A Unique Threat

[whichphilosophy]

There is a danger in labeling a group of people a unique threat. Native people in the Americas were a unique threat to the Europeans which led the Europeans to practice wholesale slaughter against these indigenous peoples. Black folk, whenever not in slavery, are sold as a unique threat to white people. This is why the United States had to institute slavery, and then Jim Crow, and now James Crow, Esq. The Christians in ancient Rome were a unique threat so they were thrown to the lions for sport. The Jews of Europe constituted a unique threat to Germany and so ghettos and concentration camps and the "final solution" had to be instituted. All over the world and throughout history, people identified as unique threats have been persecuted, prosecuted, and obliterated.

Today throughout the Western World, voices cry out that Muslims are a unique threat. I do not deny that ISIS is a threat to the stability and security of a great many people, as are other Muslim organizations, sects, and holy warriors. But that does not mean that Muslims are a unique threat. There are all kinds of organizations based on all kinds of beliefs doing evil all over the globe. Muslims don't have a monopoly on having a tiny group or groups within their larger group who are murderers, rapists and thieves. And keep in mind these small groups are doing most of their harm TO OTHER MUSLIMS.

Believing in unique threats not only leads to the murder of innocents, but it turns otherwise decent people into the evil they fear in their believed "unique threat." If Muslims are uniquely evil, why shouldn't we lock them out? Why shouldn't we lock them up? Why should we respect their rights? Are they even worthy of rights? Are they deserving of protection? Perhaps they are worthy of persecution, incarceration, and even annihilation. They are a unique threat after all, beyond redemption, beyond salvation, and if they are allowed to live, they will kill and rape and steal. Whatever evil befalls them, they will have it coming to them.

I do not fear ISIS as much as what a fear of ISIS can make us become.

Wiping out most Native Americans was a false justification to make the atrocities seem reasonable. Likewise Afro Americans were seen as a threat especially if they tried to escape as they could be 'dangerous'
In fact a mental illness was invented called Drapetomania In fact Cartwright the psychiatrist responsible for this said the bible calls for a slave to be submissive to his master.

Most Muslims are not dangerous nor are a threat. They are blamed for the actions of a few, such as ISIS or Al Qaeda, plus other fanatical groups. These are not acting any different from the way Christian factions have periodically acted in the past and sometimes in modern times.

 

[4321lynx]

But the question is, are we or should we be willing to turn our nation into a "Third Reich" or ourselves into Nazis in order to stop people we already think are Nazis?

That's not the question at all. The question is, is the thing we will turn America into worse (for us) than the thing we're trying to prevent? Conservatives assume that yes, of course it would, because that thing would still be America and America is always good. There's no debating with such people, since their definitions of "good" and "evil" are related to their definitions of "us" and "them."



For everyone else, it's a silly question. The THINGS that we love about our country are incompatible with the things we would have to do in order to forcibly suppress the Daesh. Again, it's like contemplating your neighbor's five-year-old son: you have a strong suspicion that the little bastard is going to grow up to become a serial killer, but the only thing you can DO about it is to murder him before he can grow up. If you're sociopathic enough to think that murdering a child because of the things he MIGHT do is justifiable, you're not the kind of person who would even care about that question.

Very fancy thought provoking metaphor, completely divorced from reality.
And this "child" is already a feenager with gangs all over the place that think and act like him. And he and his like have already killed countless other children on their way to where they are now, are killing them at this very moment and have said that they will kill you and your kids but first they will rape your daughters.
What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

 

[fromderinside]

1. Civilization over the past 700 years tends trends to acceptance.

2 One has nothing to fear but fear itself.

3. Hiding under your bed (fears) leads to your death or you being robbed.

Thought food.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

That's not the question at all. The question is, is the thing we will turn America into worse (for us) than the thing we're trying to prevent? Conservatives assume that yes, of course it would, because that thing would still be America and America is always good. There's no debating with such people, since their definitions of "good" and "evil" are related to their definitions of "us" and "them."



