It's not that I'm against cultural diversity, freedom of speech, democracy and equality, I simply have established that we (the West, US, the Netherlands, whatever) claim to be for these values but do not uphold them in practice. The reality is that these values only exists in our minds and is a story we tell ourselves but in the real world they really don't exist. Women are unequal, immigrants are overrepresented in prisons and impoverished. Your life, if you're a Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan, is not worth as much as that of an American when all is said and done.
Simply repeating the story and saying "I really believe in this" will buy you squat with regards to radicalisation. Those values haven't brought the majority of people in this world what "we" claim it should bring them and that is what I see as moral bankruptcy of the West. We don't have the moral highground. We only have that if we compare the stories but not if we look at what is happening in the world.
So this is why this narrative fails because it is incomplete. We believe in these values and want to pursue them but as a society we are hopelessly failing here and abroad.
I sincerely believe (and I'm not the only one if recent research is anything to go by) we're not being attacked because we believe in those values but because we fail to fulfil the very promises we make. Moreover, Western interventions trying to implement (at gunpoint) these values have failed over and over, which is why I advocate a total absence of military intervention.
Scott Atran raises a few points but other writers will claim (and I agree with them) that it's hardly complete because it fails, among others, to identify socio-economic circumstances that almost always accompany radicalisation. Well, he identifies it but he doesn't consider it a condition.
Well, I did propose some reaction, e.g. police action.
Sometimes, if you want something to stop, you should just ignore it.
My reasons are as follows:
- The reaction France's political establishment shows now is that terrorist attacks work, which might inspire others;
- Although there is an (ideological) link between IS and the attackers, at most IS has guided this by saying "go forth and perform a terrorist attack", leaving decisions to these radicalised youths. The link is, in my view, to tenuous and in any case doesn't deal with the real problem (which in my view is radicalisation here and abroad);
- So far, military intervention has brought us more problems;
- Attacking IS does not solve radicalisation in France (it might even contribute);
- Attacking IS might be useless if recruits will join faster than we can kill them;
- Attacking IS will be useless if we're not committed to boots on the ground;
- Attacking IS will be useless if we don't have a plan for the power vacuum that comes into existence and that doesn't involve imposing Western style and statist institutions in a tribal environment;
- Money is better spent combatting radicalisation in France itself.
Well said.
Hrmm, I wouldn't say that this is the case. I have no problem standing by my commitments. But the whole affair is so reminiscent of 9/11 -- it's not like Saddam Hussein was a leader for a free world, or anything. But, all the same, the amount of murder that has arisen out of toppling his regime far outweighs the number of deaths on 9/11.
What I see is a really similar response as 9/11 -- feeling hurt and needing to lash out against an enemy and "show them" what happens when you mess with us. But, by this time, supposing we use that old standard of justice "an eye for an eye", I wouldn't be surprised if the number of innocents killed in Paris are roughly equal. However, a full on war would far outweigh that equality of killing. And, given the success of both Afghanistan and Iraq, it may not actually end or even result in the ending of QSIS. One article from the Atlantic is not enough to determine if that is a sound policy, I think.
You don't think what you've called for is the same as the 9/11 response? It strikes me as similar.
FWIW, this popped up in my twitter feed today and I thought it appropriate: http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2343-isis-attacks-targeting-innocent-people-by-hamid-dabashi -- isn't there some truth to what he says there? (it links back to this story: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/11/je-suis-muslim-151114163033918.html which I'm still in the middle of reading)
Should we really be the world police in the first place? Isn't that what we're actually pushing in saying we should defeat ISIL/QSIS/ISIS? Or what am I missing, then? I can certainly see how my own experience with the invasion of Iraq could be clouding my understanding. What are you proposing, precisely, that differs from the U.S.'s reaction to 9/11?
All the same I'd like to know --
what am I missing? I can certainly see how my own experience with the invasion of Iraq could be clouding my understanding. What are you proposing, precisely, that differs from the U.S.'s reaction to 9/11?
Pretty much sums up my feeling about the whole affair (the embedded movie)
which really gives clear picture of just what ISIS is going after with these attacks.
From Washington Post: The Islamic State’s trap for Europe
One quote:
And furthermore:
The real problem is that this isn't actually told to the public or basically dismissed and a naive picture is given as the reasons, like "they just hate our freedom". It wasn't either told that the real objective of Al Qaeda was to get the US to lash out and revenge the attacks. That was the sole intent for a tiny terrorist group to make the crazy claim that killing Americans is a good thing right from the start. As I said earlier, this has been an objective of other terrorist organizations also, the hope that the authorities will lash out and "show their true face".
