Europe submits voluntarily

[angelo]

These "people?" have given up all rights to even be called human beings if they went off to defend/fight for this most extreme and radical ideology on the face of the earth! That's not even taking into consideration the fact that they may kill infidels back home because that's what islam has been doing for 1.400 years. Muhammad said " I've been made victorious through terror" His followers have been doing exactly that ever since.

 

[Jokodo]

These "people?" have given up all rights to even be called human beings if they went off to defend/fight for this most extreme and radical ideology on the face of the earth! That's not even taking into consideration the fact that they may kill infidels back home because that's what islam has been doing for 1.400 years. Muhammad said " I've been made victorious through terror" His followers have been doing exactly that ever since.

You haven't answered my question(s).

As usual.

Do you think it should be possible to apply laws retroactively? Yes or no.
Do you think laws should be applied without evidence? Yes or no.

According to extant law, there appear to be only two legal options:

1) recognise Daesh as a state, and treat returning fighters as prisoners of war or as surrendering enemy combatants, with all protections; only this option may allow revoking citizenship. The Geneva Conventions forbid killing an enemy soldier who has surrendered. It's also probably a bad idea to recognise Daesh as nation since this would constitue a huge propaganda victory.
2) recognise Daesh as a criminal organisation, and persecute returning fighters as criminals in front of a civilian court, based on actual evidence pertaining to the individual case. Just like you would do with a British, Swedish, Australian citizen who got involved with the Sicilian mafia.

What alternative do you propose and how do you propose to change the law to allow for that alternative? What basic rights would have to be curtailed to allow for such a change, and do you see any potential for future abuse against you or me or anyone else voicing an unpopular opinion from watering down citizen rights that way?

No changing topic please, this time. New question: Are you physically and intellectually capable of not changing topic for an entire post? Don't answer this one, you'll be judged by your actions.

 

[angelo]

These "people?" have given up all rights to even be called human beings if they went off to defend/fight for this most extreme and radical ideology on the face of the earth! That's not even taking into consideration the fact that they may kill infidels back home because that's what islam has been doing for 1.400 years. Muhammad said " I've been made victorious through terror" His followers have been doing exactly that ever since.

You haven't answered my question(s).

As usual.

Do you think it should be possible to apply laws retroactively? Yes or no.
Do you think laws should be applied without evidence? Yes or no.

According to extant law, there appear to be only two legal options:

1) recognise Daesh as a state, and treat returning fighters as prisoners of war or as surrendering enemy combatants, with all protections; only this option may allow revoking citizenship. The Geneva Conventions forbid killing an enemy soldier who has surrendered. It's also probably a bad idea to recognise Daesh as nation since this would constitue a huge propaganda victory.
2) recognise Daesh as a criminal organisation, and persecute returning fighters as criminals in front of a civilian court, based on actual evidence pertaining to the individual case. Just like you would do with a British, Swedish, Australian citizen who got involved with the Sicilian mafia.

What alternative do you propose and how do you propose to change the law to allow for that alternative? What basic rights would have to be curtailed to allow for such a change, and do you see any potential for future abuse against you or me or anyone else voicing an unpopular opinion from watering down citizen rights that way?

No changing topic please, this time. New question: Are you physically and intellectually capable of not changing topic for an entire post? Don't answer this one, you'll be judged by your actions.

The laws that govern ordinary law obeying people should not apply to savages such as these. Do they allow for the rights of innocent citizens when they murder women and children indiscriminately?

 

[Jokodo]

These "people?" have given up all rights to even be called human beings if they went off to defend/fight for this most extreme and radical ideology on the face of the earth! That's not even taking into consideration the fact that they may kill infidels back home because that's what islam has been doing for 1.400 years. Muhammad said " I've been made victorious through terror" His followers have been doing exactly that ever since.

You haven't answered my question(s).

As usual.

Do you think it should be possible to apply laws retroactively? Yes or no.
Do you think laws should be applied without evidence? Yes or no.

According to extant law, there appear to be only two legal options:

1) recognise Daesh as a state, and treat returning fighters as prisoners of war or as surrendering enemy combatants, with all protections; only this option may allow revoking citizenship. The Geneva Conventions forbid killing an enemy soldier who has surrendered. It's also probably a bad idea to recognise Daesh as nation since this would constitue a huge propaganda victory.
2) recognise Daesh as a criminal organisation, and persecute returning fighters as criminals in front of a civilian court, based on actual evidence pertaining to the individual case. Just like you would do with a British, Swedish, Australian citizen who got involved with the Sicilian mafia.

What alternative do you propose and how do you propose to change the law to allow for that alternative? What basic rights would have to be curtailed to allow for such a change, and do you see any potential for future abuse against you or me or anyone else voicing an unpopular opinion from watering down citizen rights that way?

No changing topic please, this time. New question: Are you physically and intellectually capable of not changing topic for an entire post? Don't answer this one, you'll be judged by your actions.

The laws that govern ordinary law obeying people should not apply to savages such as these. Do they allow for the rights of innocent citizens when they murder women and children indiscriminately?