For everyone else, it's a silly question. The THINGS that we love about our country are incompatible with the things we would have to do in order to forcibly suppress the Daesh. Again, it's like contemplating your neighbor's five-year-old son: you have a strong suspicion that the little bastard is going to grow up to become a serial killer, but the only thing you can DO about it is to murder him before he can grow up. If you're sociopathic enough to think that murdering a child because of the things he MIGHT do is justifiable, you're not the kind of person who would even care about that question.

Very fancy thought provoking metaphor, completely divorced from reality.
And this "child" is already a feenager with gangs all over the place that think and act like him. And he and his like have already killed countless other children on their way to where they are now, are killing them at this very moment and have said that they will kill you and your kids but first they will rape your daughters.
What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

What do you want done about this threat?

 

[4321lynx]

Very fancy thought provoking metaphor, completely divorced from reality.
And this "child" is already a feenager with gangs all over the place that think and act like him. And he and his like have already killed countless other children on their way to where they are now, are killing them at this very moment and have said that they will kill you and your kids but first they will rape your daughters.
What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

What do you want done about this threat?

1, Don't ignore it or try to say that it is not a threat just because its effects in the USA since 9/11 have been rather minor. Or because the major burden is being borne by "far-away people of whom we know little" and whose skins are a different colour.
2. Actively support those willing to fight it. I am aware that those are damn few and that some of them are pretty murky types themselves but what can we do?
3. Don't look for excuses to do nohing, and for excuses for what is the most abhorrent set of murderous men since Pol Pot.
4. Don' ask me for a solution when the whole world is failing to find one.
5. What would you want done apart from talking on the internet?

 

[barbos]

Most Muslims are not dangerous nor are a threat. They are blamed for the actions of a few, such as ISIS or Al Qaeda, plus other fanatical groups. These are not acting any different from the way Christian factions have periodically acted in the past and sometimes in modern times.

51% would be the "most". Imagine vacationing in a country where "most" people are not infected with Ebola
I actually view islam as an unhealthy practice which helps to spread Ebola terrorism.
So "most" being non dangerous is not good enough for me.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What do you want done about this threat?

1, Don't ignore it or try to say that it is not a threat just because its effects in the USA since 9/11 have been rather minor.

I don't recall anyone saying there was no threat.

Or because the major burden is being borne by "far-away people of whom we know little" and whose skins are a different colour.

But that is true, is it not?

2. Actively support those willing to fight it.

Again I don't recall anyone saying don't support people who are willing to fight terrorists of any stripe.

I am aware that those are damn few and that some of them are pretty murky types themselves but what can we do?
3. Don't look for excuses to do nohing, and for excuses for what is the most abhorrent set of murderous men since Pol Pot.

No one has said do nothing.

4. Don' ask me for a solution when the whole world is failing to find one.

I asked you what you wanted done, not to solve the probelm of the world.

5. What would you want done apart from talking on the internet?

That the guilty be punished and the innocent go unharmed. That we not think of people as evil or good because of what they are, but judge them by what they and they alone do. That we not paint a world in broad strokes of black and white when the rainbow is enough. That we not become old and have to explain to our grand children about how camps were built and bombs were dropped and millions who never lifted a finger to hurt us were murdered and how we could stand by and do nothing

 

[dismal]

The idea that not tolerating the misogyny, theocracy, brutality, rapeyness, etc of (some) Muslims is going to lead us to become so mysogynistic, brutal, theocratic and rapey that we start stoning rape victims for being impure and sawing off the heads of non-believers is low on my list of concerns.

No, but the idea of us becoming a society that collectively believes that violence is the answer to all of the world's problems DEFINITELY should be. No one is disputing that the Daesh are running a deranged, sociopathic society that is nightmarish and inhuman even by Jihadist standards; what is worth disputing is whether or not "bomb the piss out of them" is actually a solution to that problem.

