Europe submits voluntarily

[Loren Pechtel]

Nearly 99.9% of all deaths and destruction today, throughout the world is caused by extreme islam.

Let's pick this apart. Most deaths are down to a dodgy heart, which in turn is down to genetics. There's more people who die from straining while taking a shit on the loo than from all deaths from human conflict put together. If we take away deaths from disease most common death is traffic accidents. By far. Alcohol abuse is a bigger bane. As is depression. All these are problems that warrant more focus than Islam. Domestic violence outstrips war by far. Some places are better than others. But culture has reason to get up on their high horse. Track records are terrible all over the planet. That's a more worrying foe than Islam.

In fact deaths due to Islamic attacks are so few and rare that we might as well just ignore them. They don't even make the tiniest blip in the statistics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

Get your facts straight.

Well, obviously the main cause of death is natural. I think he was talking about criminal deaths. His number is obviously still way out of line but you're about as far off in the other direction--look at the Middle East and you'll find at least 6-figure death tolls, mostly due to Islam fighting Islam.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah and they voted muslim brotherhood types into power.

I'm guessing you're thinking about Egypt now? But that's the problem with freedom. When you give people freedom they might do something with it you hadn't anticipated. The Tahir square demonstrators were urban liberals. But it wasn't just urban liberals who went to the polls. I was in Egypt during the election and stayed at a hotel only full of journalists. So I got an extremely good explanation as to what was happening.

The rural poor had no idea what they were voting for. Mubarak had previously banned (well... Saddat, to be precise) the Muslim Brotherhood. That made the Muslim Brotherhood a symbol of freedom. That was what they were voting for. Mubarak and Saddat had made secularism a symbol of oppression. It didn't help matters that the biggest campaign purse came from Saudi Arabia. Every little shit town was literally plastered with sombre Muslim Brotherhood faces.

The voters weren't voting for Islamism. They were voting for some vague notion of freedom. Pure populism brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

I separate Islamic violence from power politics.

Good for you, I don't.

All you've done is simplify something to the point where you've deprived yourself of the tools to see what is happening.

 

[TSwizzle]

I'm guessing you're thinking about Egypt now? But that's the problem with freedom. When you give people freedom they might do something with it you hadn't anticipated.

Indeed, the ignorant brown people could not possibly know what they were doing. They really needed whitey to tell them what they want.

All you've done is simplify something to the point where you've deprived yourself of the tools to see what is happening.

All I have done is point to the obvious. All you have done is post drivel.

 

[faded_Glory]

Actually, I too was in Egypt during the revolution and the subsequent elections. The Muslim Brotherhood won because of several reasons. One, they obviously appealed to the rural population where living standards are low and religion plays an important part in daily life. The MB had been active for a long time in such areas, not directly as a political party but more as a charity, providing aid and support where needed. That gave them a head start in terms of recognition and popularity. Secondly, the liberal opposition (in Western terms) was small, very divided and did not manage to rally around a single convincing leadership. Still, in the first round of the presidential elections the MB candidate, Moursi, won with only a small margin over the ex-Government candidate Shafik. A third candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, got nearly as many votes as the MB and the ex-Government party. He is a left-wing Nasserist and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism.

It needed a second round, with Moursi winning with 52% vs. Shafik 48%. That Shafik came this close to winning was a remarkably close outcome in the light of the strength of general feeling against the Moubarak government. So yes, the MB won, but certainly not with a landslide.

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

 

[bleubird]

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2016-36232392
The end of the world is commingggg!

 

[Deepak]

I take it their destroying historic monuments is also power politics then? It somehow weakens Hammurabi's or Mursili's ability to lead their militaries against IS?

The truth is in the middle

You're confusing several things here:

1) The main motivation for ISIS is power and money. Any army needs something to rally behind. ISIS has chosen Islam. I'm not denying that ISIS is Islamic or that they commit a bunch of atrocities in the name of Islam. What I'm arguing is that their Islam is secondary to their greed. Greed is their motivation. Islam is their excuse.

2) They're destroying the monuments to sell them. The looting and re-sale of antiquities is one of ISIS main cash cows. Where Islam comes into the picture is that it's an ideology that is fine with such destruction. This is bad. But they're not simply destroying the monuments simply because they're cunts. ISIS doesn't seem to do anything without a cash incentive.

https://news.vice.com/article/a-leaked-budget-may-finally-show-how-the-islamic-state-makes-its-money

When ISIS greenlit the wiping out the Yazidis. It wasn't just genocide or a religiously motivated massacre. Remember that Christian Yazidis are to be protected by Islamic fighers. It's in the Quran. Attacking Yazidis was about grabbing the women to sell them as slaves (ie money) and as a way to procure wives for fighters (to maintain their loyalty). If ISIS gave a shit about Islam they wouldn't have attacked the Yazidis.