The "laws that govern ordinary law obeying people" already govern serial murderers and child rapists.

Anyhow, which government agency do you want to entrust with the power to decide who is and who isn't to be treated as a "savage" - absent even any evidence that would hold up in court?

Do you prefer your country to stoop to the level of "those savages"?

Be specific!

(Half points for almost staying on point - much better than I expected of you, to be honest.)

 

[Vork]

I see your rt and raise you nytimes:

"ISIS and the Lonely Young American
Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam.

For months, she had been growing closer to a new group of friends online — the most attentive she had ever had — who were teaching her what it meant to be a Muslim. Increasingly, they were telling her about the Islamic State and how the group was building a homeland in Syria and Iraq where the holy could live according to God’s law.

One in particular, Faisal, had become her nearly constant companion, spending hours each day with her on Twitter, Skype and email, painstakingly guiding her through the fundamentals of the faith.

But when she excitedly told him that she had found a mosque just five miles from the home she shared with her grandparents in rural Washington State, he suddenly became cold.

The only Muslims she knew were those she had met online, and he encouraged her to keep it that way, arguing that Muslims are persecuted in the United States. She could be labeled a terrorist, he warned, and for now it was best for her to keep her conversion secret, even from her family." (emphasis added)​

Recruiters for ISIS targetting Westerners (and that includes Westerners with an ethnic background) don't want their targets to exchange themselves with their local mosques. They know that would likely move them away from their interpretation of Islam, and carry the risk of them being reported to the authorities if they defend it explicitly. The details differ when the target is not a Christian but someone who already identified as a Muslim prior to contact, but the rough outlines are the same: They'll do what they can to isolate him from his community and family and paint those as apostates.

That radicals may operate outside of mosques, doesn't mean they can't also operate inside of mosques.


Isis recruitment moves from online networks to British mosques

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/05/isis-recruitment-moves-to-radical-network-and-mosques

Networks of radicals are re-emerging in British mosques and elsewhere to encourage and facilitate Muslims wanting to travel to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State (Isis).

Until now most fighters from Britain who are known to have travelled to Syria have been persuaded and helped via online networks where extremists provide advice on crossing the Turkish border and linking up with Isis fighters.

But a combination of a Turkish border clampdown and a focus by counter-terrorist police on taking down online networks has led to recruitment on the ground becoming more important, sources say.

Communities of radicals recruiting young Brits are thought to include preachers, battle-hardened returning fighters and jihad sympathisers.


You may not even worry about the following story but anyway...

https://www.politico.eu/article/radical-islam-on-rise-in-belgian-mosques/

An increasing number of mosques in Belgium preach a radical form of Islam, according to a new report by the country’s coordination body for threat assessment OCAM, local media reported.

Imams who preach Wahhabism, the form of Sunni Islam promoted by Saudi Arabia, are increasingly common in mosques and Islamic centers in Brussels, Antwerp and Mechelen, according to the report.

The radical movement is also gaining traction thanks to dedicated television channels and online media, OCAM said.

While adherents of Wahhabi ideology are a minority among the country’s Islamic community, OCAM warned the “moderate Islam” preached in most mosques is “powerless” against the spread of the more extreme ideology.

 

[TSwizzle]

Allah's holy warriors in Londonistan;

A dangerous extremist who attempted to build an army of child jihadists by radicalising pupils has been convicted of a range of terrorism offences. Umar Haque, 25, taught an Islamic studies class despite having no teaching qualifications and being employed as an administrator. He was allowed to supervise classes of 11 to 14-year-olds on his own, during which he re-enacted attacks on police officers and showed students videos of beheadings. Police fear Haque attempted to radicalise at least 110 children, some of whom he was in contact with at the Ripple Road mosque in Barking, east London. Thirty-five of the children are receiving long-term support. Two other men, Abuthaher Mamun, 19, and Muhammad Abid, 27, were convicted for their roles in helping him. A fourth defendant, Nadeem Patel, 26, who had previously pleaded guilty to possessing a handgun, was acquitted of plotting with Haque. The schools watchdog, Ofsted, faces questions over how it was able to rate the Lantern of Knowledge school as outstanding after an inspection held at a time when Haque was allegedly preaching hate to the children.

Teh Gruaniad

Last June, Ofsted made an emergency inspection at the Lantern of Knowledge school in response to concerns about safeguarding children. On this occasion, the inspectors found it had not met regulatory requirements. After an announced inspection in December, Ofsted reduced all of its ratings from outstanding to “requires improvement”.

LOL !

 

[Jokodo]

"Sources say" is about the weakest kind of data there is. If we even want to call it data. It's also kind of inconsistent with what we know about people who actually went and who estranged from their mosques: if moderate Islam were as powerless, why would online recruiters fear if their targets get that perspective too?

 

[Vork]

If you don't have evidence of crimes, you can't convict.

I don't think this is a criminal matter really. Fighting for the enemy is not a "crime", although it may be on the books as such. They are simply an enemy in war, to be dealt with as an enemy. And no, they don't get a POW camp, because there is no reciprocation, and because it's impossible to ever have a negotiated end to the war. (Even if one jihad group voluntarily disbanded many others could still exist to join.)

