VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

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?

No, but it would be absolutely trivial to sketch the situation from a point of view where Bush, Blair and whole bunch of others would be seen as the terrorist masterminds causing the deaths of untold numbers of civilians. All in the name of the good of course, which is exactly what makes them just as bad as IS in that respect. They all actually believe they are doing the right thing.

And that's a discussion that has been had many times over, it's as boring to me as vi versus emacs.

Terrorist is a relative term, it mostly depends on which side of the fence your bed currently resides and what your personal belief system is.

I see precious little difference to an attack on Fallujah to 'liberate' it and an attack on Paris to murder a bunch of people. In both cases lots of innocents will die and the world will end up a substantially worse, not better place for everybody afterwards.

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

#262

Post by 0xFFC » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #246

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…

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…

About first part of your comment that is a simple false, that is simple lie western politician's they keep telling you . I can see personally what it will turns when it implemented in real world.Personally ,in my personal life.But about involvement , You should read my comment again carefully, I did say west should involve vigorously , but with what? with changing mindset of people, providing them Internet, free flow of information.It is so funny for me , USA keeps spending unlimited amount of money for fighting Iran , the one of the most important thing they should do is to figure out a way for providing free internet and better proxies and these kind of things(Generally free flow of information), they are not working on that . You may haven't seen what internet do with people life in middle east, I have seen it , personally , with my own eye. It turn fundamental religious idiots to people's who spend life time behind the desk reading/watching in internet.

p.s. about the part about country and religious.That was my whole point. YOU simply should show them your religion is wrong, people can fuck and have sex like haven (maybe better than that) in L.A. Without killing people.

Believe me , does not matter how much you are going to try and push. I will guarantee you , there will not any nation in middle east with these people.maybe a nation will be stabilize , but it will not democracy , it will be Saddam Hussein like leader and guess what , there is another generation of terrorist who will grow in Hussein like dictatorship.

Do you want nation. like you have in Scandinavia (in long term) ? keep working on their mind with free information flow.

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

#263

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #249

tome wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

- Algeria

- Vietnam

- Cambodia

- Ghana

- Iraq

- Afghanistan

The list is endless, you can keep that going for a long long time before you run out of names.

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

#264

Post by fauigerzigerk » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #256

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And a very large number of people in my country would happily throw back those fleeing the carnage to become victims of that 40% That statement really doesn't make much sense at all. People are fleeing a war, among them people from the 40% and the 60% group alike. And no one in Europe is advocating throwing anyone back into a war zone. Many want the refugees stay somewhere in the region instead of letting them come…

> And no one in Europe is advocating throwing anyone back into a war zone. Ah, you must be a bit out of touch with recent developments in NL. We're soon to have elections and it looks like we'll have Geert Wilders for prime minister, his main motto is 'close the borders', the secondary one is 'the problem is the foreigners' and the third is 'let's throw all those refugees out'. And whether it is exactly 40% or not is…

>his main motto is 'close the borders'

I'm not out of touch enough to have missed this opinion. But that is not the same as saying that people should be sent back to war zones. We don't have borders with Syria.

But you are right that I don't know specifically what that Dutch politician actually demands other than closing the borders.

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

#265

Post by SolaceQuantum » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

iamthepieman wrote: post #222

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're open to discussion I'd like a word less on the tenants of Christianity but more on the experience. Many highly conservative Christians are portrayed as angry, blind, even openly judgemental and rude. E.g. I read an article on NYT discussing some conservative Christians talking about how all gays need to be put to death. Do you feel judgemental or upset when people exist that are very wrong according to your…

> Do you feel judgemental or upset when people exist that are very wrong according to your morality? No. Something I stil haven't found a way to explain is that I can disagree with someone or even think that someone's very personal decision is not a good one without feeling ill will towards them. One of the fundamental teachings of christianity that many non-christians (and some christians even) are not aware of is t…

I see, neat! Thanks for enlightening a bit. I still have a long way to go to understand Christianity, it seems.

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

#266

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

vinceyuan wrote: post #230

jacquesm wrote: post #6

> They control large areas of land, have their own oil fields, and receive direct support from many countries in the region. Namely from rich oil-producing countries. That's one of those things where we could make a fairly immediate change in policy, it would come at a cost, definitely but it would change the situation for IS for the worse far more effectively than any number of bombs dropped would do.

Weapons, food, training cost a lot of money. So who are giving so much money to ISIS?

I already posted this elsewhere in this thread:

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-re...

It's from 2014 but still a good read on the subject.

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

#267

Post by Natanael_L » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #244

cygx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

All you need is an imagined enemy or threat (human or not) and a goal to impose on them. That's what happened with Hitler, Stalin and many more. Religion is just one of the many available excuses, and a popular one because there's already many religious people. Building on what people already believe is always the easiest way to get them to join.

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

#268

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #264

jacquesm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And no one in Europe is advocating throwing anyone back into a war zone. Ah, you must be a bit out of touch with recent developments in NL. We're soon to have elections and it looks like we'll have Geert Wilders for prime minister, his main motto is 'close the borders', the secondary one is 'the problem is the foreigners' and the third is 'let's throw all those refugees out'. And whether it is exactly 40% or not is…

>his main motto is 'close the borders' I'm not out of touch enough to have missed this opinion. But that is not the same as saying that people should be sent back to war zones. We don't have borders with Syria. But you are right that I don't know specifically what that Dutch politician actually demands other than closing the borders.

If it were up to Geert Wilders we'd be going around with a color chart in shades of brown and a burning Koran to figure out who we should kick out and who is allowed to stay.

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

#269

Post by johnsea » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

mtanski wrote: post #197

johnsea wrote: post #158

Wow, how brave he is. Once a long time a go I was in Aleppo. Such a nice town. Terrible how much destruction has happened. 'Normal countries' should help. I.e. fight a war against ISIS, kill them and rebuild Syria. Including new government (under UN stewardship).

> kill them and rebuild Syria. Including new government (under UN stewardship). Because that has worked so well in the (recent) past?

This hasn't been tried yet afaik. Sure, I don't know how UN stewardship could be possible atm. But in a smaller better connected world, I think, we increasingly need a way to police failed/bad-behaving/suffering states. (Or better said, to help the people living in such states).

The millions of refugees, spread of lunatic but well funded fundamentalism and the scope of terrorizing local neighborhoods hasn't been happened in the (recent) past.

What else do you propose?

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

#270

Post by DamnYuppie » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:37 PM UTC

ashaiber wrote: post #231

DamnYuppie wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears, from what I could find, that Saudia Arabia's yearly spending on education is $57.9B, they spend $42.7B on health, with a total spending of $229.3. So they spend 25% of their budget on education and less then 2% on arms importation. Yes they could spend that money on something else, but please don't make it seem like they are neglecting healthcare or educational spending for arms. http://www.us-sabc.org/cu…

Perhaps considering the total military expenditure will provide a better perspective - $80B for Saudi Arabia in 2014; 3rd highest in the world in $ terms, and highest in the world in terms of percent of GDP (10.7%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

Thank you! I was looking for that but wasn't able to find it quickly enough.