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Re: undefined

#21

Post by reitanqild »

breatheoften wrote: post #20
watwut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also differences through. No one in West is thrown out of roof for being gay, people can speak against Christianity and holy war without being executed. While wearing too revealing cloth may disadvantage me in workplace due to assumptions, I won't be stoned or whatever. 14 years old boys are not radicalised to by preachers to become martyrs. Those are rather important differences. Conservative Christian jou…

I'm not sure how this is related to what I wrote? Are you saying that "exterminate ISIS" should expand to "exterminate Saudi Arabia" because Saudi Arabia currently mistreats homosexuals and women?

I honestly find it hard to understand what you mean.

It's like you are discussing with someone who isn't here.

Re: undefined

#22

Post by [deleted] »

Roritharr wrote: post #10
toomanybeersies wrote: post #3

I find it amazing the danger that these journalists in Mosul are putting themselves in just to get half a dozen photos, or a couple of minutes of video footage, or a few paragraphs. I was following Quentin Sommerville as he was livetweeting the battle for Mosul a couple of months ago, and it was amazing to see him there right on the front line getting shot at. I have nothing but the utmost respect for people who put…

This was a stunning display of bravery. I just wonder what badass admins are keeping the internet connection up in such situations.

[deleted]

Re: undefined

#23

Post by sctb »

cyberferret wrote: post #5

That was a gripping read. I was going to say that it might shed some light into the mental processes that these boys go through before they are indoctrinated into IS, but I think that is already quite well a well known and researched subject, so I will prevail from exploring it further here. What saddens me is that I regularly see similar snippets of declared fervent worshippers of a particular deity calling for outr…

When we're already delicately close to a religious flamewar, we don't need to shoot for a political one too.

Re: undefined

#24

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #19
breatheoften wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a characterization of the right wing base of the counter terrorism movement. There is a huge group of people in the West who believe that Christianity/West and Islam are in a holy war -- these play a large role in defining the actions of the counterterrorism movement. Many many western soldiers will profess that they believe the problem with terrorism is about Islam - and many of those just happen to be Chris…

There are also differences through. No one in West is thrown out of roof for being gay, people can speak against Christianity and holy war without being executed. While wearing too revealing cloth may disadvantage me in workplace due to assumptions, I won't be stoned or whatever. 14 years old boys are not radicalised to by preachers to become martyrs. Those are rather important differences. Conservative Christian jou…

[deleted]

Re: undefined

#25

Post by watwut »

breatheoften wrote: post #20
watwut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also differences through. No one in West is thrown out of roof for being gay, people can speak against Christianity and holy war without being executed. While wearing too revealing cloth may disadvantage me in workplace due to assumptions, I won't be stoned or whatever. 14 years old boys are not radicalised to by preachers to become martyrs. Those are rather important differences. Conservative Christian jou…

I'm not sure how this is related to what I wrote? Are you saying that "exterminate ISIS" should expand to "exterminate Saudi Arabia" because Saudi Arabia currently mistreats homosexuals and women?

Western fundamentalism and isis are fundamentally different. They are not nearly equivalent. They can be made to sound similar, as your comment did, if you ignore important differences between them.

That is however, imo, just manipulation tractic.

Re: undefined

#26

Post by reitanqild »

breatheoften wrote: post #16
reitanqild wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are defending something else. Nobody I'm aware of here is denying what you say. This is what threadstarter wrote: declared fervent worshippers of a particular deity calling for outright murder, persecution and mass extermination of entire groups of people

That is a characterization of the right wing base of the counter terrorism movement. There is a huge group of people in the West who believe that Christianity/West and Islam are in a holy war -- these play a large role in defining the actions of the counterterrorism movement. Many many western soldiers will profess that they believe the problem with terrorism is about Islam - and many of those just happen to be Chris…

Given their actions and the deaths they have caused what reason do you have to claim they are not pursuing a goal of murdering groups of people to extermination?

Re-reading this a few hours later and this stands out.

If western soldiers goal was to exterminate other groups of people I'll say they have failed quite spectacularily.

I'm all for asking tough questions about the need ti spend ou tax money in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However as I mentioned above: either they have failed spectacularly or they haven't tried to exterminate those people.

Re: undefined

#27

Post by breatheoften »

watwut wrote: post #25
breatheoften wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this is related to what I wrote? Are you saying that "exterminate ISIS" should expand to "exterminate Saudi Arabia" because Saudi Arabia currently mistreats homosexuals and women?

Western fundamentalism and isis are fundamentally different. They are not nearly equivalent. They can be made to sound similar, as your comment did, if you ignore important differences between them. That is however, imo, just manipulation tractic.

I'm not sure where I argued an equivalence between these forces. Western fundamentalism doesn't have to be equivalent to Isis to be damaging in nature. It's my position that the counterterrorism movement is off the rails -- a negative, objectiveless, and misguided force on the world that is more damaging (because of scale) than terrorism. There are many different groups of people who support and feed the counter-terrorism movement -- among them are many people who are happy to advocate for extreme levels of violence against unknown or imagined enemies. If you ask, many people in the us support "turning the deserts to glass" -- they have perceived enemies in the deserts and don't particularly care for who else they kill in pursuit.

