Europe submits voluntarily

[Jokodo]

Migrant stabs 3 in German town

Can you guess where the "migrant" was from?
Afghanistan. It is curious why so many stabists come from that country. But it is yet again an indictment against Angela Merkel's open borders policy that allowed a million of unvetted mass migrannts form places like Afghnaistan to flood into Germany with no restrictions. And it is very difficult to deport them, which is another problem. Even when their asylum gets denied (which happens way too infrequently), they can stay in Germany for years because of all the appeals they can pursue. The result is situations like these.

Wow, you found a fourth case of an Afghan stabbing someone (a second one in Germany since two of your earlier examples where in France and Austria respectively). All in the same 12-month period! And even though no-one died, he is being charged with attempted murder so wow we need to be scared.

You really have no feel for numbers, right? There are annually on the order of 2500-3000 attempted murders and voluntary manslaughters in Germany, of which 500-600 are completed. Despite a general downward trend, those numbers fluctuate by several hundred from year to year, as anyone who knows the first thing about statistics would expect them to. The only point you're making by picking out a literal handful is that you don't know what you're talking about.

By the way, the two worst murderers in recent German history by victim count where, by far, one Andreas Lubitz, who, as a copilot, voluntarily crashed an airpline into a mountainside, killing 144 passengers and 5 other crew, and one  Niels_Högel, a nurse who poisened dozens and potentially hundreds of elderly patients over an extended period of time (he has admitted to being responsible for 30 deaths, but investigations are ongoing and police and the attorney believe they have sufficient evidence for over a 100 - despite the fact that of deaths were more than a decade ago and many of the potential victims have been cremated; the real number may well be 200).

I guess those names sound Afghan to you?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is happening now is a direct result of British and then US support of the Saudi dictatorship and the British/US fiasco in Iran.

The result of this interference by the US and Britain has been a steady rise in fundamentalism in the region.

As I said some of this was done deliberately as a method to destroy the secular pan-Arab movements in the ME. That has been the great fear in the powers that want to control ME oil.

Look at the results of the failure of those dictators--it's almost always meant replacing a moderate dictator with an Islamist dictator which ends up being worse for the people.

Trying to keep the moderate dictators in power is a case of choosing the lesser evil--something Obama screwed up on.

TOTAL BULLSHIT!!!!!!!

I've never heard such bullshit!

You are saying we MUST support dictators because there is no choice.

Total fucking bullshit.

It is possible to support Democracy.

Israel has a partial democracy. It is not a dictatorship for Jews and a few of the Arabs under Israeli control.

And we support it more than any nation has supported another in history.

Israel is irrelevant, I was talking specifically about the Arab nations. What "Arab Spring" has turned out good for the country?

- - - Updated - - -

The invasion itself had incredibly low casualties. It has to be weighed against the casualties of Iraqis tortured to death in torture chambers, and the people killed by a murderous regime. Simply by being denied healthcare and such. Saddam was a horrendous dictator.



No. But a threat to the Iraqi people.



You seem awfully confused about what I'm defending.



USA, since WW2 confused capitalism with actual freedom. It somehow thought that capitalism is more important than democracy. That's why all the carnage and support of corrupt kleptocratic American cold war puppets.

Because of your prior (mis-)use of the word "dictorship", I don't know what you mean.

If you can't understand that Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship then go the fuck away. We are done.

The word has a standard definition. But I have no way of knowing if you're using the standard definition.

Are you saying it's better in Iraq now than it was under Saddam?

Wrong comparison. It's not Iraq now vs Iraq under Saddam. Rather, Iraq after our liberation vs Iraq under Saddam.

It's gone in the shithole since because of Islamist violence, both by the ousted oppressors and by Iran.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

None were justified. Each was a war crime. You just don't get it. You have no human morality.

Morality means that what actions you justify for yourself you justify for all others.

The terrorist attack was not gentle.

Many were maimed and disabled besides the dead.

Then after the invasion the terrorists began rounding up innocent people and torturing them.



No it doesn't. That is INSANITY.

It is a crime that has to be ADDED onto previous crimes. It was not justified in any way.

In other words, nothing can be done about crime if any innocent will suffer.

Morality means the things I allow for myself I allow for all.

What you are saying is it is alright for any nation to invade any other nation.

All they have to do is say they are afraid of WMD.