To what end? So they can make a Scrooge McDuck style vault and swim in the gold coins?

The money is a vehicle to achieve their goals - but there's no singular person like the Ayatollah who is being enriched here, this money is being fed back into the war-machine to meet operating costs. The end is to build a new Caliphate and to have their particular form of Islam become the dominant form. If greed were the primary motivator then they could easily exploit the antiquities and oil while not behaving in a manner which unites the entire world against them.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

Morsi was/is an political opportunist. So much is obvious from his career and policies. All geared toward just securing himself power. His Islamism wasn't the tiniest of fig leaves. He didn't even have the sense to pretend he gave a shit about Islam. He might as well be called Mubarak 2. Just without any of the tact or political savvy.

 

[DrZoidberg]

To what end? So they can make a Scrooge McDuck style vault and swim in the gold coins?

The money is a vehicle to achieve their goals - but there's no singular person like the Ayatollah who is being enriched here, this money is being fed back into the war-machine to meet operating costs. The end is to build a new Caliphate and to have their particular form of Islam become the dominant form. If greed were the primary motivator then they could easily exploit the antiquities and oil while not behaving in a manner which unites the entire world against them.

Al-Bagdadi? How isn't ISIS just about enriching him personally and being his personal playground?

There's no point making money if you can't keep it. Without establishing a new government Al-Bagdadi would never have the ability to enjoy his new found wealth. Make no mistake about it ISIS is a totalitarian state. That's a first for a Caliphate as a totalitarian state. The name "caliphate" is just used for propaganda purposes. This is something new entirely. Not even Iran is this bad. This has more in common with North Korea than any Muslim regime from history.

 

[Jayjay]

Al bagdadi is just the front man.

 

[Deepak]

To what end? So they can make a Scrooge McDuck style vault and swim in the gold coins?

The money is a vehicle to achieve their goals - but there's no singular person like the Ayatollah who is being enriched here, this money is being fed back into the war-machine to meet operating costs. The end is to build a new Caliphate and to have their particular form of Islam become the dominant form. If greed were the primary motivator then they could easily exploit the antiquities and oil while not behaving in a manner which unites the entire world against them.

Al-Bagdadi? How isn't ISIS just about enriching him personally and being his personal playground?

There's no point making money if you can't keep it. Without establishing a new government Al-Bagdadi would never have the ability to enjoy his new found wealth. Make no mistake about it ISIS is a totalitarian state. That's a first for a Caliphate as a totalitarian state. The name "caliphate" is just used for propaganda purposes. This is something new entirely. Not even Iran is this bad. This has more in common with North Korea than any Muslim regime from history.

And he's, what, jet setting and driving Lamborghinis while staying in Monegasque hotels? He's a triple degreed Islamic studies student who was preaching extremist Islam long before IS formed, or even before Hussein was removed.

And your point about their Caliphate having a resemblance to historical precedent is a canard. Their desired goals are not contingent on them attempting to organize a state that exactly mirrors the one led by Abu Bakr or Suleiman. Germany's Third Reich was very different from the Second and the First.

And regarding NK, one wonders why they didn't borrow from the Kim model and borrow enough from the existing religion (in this case Xianity) while developing their own dogma. If Islam is such an ancillary thing to their ideals why leave themselves open to alternate interpretations of the source material?

Al bagdadi is just the front man.

And we don't even know if he's still alive. Surely killing him is the key, and will unravel the whole scheme...

 

[Warpoet]

Actually, I too was in Egypt during the revolution and the subsequent elections. The Muslim Brotherhood won because of several reasons. One, they obviously appealed to the rural population where living standards are low and religion plays an important part in daily life. The MB had been active for a long time in such areas, not directly as a political party but more as a charity, providing aid and support where needed. That gave them a head start in terms of recognition and popularity. Secondly, the liberal opposition (in Western terms) was small, very divided and did not manage to rally around a single convincing leadership. Still, in the first round of the presidential elections the MB candidate, Moursi, won with only a small margin over the ex-Government candidate Shafik. A third candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, got nearly as many votes as the MB and the ex-Government party. He is a left-wing Nasserist and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism.

It needed a second round, with Moursi winning with 52% vs. Shafik 48%. That Shafik came this close to winning was a remarkably close outcome in the light of the strength of general feeling against the Moubarak government. So yes, the MB won, but certainly not with a landslide.

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

Stop bringing nuance to the issue. That's clearly not what the OP and most of the agitators keeping this thread going want to hear.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Actually, I too was in Egypt during the revolution and the subsequent elections. The Muslim Brotherhood won because of several reasons. One, they obviously appealed to the rural population where living standards are low and religion plays an important part in daily life. The MB had been active for a long time in such areas, not directly as a political party but more as a charity, providing aid and support where needed. That gave them a head start in terms of recognition and popularity. Secondly, the liberal opposition (in Western terms) was small, very divided and did not manage to rally around a single convincing leadership. Still, in the first round of the presidential elections the MB candidate, Moursi, won with only a small margin over the ex-Government candidate Shafik. A third candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, got nearly as many votes as the MB and the ex-Government party. He is a left-wing Nasserist and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism.

