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

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

#271

Post by ctdonath » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

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 post is interesting for many reasons. One in particular is worth discussing:

I have seen shia militant from very close

Most in the West have absolutely NO IDEA what the difference between Shiite, Sunni, etc sects are. We think they look the same, act the same, adhere to the same general doctrines. Most Westerners are barely aware of a difference, if at all, with no idea which is which. I mention this because it seems there is, indeed, a deep difference between the two causing a great deal of the regional conflict ... and when well-meaning outsiders seek to intervene (yes, got it, not our war, but that's not how we see it) we're likely to take action without regard to the Shiite/Sunni split - which of course doesn't help.

Those of us trying to decide how to respond to the Paris & other attacks are desperately trying to draw a line between the "bad" responsible for such atrocities, vs the "good" we want to protect. We need help drawing that line. Clarifying the difference between Shiite and Sunni would probably help.

And BTW: those who do not make clear which side of the conflict they're on are likely to be assigned a side, much to their dismay.

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

#272

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #241

jacquesm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I agree that this is what they are striving for, which is the one reason not to give it to them.

Escalation is exactly the goal since it will allow them to drive an even bigger wedge into our societies and between people that have been living here peacefully for decades.

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

#273

Post by SolaceQuantum » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

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…

Globally speaking, the term open society and compatibility with it shifts wildly.

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

#274

Post by JupiterMoon » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

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…

Some would argue that a significant number of Christians also hold views that are incompatible with an open society.

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

#275

Post by parrellel » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #216

daemonk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an absolute definition to these categories though? I would be pissed off too if I was a Muslim and the radical minority hijacked the terminology and twisted it into something different. But to the radical Muslims, their definition is the correct one. How do you argue which definition is more correct than the other? By Historical precedence? By how we interpret the teachings? By popularity? It just seems like…

radical minority hijacked the terminology and twisted it into something different A huge part of the problem is that they're not hijacking anything. The jihadists are reading the plain text of the Koran and the Hadiths and following them literally. Moderate Muslims typically have very little scriptural text to stand upon when decrying ISIS and its treatment of infidels. ISIS can be more easily argued to be following…

Half of them can't read. Orally transmitted crazy Sharia tribal laws and customs aren't the same thing as Islam.

The fact that the crazy has metastasized and the crazy's adherents can't tell the difference, doesn't mean that we can't.

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

#276

Post by steveklabnik » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #151

jacquesm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a significant number of adherents of Islam hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society. Significant numbers of non-Islam subscribers hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society too. All these people have at least one thing in common: they would like to change society to suit their ends. And a very large number of people in my country would happily throw back those fleeing the carnage to become v…

Significant numbers of non-Islam subscribers hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society too If that's your contention then you'd need to account for the high terrorist attack output of Islamists vs other non-Islam subscribers.

Not Jacques, but from a few months back: "White Supremacists More Dangerous To America Than Foreign Terrorists, Study Says" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/domestic-terrorism-...

  > At least 48 people have been killed stateside by right-wing
  > extremists in the 14 years since since the September 11
  > attacks -- almost twice as many as were killed by
  > self-identified jihadists in that time.

As Jacques says, "terrorist" attacks are only committed by a Muslim majority because we re-define any attack committed by a non-Muslim as "not terrorism."

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

#277

Post by DasIch » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #237

jacquesm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a significant number of adherents of Islam hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society. Significant numbers of non-Islam subscribers hold ideas that are incompatible with an open society too. All these people have at least one thing in common: they would like to change society to suit their ends. And a very large number of people in my country would happily throw back those fleeing the carnage to become v…

>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…

The majority of the refugees are staying in the region they're from. It's only a tiny minority that even attempts to flee to Europe and fewer still survive that trip.

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

#278

Post by krzyk » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

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…

Problem is that we don't know who is fleeing because of: 1. war 2. need to perform acts of terrorism 3. want to find better job

We definitely don't want guys from the 2 group, and probably don't want the ones form the 3rd (they can use a traditional application for visa or something like that).

Moreover the problem is that most of the fleeing are young, healthy males, which is quite suspicious, if you fear war you should get your wives, kids, parents out sooner than later.

On the other hand groups 2 and 3 will mostly contain young, healthy males.

That's why (probably most) people in EU would prefer the stance that Australia made to illegal immigrants (the "No Way" campaign).

Another point is, why they are fleeing to countries that have completely different culture, they could as well go to ones that have similar (middle east or african ones).

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

#279

Post by ausjke » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

I'm agnostic so really no prejudice on either side. I see so many religions/gods on earth and I feel Muslim is the one that stays with their stone age laws/rules without updating/revising the original released versions. Other religions seem evolving over time, but Muslim is different and I feel they are just so out, thus all these tragedies. Anything that has no ability to upgrade/evolve overtime is doomed to be losers, and losers will go crazy easily to blame others for their own failures.

Democracy or staying-politically-correct or show-mercy-to-the-murder are all useless to combat this level of violence, the only way to really fix it, is either they evolve and modernize quickly, or get erased by a war at a large scale. It seems more likely the latter will be the case as they're turning everyone against them quickly.

There are no good Muslim or bad Muslim, Muslim itself indeed is the root cause here.

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

#280

Post by tome » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #261

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?

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…

Wow. You can argue all you want about the atrocities of western armies versus the atrocities of Islamic terror. What I find very hard to accept is that you can't see them as distinct phenomena (they may be related, but nonetheless they are not the same kind of thing, at all).