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VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

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Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#241

Post by saiya-jin »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
ousta wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing your kind of people (which is the majority of people in the western world) will never understand is that barbary will always win against democracy. It is by saying sorry, teaching to people that you opressed them, enslaved them, telling them that they are a minority living with less chances and opportunities than a random "white man" well those same people will hate you for this, they will always see you as…

> This is a war of civilisations and way of life. and trust me. the peaceful one, the one that always say sorry for everything is not going to win. As long as you see the world in terms of 'your kind of people' and 'my kind of people' you are to some degree part of the problem. This is not a war of 'civilizations', though it could very well turn into one if we lose our calm. Unfortunately, given the technological edg…

but... don't you see this is exactly what they are striving for? you don't blow up yourself on stadium or in cafe to defeat a country, and not to conquer it in any way. no sane jihadist (and high ranks are probably pretty clever folks) would expect that.

the goal is simple - create chaos, increase tension between europeans and immigrants, create a spirale of violence producing more violence, till every side has good reasons to not step back. this is goal of jihad in europe, footsoldiers will be people already living here, that initially were living peaceful life, but eventually some violence will drag them in. at the end, civil war.

France for example could actually avoid that, if it retreated from all its military interventions, but that's not going to happen, and again, jihadists realize that too. I must agree with parent poster, nice approach ain't going to solve this, and victor at the end will be probably the more ruthless one. But fear not, as they say we're 7 days to the wolves, and we europeans can still kick a butt or two if pressed hard.

I hope I am wrong, that's for sure :)

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#242

Post by fukusa »

xenonite wrote: post #188
megalodon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World's largest arms exporter: US ($10,194,000,000 in 2014) World's largest arms importer: Saudi Arabia ($4,243,000,000 in 2014) To me, these are scary numbers. > When a country decides to invest in arms, rather than in education, housing, the environment, and health services for its people, it is depriving a whole generation of its right to prosperity and happiness. We have produced one firearm for every ten inhabit…

So, Germany sells arms for about 1100 million euros. Among this amount are western countries, China, India. Germany will spend at least 8000 million euros for refugees this year (2014 it were about 2400 million euros). If there is any relation between exporting arms and the number of refugees, this is not only a humanitarian, but clearly a financial disaster.

But you're talking about government spending (public money) that is a financial disaster. That can't be denied. But that 1100 million Euros in arms sales did not go to the government, it went to the defence industry. Don't you see what's happening? The defence industry is reaping the benefits of the wars while the people suffer (both in Germany because they have to pay for the refugees and wherever the weapons have been used).

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#243

Post by [deleted] »

utku_karatas2 wrote: post #214
0xFFC wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am pretty angry about what is going on in world , so if you felt insulted , I am so sorry , and You should understand I don't want to insult you or any other person specifically,But I want insult Ideologies pretty badly. As person who LIVES in heart of middle east (Iran) and I have seen shia militant from very close(I know people who works in IRGC),You are completely and pure wrong , do you know what would generate a…

> with a little being gay,I am not gay , but sometime things go wrong At first I thought this was a hilarious line to come out of the closet. Had to read again. :)

[deleted]

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#244

Post by JeremyNT »

cygx wrote: post #64
iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

Of course it's not "all Muslisms". But those who claim "it's only the terrorists" or "it's all politics" do not grasp the scope of the problem, ie that globally speaking, a significant number of adherents of Islam hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society. If you naively extrapolate from the 2013 Pew Poll The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society (which in principle represents nations with a tot…

I suspect that it's (relatively) easy to take an adherent of any religion and radicalize them with a slight permutation of said religion, versus trying to radicalize somebody without that shared kernel of faith. I therefore assume that "regular" Islam is an "in" for extremists; they can build upon existing indoctrination and subvert it for their own purposes.

I don't think there's anything particular to the Islamic faith that lends itself to this pattern, though. Charlatans and tyrants have effectively used religious beliefs for their own goals since the very beginnings of human civilization. I believe Islam faces a "perfect storm" now; it is immensely popular across the world, but a large number of its adherents are stuck in a region that has been dramatically destabilized by foreign influences. The Muslims there are able to use the shared elements of their religion as a way to reach out to Muslims outside of the region and incite them to revolution.

To paraphrase Dan Carlin of Hardcore History: it's not religion that's the problem, it's the tyrants that are the problem.

Of course, even if you (and I) are right in assuming that a (relatively) large percentage of Muslims are currently radicalized in comparison to other religions, this doesn't actually mean that there's any practical way to respond to that. The lazy answer is "stabilize the middle east at all costs" but that never seems to actually align with Western political and economic realities, so here we are...

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#245

Post by marcosscriven »

cmdkeen wrote: post #146
drinchev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello. I really like your honesty, courage and passion that I can sense from what you wrote. I don't want to sound offending, but you are saying that you are happy to discuss this and I have almost no contact with deep religious persons that are in IT, so I have a couple of questions. 1. Where is the boundary of your beliefs? I'm always trying to be polite with my dev co-workers, but for example if I write a flagged…

Whilst I'm not the OP I'll happily give my thoughts as a not very good Anglican - who embodies the "great Anglican fudge". 1. Offended no. I'll think you're rather rude, the same as if I wrote $manifestDestiny = false. If you know someone you can have banter with them. 2. IT has all sorts of articles of faith. vi versus emacs, I'm weird as I like nano. Religion is a way of living your life, my code is in no way affec…

Richard Dawkins expresses this well: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=grccDzrTWLUC&pg=PA259&lp...