If all you know is that a person took a flight to Eastern Turkey and then went off radar for a year and a half, and posted some offensive shit on twitter before they left that can be construed as supporting ISIS, you can try a hate speech trial over those posts, but that's about it. As it should be. It's called "burden of proof", you can google it. If you want to live in a country that punishes people on the mere suspicion that they committed a crime, there's unfortunately plenty of places on this planet you can choose from!

How about pictures of them with isis units? How about videos of them doing isis propaganda? How about intelligence evidence that they were a known fighter on the ground?

Of course you need some sort of standard of evidence, or innocent people could easily be killed. But fighting enemies in war, you use a different standard to a criminal court quite likely.

I'm not ready to surrender Europe to those who want to turn it into a shithole.

You see for me, keeping enemy fighters out of the country, is a good thing. But you seem to want to let the enemy fighters back in, or you have a "shithole country"...

How is that completely different? The main instigator was hanged, as was the costumary in those days. But the brigade he created, though not the success he had hoped, had several dozen members over the years. Some of them died in battle, some of them came home without being tried due to insufficient evidence, some of them received much lighter sentences than he did.

Well if people received lighter sentences after fighting for the enemy, then yes, that's a different thing. But my position would be, if you fight for the enemy, that's simply the end of you ever being allowed back into the country, with the exception of taking them back to face the death penalty. If you could show something like they were forced into it, or they were under 18, then that may be different.

If there's evidence of criminal activity, you can put him in jail.

You don't want an *enemy in war* in prison. That's completely the wrong place for them. They aren't a criminal. A criminal is someone who e.g. robs banks, not someone who takes up the opposite side in a war. It's simply a category mistake to be treating them as needing to be sent to prison, even if laws exist to do that.

As with any other crime, you don't get to incarcerate people, least of all your own citizens because they might become a danger in the future.

Good that we don't need to worry about that issue then. We don't need to take action against them because they *might* be a threat. We can simply deal with them as an enemy in war and a traitor, regardless of whether they are a threat. Of course I think they *are* a continued threat but that's a different matter.

Basically, you are going to let them come home to live next door to citizens, after maybe getting a few years in prison, if there is even the evidence to justify that.

And I think that is way off when you are dealing with enemy fighters.

It is exactly the same. Care to explicate one relevant way in which they're different?

So then-- you simply don't believe that "integration" is required at all. They would be free to encourage even the most conservative forms of Islam, and they can openly say that they will not integrate with Western values. You would presumably say that they should follow the law, but ignoring that detail, you would allow their subculture to go completely against the idea of integration. That's pretty much what I suspect of liberals. You will not stop them from coming in. And you will not expect them to integrate. It's just a recipe for a divided society.

If you can't see the difference between, say, the Liberal Democracts in the UK wanting to change the voting system to proportional representation, and some people from (largely) immigrant communities wanting a complete replacement of your system with their own immigrant system, then it's just... well are you blind to this? One type of change is coming from the inside and is normal political development. The other kind of wanted change is from migrants who are completely refusing to integrate. It's an outside culture. I can only guess that you don't see any difference, because you just don't think immigrants should have to integrate in the first place.

The other thing I can say, is that Islamism is brutally oppressive. So they would be coming in, and trying to oppress the natives with their own system.

If an immigrant comes in and says, "I want to make you my slaves" (not exactly the same as Islamism but not too far off), that's just not the same thing as the Lib Dems wanting a different type of voting system!

 

[Vork]

"Sources say" is about the weakest kind of data there is. If we even want to call it data. It's also kind of inconsistent with what we know about people who actually went and who estranged from their mosques: if moderate Islam were as powerless, why would online recruiters fear if their targets get that perspective too?

And you were using anecdotal evidence from one case.

"Online, she discovered that there was a mosque near her home. When Faisal looked it up, though, he learned that the mosque’s steering committee had posted a statement disavowing the Islamic State. He dissuaded her from going, saying it was a government-infiltrated mosque, she said."

Had it been a different mosque, maybe he wouldn't have had a problem?

And that's just one case. It doesn't tell you much about whether mosques have a problem with extremism. It's one mosque had a statement against the "Islamic State".

if moderate Islam were as powerless, why would online recruiters fear if their targets get that perspective too?

Powerless in what sense? It's reasonable to fear that someone you are just starting to recruit shouldn't be exposed to any different ideas.

But does "moderate Islam" have the tools to stop more radical forms spreading? That's a different question.

 

[Bomb#20]

Talking about blatantly traitorous actions: Some of our ministers belong to cultlike fraternities with a pan-German ideology who more or less openly want to repeat the Anschluss, and thus deny the right to exist of the country they're meant to serve!

Call me again when Islamist extremists have anywhere near one tenth that influence in any Western European country. I might start to get worried then.
So does that mean all the officials in European governments who were appalled by Brexit because they want to evolve their countries in the opposite direction -- towards a United States of Europe -- are blatantly traitorous too?

No. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

So? We're not arguing about morality, but about treason. All sorts of things are immoral but not traitorous. Communism, for instance. How the heck can it be traitorous to deny the right to exist of the country they're meant to serve? Countries don't have rights; people have rights.

Arguing that the classical nation state as such is to some extent an outdated concept that made sense in the 19th century but no longer in the 21st and should shed some of its functions is not a fiendish or traitorous act against a particular nation state. Arguing that the nation state as such is the best invention ever since walking on two legs (or even failing to understand that it is a notion that's grown historically and rather recently at that) but that this particular nation is an accident of history that should be undone is.

It's almost like the difference between advocating for a negotiated end to the war vs. aiding the enemy in battle. Now, some totalitarian regimes might try to construe both as equivalent, but I hope we can agree that objectively only one qualifies as treason.

Of course, you can accuse the advocates of the former that they aren't going far enough, that the United States of Europe they envision would still have most of the nation-state features they criticise only at a different level. I wouldn't necessarily argue against you here. But equivalent they are not.

I.e., replacing your region's independence with submission to the authority of outsiders is treasonous provided you hate the new governmental structure and nontreasonous provided you're okay with it. That's blatant special pleading. It's the sort of thing the guys who wrote our constitution were intimately familiar with -- British governments traditionally defined anything they felt like as treason. That's why "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Making an argument that Austrians should vote to join Germany does not levy war against Austria; and Germany is not Austria's enemy. Construing "Arguing that the nation state as such is the best invention ever since walking on two legs (or even failing to understand that it is a notion that's grown historically and rather recently at that) but that this particular nation is an accident of history that should be undone is traitorous act." is a totalitarian sentiment. Every nation is an accident of history. Moreover, going even further as you describe -- eliminating the nation-state features of the United States of Europe and making Austria submit to a world government -- would almost certainly do far more harm to the people of Austria than a voluntary merger with Germany would.

In any event, if you want to special-plead that arguing for your country to be undone is treason provided it's specifically into a larger nation state that's the best invention ever since walking on two legs, so you can give the Eurocult a get-out-of-treason-free card, does that mean you figure James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were traitors for "undoing" the nations of Virginia and New York to create the United States?

I doubt if your Anschluss wannabes have even one tenth of the influence of the "tighter integration of the EU" supporters.

In Austria? 18 of 183 members of parliament (18 of 51 members delegated by the FPÖ, or almost half their their male members) are organised in deutschnationale Burschenschaften. That's one of the two parties in our governing coalition, and the FPÖ ministers, whether themselves organisded or not, are not shy to heave their fraternity buddies into well-cushioned high level administratives positions wherever they get the chance. (Incidentally that makes them overrepresented in parliament relative to the population at large by a factor of over 200 -- it's estimated that no more than 4000 out of our population of 8.7 million are schlagende Burschenschafter.)

But how does overrepresentation translate into influence? Where do you see them actually getting what they want? Your Eurocult got its way with joining the EU, ditching the Schilling for the Euro, and making the Austrian taxpayers pay for Greek bailouts. What did your deutschnationale Burschenschaften get? They got one of themselves ordered disbanded by the government for being discovered to have written something Naziish twenty years ago.

(And imagining that a marriage of German monetary policy with Italian fiscal policy was going to work in the long run has to have taken some pretty cultlike thinking...)

Being overly optimistic still isn't treason.

Didn't say it was. You offered your fratboys' cultlikeness as support for your treason charge. So I'm pointing out that the European integrationists, whom you agree with me aren't traitors, are also cultlike. Don't accuse other Austrians of being traitors unless they levy war against Austria or give aid and comfort to Austria's enemies. Construing advocating for a negotiated end to the distinction between Germany and Austria as equivalent to aiding the Wehrmacht in a battle for Austria is a totalitarian thing to do.

 

[Derec]

Again not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we don't live in a world where you can reasonably avoid everything you don't want. Most people learn that in kindergarten.

Indeed. And most people learn in kindergarten that you have to take appropriate measures to minimize things you don't want. You can't prevent rainy weather in England, but you can live in a house, buy a parka and an umbrella, and avoid buying a roadster as your primary conveyance. You may not be able to prevent all IS terrorists from entering your country, but that is no reason not to do your best to prevent as many as possible. It is certainly no reason to roll out a red carpet to returning terrorists as if they were conquering heroes or something.

The reasons why inviting them back might prove the lesser evil are manifold,

Are they? The only manifoldy thing is that manifolds can be twisted, just like your logic.

not least because it would set a dangerous precedent if we allow the government to wantonly retract citizenships for political reasons. But even that wasn't really the point.

It would not be "wantonly". Take Canada. They had a provision for losing your citizenship and Jihad Justin kept most of those but removed terrorism for political reasons. So now terrorists who are CINOs (Canadian in name only, like the Khadr Family of Terror) get to keep their citizenship. But there is no intrinsic reason why that should be so.
And there are other ways to deal with them other than rolling out the red carpet. You can imprison them for membership in a terrorist organization. You can extradite them to Iraq to face justice there. Anything is better then saying "all is forgiven, here, have some money".