Time for a bit of enlightenment:

We were hunting WMD in Iraq because our spies were giving us reports from underlings to Saddam about WMD they had kept away from the inspectors. When their government believes they have WMD that's more than merely "say they were afraid".

In hindsight it turns out that Saddam's underlings were lying to him. The WMD they really had was quickly found and destroyed but the inspectors obviously couldn't find the stuff that existed only in the underling's claims. Furthermore, since Saddam believed the stuff to exist and his shell game to be working he kept interfering with the inspectors. That's what caused Bush to finally say "Enough!" and bring down the hammer on him.

 

[metacristi]

What is happening now is a direct result of British and then US support of the Saudi dictatorship and the British/US fiasco in Iran.

The result of this interference by the US and Britain has been a steady rise in fundamentalism in the region.

As I said some of this was done deliberately as a method to destroy the secular pan-Arab movements in the ME. That has been the great fear in the powers that want to control ME oil.

Look at the results of the failure of those dictators--it's almost always meant replacing a moderate dictator with an Islamist dictator which ends up being worse for the people.

Trying to keep the moderate dictators in power is a case of choosing the lesser evil--something Obama screwed up on.

The main problem is that the Islamic world has never been secular in the Western sense of this word, mainly due to Islam, again we deal with only a shallow penetration by modernity even today, that's why keeping the more secular dictators in power appears as the best policy to follow (as a side note even this incomplete secularism is the legacy of colonialism, finally there could not have been an Ataturk, who to push Islam by force outside the public area basically without opposition, in the absence of European colonialist pressure).

The West may have made a series of mistakes in the past 50 years by invading some muslim countries etc but the main factor behind the huge rise of fundamentalism in the region remain of course Islam itself; the invasion of Iraq may have not been justified but it was not the main factor for the catastrophe which followed. Surprisingly as it may seem but the West's biggest mistake in the period after WW2 was to think that the medieval Islam is a spent force and that the Islamic countries could easily be channeled toward a modern future (by believing in a benign Islam the Americans 'catalysed', inadvertently, the rise of ISIS*, finally it was a big mistake to allow Iraqis to put sharia at the basis of the state in the post-Saddam era etc).

Contrary to what some say here it is actually very probable that other 'ISISes' (only that under different names) will appear in the future (especially if the West lose its current status) if we do nothing on the ideological front, in order to force important changes at the institutional, educational and theological bases of islam. Europe will not be spared of this I'm afraid if the current policies of whitening Islam are not changed (this kind of policies are suicidal indeed).


* and al Qaida for that matter, during the war against the Russians in Afghanistan

 

[angelo]

What is happening now is a direct result of British and then US support of the Saudi dictatorship and the British/US fiasco in Iran.

The result of this interference by the US and Britain has been a steady rise in fundamentalism in the region.

As I said some of this was done deliberately as a method to destroy the secular pan-Arab movements in the ME. That has been the great fear in the powers that want to control ME oil.

Look at the results of the failure of those dictators--it's almost always meant replacing a moderate dictator with an Islamist dictator which ends up being worse for the people.

Trying to keep the moderate dictators in power is a case of choosing the lesser evil--something Obama screwed up on.

The main problem is that the Islamic world has never been secular in the Western sense of this word, mainly due to Islam, again we deal with only a shallow penetration by modernity even today, that's why keeping the more secular dictators in power appears as the best policy to follow (as a side note even this incomplete secularism is the legacy of colonialism, finally there could not have been an Ataturk, who to push Islam by force outside the public area basically without opposition, in the absence of European colonialist pressure).

The West may have made a series of mistakes in the past 50 years by invading some muslim countries etc but the main factor behind the huge rise of fundamentalism in the region remain of course Islam itself; the invasion of Iraq may have not been justified but it was not the main factor for the catastrophe which followed. Surprisingly as it may seem but the West's biggest mistake in the period after WW2 was to think that the medieval Islam is a spent force and that the Islamic countries could easily be channeled toward a modern future (by believing in a benign Islam the Americans 'catalysed', inadvertently, the rise of ISIS*, finally it was a big mistake to allow Iraqis to put sharia at the basis of the state in the post-Saddam era etc).

Contrary to what some say here it is actually very probable that other 'ISISes' (only that under different names) will appear in the future (especially if the West lose its current status) if we do nothing on the ideological front, in order to force important changes at the institutional, educational and theological bases of islam. Europe will not be spared of this I'm afraid if the current policies of whitening Islam are not changed (this kind of policies are suicidal indeed).