Unfortunately I think people won't get it. This point of view will not get noticed. Because it seems that the response is just to woo the public fears with more security and answer their desire for revenge with some military attacks.
But unfortunately this looks to general public as too lame. So no. Bomb the Middle East. "Take the fight to ISIS". And Sunni states there, those that should be our allies? Either their with us or against us, they choose. Anyway, people don't trust the Saudis, so... Basically oeople want some pictures of ISIS terrorist getting blown up by smartbombs, even if they deny it when asked.
Quoting Benkei
Again smart things that you say. But unfortunately, the politician Benkei would be really on unpopular politician.
The problem really here is how our own political elite handles the issue. It's the American response, basically, seen to be so effective to galvanize the support (as Bush had), that will be used. You would really have to have a totally different discourse, basically not starting from that "ISIS hates you because you have freedoms", but with "ISIS wants you to hate Muslims".
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiffYour dogs, remember?
Is ISIS good, bad, or negligible?
If ISIS is bad, what may, might, can, should, be done?
Most philos don't like bombing. Fine. There is evidence that bombing is, quite paradoxically, not very effective at destroying organizations on the ground. Bombs not big enough? That's a problem we can solve. Philo enthusiasm for boots on the ground (our boots especially) is scant. How about an Arab boot? How would that force come about--and what are the chances?
No boots, no bombing. What's left? Economic sanctions? Perhaps -- but unless IS's transactions can be identified and blocked...
Propaganda? By all means try it. Don't hold your breath of course. Maybe Brussels could pass a resolution urging ISIS to be nice.
Maybe we should have a big conference of everyone in between Casablanca and Karachi and redraw the Great Post-modern Post-Colonial map of the Middle East. I'm sure that would work out just wonderfully.
Assad has to go. Everybody seems to like that idea. And what if he just doesn't? Then what? If he does go, what's going to happen with all of the combatants in the Syrian Civil War? Assad leaves followed by a love feast? I doubt it.
And if we talked the Jews into giving up Israel and having all of North Dakota (it even has oil) or Finland, or Austria, or Ireland, or Manhattan, or Holland and Florida (until they disappear under the Atlantic) would the absence of Israel solve all that many problems?
Actually I think that we agree in many things... but as "philos" we don't easily understand that as we talking about different things and viewpoints on the matter.
On the above issue (that Benkei and others noted) that bombing ISIS can also be counterproductive (even if bombs actually work too), I would make a slogan: "ISIS wants you to hate Muslims".
ISIS is bad. But I'll make the same point here as I made with Iraq back in the day when these things were discussed -- so is North Korea. Yet we don't go to war with them just because we believe they are bad. That is a marvelously bad way of making decisions.
I don't rightly know. But I do know, based off of 9/11, that reactive military action hasn't exactly been very effective in defeating what's bad.
Quite possibly, and we should continually challenge anti-Muslim rhetoric and victimization. But I have another slogan that's consistent with it: "ISIS wants you to think it represents all Muslims". The appeasement of Islamism, the fear of taking sides against Muslim reactionaries, the worry that such a position is "Islamophobic", the idea that a cartoon of the Prophet is an offence to all Muslims that unfailingly triggers their rage or hurts their feelings, and the idea that Islamic fundamentalism is an understandable and predictable if not legitimate form of resistance; these are rife among left-wingers, liberals and political elites, and they are just the other side of the xenophobic coin. Both the right and the left treat Muslims as a monolithic group of essential otherness. In so doing, both take the terrorist bait and read from the ISIS script.
I don't think this is true. I think the differences in evidence here are exactly what are important, for reasons I've explained in this thread. I cannot "put my head together" with people who think the history of Western imperialism entitles them to say that Western society is not superior to the society that ISIS is building.
Just to repeat, the reason this is important is that there will never be a non-fundamentalist, non-violent, democratic alternative to motivate the young people who are drawn to Islamism unless people in the West stand up and fight for those values.
It is a problem that European liberals are divided roughly along the lines apparent in this thread, and we do need unity, but we can't just pretend these differences don't exist.
I don't see anyone here claiming that (except maybe discoii). Certainly, Western imperialism undermines attempts to take the high moral ground against ISIS, but that doesn't equate to a claim of moral equivalence nor does it suggest that we aren't far better off living in Western societies.