The point was that Vork presented liberals who want to take back Daesh fighters as the epitome of liberal folly,

Yes, wanting to take IS terrorists back is the epitome of faux-liberal folly.

when in fact it's the only thing consistent with extant British law.

Is it? Are you an expert on extant British Law? Is there a law in Britain that would prohibit the government from, for example, extraditing IS fighters back to Iraq to face justice there?

If he thinks that law should be changed, he's invited to draft a better one with no obvious downsides, but pretending that we already have one which liberals insist on ignoring won't get him any points.

I am not an expert on extant British law, but there probably are extant anti-terrorism laws that can be put to good use preventing US creeps from flooding back.
And if you want to enhance the laws to make it more difficult for IS terrorists to come back, then you obviously do not want them to come back. The epitome of folly is the view that Europe should welcome them back.

 

[Derec]

And you sure have plenty of data to back that up?

Extremist mosques in the UK have already been posted about, so why not Germany.
Das weiß der Verfassungsschutz über Berlins Salafisten
But you'll probably just dismiss it because it does not fit into your pro-Islam worldview.

I didn't post it to raise sympathies for Alex. I posted it to show how IS thrives best in an ecosystem with little mainstream Islamic influence.

Are you trying to say that the West should be islamicized so that the entire West becomes "an ecosystem with much mainstream Islamic influence"?

Your argument is ridiculous anyway. The IS thrives best in predominately Islamic regions like Syria, Iraq, North Africa, even Gaza Strip. And in the West, the big majority of IS recruits are not naive non-Muslim young adults of limited intelligence (like Alex), but young people who are already Muslim, and thus have plenty of "mainstream Islamic influence" through their families and friends. This is your typical IS recruit, not Alex.
Friends encouraged teenager to follow brother to Syria and join Isis, court hears
Do you really think the best policy for UK is to welcome these people back?

 

[Derec]

Terror Risks in Europe to Increase in 2018 as Islamic State’s Foreign Fighters Return, Jane’s by IHS Markit Says

 

[Jokodo]

I took the liberty of slightly re-arranging your statement to address similar ones en groupe.

Indeed. And most people learn in kindergarten that you have to take appropriate measures to minimize things you don't want. You can't prevent rainy weather in England, but you can live in a house, buy a parka and an umbrella, and avoid buying a roadster as your primary conveyance. You may not be able to prevent all IS terrorists from entering your country, but that is no reason not to do your best to prevent as many as possible.

Reasonable and appropriate measures. Parkas and umbrellas are reasonable and appropriate measures against getting wet, overstaying your holiday in Tunisia where you have no job, no friends, don't speak the language to easily get either, and will become an illegal immigrant when your 90 days tourist visa expires, is not -- though more efficient than parkas and umbrellas it is.

Keeping suspects under observation and sentencing those for which sufficient evidence of past wrongdoing exists to prison sentences under the applicable statutes of civilian law are reasonable and appropriate measures to reduce the death toll of terrorism. Watering down the rights of citizens and handing the state the tools to strip you of those should it ever take a turn towards authoritarianism in the future where you find yourself as a dissident are not, even if it could be shown that this would reduce the death toll (you haven't even really shown that, plausible as it may be).

Speed limits, DUI laws, and requiring drivers to pass a test are generally seen as reasonable and appropriate measures to reduce road fatalities, banning cars (except emergency services) from inner cities and any other place where public transport exists as a reasonable alternative, banning the sale of alcohol to holders of a driving licence, and reducing the speed limit on highways from 120 to 80 km/h and enforcing all of this with harsh prison sentences is generally not seen as reasonable and appropriate -- even though the road deaths thus avoidable are almost certainly a couple order of magnitude or more above the terrorism deaths avoided by your proposal under the most optimistic estimates.

not least because it would set a dangerous precedent if we allow the government to wantonly retract citizenships for political reasons. But even that wasn't really the point.

It would not be "wantonly". Take Canada. They had a provision for losing your citizenship and Jihad Justin kept most of those but removed terrorism for political reasons. So now terrorists who are CINOs (Canadian in name only) get to keep their citizenship. But there is no intrinsic reason why that should be so.

Even that discussion was about revoking the citizenship of naturalised citizens. Most of the people we're talking about were British citizens at birth. It doesn't matter that their grandparents weren't. I would have thought at least Americans understand that.

Anything is better then saying "all is forgiven, here, have some money". ... Anything is better then saying "all is forgiven, here, have some money".

Not what anyone's doing either, so straw man.

And there are other ways to deal with them other than rolling out the red carpet. You can imprison them for membership in a terrorist organization.

On an individual basis and based on evidence that holds up in court, that's exactly what I'm arguing for.

You can extradite them to Iraq to face justice there. (...)

Is there a law in Britain that would prohibit the government from, for example, extraditing IS fighters back to Iraq to face justice there?

Yes there is: Iraq practices death penalty, and no European country deports to any barbarian nation (here meaning: one that practices capital punishment) if the charge is one that carries the threat of the death penalty. At least not without an assurance by the party seeking extradition that it will not be applied in this case. Some European countries have gone further than that and don't extradite if the charge is one carrying the death penalty even in the face of such assurances. The US too has struggled with this in the past.