* and al Qaida for that matter, during the war against the Russians in Afghanistan

The islamasation of Turkey, once a secular country by Erdogan, and the majority of Turks who back him, puts the lie to the turmoil in most Islamic countries as been caused by any wrongdoing by the West.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[untermensche]

Morality means the things I allow for myself I allow for all.

What you are saying is it is alright for any nation to invade any other nation.

All they have to do is say they are afraid of WMD.

Time for a bit of enlightenment:

We were hunting WMD in Iraq because our spies were giving us reports from underlings to Saddam about WMD they had kept away from the inspectors. When their government believes they have WMD that's more than merely "say they were afraid".

In hindsight it turns out that Saddam's underlings were lying to him. The WMD they really had was quickly found and destroyed but the inspectors obviously couldn't find the stuff that existed only in the underling's claims. Furthermore, since Saddam believed the stuff to exist and his shell game to be working he kept interfering with the inspectors. That's what caused Bush to finally say "Enough!" and bring down the hammer on him.

You are what is called a sucker.

There were many many people saying that Iraq did not have any WMD.

The inspections did not find any WWD. UN inspections were ongoing when the idiot GW ordered a terrorist attack.

These people were pushed aside and total liars like Colin Powell fooled the suckers.

It was only American suckers.

The rest of the world except a few so-called "leaders" of nations with a long history of abusing other nations wanting to attack Iraq because of oil clearly saw it was a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The West may have made a series of mistakes in the past 50 years by invading some muslim countries etc but the main factor behind the huge rise of fundamentalism in the region remain of course Islam itself; the invasion of Iraq may have not been justified but it was not the main factor for the catastrophe which followed. Surprisingly as it may seem but the West's biggest mistake in the period after WW2 was to think that the medieval Islam is a spent force and that the Islamic countries could easily be channeled toward a modern future (by believing in a benign Islam the Americans 'catalysed', inadvertently, the rise of ISIS*, finally it was a big mistake to allow Iraqis to put sharia at the basis of the state in the post-Saddam era etc).

I think the biggest factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is oil. Now they have the money to cause trouble.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Morality means the things I allow for myself I allow for all.

What you are saying is it is alright for any nation to invade any other nation.

All they have to do is say they are afraid of WMD.

Time for a bit of enlightenment:

We were hunting WMD in Iraq because our spies were giving us reports from underlings to Saddam about WMD they had kept away from the inspectors. When their government believes they have WMD that's more than merely "say they were afraid".

In hindsight it turns out that Saddam's underlings were lying to him. The WMD they really had was quickly found and destroyed but the inspectors obviously couldn't find the stuff that existed only in the underling's claims. Furthermore, since Saddam believed the stuff to exist and his shell game to be working he kept interfering with the inspectors. That's what caused Bush to finally say "Enough!" and bring down the hammer on him.

You are what is called a sucker.

There were many many people saying that Iraq did not have any WMD.

The inspections did not find any WWD. UN inspections were ongoing when the idiot GW ordered a terrorist attack.

These people were pushed aside and total liars like Colin Powell fooled the suckers.

It was only American suckers.

The rest of the world except a few so-called "leaders" of nations with a long history of abusing other nations wanting to attack Iraq because of oil clearly saw it was a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit.

Do you understand English?

Because you are citing the inspectors not finding WMD--but had you actually understood what I was saying it would be apparent there actually wasn't any.

Who should we believe, various people without a lot of data who say there is no WMD, or our spies/intercepts that say that Saddam is receiving reports of WMD kept out of the inspector's hands. When you see a gazillion reports saying they managed to save WMD from the inspectors you figure there is WMD.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The difference between an atheist and a follower of perhaps the worst terrorist who ever lived is like water and a volcanic rock!

Gavrillo Princip's murder of archduke Franz Ferdinand caused the outbreak of WWI. No, Muslim terrorist is close to unleashing that amount of carnage.

It is estimated that Islam, since it's inception, has been responsible for perhaps over 100 million people. And that's a conservative number.

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How is that number even calculated?

The population of this planet has grown a lot. So all the deadliest wars were fought in the 20'th century... a time when the Islamic world was at it's weakest, since the dawn of Islam.

So I think it's an incredibly uninteresting statistic.

Add to that that the Ottoman caliphate conquering lands for Islam wasn't so much Islamic as the Ottoman sultans just wanting more land. So political rather than religious.