If we ALLOW that to b a viable solution, then violence and mayhem becomes the new normal; "kill em all and piss on their graves" starts to look like a viable solution to gang violence, to domestic violence, child abuse, armed robbery, petty theft, trespassing, eventually even just being an asshole. We've already gotten a big heaping apetizer of this with the militarization of law enforcement, where police training teaches officers to regard EVERY suspect as a threat to his life and police policies in many cities are written with the assumption of a "war on police" in progress. This is leading us inexorably to a reality where police officers are allowed or even encouraged to resort to violence in order to force compliance from suspects, with no limitations or repercussions.

The expanded borders or terrorism of the Daesh is a low priority for me too; the expanded violence and authority of U.S. policing policies and their increasingly close relationship with the military-industrial complex worries me a great deal. Do we allow ourselves to become a nation of cowards that solve all of our problems with guns?

I find I am able to not tolerate misogyny, theocracy, brutality, rapeyness, etc while also not taking up guns to destroy everything. I would however take up the force of law to send the rapers and gropers and theater massacrers to prison or martyrdom. And I would hope that someone takes up guns to stop ISIS before they reach the walls of Vienna.

 

[4321lynx]

1, Don't ignore it or try to say that it is not a threat just because its effects in the USA since 9/11 have been rather minor.

I don't recall anyone saying there was no threat.

Or because the major burden is being borne by "far-away people of whom we know little" and whose skins are a different colour.

But that is true, is it not?

2. Actively support those willing to fight it.

Again I don't recall anyone saying don't support people who are willing to fight terrorists of any stripe.

I am aware that those are damn few and that some of them are pretty murky types themselves but what can we do?
3. Don't look for excuses to do nohing, and for excuses for what is the most abhorrent set of murderous men since Pol Pot.

No one has said do nothing.

4. Don' ask me for a solution when the whole world is failing to find one.

I asked you what you wanted done, not to solve the probelm of the world.

5. What would you want done apart from talking on the internet?

That the guilty be punished and the innocent go unharmed. That we not think of people as evil or good because of what they are, but judge them by what they and they alone do. That we not paint a world in broad strokes of black and white when the rainbow is enough. That we not become old and have to explain to our grand children about how camps were built and bombs were dropped and millions who never lifted a finger to hurt us were murdered and how we could stand by and do nothing

Like we did in Cambodia? In Mao's China? In Hoo Flung Dung's North Korea now? All over the Muslim world now? In the West Bank invaded by Israeli settlers now?
So you think Crazy Eddy's posts are not minimizing the threat? They are in line with your ideas?
How aree you going to get at the "guilty"? Invite them to declare themselves to be refugees and to present themselves at The Hague to be tried?
Let's hear it from you. You criticise very well. Now let's hear some practical details on how we should proceed in this matter. Athena was not just a wise lady she also had the title of Athena Πρόμαχος, Promachos (the First Fighter, i.e. she who fights in front). She did not defend the city or cities in Greece by wiseacreing about others' ideas and preaching to show her superiority over others, she was a fighter, and not a fighter with just her mouth, used her long spear when necessary. Can you do that?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I don't recall anyone saying there was no threat.

Or because the major burden is being borne by "far-away people of whom we know little" and whose skins are a different colour.

But that is true, is it not?

2. Actively support those willing to fight it.

Again I don't recall anyone saying don't support people who are willing to fight terrorists of any stripe.

I am aware that those are damn few and that some of them are pretty murky types themselves but what can we do?
3. Don't look for excuses to do nohing, and for excuses for what is the most abhorrent set of murderous men since Pol Pot.

No one has said do nothing.

4. Don' ask me for a solution when the whole world is failing to find one.

I asked you what you wanted done, not to solve the probelm of the world.

5. What would you want done apart from talking on the internet?

That the guilty be punished and the innocent go unharmed. That we not think of people as evil or good because of what they are, but judge them by what they and they alone do. That we not paint a world in broad strokes of black and white when the rainbow is enough. That we not become old and have to explain to our grand children about how camps were built and bombs were dropped and millions who never lifted a finger to hurt us were murdered and how we could stand by and do nothing

Like we did in Cambodia? In Mao's China? In Hoo Flung Dung's North Korea now?
So you think Crazy Eddy's posts are not minimizing the threat?