The European Court on Human Rights was one of the first international tribunals to address the legality of extraditing fugitives to face the death penalty. In Soering v. United Kingdom, 11 Eur. Hum. Rts. Rep. 439 (1989), the court held that the United Kingdom's extradition of a German national to face capital murder charges in Virginia would violate its obligations under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The Court's decision was based on its review of death row conditions and the anticipated time that Soering would have to spend on death row if sentenced to death. In compliance with the Soering decision, the U.K. sought and received assurances from the United States that the state of Virginia would not impose a death sentence. Soering was extradited, convicted, and sentenced to life.
(...)
In the so-called "war on terrorism," European countries have stood firm in their refusal to extradite suspected terrorists to the United States in the absence of assurances that death will not be imposed. source​

Of course, Britain could extradite them after receiving assurance that the death penalty won't be pursued, but the real question is obviously, why would Iraq take them? We're talking about British citizens, nor Iraqis. Under what logic would Iraq be obligated to accept them and bear the cost of imprisoning them for life after having given Britain assurance that it will not seek the death penalty? Maybe even face the risk of having to let them free in Iraq (where it will be much easier for them to rejoin with ISIS) if the evidence turns out to be insufficient for a conviction?

If he thinks that law should be changed, he's invited to draft a better one with no obvious downsides, but pretending that we already have one which liberals insist on ignoring won't get him any points.

I am not an expert on extant British law, but there probably are extant anti-terrorism laws that can be put to good use preventing US creeps from flooding back.
And if you want to enhance the laws to make it more difficult for IS terrorists to come back, then you obviously do not want them to come back. The epitome of folly is the view that Europe should welcome them back.

I still see no practical proposal with an outline of the potential drawbacks and how they will be avoided.

 

[Jokodo]

I don't think this is a criminal matter really. Fighting for the enemy is not a "crime", although it may be on the books as such. They are simply an enemy in war, to be dealt with as an enemy. And no, they don't get a POW camp, because there is no reciprocation, and because it's impossible to ever have a negotiated end to the war. (Even if one jihad group voluntarily disbanded many others could still exist to join.)

If they're an enemy in war, they get POW status. You can't have it both ways: treating them as enemies in war for the purposes of not having to deal with the fact that they're citizens and not treating them as enemies in war in order to circumvent the Geneva Conventions. Well, you can, but than you have to expect an invitation either to The Hague (International Criminal Court) for mistreatment of POWs or Strassbourg (European Court of Human Rights) for letting officers go unpersecuted for an extrajudicial killing. Which one do you prefer your country to be accused of?

How about pictures of them with isis units? How about videos of them doing isis propaganda? How about intelligence evidence that they were a known fighter on the ground?

Of course you need some sort of standard of evidence, or innocent people could easily be killed. But fighting enemies in war, you use a different standard to a criminal court quite likely.

That applies as long as they're in combat.
Don't misunderstand, I'm actually positively happy about any report of ISIS fighters killed in battle. When AI (or was it Human Rights Watch) published criticism of Kurdish troops for desecrating the corpses of slain ISIS fighters, refusing to take prisoners, or whatnot, even while stressing the Kurd's human rights track record is still much better than either Assad's or the Islamists, I was like "come on, really? Those are the good guys, and they're squeezed from two sides with Turkey making sure they don't grow two big even if it doesn't overtly support ISIS. Give them some slack already, you can't expect them to feed thousands of POWs when their own civilians are close to starving!"

But that's not the situation we're talking about. We're talking about former fighters who are removing themselves from battle on their own choosing (not even surrendering out of momentary necessity) on the one hand, and one of the richest countries in the world who won't even notice the burden of imprisoning them for life if that's what they deserve.

I'm not ready to surrender Europe to those who want to turn it into a shithole.

You see for me, keeping enemy fighters out of the country, is a good thing. But you seem to want to let the enemy fighters back in, or you have a "shithole country"...

First of all, treating them as enemy fighters requires recognising ISIS as a nation, which it isn't, and which also would constitute a huge propaganda victory for them.

Killing surrendered enemy fighters indeed makes one a shithole country. You may want to have someone in The Hague explain the details to you.

How is that completely different? The main instigator was hanged, as was the costumary in those days. But the brigade he created, though not the success he had hoped, had several dozen members over the years. Some of them died in battle, some of them came home without being tried due to insufficient evidence, some of them received much lighter sentences than he did.

Well if people received lighter sentences after fighting for the enemy, then yes, that's a different thing. But my position would be, if you fight for the enemy, that's simply the end of you ever being allowed back into the country, with the exception of taking them back to face the death penalty. If you could show something like they were forced into it, or they were under 18, then that may be different.

That's not the position the British state has been holding historically.

It is exactly the same. Care to explicate one relevant way in which they're different?

So then-- you simply don't believe that "integration" is required at all. They would be free to encourage even the most conservative forms of Islam, and they can openly say that they will not integrate with Western values. You would presumably say that they should follow the law, but ignoring that detail, you would allow their subculture to go completely against the idea of integration. That's pretty much what I suspect of liberals. You will not stop them from coming in. And you will not expect them to integrate. It's just a recipe for a divided society.