Quoting jamalrob
I totally agree we need to support enlightenment values but we don't do that by rushing into war and/or supporting or ignoring injustices against Muslims. There was nothing enlightened about the last war in Iraq and there is nothing enlightened about the continuing war in Afghanistan or the treatment of Palestinians by Israel and so on. We stand up for enlightenment values by acting in a way that reflects those values not by fighting militarily those who disagree with us about them (though in this case there are other reasons to fight under debate).
Quoting jamalrob
I don't think the lines are really drawn the way you're drawing them. I agree with a lot of what you said about the need to protect our values, but I also agree with a lot of the analysis of benkei and ssu concerning the difficulties and complexities involved in trying to export them, particularly militarily. So, maybe there are extreme liberals out there who are absolute cultural relativists and think we have no responsibility to do anything anywhere that would interfere with others' ways of life, and would see no way to morally distinguish between ISIS's practices and ours. But what I'm hearing on this thread from most of those opposing your arguments is much more nuanced than that.
But our democracies are not perfect. All we need for our Western peoples to stand up and fight for their values in foreign lands is to do so without raping children, bombing hospitals, starving entire regions of people through economic terrorism, not drone strike weddings, and generally, getting the fuck out and accepting that fact that the West is no better than ISIS and that people think the West is better simply are subjects of the process of media propaganda bias, like highlighting a beheading, but not these French soldiers' systematic rape of children. That's hard to do though, but I'm sure the Catholic church, a superior religious organization to the ISIS caliphate, would not condone such things.
@Baden, some good points, though I still think you're missing what's going on here. I'll reply later.
Quoting Rafael Behr
[quote=Rafael Behr] He is right that it is still unclear how British airstrikes in Syria would make a practical difference against terrorism. The memory of Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly gunned down by police in 2005, is reason to weigh gravely the implications of authorising a shoot-to-kill policy. Justice would have been better served if Mohammed “Jihadi John” Emwazi had been put on trial.[/quote]
Well, these are the statements that Corbyn is actually being attacked for. This is what he said. Yet Behr complains of:
[quote=Rafael Behr]This undercurrent of moral relativism [contaminating] the valid points in Corbyn’s argument.[/quote]
Somehow Corbyn's right but it's this vague undercurrent of moral relativism that makes him a villain? Well, I'm not buying that. The idea that you can't speak the truth because it might have overtones considered politically inexpedient is not an attitude to be admired. It reminds me of the hysteria after 911 when Bill Maher got fired for saying that the hijackers weren't cowards. Context was ignored. You just can't say that. And now you just can't say that the West bears any responsibility at all for the recent attacks or you are consigned to the loony bin of conspiracy theorists that think the CIA invented jihadism.
So, I would reject the idea that it is the people trying to shut down debate and impose a kind of populist censorship on the issue that are standing up for the values we keep talking about on this thread. They're not. They're simply trying to protect Western interests in a much more mundane and less laudable way.
We accept that Russian bombs can provoke a terror backlash. Ours can too.
[quote=Mehdi Hasan]That there is a link, a connection, between the west’s military interventions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks against the west, that violence begets violence, is “glaringly evident” to anyone with open eyes, if not open minds.
Yet over the past 14 years, too many of us have “decided not to see”. From New York to Madrid to London, any public utterance of the words “foreign” and “policy” in the aftermath of a terrorist attack has evoked paroxysms of outrage from politicians and pundits alike.[/quote]
It's worth quoting more of this:
[quote=Mehdi Hasan]Isn’t it odd, then, that in the case of Russia, western governments have been keen to link Vladimir Putin’s – and only Vladimir Putin’s – foreign policy to terrorist violence? On 1 October the US government and its allies issued a joint statement declaring that the Russian president’s decision to intervene in Syria would “only fuel more extremism and radicalisation”. Yes, you heard them: it’ll “fuel” it.
Moscow’s bombing campaign will “lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism”, claimed David Cameron on 4 October. Note the words “lead to”...[/quote]
This is the same David Cameron who wholeheartedly embraced the following statement directed at him from across the aisle in the House of Commons:
[quote=Emma Reynolds, Labour MP]...any attempt, by any organization, somehow to blame the West or France's military intervention is not only wrong, disgraceful, but should be condemned[/quote]
Is the hypocrisy glaringly obvious enough yet?