So few of the Islamic wars were especially Islamic

 

[angelo]

Morality means the things I allow for myself I allow for all.

What you are saying is it is alright for any nation to invade any other nation.

All they have to do is say they are afraid of WMD.

Time for a bit of enlightenment:

We were hunting WMD in Iraq because our spies were giving us reports from underlings to Saddam about WMD they had kept away from the inspectors. When their government believes they have WMD that's more than merely "say they were afraid".

In hindsight it turns out that Saddam's underlings were lying to him. The WMD they really had was quickly found and destroyed but the inspectors obviously couldn't find the stuff that existed only in the underling's claims. Furthermore, since Saddam believed the stuff to exist and his shell game to be working he kept interfering with the inspectors. That's what caused Bush to finally say "Enough!" and bring down the hammer on him.

You are what is called a sucker.

There were many many people saying that Iraq did not have any WMD.

The inspections did not find any WWD. UN inspections were ongoing when the idiot GW ordered a terrorist attack.

These people were pushed aside and total liars like Colin Powell fooled the suckers.

It was only American suckers.

The rest of the world except a few so-called "leaders" of nations with a long history of abusing other nations wanting to attack Iraq because of oil clearly saw it was a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit.

Saddam himself went out of his way to convince the outside world and his own people, in particular Iran to believe he had WMD so as to safeguard his dictatorship. He could have easily avoided an invasion by a " Coalition Of The Willing" by coming out and allowing the UN inspectors to do their job without hindrance by his regime. He didn't do so and for better or for worse was responsible for his own and his country's fate!

 

[angelo]

It is estimated that Islam, since it's inception, has been responsible for perhaps over 100 million people. And that's a conservative number.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

How is that number even calculated?

The population of this planet has grown a lot. So all the deadliest wars were fought in the 20'th century... a time when the Islamic world was at it's weakest, since the dawn of Islam.

So I think it's an incredibly uninteresting statistic.

Add to that that the Ottoman caliphate conquering lands for Islam wasn't so much Islamic as the Ottoman sultans just wanting more land. So political rather than religious.

So few of the Islamic wars were especially Islamic

The muslim invasion of India alone claimed a conservative number of 80 million. Some scholars place estimates of over 400 million dead and enslaved. The West Pakistan slaughter of 2 to 3 million East Pakistani's in the late 70's. Buddhists the rough estimates are in excess of 11 million. Armenian genocide by muslim Ottoman's 1.5 million. In the last 1400 years the numbers of dead and enslaved are staggering. The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. And this is just in the modern era. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in history

 

[DrZoidberg]

You are what is called a sucker.

There were many many people saying that Iraq did not have any WMD.

The inspections did not find any WWD. UN inspections were ongoing when the idiot GW ordered a terrorist attack.

These people were pushed aside and total liars like Colin Powell fooled the suckers.

It was only American suckers.

The rest of the world except a few so-called "leaders" of nations with a long history of abusing other nations wanting to attack Iraq because of oil clearly saw it was a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit.

Saddam himself went out of his way to convince the outside world and his own people, in particular Iran to believe he had WMD so as to safeguard his dictatorship. He could have easily avoided an invasion by a " Coalition Of The Willing" by coming out and allowing the UN inspectors to do their job without hindrance by his regime. He didn't do so and for better or for worse was responsible for his own and his country's fate!

The invasion of Iraq was justified without WMD's IMHO. Saddam was horrendous. Like So many psychopathic dictators before him

 

[untermensche]

Those that justify the US unprovoked terrorist attack of the Iraqi people are the problem.

They are why governments get away with such huge crimes against humanity.

The first rule of morality:

That which I allow for myself I allow for all.

Those that justify the terrorist attack of Iraq justify any attack by any nation against another.

They have no morality.

Or sense.

 

[untermensche]

You are what is called a sucker.

There were many many people saying that Iraq did not have any WMD.

The inspections did not find any WWD. UN inspections were ongoing when the idiot GW ordered a terrorist attack.

These people were pushed aside and total liars like Colin Powell fooled the suckers.

It was only American suckers.

The rest of the world except a few so-called "leaders" of nations with a long history of abusing other nations wanting to attack Iraq because of oil clearly saw it was a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit.