How big is the threat? You must have some idea. What must we do, how many people must we Neutralize in order to minimize if not annihilate the threat? How diligent (or ruthless) do we need to be?

They are in line with your ideas?
How aree you going to get at the "guilty"? Invite them to declare themselves to be refugees and to present themselves at The Hague to be tried?
Let's hear it from you. You criticise very well. Now let's hear some practical details on how we should proceed in this matter. Athena was not just a wise lady she also had the title of Athena Πρόμαχος, Promachos (the First Fighter, i.e. she who fights in front). She did not defend the city or cities in Greece by wiseacreing about others' ideas and preaching to show her superiority over others, she was a fighter, and not a fighter with just her mouth, used her long spear when necessary. Can you do that?

On November 10th of 1898, in the town of my mother's birth and where I live now, buildings burned, bodies littered the streets and the Cape Fear River run red with the blood of men, women, and children.

All because of rumor and innuendo that black men were assaulting white women, and were currently arming themselves for ... what purpose was never made clear. Doctors, lawyers, bootblacks, barbers, newspaper publishers were all now a unique threat and they were either to leave town or die. By sundown, hundreds were dead or injured, thousands had fled the city and the only coup d'état of a city government in the US had taken place.

All because of fear of a unique threat.

My great grandmother had just married her second husband, my great grand father. He had been a professor and was now the principal and lead teacher of the recently open school for negro children. She was a midwife. They and her two children by her first husband along with two other families hid in the crawlspace under their house for three days hoping the redshirts would not make it to their tiny community just a few miles from downtown. My great grandmother was pregnant with my great aunt at the time. The men laying on their bellies under the front porch, shotguns pointing at the road ready to shoot the first patch of red seen.

This was real, this happened and it happened in the US.

Now you can try to turn this back on me if that makes you happy, but I can tell you right now, it won't help you. See, I have both my Poppa's shotguns and I was raised to stand AGAINST red shirts (or black shirts or brown shirts) and I am quite prepared to do so. The question is were you raised to stand with them?

 

[repoman]

Maybe the Jews are a unique threat, no joke:

 

[4321lynx]

I don't recall anyone saying there was no threat.

Or because the major burden is being borne by "far-away people of whom we know little" and whose skins are a different colour.

But that is true, is it not?

2. Actively support those willing to fight it.

Again I don't recall anyone saying don't support people who are willing to fight terrorists of any stripe.

I am aware that those are damn few and that some of them are pretty murky types themselves but what can we do?
3. Don't look for excuses to do nohing, and for excuses for what is the most abhorrent set of murderous men since Pol Pot.

No one has said do nothing.

4. Don' ask me for a solution when the whole world is failing to find one.

I asked you what you wanted done, not to solve the probelm of the world.

5. What would you want done apart from talking on the internet?

That the guilty be punished and the innocent go unharmed. That we not think of people as evil or good because of what they are, but judge them by what they and they alone do. That we not paint a world in broad strokes of black and white when the rainbow is enough. That we not become old and have to explain to our grand children about how camps were built and bombs were dropped and millions who never lifted a finger to hurt us were murdered and how we could stand by and do nothing

Like we did in Cambodia? In Mao's China? In Hoo Flung Dung's North Korea now?
So you think Crazy Eddy's posts are not minimizing the threat?

How big is the threat? You must have some idea. What must we do, how many people must we Neutralize in order to minimize if not annihilate the threat? How diligent (or ruthless) do we need to be?

