The War ISIS Wants • Hacker News Board

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#131

Post by themetrician » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #68

omginternets wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also hard to imagine how not killing doesn't facilitate the vile activities of daesh. I swear this is the late 1930's all over again. "Surely Herr Hitler will get tired of invading countries before he gets to France. Surely military action will only anger him more..."

ISIS and the NSDAP are not even close to being similar geopolitical entities.

Cry me a river about the 6 trillion Jews but please don't mention the 10 million Ukrainians that Jewish Commissar Genrikh Yagoda killed, because that would not be PC and it makes the Jews uncomfortable.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#132

Post by chongli » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

seiji wrote: post #71

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #14

The article is a nuanced view of the present situation, but doesn't go into the historical perspective. Contemporary radical Islam is a response to Western modernity and perceived decadence and has been brewing for decades if not centuries. It is an outgrowth of Salafi Islam, a severely literal interpretation of the Koran that has become widespread over the past 70 years thanks to trillions of petrodollars that fund…

There are only so many young people willing to sacrifice everything for fanatic dreams of afterlife fulfillment as payment for promises of improving the here-now. Most youth, in other words, aren't that stupid. Startups seem to be pretty good at convincing a never-ending stream of youth to surrender 500% productivity now in exchange for (usually lies about) riches in the future. "Yeah, it's linkedfacebox, you know, a…

I'd like to think there's a key difference between losing sleep all night making the latest social media fad and raping helpless women and girls after beheading their husbands, fathers, and brothers. Between siphoning off another million with a tweak to your high-frequency-trading algorithm and shooting dozens of people to death in a concert hall.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#133

Post by LesZedCB » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

liotier wrote: post #119

Want to know what ISIS is up to ? Just take it from their official magazine - it is right there, explicit. The strategy is called "The extinction of the gray zone" - it is about polarizing western society by eliciting islamophobia: "Muslims in the crusader countries will find themselves driven to abandon their homes for a place to live in the Khilāfah, as the crusaders increase persecution against Muslims living in W…

Everybody should read this. I'm skimming through it, and I'm realizing how little I know about the complexity of Daeshi culture. I think many of us, whose extent of exposure to the subject is listening to and watching the news, have no idea what is actually happening, and are completely unaware of what life is within ISIS borders. This magazine is first hand information from inside the minds of ISIS members. Yes, it's a propaganda magazine, but how can we even being to try to understand ISIS without knowing what they believe, and what their media says?

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#134

Post by vlehto » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #27

Amezarak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond the complete lack of humanity in the outlook that we are like barrels of brent, it's simply wrong. Indeed. And there seems, to me, to be something nihilistic in the idea that Europeans should simply let immigrants replace them. Maybe instead, European nations should look into instituting domestic policies that encourage the population to maintain a healthy replacement rate. The article appears to be implying…

>The article appears to be implying that Western nations should not make war against Daesh because "that's what they want."... I agree the article spends a lot of time implying what we shouldn't do and not much time at all saying what might make for effective policies, but it's hardly advocating Islamising Europe either. I took two things away from the article. One is that the kind of pretty much deliberate social an…

>French state is not doing it's job

What state would be good example? What is good measure for succes here?

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#135

Post by graycat » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #14

The article is a nuanced view of the present situation, but doesn't go into the historical perspective. Contemporary radical Islam is a response to Western modernity and perceived decadence and has been brewing for decades if not centuries. It is an outgrowth of Salafi Islam, a severely literal interpretation of the Koran that has become widespread over the past 70 years thanks to trillions of petrodollars that fund…

Of course there are answers: ISIS just attacked NATO -- definitely Darwin award material. NATO can "wipe the desert clean" in less than an hour anytime NATO is willing to do what ISIS does -- create civilian casualties. By clean, in the ISIS areas, no more buildings, oil infrastructure, vehicles, tents, flocks, camels, or people. None. Then, the end of ISIS and whatever beliefs, determination, goals, history, etc. Dead people don't attack NATO, and NATO can convert ISIS and everyone in the ISIS areas to dead people in an hour. The only question is, when will NATO do that.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#136

Post by rdtsc » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #46

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #14

The article is a nuanced view of the present situation, but doesn't go into the historical perspective. Contemporary radical Islam is a response to Western modernity and perceived decadence and has been brewing for decades if not centuries. It is an outgrowth of Salafi Islam, a severely literal interpretation of the Koran that has become widespread over the past 70 years thanks to trillions of petrodollars that fund…

I find your comment very relevant and I agree with all of it but I miss some references to the influence of not Levant nations in all this mess. To your comments I would like to add: the Russians invading Afghanistan, the CIA arming and training of all kind of "rebels", the invasion of Irak, the protection of the House of Saud by the EUA, the interest of Israel in being the only strong nation in the area, the support…

Also the funding of the Syrian rebels by Obama and other Western nations. ISIS was just one of the groups in the Syrian civil war, a bunch brutal and crazy idiots, that would have never amounted to anything.

At the same time CIA wanted to destabilize the region, to kick the currently Russia-friendly government out (and as a consequence kick Russia out of its pretty much only naval base in the region). So they kept funneling funds, training and weapons to the "moderate" rebels.