Saddam himself went out of his way to convince the outside world and his own people, in particular Iran to believe he had WMD so as to safeguard his dictatorship. He could have easily avoided an invasion by a " Coalition Of The Willing" by coming out and allowing the UN inspectors to do their job without hindrance by his regime. He didn't do so and for better or for worse was responsible for his own and his country's fate!

THE INSPECTORS WERE IN IRAQ DOING THEIR JOB. It is a fantasy they were not.

The US terrorist attack of the Iraqi people was justified in no way.

Just because insane ignorant bigoted stupid stupid Americans wanted it is no justification.

It was a massive crime against humanity.

A massive act of terrorism.

State terrorism.

And it was supported by scum!

And it gave us a powerful ISIS.

The scum that supported the US terrorist attack of the Iraqi people are also responsible for ALL the crimes committed by ISIS.

There are no bigger criminals or lower scum than the people that try to justify the deliberate attack of the Iraqi people based on total lies and without any consideration for human morality.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Those that justify the US unprovoked terrorist attack of the Iraqi people are the problem.

They are why governments get away with such huge crimes against humanity.

The first rule of morality:

That which I allow for myself I allow for all.

Those that justify the terrorist attack of Iraq justify any attack by any nation against another.

They have no morality.

Or sense.

I belong to the camp that doesn't see people in other countries as qualitatively different. I believe Maslow's hierarchy of needs is universal for all humans. I think it's immoral to stand idly by and allow dictators to abuse and rape the nations under there control. Doing nothing is condoning Saddam's terror IMHO.

But hey... that's just immoral little me. Who cares about the needs of brown people anyway?

 

[untermensche]

Those that justify the US unprovoked terrorist attack of the Iraqi people are the problem.

They are why governments get away with such huge crimes against humanity.

The first rule of morality:

That which I allow for myself I allow for all.

Those that justify the terrorist attack of Iraq justify any attack by any nation against another.

They have no morality.

Or sense.

I belong to the camp that doesn't see people in other countries as qualitatively different. I believe Maslow's hierarchy of needs is universal for all humans. I think it's immoral to stand idly by and allow dictators to abuse and rape the nations under there control. Doing nothing is condoning Saddam's terror IMHO.

But hey... that's just immoral little me. Who cares about the needs of brown people anyway?

The dictator is the one the US supported for years.

The dictator is the one that after the first Gulf War was allowed to put down a national rebellion, when the US ruled the skies over Iraq, that would have overthrown him.

Dictators are bad. Any kind of dictator is bad.

Invasions where you kill people, maim people, terrorize people, allow the historical artifacts of a people to be looted, cut off electricity FOR YEARS, and take innocent people from their homes and torture them, AND SO MUCH MORE HORROR IT IS UNIMAGINABLE are bad too.

War is a last resort to anyone with a moral sense. Only when there is no other choice. Not simply because you desire some dictator you helped get very powerful gone.

A war of aggression is a form of terrorism. Even if some people want to pretend it isn't.

Even the simplest child understands that two very bad things do not ever make something right.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Those that justify the US unprovoked terrorist attack of the Iraqi people are the problem.

They are why governments get away with such huge crimes against humanity.

The first rule of morality:

That which I allow for myself I allow for all.

Those that justify the terrorist attack of Iraq justify any attack by any nation against another.

They have no morality.

Or sense.

I belong to the camp that doesn't see people in other countries as qualitatively different. I believe Maslow's hierarchy of needs is universal for all humans. I think it's immoral to stand idly by and allow dictators to abuse and rape the nations under there control. Doing nothing is condoning Saddam's terror IMHO.

But hey... that's just immoral little me. Who cares about the needs of brown people anyway?

The dictator is the one the US supported for years.

The dictator is the one that after the first Gulf War was allowed to put down a national rebellion, when the US ruled the skies over Iraq, that would have overthrown him.

Dictators are bad. Any kind of dictator is bad.

Invasions where you kill people, maim people, terrorize people, allow the historical artifacts of a people to be looted, cut off electricity FOR YEARS, and take innocent people from their homes and torture them, AND SO MUCH MORE HORROR IT IS UNIMAGINABLE are bad too.

War is a last resort to anyone with a moral sense. Only when there is no other choice. Not simply because you desire some dictator you helped get very powerful gone.

A war of aggression is a form of terrorism. Even if some people want to pretend it isn't.

Even the simplest child understands that two very bad things do not ever make something right.