They are in line with your ideas?
How aree you going to get at the "guilty"? Invite them to declare themselves to be refugees and to present themselves at The Hague to be tried?
Let's hear it from you. You criticise very well. Now let's hear some practical details on how we should proceed in this matter. Athena was not just a wise lady she also had the title of Athena Πρόμαχος, Promachos (the First Fighter, i.e. she who fights in front). She did not defend the city or cities in Greece by wiseacreing about others' ideas and preaching to show her superiority over others, she was a fighter, and not a fighter with just her mouth, used her long spear when necessary. Can you do that?

On November 10th of 1898, in the town of my mother's birth and where I live now, buildings burned, bodies littered the streets and the Cape Fear River run red with the blood of men, women, and children.

All because of rumor and innuendo that black men were assaulting white women, and were currently arming themselves for ... what purpose was never made clear. Doctors, lawyers, bootblacks, barbers, newspaper publishers were all now a unique threat and they were either to leave town or die. By sundown, hundreds were dead or injured, thousands had fled the city and the only coup d'état of a city government in the US had taken place.

All because of fear of a unique threat.

My great grandmother had just married her second husband, my great grand father. He had been a professor and was now the principal and lead teacher of the recently open school for negro children. She was a midwife. They and her two children by her first husband along with two other families hid in the crawlspace under their house for three days hoping the redshirts would not make it to their tiny community just a few miles from downtown. My great grandmother was pregnant with my great aunt at the time. The men laying on their bellies under the front porch, shotguns pointing at the road ready to shoot the first patch of red seen.

This was real, this happened and it happened in the US.

Now you can try to turn this back on me if that makes you happy, but I can tell you right now, it won't help you. See, I have both my Poppa's shotguns and I was raised to stand AGAINST red shirts (or black shirts or brown shirts) and I am quite prepared to do so. The question is were you raised to stand with them?

No. I was raised to be a liberal. Raised in Eastern Europe with nationalist, not racial, problems, though in practice not much different to what your link describes. The extent of violence and numbers involved there far exceeded those in the Southern States. And the time stretched over the immediate post WW I period, the between the wars period, the WWII period and the years immediately post WW II . The Soviets "solved" the problem by murder, mass population transfers, and consignement to the Gulag of the various nationalities involved, men, women and children.

I have seen and experienced what the "rednecks" there can do and did. And I know what the rednecks in the US ,and in the allegedly tolerant and accepting Canada, (my wife calls them Gringos, that should give you a clue), think and do. People with histories like mine develop a nose, a sensitivity, to those attitudes.

Nevertheless, IMO the ISIL, DAESH and other ISLAMIST groups present a unique threat, which they themselves proclaim proudly and a threat they are willing to die for and do die for in suicide attacks every day in some part of the world or other. I have no doubt that many innocents will die before this threat is resolved.

NB

Islamist does not equal Islamic, though most Islamic countries are Islamist to a certain extent, varying with geography and history. Islamist groups are those that want to bring in and use strict Sharia law, use violence to achieve or strive towards this, are in fact doing so by terror in attacking innocent civilians directly or as collateral victims.
I have no prejudice against the Muslims. For seven years I worked in a country which was roughly 25-30% Muslim, about the same % or more Christian and the rest were pagans of various kinds, including Jehova's Witnesses

Invariably I found the average Muslims more honest, clean, hardworking, and reliable than the average Christians or pagans. So my prejudice is in their favour.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

And this "child" is already a feenager with gangs all over the place that think and act like him.

No, he's not "going all over the place." He's picking fights with other kids in the neighborhood, attacking kids at school, vandalizing cars, playing horrible pranks on his classmates. There are a hundred things you can do to keep him from hurting you or damaging your property, with varying degrees of success. But shooting him in the head and burning his house down is far from the ideal solution.

And he and his like have already killed countless other children on their way to where they are now

The Daesh's territory is relatively small; they have not succeeded in conquering Iraq OR Syria and it's unlikely they ever will. So no, they haven't killed "countless other children" in this analogy. Alot of fights, lot of violence, but they're still not powerful enough to be a threat to us or to anyone else.

