Visible from space, Sudan's bloodied sands expose a massacre of thousands

I wasn't here to 'provide proof'. Just pointing out that any conflict beyond a certain size almost certainly has some weapon from every large arms producer deployed in the field. I can't image how many tons of small arms we left laying around in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest that are now being recirculated around the worlds conflict zones. I remember after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan if you were in the right place and knew the right people you could get cases of NIB AKs for like $25 a rifle (no, I didn't). It's not politics...it's logistics.

I appreciate your long and thoughtful answer. I am actually Muslim, and from the Middle-East. I agree with most of what you said, I only disagree with the premise that Islam is an inherently violent religion. While I usually ignore such statements, seeing this atrocious conflict in Sudan being reduced to "Islam bad" especially when it's primarily non-Arab Muslims being genocided just irked me too much.

To your point, you're right that the Quran and the Hadith make some statements that to an unlearned individual's interpretation, appear to promote total war against the unbelievers. As you also point out, this is not unique to Islam, as demonstrated by the Crusades for example. I don't think the relative accessibility of the Quran today is a valid point, as in the current day and age anyone can pick up the Bible and read something like Matthew 10:34 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010%3A...] and claim that Jesus ordered Christians to fight.

Continuing to use Christianity as an example, today you don't get that many extremist Christian groups because most places with significant Christian populations are well developed, generally have highly educated populations, robust political processes, and strong rule of law. Back to the map OP posted, if you overlay it with a map of Christian populations, you'll find a strong overlap in central Africa. Central Africa was recently decolonized, has unresolved political issues, and is majority Christian, as a result you get extremist organizations like the LRA forming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army_insur...].

My point is, it's easy to manipulate some holy text or another to claim it orders to fight the disbelievers. I would say the average Joe who does not need to worry about how tomorrow he will feed his family and educate his children will never get up in arms to kill someone just because of a cherry-picked verse from a holy book. If that happens and this Joe gets up to murder his neighbor, either Joe is a psychopath at heart, or the core reason is something else. If that wasn't the case, then Islam has a huge problem with disobedience, because its 2 billion followers aren't slaughtering everyone right now.

Anecdote time. I had the pleasure of acquainting someone who seriously thought about joining ISIS during their heyday. He was in high-school with me, I didn't know him very closely, but enough to paint a picture. He lived in a dysfunctional home with a terrible father who was too harsh and too violent. He lived in the street most of his childhood, basically treating his home as where he goes to sleep. He came from a poor background, was rock bottom academically, all while living in a country where most youth do not have high hopes for the future. He also had a history of drug abuse and generally thuggish behavior. On a spiritual level, the dude did not give a single iota about any teaching of Islam.

It was 2015. In the few months leading up to his arrest, he had a change of mind and heart. His closer friends tell me he started joining some FB groups where ISIS was doing recruitment. Having been exposed to a couple of recruitment videos myself, I imagine it would have been super lucrative for someone like him. They were always boasting about the loot the fighters would get from battle, how in a couple of months of fighting you could have your own house and land, a nice truck, a subservient wife, all while being super badass with guns and fancy combat gear AND God would love you and send you to heaven if you die (but you wouldn't, because look at the map, ISIS is unstoppable). It was almost like a parody version of the American dream. No need for a higher education, job interviews, hard work, or knowing the right people. If you can pick up a gun and don't mind killing these worthless scum who don't know any better, we can take care of the rest!

Somehow he was arrested and was imprisoned before he could join ISIS. He was released from prison a couple of years ago, and from what I hear some special prison treatment took its toll and now he wouldn't hurt a fly. When this guy tried to join ISIS, was his sole motivation the belief that God earnestly ordered Muslims to indiscriminately fight the unbelievers? A better question: would he have joined them without the promise of wealth beyond his wildest dreams and a chance to start anew?

Netanyahu having had people transfer cash was a big scandal in Israel.

Trying to murder the negotiating team in Doha was an effort to stop the US from pushing through 'a deal' as it's commonly been called. They've previously been successful at this and it likely annoyed the US that the israelis failed.

The thing is that "Hamas" is used as a synonym for words like "terrorist" and "palestinian" and "arab", and in some circles in the US and largely in Israel "Qatar" means the same thing. It's the un-chosen people that need to serve or die, basically. Hence the anger at Netanyahu, and an important reason why he clings to power, he doesn't want to step off until he's made history some other way that makes israelis forget his scandals.

In the long term, Venezuela has more proven reserves (but much less production capacity). Or nuclear + renewable will overtake fossil fuel. In either scenario, Saudi's share of total global energy production will likely decline by late 21st century.

And in non-oil GDP growth, UAE is currently outpacing Saudi.

As to "everyone there was still as rich as ever due to the oil money", depends on who "everyone" is: 77% of the total workforce in Saudi is migrant workers, many of whom earn < US$5000/yr. They're not citizens.

Please don't fulminate, or make personal attacks like "Typical Hasbara lying", or use capitals for emphasis, or post flamebait or engage in ideological battle on HN. We've had to remind you to observe the guidelines before. Topics like this normally don't get discussed on HN because they inevitably turn into flame wars. If you can't participate in a thread like this without doing it in a flamewar style, please don't participate at all. It benefits nobody, and we have to ban accounts that continue to engage in this style of activity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html