Stupid in the way that gets people killed.
Certainly, addressing all valid criticisms will not make terrorist attacks go away soon but it will mean a lower probability of them and less recruits for their cause at a very low cost really; practising what we preach.
Some people (not you) think I'm part of the problem. For instance when I point out their "universal" values, Western values, because, you know, that's what they are.
Except for a few of course, the economic, social and cultural human rights were mostly a Russian and communist affair. But don't let history stop anyone here from being righteous.
It kind of pissed me off to be considered the problem to be honest. But that was just professional pride I guess, having graduated in the subject.
Some of my ideas are radical in the sense that I think we should focus solely on the root (radix) problems. I then think in sets of conditions, which conditions give rise to IS and local radicalisation.
I can't banish ideology, I can't kill it. But throughout time violent ideologies, even these particular wahhabist/salafist's ones, existed without having a meaningful following and therefore impact on others. So it's clear idea can exist without causing harm (so far, so obvious).
So factors/conditions for radicalisation we can influence are :
Abstract
1. Western foreign policy (to the extent it is unfair or immoral)
2. Racial inequality / discrimination
3. poverty
Personal/motivational
4. Personal experience (relates to 2 and 3)
5. sense of belonging (relates to 2)
6. Lack of education (not a rule of thumb but sufficiently correlated to take seriously)
7. Above may lead to wanting revenge or status
Ideological
7. violent ideology
We can offer different ideology but unlike jamalrob I don't put stock in repeating what we've been saying for 30 years because the reality is that we're not living up to those promises. And the reality is also, I want people to be angry (I know I am), I just don't want them to kill other people because of it.
So let them rage because there is poverty and they might be poor, there is inequality and they might have been treated unfairly, foreign policy is a mockery of justice. Let them radicalise in this sense, rage and protest against it. So change it. Change it all. It would be about fucking time. (which reminds me, who here went out on the streets to protest Iraq and Afghanistan? Who here has ever done a thing aside from talking about, to try and change the world for the better? I suspect too few...)
That's where, with regards to radicalisation, I think we need to focus our attentions and I cannot seem to factor bombs into it.
P.S: See C.L.R James' 'The Black Jacobins' for an explanation of why the above idea might be bullshit in historical terms.
I would say they're both.
Quoting Benkei
Other ideologies whose results are the same existed just as much in the past. They just had different names. Islamic terrorism and militarism is nothing new, despite the names we put on it.
Quoting Benkei
All agreed.
Quoting Benkei
This is where my suspicion kicks in. We may not live up to the ideals we espouse in the West, which is trivially true, but that doesn't therefore mean we don't live in a safer, freer, and culturally superior region of the world compared to those regions ISIS controls (or any number of other brutal theocratic polities). It's the implication that you are attempting to assert the moral equivalence of the West and Islamic theocracy, merely on account of the former having committed some bad deeds as well, that I take it raises jr's ire, and mine as well.
It certainly wouldn't have been me, since I support both wars. But as a single individual, there's very little I can do, or for you to do on the other side, to affect any real change, so it's pointless trying to pin guilt on one for inaction.
Of course, we can reply "but that's not really what we meant and you're doing it wrong". Unfortunately already a lot of people around the world are thinking "what the fuck did democracy bring me but poverty and injustice?" and this is not just a few African countries but Asia and South America as well.
In addition, I don't believe in universal values any more. It's quite clearly a luxury only rich countries can afford - and that only in a limited and incomplete fashion.
Having said that, I'm interested in if you could unpack a bit more the counter argument because I get what you're saying that others can adopt these values, I just think we're over estimating such adoption levels.
Justice is a fluid and reflexive concept and it's not a given we can transpose values cross culturally (or across time for that matter).
Quoting coolazice
Indeed. James also said, "I denounce European colonialism, but I respect the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation." Another opponent of European colonialism and racism was Frantz Fanon:
But of course this does not mean that what has been achieved in Europe and elsewhere, on the way along that road to emancipation, is not worth fighting for.
Otherwise I'm going to quickly quote and run once again. I may come back to say something later. This is from the transcript of a TED Talk by Maajid Nawaz, an ex-Jihadist. It's from 2011 but he posted a link to it on Twitter yesterday saying it's still relevant, which I agree with.
Quoting Maajid Nawaz
His other reasons are worth looking at too, but the first two are most relevant to what I've been getting at (although I'm not quite sure what he means by saying that espousing democratic values is associated with extremism).