WILL they in the future? It's possible, but not plausible. Like most Islamists they are far more interested in destroying what they don't like than building what they do. The fact that you cannot bomb and murder your way to prosperity is something that should be taken into consideration when attempting to deal with them.

What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

I say that their attempt to create an actual military power a la Nazi Germany (as implied upthread) would be an exercise in futility. They're not a threat to the United States and likely never will be; they're not the Islamic Nazis so much as the Muslim Khmer Rouge.

It would be nice to think that we can supply the solution to this problem in a neat little package, but the reality of the situation is there isn't much we can do there beyond what we are already doing that wouldn't make things ten times worse. To use Athena's example: it would be like trying to stop a race riot by strafing the scene of the riot with A-10 thunderbolts and then handwaving away the fact that half the people in the line of fire are the people you're supposed to be saving.

Daesh is a cancer, not an invader. We need a scalpel, not a broadsword.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No, but the idea of us becoming a society that collectively believes that violence is the answer to all of the world's problems DEFINITELY should be. No one is disputing that the Daesh are running a deranged, sociopathic society that is nightmarish and inhuman even by Jihadist standards; what is worth disputing is whether or not "bomb the piss out of them" is actually a solution to that problem.

If we ALLOW that to b a viable solution, then violence and mayhem becomes the new normal; "kill em all and piss on their graves" starts to look like a viable solution to gang violence, to domestic violence, child abuse, armed robbery, petty theft, trespassing, eventually even just being an asshole. We've already gotten a big heaping apetizer of this with the militarization of law enforcement, where police training teaches officers to regard EVERY suspect as a threat to his life and police policies in many cities are written with the assumption of a "war on police" in progress. This is leading us inexorably to a reality where police officers are allowed or even encouraged to resort to violence in order to force compliance from suspects, with no limitations or repercussions.

The expanded borders or terrorism of the Daesh is a low priority for me too; the expanded violence and authority of U.S. policing policies and their increasingly close relationship with the military-industrial complex worries me a great deal. Do we allow ourselves to become a nation of cowards that solve all of our problems with guns?

I find I am able to not tolerate misogyny, theocracy, brutality, rapeyness, etc while also not taking up guns to destroy everything. I would however take up the force of law to send the rapers and gropers and theater massacrers to prison or martyrdom.

In other words, exactly what we are already doing. I don't see a need for more "extraordinary" measures than that. It will take a while, to be sure, but the quickest solution isn't always the right one.

And I would hope that someone takes up guns to stop ISIS before they reach the walls of Vienna.

The Kurds, the Iraqi Army (finally) and Assad's military have already done that. Obama and Putin have air assets working to cut off their oil assets, and in the mean time law enforcement and intelligence services are working to keep Daesh-inspired violence contained and tracked.

None of which is the question of this thread, however. Are we dealing with a "unique threat" that requires unusual changes to our law enforcement and military policies to cope with? Or is this just another group of pissed off religious fanatics addicted to ultraviolence like we're used to dealing with in the past?

 

[4321lynx]

No, he's not "going all over the place." He's picking fights with other kids in the neighborhood, attacking kids at school, vandalizing cars, playing horrible pranks on his classmates. There are a hundred things you can do to keep him from hurting you or damaging your property, with varying degrees of success. But shooting him in the head and burning his house down is far from the ideal solution.

And he and his like have already killed countless other children on their way to where they are now

The Daesh's territory is relatively small; they have not succeeded in conquering Iraq OR Syria and it's unlikely they ever will. So no, they haven't killed "countless other children" in this analogy. Alot of fights, lot of violence, but they're still not powerful enough to be a threat to us or to anyone else.

WILL they in the future? It's possible, but not plausible. Like most Islamists they are far more interested in destroying what they don't like than building what they do. The fact that you cannot bomb and murder your way to prosperity is something that should be taken into consideration when attempting to deal with them.

What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

I say that their attempt to create an actual military power a la Nazi Germany (as implied upthread) would be an exercise in futility. They're not a threat to the United States and likely never will be; they're not the Islamic Nazis so much as the Muslim Khmer Rouge.