It needed a second round, with Moursi winning with 52% vs. Shafik 48%. That Shafik came this close to winning was a remarkably close outcome in the light of the strength of general feeling against the Moubarak government. So yes, the MB won, but certainly not with a landslide.

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

In the USA, I think you will find a lot of comments aimed at Hilary and Donald as well so there's not much difference there in that respect.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Al-Bagdadi? How isn't ISIS just about enriching him personally and being his personal playground?

There's no point making money if you can't keep it. Without establishing a new government Al-Bagdadi would never have the ability to enjoy his new found wealth. Make no mistake about it ISIS is a totalitarian state. That's a first for a Caliphate as a totalitarian state. The name "caliphate" is just used for propaganda purposes. This is something new entirely. Not even Iran is this bad. This has more in common with North Korea than any Muslim regime from history.

And he's, what, jet setting and driving Lamborghinis while staying in Monegasque hotels? He's a triple degreed Islamic studies student who was preaching extremist Islam long before IS formed, or even before Hussein was removed.

So was Khomeini. It didn't take more than having power for a minute before it went to his head. He immediately violated everything he and his followers held sacred. Al-Baghdadi seems to follow that tradition. It's just power. Stalin is another dictator of a similar cloth. He lived out his life as a humble worker devoid of luxuries. That didn't make the USSR less of his personal playground.

And your point about their Caliphate having a resemblance to historical precedent is a canard. Their desired goals are not contingent on them attempting to organize a state that exactly mirrors the one led by Abu Bakr or Suleiman.

That's an excellent point. These are all very different from each other. The Ottoman Caliphate really was a personal playground for the Caliphs. Suleiman spent a lot of his reign crushing militant Islam. He had no patience with it.

The term Caliphate means nothing. It's just a dream of a united Islamic empire. It's just a metaphor. It's got more in common with Great Serbia or the Third Reich than anything religious.

And regarding NK, one wonders why they didn't borrow from the Kim model and borrow enough from the existing religion (in this case Xianity) while developing their own dogma. If Islam is such an ancillary thing to their ideals why leave themselves open to alternate interpretations of the source material?

Are they? As far as I can tell it's ends justifying means like a mother fucker.

Al bagdadi is just the front man.

And we don't even know if he's still alive. Surely killing him is the key, and will unravel the whole scheme...

That depends entirely on the internal structure of ISIS, and we know nothing of that. Could be anything from an inner circle in power (ie nothing will happen) to a named successor waiting in the wings (anything could happen). We also have no way of knowing how stable it is. For all we know ISIS is already tearing itself apart from internal power struggles.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Actually, I too was in Egypt during the revolution and the subsequent elections. The Muslim Brotherhood won because of several reasons. One, they obviously appealed to the rural population where living standards are low and religion plays an important part in daily life. The MB had been active for a long time in such areas, not directly as a political party but more as a charity, providing aid and support where needed. That gave them a head start in terms of recognition and popularity. Secondly, the liberal opposition (in Western terms) was small, very divided and did not manage to rally around a single convincing leadership. Still, in the first round of the presidential elections the MB candidate, Moursi, won with only a small margin over the ex-Government candidate Shafik. A third candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, got nearly as many votes as the MB and the ex-Government party. He is a left-wing Nasserist and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism.

It needed a second round, with Moursi winning with 52% vs. Shafik 48%. That Shafik came this close to winning was a remarkably close outcome in the light of the strength of general feeling against the Moubarak government. So yes, the MB won, but certainly not with a landslide.

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

There seems to be no good side nor bad side. Morsi granted himself power to legislate with impunity without parliament nor the judiciary intervening. This he claimed was to protect against Mubarak type politics. There were demonstrations against his rule met with some counter demonstrations and some gangs of MB supporters are reported to have attacked non violent demonstrators during this rule. MB supporters were also killed during a military coup.

So much for reforms in Egypt.

 

[repoman]

It is interesting the concept of in-group preference and how it is has been beaten out of whites and encouraged in non-whites.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Actually, I too was in Egypt during the revolution and the subsequent elections. The Muslim Brotherhood won because of several reasons. One, they obviously appealed to the rural population where living standards are low and religion plays an important part in daily life. The MB had been active for a long time in such areas, not directly as a political party but more as a charity, providing aid and support where needed. That gave them a head start in terms of recognition and popularity. Secondly, the liberal opposition (in Western terms) was small, very divided and did not manage to rally around a single convincing leadership. Still, in the first round of the presidential elections the MB candidate, Moursi, won with only a small margin over the ex-Government candidate Shafik. A third candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, got nearly as many votes as the MB and the ex-Government party. He is a left-wing Nasserist and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamism.