You seem to be misunderstanding what it means to say that values are universal. It does not mean that they are established everywhere or completely. It means they potentially apply to everyone; they are not inherently restricted to a people, a religion, an ethnicity or a geographical location constitutively predisposed to embrace them. It is as bad for a woman to be stoned to death for adultery in the United Arab Emirates as it would be in France. It is as bad for gay people to be thrown to their deaths off buildings in Syria as it would be in France. It is as bad for a particular religion to be enforced in Saudi Arabia as it would be in France.
I'm guessing you agree. You did, after all, say that you wished these values were universal (which is why I said your position was confused).
Quoting Benkei
I did, first in 1991.
I did, but the demonstrations were pretty sparse. I think we can chalk that up to the military using the pool of National Guard troops (running them ragged) in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than reactivating the draft. The first decade of the 21st century just wasn't the 1960s, but what brought out 100,000 to 1,000,000 young people at a time to protest against the war was the reality of a lot of young men being drafted and sent to Vietnam. I was called up. (I flunked the physical as I knew I would, but had previously registered my intention to claim conscientious objection.)
I understand your argument, Benkei. To some extent I agree with it, but I am also aware that there is less than a snowball's chance in hell of the United States doing very much to alleviate the suffering of the Middle East. Hell, we're not willing to spend much money on rebuilding our society so that it would produce fewer suffering people here, let alone doing that for Iraqis, Syrians, or Afghans.
(Dropping bombs on people is profitable for bomb makers. Munitions are one of the special interests that have the keys to congressmen's bedrooms, so to speak. Commerce and politics makes perfectly predictable and compatible bedfellows. It's a regular orgy.) The US actually donates very title money to foreign aid. We could do a lot more. We could actually do a much, much better job of helping other people (in very material ways) and spreading some of our better western values to boot. I'm in favor of western values. I happen to be a socialist, so when I say "western values" I wasn't thinking of capitalism right off the bat.
Turning American, European, Saudi Arabian, Chinese, Brazilian, or South African cultural values even a few degrees on a dime is VERY DIFFICULT. Making a 180º turn is not going to happen--anywhere--short of a massive revolution which, as we have seen, can have all sorts of unpleasant and unpredictable consequences.
Bombing ISIS is probably ineffective. So I have heard, anyway. Look at Iraq -- Bush's shock and awe must have been a bad experience for the folks on the ground, but it didn't result in any sort of victory. Drone strikes, if the intelligence is good, have about the same effect as a special forces attack. But getting really good intelligence is difficult.
If European countries (or us, or anybody else) can not figure out how to integrate displaced and distressed Moslems (or anybody else) into society, then we would do well to tell the refugees/migrants up front: You can come and stay for a while, but you can't stay here permanently. France and England seems to have a lot of refugees or migrants who came and settled, but are not really doing well and are not integrated.
And how can it be? High unemployment rates don't make for full employment no matter how you slice it. There are far more people than there are jobs. The issue of uncontrolled migration into the US from Mexico is partly about whether there is a real future for unskilled migrant's labor, and how excess workers further distort and devalue the labor market.
You had an exchange with discoii in which he said this:
He seems here to be saying that ISIS is a bit crazy at the moment, maybe a bit exuberant and showy (bless them), merely because of the war-torn context.
And you had said this:
Quoting Baden
This is an odd thing to say, as if to suggest that ISIS is motivated by similar principles but just doesn't yet have the legal framework and state institutions in place to ensure they're adhered to. I doubt that's what you meant, but it's entailed by what you said, and the result is that you're far too soft on the useful idiots who appease Islamic fundamentalist militancy in their rush to condemn everything Western.
For those who don't know: ISIS isn't genocidal and reactionary because it's just a bit over-enthusiastic, or because its leaders are temporarily indulging the fanatics, or because it happens to be at war right now and peaceful coexistence will return if only the West gets out. It's like that because it's what they fervently believe, because it's the basis of their very existence. Their fundamentalism is fundamental.
I don't see the tension. Most Muslims don't want to live under an ISIS regime, but many young Muslims, whether Europeans or not, are attracted to ISIS. And just for the record, I said there will never be a non-fundamentalist alternative to motivate young people unless people in the West stand up and fight for those values.
Quoting ?????????????
I've been very careful to make the distinctions you go on to make. But it's tedious to have to constantly prove I'm not a neocon jingoist merely because my interlocutors insist on interpreting me that way.