It would be nice to think that we can supply the solution to this problem in a neat little package, but the reality of the situation is there isn't much we can do there beyond what we are already doing that wouldn't make things ten times worse. To use Athena's example: it would be like trying to stop a race riot by strafing the scene of the riot with A-10 thunderbolts and then handwaving away the fact that half the people in the line of fire are the people you're supposed to be saving.

Daesh is a cancer, not an invader. We need a scalpel, not a broadsword.

Cancer invades and metastesizes, sometimes needs radioactive treatment No, I'm not advocating a nuclear strike, just saying.
The Islamist cancer has metastesized all over the Middle East and Africa. You seem to be concerned with the US welfare only. Not a good sign for a global power if too many Americans think like you. Or are unaware of problems caused by Islamist gangs outside the ME.
NB
Islamist does not equal Islamic. The Islamists want a world obedient to Shria laws, enforced by them by terror, they are prepared to die seeking it and are in fact dying in droves as suicide bombers.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Cancer invades and metastesizes, sometimes needs radioactive treatment

We're not at that point yet. The Daesh is still struggling to maintain control of its OWN populations and build something productive; it's not actually strong enough to try and spread beyond those areas that are themselves too weak to resist them.

The fact that they were ultimately repelled by the Kurdish Militia should tell you something about their (lack of) military capabilities. They're the scum of the Earth and everyone hates them (and they, in kind, hate everyone everywhere) but that alone doesn't make them dangerous.

No, I'm not advocating a nuclear strike, just saying.

It fits, though. A nuclear strike is the "chemo therapy" solution. It's the remedy that is almost worse than the disease, and actually IS worse if the disease manages to survive (which it probably will, since we have never invented a nuclear weapon capable of destroying ideas).

The Islamist cancer has metastesized all over the Middle East and Africa. You seem to be cocerned with the US welfare only. Not a good sign for a global power if too many Americans think like you.

"Islamist cancer" had been that way LONG before we started taking it seriously and it will be that way long after we stop paying attention. The Daesh is another issue, and can be (and is) handled differently.

I'm curious, though, why you think "being a global power" is something most Americans give a shit about. I AM mostly concerned with U.S. welfare; in terms of economics, education, standard of living, social justice, our rights as people to live and work in peace, we are falling farther and farther behind the developed world. There's the old joke that we spent $70 billion rebuilding roads and bridges in Iraq but couldn't afford to build them in Minnesota.

Are you under the impression that the United States has either the wisdom or the integrity to solve all of the world's problems? We can't even solve our OWN problems 90% of the time. It isn't "spinelessness" to admit that we are simply out of our depth in dealing with this problem; we don't have the kind of relationship with those countries that would allow our intervention to be a truly positive one, and we don't have the social/political/religious ties to the people that would allow us to win them over to our side. Simply put: we are STRANGERS, trying to solve problems we don't understand on behalf of people we barely know, using solutions that may not even work and may not be acceptable even if they do. There is a difference between being helpful and being meddlesome, and it's high time we learned it.

We can HELP other Muslims push back against Islamists, help Muslim schools and universities raise new generations of students, statesmen, social and political leaders that can lead their society in more constructive directions (throw our support behind the Malalas of the world). But that isn't the sexy/flashy solution the jingoists want; they want stacks of dead islamist bodies, they want battles and victories and cruise missiles and bombing runs and ticker-tape parades.

That's just not how this works.

 

[arkirk]

No, he's not "going all over the place." He's picking fights with other kids in the neighborhood, attacking kids at school, vandalizing cars, playing horrible pranks on his classmates. There are a hundred things you can do to keep him from hurting you or damaging your property, with varying degrees of success. But shooting him in the head and burning his house down is far from the ideal solution.


The Daesh's territory is relatively small; they have not succeeded in conquering Iraq OR Syria and it's unlikely they ever will. So no, they haven't killed "countless other children" in this analogy. Alot of fights, lot of violence, but they're still not powerful enough to be a threat to us or to anyone else.