People in the west want to pretend that terrorists are unique in their lack of regard for civilian lives -- but there is an objective question we can ask to determine the truth of this. Who's actions result in the deaths of more innocent civilians? These numbers reveal that western hands are not so innocent as they pretend. Semantic quibbling (and often misdirection) about the relationship of "intent" to these deaths is the manipulation tactic -- a frequently biased mechanism for the whitewashing of responsibility and guilt off the hands of the chosen marked as noble without regard to evidence.

Re: undefined

#28

Post by cyberferret »

rayiner wrote: post #6
cyberferret wrote: post #5

That was a gripping read. I was going to say that it might shed some light into the mental processes that these boys go through before they are indoctrinated into IS, but I think that is already quite well a well known and researched subject, so I will prevail from exploring it further here. What saddens me is that I regularly see similar snippets of declared fervent worshippers of a particular deity calling for outr…

> What saddens me is that I regularly see similar snippets of declared fervent worshippers of a particular deity calling for outright murder, persecution and mass extermination of entire groups of people. My family is from a country (Bangladesh) that has, like many others, slid backwards in the last 40 years thanks to the same fundamentalism that drives ISIS. When my family and I lived there, Bangladesh was poor, but…

I grew up in a Muslim majority country too, but now live in a Western country. AFAIK, the country I grew up in has so far managed to avoid the creeping fundamentalism that has overtaken others.

Emphasis here on 'creeping'. I am sure the situation in your own homeland or in Egypt etc. didn't begin overnight with a rush of armed people in the streets. It probably started with small groups of people saying "Well, situation 'x' goes against my beliefs and I believe it will be solved by removing/changing/killing the perpetrators of it".

It may start in small, isolated groups, but get enough people in the same echo chamber and that sentiment slowly becomes normalised and over time becomes supported by ever growing actions.

Egypt took 40+ years to get from where they were to where they are now? Well, its only been about a year since this other group of people have felt they have been allowed to air their grievances and fundamentalist policies blatantly in the open because they perceive they won't be held to account for doing so.

Re: undefined

#29

Post by rayiner »

cyberferret wrote: post #28
rayiner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What saddens me is that I regularly see similar snippets of declared fervent worshippers of a particular deity calling for outright murder, persecution and mass extermination of entire groups of people. My family is from a country (Bangladesh) that has, like many others, slid backwards in the last 40 years thanks to the same fundamentalism that drives ISIS. When my family and I lived there, Bangladesh was poor, but…

I grew up in a Muslim majority country too, but now live in a Western country. AFAIK, the country I grew up in has so far managed to avoid the creeping fundamentalism that has overtaken others. Emphasis here on 'creeping'. I am sure the situation in your own homeland or in Egypt etc. didn't begin overnight with a rush of armed people in the streets. It probably started with small groups of people saying "Well, situat…

There is a difference between a nutjob and the harbinger of something really dangerous. I'm sure there are Trump supporters who says stuff like "we should execute anyone caught sneaking into the country illegally a second time!" But do they have a sympathetic ear among any substantial portion of the population? No. Meanwhile, when a jihadi says "we should execute people who leave Islam!" In Bangladesh, over a third of people agree with that nutjob, and in Egypt it's almost two thirds of people: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi.... There is no equivalence. And from the point of view of someone like me (who 1/3 of my fellow Bangladeshis think should be put to death), it's pretty outrageous to even draw the comparison.

You might hypothesize that after 40 years of Trump we might well be in a position where lots of people think illegal immigrants should be put to death. But that misunderstands the evolution of American society. The nutjobs who happen to support Trump have always been there: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh... (even in 2013, more than 10% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages). But there's been a monotonically decreasing number of those nutjobs every year (down from over 50% in the mid 1990s). Trump isn't a sign of some sort of reversal in that trend. He's just the result of a perfect storm of a particularly unpopular Democratic candidate and an unusual clusterf--k of a Republican slate.

Re: undefined

#30

Post by reitanqild »

breatheoften wrote: post #27
watwut wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western fundamentalism and isis are fundamentally different. They are not nearly equivalent. They can be made to sound similar, as your comment did, if you ignore important differences between them. That is however, imo, just manipulation tractic.

I'm not sure where I argued an equivalence between these forces. Western fundamentalism doesn't have to be equivalent to Isis to be damaging in nature. It's my position that the counterterrorism movement is off the rails -- a negative, objectiveless, and misguided force on the world that is more damaging (because of scale) than terrorism. There are many different groups of people who support and feed the counter-terr…

People in the west want to pretend that terrorists are unique in their lack of regard for civilian lives

This is a problem.

However in this thread you seem to go from this to "attempted genocide".

Also: there is a really huge difference between

- being careless as a soldier

and

- actively trying to harm civilians as a terrorist

Western soldiers should be held to a higher standard but as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread: if they have been trying to kill (or in your words exterminate) civilians then they have failed pretty spectacularly.

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