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#246

Post by return0 »

0xFFC wrote: post #159
omginternets wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully (and partially) disagree. The invasion of Iraq was stupid, reckless and selfish. It was a for-profit war that destabilized the region and allowed ISIS to take on its present form. I'll have you remember that France staunchly opposed this war. Now the US and the brits have left us with a veritable cesspool, and we're bearing the brunt of the consequences. This isn't a liberation attempt or a preemptive…

Am pretty angry about what is going on in world , so if you felt insulted , I am so sorry , and You should understand I don't want to insult you or any other person specifically,But I want insult Ideologies pretty badly. As person who LIVES in heart of middle east (Iran) and I have seen shia militant from very close(I know people who works in IRGC),You are completely and pure wrong , do you know what would generate a…

The middle east is politically undeveloped and unstable so wars would be inevitable, with or without western involvement. It is unfortunate, but "great powers" were involved in the nation building of many many different countries. They seem to fail in middle east - so far. But that doesn't mean that it would all be peaceful of the westerners stopped being involved.

The problem is, as your comment shows, the idea of a nation is far less appealing than the idea of religion in middleeastern countries. You need to first have people willing to fight for their country more than they are for their religion.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#247

Post by gotchange »

omginternets wrote: post #41

I'm living in Paris. I heard gunfire from my apartment. My heart goes out to Salah-Eddin, and all people living in the shadow of unspeakable abominations. It saddens me to imagine that simply hearing gunfire in the distance is nothing compared to what my fellow man has witnessed elsewhere. Salah-Eddin's condolences mean a lot to me and I wish him all the best. It's my sincerest hope that French troops will be deploye…

> It's my sincerest hope that French troops will be deployed to Syria in the near future,

Maybe you should join the counter-terrorism forces or intelligence community instead to help your country, if that what you're actually after, not just blind revenge because you have to admit that these attacks were a big SNAFUS on the French security apparatus part and some heads got to roll over this but I was amazed to see that Hollande is going to raise their compensation and reward them even more for their incompetence.

I REALLY REALLY wish I had a job like this where they pay me more every time I fuck up and make a total mess of a situation. I really picked the wrong field and career here.

Also, I find it really amusing that the general sentiment in France towards guns and a 2nd amendment style right is negative when it is not a stretch to say that some lives could have been saved if armed persons of the populace came to the rescue and took out the terrorists instead of filming the massacre as it was unfolding helplessly.

It proved beyond doubt now that security forces can be overwhelmed when faced with ops of such scale & magnitude and it would very imprudent to have just a single line of defense to protect people, when two or three backup could make wonders and end the situation in a matter of minutes and save the lives of a lot of people.

So, maybe you should petition your government to relax the laws concerning purchasing and carrying guns to avoid such a disaster from occurring on this scale in the future and leave the ME to its people to sort out the mess.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#248

Post by iamthepieman »

conanbatt wrote: post #142
iamthepieman wrote: post #37

I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…

I have an honest question here. As a believer in the Christian faith, do you believe Angels exist? And all or some of the other supernatural tales from the bible and the faith? I am ashamed to admit that I didn't realize until I was well after 25 that followers of the faith, some of them, really believed in such beings and that priests of the Christian faith have to at least pretend to do so as well. I was raised cat…

Yes. But why do you find it so hard to understand why people could believe in angels if they believe in God? Both are spritual beings.

Angels are like God's build tools. They are there. They may have a critical role but you don't have to understand them deeply or know too much about the intricate details to be a Christian or believe in God.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#249

Post by jon-wood »

tome wrote: post #221
jacquesm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an open door, I don't need to kick it in. It simply revolves around how you define terrorist and that horse has been beaten to death by now, I really don't see any reason to revive it just to beat it to death again.

Wow, that's a complete cop out. Can you come up with any definition of "terrorist" where significant numbers of the one billion Chinese are commiting terrorist atrocities abroad, for example?

Can you come up with one where significant numbers of the billions of Muslims in the world are committing terrorist atrocities abroad? The vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace, just like everybody else.

To your question though, the French resistance during the second world war could easily have been called terrorists, as could the American revolutionary army.

Re: VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

#250

Post by crusso »

jnbiche wrote: post #209
crusso wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

christians have killed many more muslims than muslims have killed christians Undoubtedly, but important questions about the ethics of war aren't usually based upon the body count. They're based upon initiation of force, hostility, ability to negotiate peace, treatment of captives, willingness to adhere to treaties, etc.

> Undoubtedly, but important questions about the ethics of war aren't usually based upon the body count. Actually, one of the most important principles of the laws of war (International humanitarian law) is that of proportionality, and body count is a major determinant of proportionality [1,2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law) 2. http://www.crimesofwar.org/a-z-guide/proportionality-princip...

Even respecting proportionality, body count is not a major determinant. For example, the first gulf war and the liberation of Kuwait was universally acknowledged as a "just" war.

The Iraqis suffered casualties of greater than 150 to 1 vs casualties of the coalition forces.

The hostility and attack upon national sovereignty committed by the Iraqis was far more important than the subsequent body count in determining proportionality.

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