Did the American founding fathers not commit systematic genocide? No murder? No rape? No forcing Christianity down the throats of detractors? Has America not been part of a genocidal project since then? Against the modern Mexicans, the Sumatrans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, against an endless list of people? They rarely even snuck in, the same way ISIS did. They just brought their entire army and efficiently and effectively did the job of destruction, plundered, installed their own servants, and left their mark. I don't know who is living in the fantasy world here but everything I've written is historically verified and no serious historian doubts this.
See, the problem with your analysis is that you are more than willing to treat decision making by White Europeans in a rational manner but you then chalk up anyone else into simply "fundamentalist" camps, crazies, irrational monsters, their goal is only murder. But any study of how states are formed, how hegemony is created over huge regions and populations, you will find the exact same behavior exhibited by ISIS.
Can we agree, at the very least, that the process of creating a state from scratch is necessarily murderous and genocidal, and that ISIS exhibits these exact behaviors?
http://bigthink.com/videos/maajid-nawaz-on-islamic-reform
In pointing your finger at the Right, you're dismissing the gist of Maajid Nawaz's argument.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-group/#FeaImpConGroRig
I don't see why either 'western' light-bulbs or 'western' values need to be enforced to work. Iranian feminists, Indian anti-corruption campaigners and Kenyan gay rights activists etc. are only seeking to 'enforce' change within their own societies. To claim that the things they are fighting for are 'Western' and therefore not appropriate to their environment is a slap in the face to everything they stand for, which are legitimately universal aspirations, not in the sense that 'everyone agrees this is good' but in the sense that 'these ideas contribute to human flourishing everywhere'. Nazi Germany had a different idea of justice and social order too, does that mean the Allies were wrong to dismantle it? That sort of moral relativism doesn't even make it past the front door.
There is much we can learn from enlightenment ideas, just as there is much we can learn from traditional settlement societies. But painting one or the other as 'western', not just in a historical sense, but as a way of maintaining culture boundaries, as if it were a moral duty to prevent good ideas from spreading - a sort of 'we don't take kindly to your types in here' response - is the very definition of illiberalism. It is quite shocking to hear it advocated by someone on the left.
I still really think you ought to read C.L.R. James. It's a fantastic counterpoint to the odious tendency in the left today to disparage enlightenment ideas as 'western'. The story of a slave colony which straight away not only realised, but furthered the ideas of their colonial oppressors, in order to free themselves. Today's poor Haitians might well ask themselves "and what did the revolution do for me?" But they do not.
That's not as much of an exaggeration as it might appear: I've talked to people who said exactly that, though about India rather than Haiti.
Evidence casts doubt on some of these purported factors. It turns out that European jihadists are very often well-educated, relatively wealthy, and integrated. Nor does their radicalization seem to stem from rage at Western foreign policy. Sorry for yet another link--and it's yet another piece by Kenan Malik--but this is really the best high-level analysis of radicalization that I've read:
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/radiclization-is-not-so-simple/
I'm sorry but that's simply not true and it's not what Malik is saying either. Some factors are more important than others and the difficulty is that every terrorist radicalises in his own way - you have to comprehensively deal with all factors (and the above is not complete because I'm not writing a thesis here) - and that makes this a really complicated problem. There's a lot of research on this and there are outliers but on average that doesn't disprove the general theory (and it depends who you read as to what those factors are exactly) as 10+ research has established by now.
Malik's piece you linked you see he emphasises, by quoting Horgan and Atlantic, what I highlighted as "personal/motivational". There's a reason why ideology is dead last - just to point out that it needs to be there to be followed.
What's also interesting is that you claim it's a battle of ideas yet link Malik who basically says these people are not motivated by ideology. Why then, should they be inspired by the values you mentioned?
Also, to get back to a different point. I don't believe in the existence of universal values in the very real sense as non-existent. I wish they were because then these discussions would be unnecessary to some extent and because I do believe they're good values. "rights" are legal constructs that are expressions of these values and can be granted and taken away. This is precisely what they aren't universal.
So they're always contingent on time and cultures why I think they're basically a luxury. Privacy was a luxury too.
This is different from saying we shouldn't pursue them or that others cannot independently develop them or embrace them. Or that we shouldn't be selling them - obviously people in our own societies don't believe in them or we would have much higher adherence to them by our politicians.