Of course all those weapons (along with many left behind in Iraq), and all those "moderate" rebels switched to ISIS. Now you can either say CIA is stupid or malicious. Stupid because despite the $100B in funding, they couldn't foresee it and it was a surprise, or it was pretty much the plan.

One can say, at the end of the day what are they (and many other military and intelligence) branches will do if is there is no new threat to worry about. "No drones or SIGINT targets, no promotions and paychecks". Both for military industrial complex and the government employees alike.

Either way I find it interesting how this was spun as a surprise to the media: "We had no idea why ISIS grew so fast, and managed to occupy so much territory. Not really sure how they got those modern tank killer missiles they keep making videos with...".

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#137

Post by kuschku » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #109

FeepingCreature wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, no. That's not enough. You're competing with jobs here, and you ask if 180€ a month is sufficient? And then you're surprised that women prefer to stay in the workforce?

You're also dealing with a labor market that punishes people who actually take their maternity/paternity leave, or who actually leave the labor force to raise children, by simply never letting them back into a career-track position ever again. So not only does 180€/month not substitute for a second salary, it doesn't substitute for the permanent hit to the second wage-earner's career caused by raising children. The e…

> You're also dealing with a labor market that punishes people who actually take their maternity/paternity leave, or who actually leave the labor force to raise children, by simply never letting them back into a career-track position ever again.

By the way, in Germany usually you are guaranteed to get back into your old job after the 18 months of maternity leave.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#138

Post by carlob » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:48 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #74

carlob wrote: post #16

My girlfriend taught in the Parisian banlieue for a year. In her experience most of what is said in this article is very much true. In this areas (which would correspond pretty much to inner cities in the US) the draw of radical Islam is very strong, starting with high school kids. After all what else is there to do? Deal drugs? On the other hand I would like to see this study that shows that increase in the level of…

What numbers are we talking about here? It seems that an extremely tiny percentage are radicalized, and they don't seem to come from a specific social class. In other words, is it not a gathering of nutjobs?

Read the article, up to 25% of the youth in these areas show some form of support for ISIS.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#139

Post by Jacqued » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #69

return0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"of all creeds" As you quoted yourself, this is among all creeds, not among muslims. France has larger muslim population than germany or GB that were in the same survey, yet this still does not explain the huge difference in youths actually supporting daesh. So, its fair to say that french youth in general is disillusioned. Also note that this was before charlie hebdo and the recent attack, not sure how the non-musli…

> So, its fair to say that french youth in general is disillusioned. The French economy is moribund, growth is nil, youth unemployment rates are over 25%, and lots of them are sitting around unemployed or in dead-end jobs - while their parents hold much cushier jobs with some of the world's best labor protections (or most-notorious, depending on your perspective). It's not shocking.

To be fair, the same youths in Germany or the UK that are technically-not-unemployed aren't faring much better, working below minimum wage or ridiculously precarious jobs (like the infamous 1€/hr jobs in Germany or the 0-hour contracts in the UK).

I'd argue this "French economy" argument is pretty weak under scrutiny.

Re: The War ISIS Wants

#140

Post by kaz1 » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #130

kaz1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one says "keeping up the articles of Magna Carta, rather than resort to catastrophic violence on the part of the powerful outlawed states, would likely help lessen some of the chaos in today's world", does it imply that one is physically calling to go back to the thirteenth century? Similarly, Americans calling to restore the fourth amendment may not mean taking the clock back to the nineteenth century. Salafism i…

I don't understand what you're getting at but I'll try to explain. Fukuyama said that Capitalist Democracy was the pinnacle of civilisation. In the same way Salafi / Wahabbi ideology says that we must as much as possible live like the prophet and his contemporaries. Any innovation is derided as Bida/Heretical. So its not possible to reform certain laws in response to changing circumstances. Eg: Women can inherit only…

Well, the key tenets of beliefs and the legal outline laid down in the revealed texts are essentially immutable, per what a Muslim is meant to subscribe to. If this core idea is not there, that is logically equivalent to not subscribing to the religion (whoever wants to change whatever at wherever renders any belief fundamentally void, let alone what one believes to be God's guidance). But the jurisprudential framework ('usul al-fiqh') encompasses the principles to formulate specific course of action according to the immutable legislative guideline (formulated from authentic texts) in the specific circumstances. An example, harming oneself is prohibited in the text, so smoking has the ruling of being impermissible as its harms are largely known now while earlier academics used to deem it disliked based on another textual principle. In short, there are constants and there are variables; without any constants, it all becomes tendentious whimsy.

The ideas related to the roles, responsibilities and respectability of the individuals are different in the Islamic creed. Yes, a woman gets half from her father (her husband owes her, legally), and she is exempt from the basic responsibility to become the breadwinner. Any Muslim is meant to respect and care for his/her mother more than the father. Historically many Muslim women were scholars (https://archive.org/download/AlMuhaddithat/al%20-%20Muhaddit...) and rich (in the old Muslim heritage, many of the large endowments for public welfare are known to be from women). Besides, a merely demographically Muslim territory may not embody much of the Islamic ideals though.

In the other part, I was referring to the epistemological basis regarding the concepts of triumph/progress; in particular, in a framework where basically, "we are from nowhere, we are going to nowhere and we are here for nothing", nothing really signifies anything.

Thanks.