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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

#691

Post by mtanski »

johnsea wrote: post #269
mtanski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 happ…

> What else do you propose?

I don't agree to the We Must Do Something, This Is Something sentiment.

Clearly we have to get our arms around the situation. We UN should actually coordinate a plan to figure what we can do. Rushing to put soldiers on the ground always ends up complicating the situation further and it's a choice you cannot take back (seeing how we're still stuck in many places) years after.

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

#692

Post by pluma »

seren wrote: post #145
pluma wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better the devil you know. The reason we (i.e. "The West") left Saddam in place until the US needed an easy target after 9/11 is that despite being a dictator and mass-murderer, his reign kept Iraq relatively stable. As soon as he was taken out of the equation other forces began to fight for dominance and now we have a huge mess on our hands that's arguably worse than where we started. The same is true for most of th…

The problem with supporting dictators is that this is a powerful recruiting argument for Isis. "Look at the West, they claim to be democracies and defend human rights, but they are supporting mass-murders here" ...which makes the West looks like a bunch of hypocrites. And this is an argument that is factually hard to counter. Frankly, I don't know what we should be doing. I don't see a solution without a long politic…

Except we're already hypocrites. We support all kinds of dictators and terrorist groups. Though a lot of it has to do with preventing wars with Israel.

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

#693

Post by pluma »

gotchange wrote: post #651
pluma wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better the devil you know. The reason we (i.e. "The West") left Saddam in place until the US needed an easy target after 9/11 is that despite being a dictator and mass-murderer, his reign kept Iraq relatively stable. As soon as he was taken out of the equation other forces began to fight for dominance and now we have a huge mess on our hands that's arguably worse than where we started. The same is true for most of th…

It seems a recurrent theme for all the "Arab Spring" skeptics to focus only on the failures of the movement like in Libya or Syria and ignore the success stories like Tunisia. I must admit that the US and allies abandoned Libya after toppling Ghaddafi and not helping Libyans with nation rebuilding after that. Add to that, the intervention by regional players in Libya complicated the situation and made things worse fo…

I'm not an "Arab Spring sceptic". I'm just a realist. The West largely kept out of the Arab Spring to avoid getting their hands dirty and the result is a huge mess.

We were too afraid to risk our own soldiers or pissing off the wrong people. Now we have Islamist extremists everywhere and a self-proclaimed Caliphate is trying to establish a permanent Islamic state.

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

#694

Post by the_af »

acqq wrote: post #688
mercurial wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think ISIS doesn't have a carefully planned PR strategy, I have a bridge or two to sell you. Of course they're using medieval methods, since their branding is "pure, original, undiluted Islam". But it's absolutely calculated.

> their branding is "pure, original, undiluted Islam" That's actually true, and it's not just "branding," nobody can deny them that they are qouting the words in the primary holy books. And still some people believe in "peacefulness" of that "pure, original, undiluted Islam." It's the opposite: only by "diluting" (honestly reforming) it can the violence induced by it be avoided long-term. But it's easy to imagine how…

Yes: pure, unreformed Abrahamic religions are not very peaceful. They are quite blood-thirsty and vengeful. Let's for a second agree that everyone reasonable wants their religion modernized and adapted to the current world (and ISIS, religious white supremacists, and abortion clinic bombers are not "reasonable"). We can disregard everyone who wants pure, unadulterated, literal Islam or Christianity.

That said, there's a reasonable case to be made that this is ISIS "branding". What their leaders truly believe is unknowable, but we can see their masterful use of propaganda, with smiling jihadis next to happy-looking children, and of course also the brutal beheadings shot in high-definition using modern techniques. I doubt the Prophet approved of HD cams.

There's also a good case to be made, as in this article from The Atlantic, "The Phony Islam of ISIS" ( http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/wha... ) that "literal" intepretations of the Quran and other Holy Texts are a red herring. You cannot claim there is a literal interpretation; just an interpretation that claims to be literal. But holy texts are rife with ambiguous and contradictory paragraphs, as explained in the article -- you can find an equivalent of "You Shall Not Kill" and in a different verse "Kill The Infidel", and you need some Wise Man to explain to you "ok, you shall not kill believers, but you can kill the unbeliever, unless there is a full moon (as mentioned in verse XYZ), in which case you can only kill goats". But this is the Wise Man's interpretation; by definition there is no single valid "literal" interpretation. And once you accept there is some degree of interpretation at play, you can no longer claim ISIS is evidence that Islam is fundamentally more blood-thirsty and terrorism-prone than other religions; just that some of the current high profile terrorist organizations are using their reading of the Quoran to justify their actions, and that they claim their interpretation is the "purest".

Even within ISIS and Al-Qaeda there is doctrinal dispute, as evidenced in this other article from The Atlantic, "What ISIS really wants" ( http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi... ), which shows fundamentalist clerics disagree, and this creates splits. How can this be, if all of them believe they are following "pure, unadulterated Islam"?

