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

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

#391

Post by cmdkeen » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:09 PM UTC

seren wrote: post #356

cmdkeen wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IS grew out of the vacuum of a civil war in Syria and is predicated on creating a Caliphate. They cannot physically grow if they are not able to gain ground. Their recruitment message is likely to be significantly weakened if they lose territory and battles. Unlike AQ or even the Taliban of recent years they are not able to avoid pitched battles, they can't melt into the background - they would have to stand and figh…

They can definitely hide in the population. Rakka still have 200,000 people living there. I have no idea which part of that population are hardcore isis member : 40-50k maximum maybe. Assuming you could take Rakka, you can't just execute or deport every one with a weird accent. Mosul is even bigger. How many ground troop would it take to occupy all these cities ? This would be a repeat of the second Irak war, or Afgh…

My earlier post posited not caring, let the civil war continue, hand it over to the "nicest" Sunni group we can live with, give it to Assad - none of those outcomes involve a terror exporting aspirant state controlling territory. If we temporarily control a swathe of territory it puts in a position to make a bargain with someone.

I'm not saying it is good, but is it better than a pretty shitty situation. Do the other groups regularly crucify civilians and hurl homosexuals off buildings? If we acknowledge we can't impose a new government can we create a new normal whereby we smack groups which get out of line but otherwise stay out of the way. It's actually fairly similar to the old Roman system on the outskirts, and the same approach the British initially adopted in the early days of Empire. It's what the Americans sort of did in Afghanistan before the invasion of Iraq effectively dragged them into a civil war.

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

#392

Post by forty » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:09 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…

I wonder what you call "adherents of Islam" and "Muslim population". As far as I know they are many groups that claim they are Muslims and they sometimes don't recognize other groups as Muslims (I have many friends that are Muslim and I am pretty sure they would tell you that the 40% your are mentioning are not Muslims) so I think it would be a bit weird to consider all of them as being "Muslim population" as if they were a single group while there are clearly just separate and unrelated groups that happen to claim the same name.

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

#393

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:10 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #358

scrollaway wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was just surprised to see someone I esteem so highly as jacquesm expousing what is, to my mind, such an ill-informed opinion Embrace the occasion to reconsider whether it's actually ill-informed, then. :) To clarify what I was saying before, I don't mean to say that "God" hasn't been the main driver for wars and terror before. My point is that it's usually just an excuse , so that more may join the cause. If you…

EDIT: Deleted because it was inappropriate to make this personal.

You respect people when you agree with them, and when you disagree they are 'ill informed'. See there the root of many a problem, it is just this side of possible that I'm not quite as ill informed as you make me out to be and to realize that we disagree strongly on a point where neither of us is willing to make a concession. I'm not calling you un-informed either, I'm sure you have your reasons for believing what you do.

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

#394

Post by tezza » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:10 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #301

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…

> There is no 40% group of the population in Europe that holds views that are anywhere near as disgusting as that. Well, only 50+ years ago there was an over 40% population in the US that thought that blacks were inferior and shouldn't sit in the same restaurants/hotels/schools with whites. In fact it was even law in some states. Beyond that, there were about all major western countries, France, UK, Belgium, Holland,…

Thanks for a measured and informative response. I could add to your list reams of links of where 'we' have behaved badly.

I suspect you too have a bulging bookmark folder like I do of hypocritical western behaviour.

However the battle against militant jihadi extremists is one issue where 'we' are completely in the right. Completely.

No need to apologise for past wrongs. If we have regarded life as too cheap in the past, that is irrelevant to ensuring your own family cannot be killed.

Now prior actions of our own may have exacerbated, strengthened and accelerated the militant jihadis ( Iraq, Afghanistan ). But even without our own errors and crimes militant jihadis would have arisen eventually.

The jihadis have so many 'reasons' to kill us. If some 'reasons' did not exist because we didn't invade Iraq say, or we addressed other 'reasons' ( say for example we disbanded Israel ) there are just so many more 'reasons' left for the jihadis that single us out for killing.

Lets say Iraq was still under Saddam and Syria under Assad. No ISIS perhaps. What then about al Qaeda, the Taliban, al Qaeda in the Yemen, Boko Haram, Jemaah Islamiyah.

And the militant jihadis have found a brainwashing method that repeatably draws from a small but replenishing minority of evil, vain and stupid young people.

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

#395

Post by sgt » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:11 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…

I'm not in Europe, but I've heard about Geert Wilders and seen him speak in a few online videos. He doesn't actually seem to be that radical, except in terms of immigration where he seems to be taking a tough stance.

But as all seemingly extremists becoming prime ministers, he'll eventually learn to see a bit more of the bigger picture and cool down if he gets in office.

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

#396

Post by kohanz » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:11 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #377

kohanz wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's quantify your definitions of "significant" and "terrorism". In the past 5 years, about 2% of terrorist attacks in Europe were found to be religiously motivated [0]. The majority are perpetrated by separatist organizations. There are over 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide [1]. Size estimates for the terrorist groups are: ISIS (52k - 258k [2]), Al Qaeda (19k-27k [3]). There are others, but I believe these are the…

> The more hatred you direct towards Muslims, the more you drive them apart from you. I find this comment very strange. It's as though I can't acknowledge that Islamic terror is the biggest violent threat facing Europe whilst at the same time not hate muslims (?!?!?! how can anyone do that ?!?!?!).

If you don't understand how branding it as "Islamic" terror, despite the insignificant association between the two populations will make law-abiding Muslims (who make up about 99.99% and practise Islam) feel divided from you, I don't know what to tell you.

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

#397

Post by kleim » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #327

crusso wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because these people live in societies that have been colonized, manipulated, held down and bombed for decades on end, forcing them to get radically hateful and fundamentalist as a response and pass that on to others (younger men etc). Why would a white Swedish, Canadian etc. have any reason to do the same? Besides, is it just terrorism that's incompatible with an "open society", or other acts of murder and oppressio…

No. You completely miss the point. Many of the terrorists were westerners recently converted to Islam. Also they did not come from poor social classes. They don't have the "excuse" of having grown in a troubled society, they were not desperate because of their shitty life,... Yet they decided to commit atrocities too.

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

#398

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #393

tome wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Deleted because it was inappropriate to make this personal.

You respect people when you agree with them, and when you disagree they are 'ill informed'. See there the root of many a problem, it is just this side of possible that I'm not quite as ill informed as you make me out to be and to realize that we disagree strongly on a point where neither of us is willing to make a concession. I'm not calling you un-informed either, I'm sure you have your reasons for believing what yo…

[deleted]

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

#399

Post by stplsd » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #301

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…

> There is no 40% group of the population in Europe that holds views that are anywhere near as disgusting as that. Well, only 50+ years ago there was an over 40% population in the US that thought that blacks were inferior and shouldn't sit in the same restaurants/hotels/schools with whites. In fact it was even law in some states. Beyond that, there were about all major western countries, France, UK, Belgium, Holland,…

good read here --> http://amzn.com/0805082409

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

#400

Post by MrPatan » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

Religion is a smoke screen. Does it matter if you chop bits off your kids "because a book told me to" or "because my mom told me to"? All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them.

The problem is the culture as a whole. Does it work? Or does it not work?

The way to know if a culture works is to look at migration patterns. People leave cultures that don't work and go to better cultures.

But people from shitty cultures are still people, so this obvious enormous fact goes completely unnoticed. They are not going to accept so easily that their culture is not good. It takes generations.

Or it _took_ generations. Now it may not happen at all, because some people pride themselves on respecting and _preserving_ other people's silly cultures, instead of just respecting the people.