It needed a second round, with Moursi winning with 52% vs. Shafik 48%. That Shafik came this close to winning was a remarkably close outcome in the light of the strength of general feeling against the Moubarak government. So yes, the MB won, but certainly not with a landslide.

Finally, it is somewhat debatable if the MB should be considered as a fundamentalist Islamic party. They are religiously strict, but actually less hard-line than the 'true' Islamists in Egypt, the Salafist El Nour party. I would characterise them more as a populist pan-Arabic movement, obviously with deep roots in Islam. One of their positions is that women and Copts can have cabinet positions but not become Egypt's president. Obviously not a view many of us here would share, but then, consider how many Americans would support a Muslim president? And there is a lot mysogyny aimed at Hilary Clinton, with Trump making some pretty awful comments aimed at her. As I said, extremism comes in many forms.

There seems to be no good side nor bad side. Morsi granted himself power to legislate with impunity without parliament nor the judiciary intervening. This he claimed was to protect against Mubarak type politics. There were demonstrations against his rule met with some counter demonstrations and some gangs of MB supporters are reported to have attacked non violent demonstrators during this rule. MB supporters were also killed during a military coup.

So much for reforms in Egypt.

Of course there's a bad side. It's Morsi, among others. How a bad person, like Morsi, could grab power in a democratic election needs to be explained. The answer is that democracy rests upon a whole bunch of things. Lots of formal and informal institutions needs to be established. Stuff like a free press that people trust. If these don't exist people won't know what to vote for. In this case they fell back on the only symbol of freedom that had any credibility left, the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi abused that credibility and crapped all over it.

What western commentators often fail to do is reflect upon how the West became democratic. In no democratic country was the process smooth nor quick. Many times was it derailed or seriously threatened along the way. What happened in Egypt is directly analogous to what happened in many European countries. France, Germany and Russia for example. The Russians still haven't quite figured it out.

edit: not that Russia is a European country.. but anyhoo

 

[whichphilosophy]

There seems to be no good side nor bad side. Morsi granted himself power to legislate with impunity without parliament nor the judiciary intervening. This he claimed was to protect against Mubarak type politics. There were demonstrations against his rule met with some counter demonstrations and some gangs of MB supporters are reported to have attacked non violent demonstrators during this rule. MB supporters were also killed during a military coup.

So much for reforms in Egypt.

Of course there's a bad side. It's Morsi, among others. How a bad person, like Morsi, could grab power in a democratic election needs to be explained. The answer is that democracy rests upon a whole bunch of things. Lots of formal and informal institutions needs to be established. Stuff like a free press that people trust. If these don't exist people won't know what to vote for. In this case they fell back on the only symbol of freedom that had any credibility left, the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi abused that credibility and crapped all over it.

What western commentators often fail to do is reflect upon how the West became democratic. In no democratic country was the process smooth nor quick. Many times was it derailed or seriously threatened along the way. What happened in Egypt is directly analogous to what happened in many European countries. France, Germany and Russia for example. The Russians still haven't quite figured it out.

edit: not that Russia is a European country.. but anyhoo

In that sense there were a few bad sides. Peaceful democratic procedures are of course still a long way off but maybe not.

 

[whichphilosophy]

It is interesting the concept of in-group preference and how it is has been beaten out of whites and encouraged in non-whites.

A lot of whites and non whites voted for him. So what if he is Muslim and as a Lawyer represented some strange characters. That's how lawyers make a living.

 

[Bomb#20]

It is interesting the concept of in-group preference and how it is has been beaten out of whites and encouraged in non-whites.

But it isn't being beaten out of whites at all; it's being encouraged in whites just as intensively as it is in non-whites. What's being beaten out of whites is identifying ingroup and outgroup based on ethnicity.

But you're not caring for democracy. You're the enemy of democracy. ... The fact that you see Islam as in opposition to the Western World gives you away. I think you're blinded by your racism (yes, I said it)

That's DrZoidberg's ideology fighting its meme-war -- helping itself spread in the ecosystem of public opinion -- by the strategy of encouraging whites to treat the ideology's believers as ingroup and advertising the fact that those who oppose the ideology will be treated as outgroup.

 

[Bomb#20]

Nearly 99.9% of all deaths and destruction today, throughout the world is caused by extreme islam.

Angelo, would you please stop making up stuff you don't have any reason to believe? Leave the make-believe to the other side. How do you figure you're going to get any of the undecided to decide your opponents are wrong when you keep displaying exactly the same lack of interest in fact-checking? How's anybody supposed to see a difference between you and them? You're being their mirror image.

No army about to win uses terrorism.