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

#695

Post by the_af »

acqq wrote: post #686
madeofpalk wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not comparing the two because they're both Abrahamic. I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil. Extremist 'Muslims', ISIS, (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Muslims') find justification in their text. Extremist 'Christians' (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Christians') found justification in the Bible. I'm not trying to…

> I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil. Wrong again. You're not actually comparing. Go to the sources. It's not about "looking hard" it is on almost every page of Quran. Please try the reading sample, Sura 9: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/pick/009.htm All those are considered to be the direct words of god by Muslims. As long as they declare them so…

If this was true, how come the vast majority of Muslims are not blood-thirsty maniacs? They believe in the Prophet, do they not? Why aren't they killing infidels left and right? Are they simply not "true" Muslims? Or maybe they modernized their religion, just like the Old Testament is no longer followed to the letter?

Recommended reading: "The Phony Islam of ISIS", http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/wha..., on the dangers of believing there is a literal, undilluted interpretation of a contradictory holy text.

(I'm an atheist, by the way. Not a Muslim.)

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

#696

Post by lenkite »

acqq wrote: post #686
madeofpalk wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not comparing the two because they're both Abrahamic. I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil. Extremist 'Muslims', ISIS, (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Muslims') find justification in their text. Extremist 'Christians' (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Christians') found justification in the Bible. I'm not trying to…

> I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil. Wrong again. You're not actually comparing. Go to the sources. It's not about "looking hard" it is on almost every page of Quran. Please try the reading sample, Sura 9: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/pick/009.htm All those are considered to be the direct words of god by Muslims. As long as they declare them so…

In the Islamic invasions of India in the middle ages, ghazni and Timur, used that verse, to "slay the idolaters" to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Hindus - even after Indian cities surrendered. In Delhi alone, Timur slaughtered a hundred thousand men. He threatened his own court poet to slaughter idolaters or face execution.

http://www.ibiblio.org/britishraj/Jackson5/chapter09.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur

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

#697

Post by ptaipale »

rmc wrote: post #325
ptaipale wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to go back in time to find these examples. Their dates of terror operation are 1970's, 1980, 1980's, 1995 and for one which doesn't very well compare, 2010. And then they were largely hounded down and imprisoned (or executed, for McVeigh). Islamist terrorism is a newer and also much bigger trend (even in the West, although the vast majority of people killed are in Muslim countries). I see this line of…

The IRA was not bought down by miltiary operations. Various leaders of it are currentling serving in governments in Northern Ireland. (Martin McGuinness is Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams is a TD in Ireland)

> The IRA was not bought down by miltiary operations.

Yes, but I would say that the hope of any "military" achievements by IRA (in the sense of aggravating so much violence as to make UK give away North Ireland) was lost as funding and arms dealing was more difficult and surveillance more effective. So it was good sense to stick to the Good Friday agreement.

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

#698

Post by coldtea »

kleim wrote: post #397
coldtea wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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

They were "westerners" only in their nationality not in their ethnicity. For some western societies it's difficult to imagine the difference, but it exists -- not everybody gets assimilated to the culture he lives in, especially if there's another culture he feels he belongs to by inheritance.

For those of people (who are not the majority of ISIS, but a small minority) it's about a twisted idea of revenge for what happened and happens to their (origin) countries and to people of the same faith there, and how the west views and treats them -- not about struggling with poverty.

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

#699

Post by Nursie »

Cyph0n wrote: post #560
terrn wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh...there are a lot of problems with your statement. The first is that you are reciting anecdotes from 1400 years ago; there is absolutely no proof of anything you said. Even if we accept that the Quran was given to Mohammed by God, we have to at least acknowledge the possibility that a lot of what you've learned has been added in by various persons over the course of many hundreds of years i.e. we cannot be so su…

No, there is proof that that's how it started. These "anecdotes" were passed down by narration initially, then they were recorded by two scholars: Al Bukhari and Muslim. The methods they used for verification were amazing, which is why we believe most of what they deemed valid. If you'd like to know more about how they did this, I can elaborate. As for the Quran, it has been passed down by rote memorization. This is…

>> These "anecdotes" were passed down by narration initially

You've heard of "Chinese Whispers" right?

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

#700

Post by mercurial »

the_af wrote: post #694
acqq wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their branding is "pure, original, undiluted Islam" That's actually true, and it's not just "branding," nobody can deny them that they are qouting the words in the primary holy books. And still some people believe in "peacefulness" of that "pure, original, undiluted Islam." It's the opposite: only by "diluting" (honestly reforming) it can the violence induced by it be avoided long-term. But it's easy to imagine how…

Yes: pure, unreformed Abrahamic religions are not very peaceful. They are quite blood-thirsty and vengeful. Let's for a second agree that everyone reasonable wants their religion modernized and adapted to the current world (and ISIS, religious white supremacists, and abortion clinic bombers are not "reasonable"). We can disregard everyone who wants pure, unadulterated, literal Islam or Christianity. That said, there'…

Well, that's religion for you: the C++ of ideological systems, where you pick the components that work for you, and then claim that's the only way to do it.
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