If you can't see the difference between, say, the Liberal Democracts in the UK wanting to change the voting system to proportional representation, and some people from (largely) immigrant communities wanting a complete replacement of your system with their own immigrant system, then it's just... well are you blind to this?

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Changing the voting system to be more representative of voters' inclination is not touching a central pillar of our system the way negating the need for basic rights even for the worst kind of offenders (you know that a serial murderer and child rapist can lodge an appeal to his conviction?), for the principle of in dubio pro reo, and for the principle that laws cannot be applied retroactively are.

In an apples to apples comparison, what's the difference? What's the difference between someone arguing for representational democracy (whether he or she has immigrant background) and someone arguing that non-citizen residents should be allowed, under certain conditions, to vote in local elections since they'll be affected by the outcomes as much as the citizens (whether or not the one making the argument is a naturalised citizen and whether or not his or her cousins would be among those benefitting)? What's the difference between someone who wants to demolish the Rule of Law because it stands in the way of his fascist agenda, and someone who wants to demolish it because it stands in the way to moving to Sharia? And finally, what's the difference between an Islamist terrorist and the murderer of Jo Cox? Incidentally, when was that guy stripped of his citizenship?

 

[Jokodo]

Anyhow, I believe we have some members on this board who believe emigrating from Britain to avoid bad whether is indeed reasonable and appropriate, and that we thus can't trust anyone still there to take even reasonable and appropriate measures to avoid undesired outcomes.

 

[Jokodo]

And no, they don't get a POW camp, because there is no reciprocation, and because it's impossible to ever have a negotiated end to the war. (Even if one jihad group voluntarily disbanded many others could still exist to join.)

By the way, you really need to reconsider this argument. The relevant part of the Geneva Conventions doesn't say "treat POWs humanely as long as you have hope for an exchange of prisoners", it says, roughly paraphrasing and without looking up the precise wording "treat POWs humanely, period".

It simply doesn't matter if the enemy has publicly - and credibly - avowed to never participate in a prisoner exchange. It doesn't matter whether the enemy actually has taken prisoners. It doesn't matter whether the enemy is likely to ever surrender.

 

[Jokodo]

And you sure have plenty of data to back that up?

Extremist mosques in the UK have already been posted about, so why not Germany.
Das weiß der Verfassungsschutz über Berlins Salafisten
But you'll probably just dismiss it because it does not fit into your pro-Islam worldview.

Is this your idea of "plenty"? Two to four extremist mosques (only two of the ones profiled are attended to by extremists only) out of hundreds in Berlin, with a total of 950 sympathisers? That's about a quarter to half of one percent of Berlin's Muslims, you know?

I didn't post it to raise sympathies for Alex. I posted it to show how IS thrives best in an ecosystem with little mainstream Islamic influence.

Are you trying to say that the West should be islamicized so that the entire West becomes "an ecosystem with much mainstream Islamic influence"?

Your argument is ridiculous anyway. The IS thrives best in predominately Islamic regions like Syria, Iraq, North Africa, even Gaza Strip. And in the West, the big majority of IS recruits are not naive non-Muslim young adults of limited intelligence (like Alex), but young people who are already Muslim, and thus have plenty of "mainstream Islamic influence" through their families and friends. This is your typical IS recruit, not Alex.
Friends encouraged teenager to follow brother to Syria and join Isis, court hears
Do you really think the best policy for UK is to welcome these people back?

This story doesn't contradict any of what I said. This boy (he was 17) was encouraged to go by three contacts in three different parts of the country, not by members of his local community. Do you even know how far Nottinghamshire is from Cardiff? He was groomed online as much as Alex, and his groomers knew they had to overcome his parents' resistance.

 

[Jokodo]

No. The two situations are not morally equivalent.

So? We're not arguing about morality, but about treason. All sorts of things are immoral but not traitorous. Communism, for instance. How the heck can it be traitorous to deny the right to exist of the country they're meant to serve? Countries don't have rights; people have rights.

If countries don't have rights, we can slash all treason statutes right away. Treason is per definition a crime against a country, not against people: It's still treason if you believe that the enemy's plans are going to be more beneficial for the people of your country than your government's.

Arguing that the classical nation state as such is to some extent an outdated concept that made sense in the 19th century but no longer in the 21st and should shed some of its functions is not a fiendish or traitorous act against a particular nation state. Arguing that the nation state as such is the best invention ever since walking on two legs (or even failing to understand that it is a notion that's grown historically and rather recently at that) but that this particular nation is an accident of history that should be undone is.

It's almost like the difference between advocating for a negotiated end to the war vs. aiding the enemy in battle. Now, some totalitarian regimes might try to construe both as equivalent, but I hope we can agree that objectively only one qualifies as treason.

Of course, you can accuse the advocates of the former that they aren't going far enough, that the United States of Europe they envision would still have most of the nation-state features they criticise only at a different level. I wouldn't necessarily argue against you here. But equivalent they are not.