So yes, they should be made as near as universal as possible (until we change to the point that we embrace other rights or a different hierarchy of rights) but that's different from saying that they are universal.
Obviously posts (and my limited time) aren't a good medium to set out my exact ideas. The idea these rights are "universal", I think is a Western narrative. I think the current hierarchy of rights (what to do when they conflict) is a Western narrative.
When I attack these aspects it's in an attempt to deconstruct the Western narrative in order to allow us to move away from it - creating room to pursue social justice in wholly different ways, with possibly (slightly) different rights and most likely a different hierarchy and most definitely a different social organisation than the US or the Netherlands, which by the way already are very different.
I hope that clarifies a bit. It's why I don't like statements like "they need an enlightenment", because it projects a French/European coming about on a culture and time that are most likely not sufficiently similar and unnecessary.
Women rights activists in Egypt manage to argue their case within the concepts, history and writings of Islam. That should at least raise the question whether secularisation is really necessary.
Same with female equality; well before the West there was a time Muslim women were entitled to half the assets after a divorce, for instance. This right obviously doesn't exist any more but it was granted based on Islamic writing (hadith I think).
And I hope we can agree that enforcement has been attempted in plenty of places, most recently in Iraq and that it has been widespread.
While there are indeed women's rights activists in Egypt who are religious, someone like Aliaa Magda Elmahdy would laugh in your face for suggesting that secularisation is not needed. As well she should, since she has suffered the most from its scarcity. You essentially have two options: side with the conservative establishment that tries to paint her politics as an insult to Islam, or stand up for what she believes in, which is removing religious influence from public and social life. You cannot maintain one rule for Europeans and one rule for Egyptians, not while there are Egyptian women who are crying out and dying for some of the things European women have. Show some solidarity. Don't sweep these peoples' problems under the rug based on some spurious and racist notion that the East is different from the West. As long as people like her exist in the world, we should continue to support them, regardless of which country they're in.
Way back around the time of the Falklands war - the good old days - I lived in The deep south of France in a half abandoned mountain village. Even there, there was a clearly defined 'Moroccan quarter', a collection of rather temporary looking prefabs. As representatives of 'the Allies', of course there was no question of our being housed there; a place became available in the main village, although we were very poor.
Not much has changed in forty years. Assimilation is something that they have to do, which does not then oblige us in turn to modify our racism.
For me it was a great place to live, but now I have a mixed-race partner, I would not consider living in France. As far as I can see the multiculturalist/assimilationist debate is vacuous; the reality is not on the same planet as the rhetoric, and this is the experience that leads folks to a place where they are content to die in the hope of having some effect on the world.
Incidentally, has anyone noticed that it is impossible to punish or revenge oneself on a suicide bomber? It's so frustrating!
I agree, more or less. I did not mean to suggest that France's way has worked out better, although I do sympathize with the principle. The problem is that immigrants have been treated like second-class citizens despite the assimilationist letter of the law, and that the children of immigrants have been treated like immigrants.
Then you'll have to do a better job at explaining what you mean, because I don't understood how the 'process' of history is exclusive to the West.
Guilty as charged. I am Eurocentric. Why should I not be? It would be odd if I were not. Why would it be better for you or me if I were Sinocentric, Afrocentric, Kiwicentric, or some other centrism?
The best vantage point for understanding other people in the world is to understand one's self. We are all more alike than we are different (as far as important matters are concerned). Where is the marvelous land of Omnicentrism? Where is the happy land that welcomes all migrations and diasporas, that universally embraces all differences, excludes no one, and is sensitive to every nuance?
Never Never Land, that's where.
I am more of an essentialist than a constructivist--another thought crime in some circles, no doubt. Granted, social input has a lot to do with the kind of people we are, but a lot of that content is poured in before our skull bones have all grown together. By the time we get to college, it's way too late to rewrite everything.
It seems to me clear enough that homosexuals born in Uganda or Kenya want to live openly, find lovers, live together, and enjoy life as part of a community. Maybe they don't feel a need to attend drag balls on Halloween, but I would guess they are like western gays in most respects.
It seems to me clear enough that women in Iraq or Saudi Arabia would want to have opportunities to enjoy personal growth experiences, to have independence, the opportunity for public self expression and executive agency, just the same as men do.
It seems to me clear enough that people in Saudi Arabia, China, Peru, France, or the United States have a fair amount of tolerance for social change, but it is limited. Most people do not want to see in their lives and lifetimes a radical change in their communities and their cultures.