WILL they in the future? It's possible, but not plausible. Like most Islamists they are far more interested in destroying what they don't like than building what they do. The fact that you cannot bomb and murder your way to prosperity is something that should be taken into consideration when attempting to deal with them.

What will a Crazy Spineless say and do npw?

I say that their attempt to create an actual military power a la Nazi Germany (as implied upthread) would be an exercise in futility. They're not a threat to the United States and likely never will be; they're not the Islamic Nazis so much as the Muslim Khmer Rouge.

It would be nice to think that we can supply the solution to this problem in a neat little package, but the reality of the situation is there isn't much we can do there beyond what we are already doing that wouldn't make things ten times worse. To use Athena's example: it would be like trying to stop a race riot by strafing the scene of the riot with A-10 thunderbolts and then handwaving away the fact that half the people in the line of fire are the people you're supposed to be saving.

Daesh is a cancer, not an invader. We need a scalpel, not a broadsword.

Cancer invades and metastesizes, sometimes needs radioactive treatment No, I'm not advocating a nuclear strike, just saying.
The Islamist cancer has metastesized all over the Middle East and Africa. You seem to be concerned with the US welfare only. Not a good sign for a global power if too many Americans think like you. Or are unaware of problems caused by Islamist gangs outside the ME.
NB
Islamist does not equal Islamic. The Islamists want a world obedient to Shria laws, enforced by them by terror, they are prepared to die seeking it and are in fact dying in droves as suicide bombers.

World politics is so ugly it is hard for anyone seeing it to not want to wash one's hands of it. Unfortunately, this is not a possibility. Right in the midst of our own domestic problems, there is the ever spinning ever shifting thing called international politics with Jews, Arabs, Ukranians, Russians, and on and on. Every kind of problem is like a fulminating carbuncle oozing puss under a dirty half adhered bandaid. Nobody is happy, many are suffering. It is a festival of intolerance and greedy exploitation with human life not registering as significant. We have men like Banke Moon giving us a running commentary of oughts and a world ignoring them. Now here comes this Spectre telling us Jews must lead in this. I understand the desire to wash one's hands of this but it cannot be done. I do believe it is important to explore methods to defuse these conflicts and also prevent their increase. I think the answer can be to start with something like the Hipocratic oath with leaders always attempting to DO NO HARM. I am certain there are those here who insist such an attitude toward conflict is not manly. It actually is super manly because it demands a discipline rare in humans.

The recent Paris shooting points to a perfect example of how not to do things. Some terrorists raised the death toll in their event over 100, so Hollande decided to step up bombing various places in the middle east at great expense to the French people and I am sure, many innocents in the ME. We have to understand by now it would seem we only make things worse with our bombs and other weapons. So far, no country has shown itself as a shining example of peaceful enlightenment. That is because worldwide there is an overarching religion....national Chauvanism. This Jewish lady is just more of the same.

 

[4321lynx]

Perhaps I ought to depart from my principle of never watching videos on these threads. I take it you are referring to the well-named Spectre.
Noyhing could be worse than Israelis taking part in this mess, if that is what she said. Might even provoke Pakistan into "lending" a few nuclear weapons to Iran.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Yes. With one distinction...
We would aim to liberate, improve living conditions, education, and infrastructure in exchange for all resources and (represented) tax revenue.
As I said before... Welcome to the Middle Eastern States of America... we hope you enjoy your stay.
World power needs world government.

The US typically hamstrings and subverts to US benefit the actions of the only approximation to a democratic world gov't we have, the UN.

You guys still have imperialist notions.

Just how high in your gov't are you, Malintent?

 

[Warpoet]

At this point in time, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump pose a bigger or more unique threat to the US and the American way of life than fundamentalist Islamists.

This is the only thing that needs to be said in this thread. I will only add that many others who may be rational on other issues will happily jump on the same bandwagon of trying to save democracy by destroying it.