I.e., replacing your region's independence with submission to the authority of outsiders is treasonous provided you hate the new governmental structure and nontreasonous provided you're okay with it. That's blatant special pleading. It's the sort of thing the guys who wrote our constitution were intimately familiar with -- British governments traditionally defined anything they felt like as treason. That's why "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Making an argument that Austrians should vote to join Germany does not levy war against Austria; and Germany is not Austria's enemy. Construing "Arguing that the nation state as such is the best invention ever since walking on two legs (or even failing to understand that it is a notion that's grown historically and rather recently at that) but that this particular nation is an accident of history that should be undone is traitorous act." is a totalitarian sentiment. Every nation is an accident of history. Moreover, going even further as you describe -- eliminating the nation-state features of the United States of Europe and making Austria submit to a world government -- would almost certainly do far more harm to the people of Austria than a voluntary merger with Germany would.

In any event, if you want to special-plead that arguing for your country to be undone is treason provided it's specifically into a larger nation state that's the best invention ever since walking on two legs, so you can give the Eurocult a get-out-of-treason-free card, does that mean you figure James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were traitors for "undoing" the nations of Virginia and New York to create the United States?

I doubt if your Anschluss wannabes have even one tenth of the influence of the "tighter integration of the EU" supporters.

In Austria? 18 of 183 members of parliament (18 of 51 members delegated by the FPÖ, or almost half their their male members) are organised in deutschnationale Burschenschaften. That's one of the two parties in our governing coalition, and the FPÖ ministers, whether themselves organisded or not, are not shy to heave their fraternity buddies into well-cushioned high level administratives positions wherever they get the chance. (Incidentally that makes them overrepresented in parliament relative to the population at large by a factor of over 200 -- it's estimated that no more than 4000 out of our population of 8.7 million are schlagende Burschenschafter.)

But how does overrepresentation translate into influence? Where do you see them actually getting what they want? Your Eurocult got its way with joining the EU, ditching the Schilling for the Euro, and making the Austrian taxpayers pay for Greek bailouts. What did your deutschnationale Burschenschaften get? They got one of themselves ordered disbanded by the government for being discovered to have written something Naziish twenty years ago.

(And imagining that a marriage of German monetary policy with Italian fiscal policy was going to work in the long run has to have taken some pretty cultlike thinking...)

Being overly optimistic still isn't treason.

Didn't say it was. You offered your fratboys' cultlikeness as support for your treason charge. So I'm pointing out that the European integrationists, whom you agree with me aren't traitors, are also cultlike. Don't accuse other Austrians of being traitors unless they levy war against Austria or give aid and comfort to Austria's enemies. Construing advocating for a negotiated end to the distinction between Germany and Austria as equivalent to aiding the Wehrmacht in a battle for Austria is a totalitarian thing to do.

I actually agree with much of what you're saying here. I'm not arguing that advocacy for any position, however far from the current mainstream consensus of your country, should ever be construable as treason. When you chimed in, I was, however, responding to Vork who gave "openly saying that they want to replace the system of government with a foreign religious system" as an example of "blatantly traitorous actions" by immigrants. My use of the phrase is a direct quote of his.

If advocating the peaceful transition of Britain into an Islamic republic qualifies as treason, then sure advocating for the dissolution of the state and an unequal merger with a much larger state has an even better claim to the title. (And no, they're not advocating to vote to join Germany. They're mostly hiding that part of their ideology in public, knowing full well that public support for the nationhood of Austria, while a minority position right after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary when most German-speaking Austrians wanted to join Germany, has grown to levels of 90-ish% by the end of the 20th century, trend still pointing up.)

--

Some minor qualifiers, though:

They got one of themselves ordered disbanded by the government for being discovered to have written something Naziish twenty years ago.

Something Naziish is a bit of an understatement. The Austrian mainstream has learnt to accept that Burschenschaften and FPÖ-politicians will form a delegation to honor the grave of Luftwaffe major (and outspoken Nazi) Walter Novotny every year, and that they'll refer to him as a hero and model, and resistance fighters as scum, in speeches there. It takes something more explicitly Naziish than that before it's even newsworthy.

Out of interest though: Did you research this tidbit on the fly for the purposes of writing this post, or did the Germania Wiener Neustadt make it to the news in California?

Every nation is an accident of history.

Of course. Some nuance was lost in translation though: Maybe I should have said they refer to Austria as a miscarriage of history.

 

[angelo]

The laws that govern ordinary law obeying people should not apply to savages such as these. Do they allow for the rights of innocent citizens when they murder women and children indiscriminately?

The "laws that govern ordinary law obeying people" already govern serial murderers and child rapists.

Anyhow, which government agency do you want to entrust with the power to decide who is and who isn't to be treated as a "savage" - absent even any evidence that would hold up in court?

Do you prefer your country to stoop to the level of "those savages"?

Be specific!

(Half points for almost staying on point - much better than I expected of you, to be honest.)

This discussion is about letting these barbarians back after they've left the country's that gave them asylum to murder and torture in the name of their barbaric ideology, thereby giving up all rights to any laws that exists in statute books!