Well... Saddam didn't seem to care when we gave him a stern talking to. If we were to improve the lives of Iraquis he gave us only one option and that's what happened. An omellette which requires the breaking of many eggs. It was Saddam who saw to that.

Assad has the same attitude. I have zero sympathy for dictators. I say... shoot them all.

I can't see how your position is morally defensible. I think you are dressing up cowardlyness as morality, and condemning those who try to do good.

Well... thank God (that doesn't exist) for people who aren't cowards.

I have zero understanding or sympathy for your absolutely spineless morality.

 

[metacristi]

The West may have made a series of mistakes in the past 50 years by invading some muslim countries etc but the main factor behind the huge rise of fundamentalism in the region remain of course Islam itself; the invasion of Iraq may have not been justified but it was not the main factor for the catastrophe which followed. Surprisingly as it may seem but the West's biggest mistake in the period after WW2 was to think that the medieval Islam is a spent force and that the Islamic countries could easily be channeled toward a modern future (by believing in a benign Islam the Americans 'catalysed', inadvertently, the rise of ISIS*, finally it was a big mistake to allow Iraqis to put sharia at the basis of the state in the post-Saddam era etc).

I think the biggest factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is oil. Now they have the money to cause trouble.

There are other roots of course but without Islam it is unlikely that these people would have kept such an animosity toward the West, which actually helped them to become rich (just look at Japan and Germany). Islam is still the main culprit, for example in Iraq most of the insurgencies against the West were led by self-described religious parties and there are very good reasons to think that very few other types of insurgencies would have led to the monstrosities of ISIS.

The truth is that Saddam Hussein and the other more secular dictators in the Islamic world had to do some concessions to Islam in the social sphere, otherwise they could not resist a day in office, these regimes never managed to make the Islamic world secular in the Western sense of the word (even Turkey slipped down seriously after the death of Ataturk and these days we have a version of Muslim Brotherhood in power).

All they could do was to control Islam in a centralized manner and to sell their slightly milder version of the religion to the masses via infiltrating the religious establishment with their own men (yet using it to turn people even more against the West if necessary, as Saddam did plenty after 1990 when he revived Jihad). Unfortunately in doing so they still left the door open to the same old Islam which in better historical conditions could regenerate easily, e.g. after the American invasion of Iraq* (which failed to contain Islam in the dictator's manner; as president Sisi once remarked the West still do not understand the intricacies of the situation in Egypt and the Islamic world). I'm afraid the same fate awaits Egypt and other Islamic countries if few things change, especially if the West lose its current influence in the world. Oil is not essential to such a development.

Even Ataturk like policies (more radical than what was done in the other Islamic countries) of pushing completely Islam, by force, outside the social sphere and controlling it tightly via Diyanet type of structures do not seem to work on medium and long term. The West itself will not be spared if muslims become numerous there and the same suicidal politics of today are continued unabated, at least an Europe without some key values of Enlightenment is very probable.


* that religion is the main cause for what happened in Iraq after the American invasion is not a new idea (since Saddam revived Jihad after the 1990s) but the fault is mainly attributed to Saddam Hussein's handling of religion. Yet, as Samuel Helfont showed, what Saddam did after the first invasion of Iraq was not to renounce the nationalist roots of the Ba'ath party but only to relax a bit his old policy of containing Islam (in order to save his regime). In fact that policy regarding religion dated from his first days in power, and from the good beginning he had to make some concessions to Islam, something which he inherited and was essential to his stay in power. The same pattern holds in other countries of the Islamic world, even there where no dictators rose to power we have the same large concessions given to Islamic dogma (no surprise that the liberal forces are still very weak all over the Islamic world).

 

[untermensche]

The dictator is the one the US supported for years.

The dictator is the one that after the first Gulf War was allowed to put down a national rebellion, when the US ruled the skies over Iraq, that would have overthrown him.

Dictators are bad. Any kind of dictator is bad.

Invasions where you kill people, maim people, terrorize people, allow the historical artifacts of a people to be looted, cut off electricity FOR YEARS, and take innocent people from their homes and torture them, AND SO MUCH MORE HORROR IT IS UNIMAGINABLE are bad too.

War is a last resort to anyone with a moral sense. Only when there is no other choice. Not simply because you desire some dictator you helped get very powerful gone.

A war of aggression is a form of terrorism. Even if some people want to pretend it isn't.

Even the simplest child understands that two very bad things do not ever make something right.

Well... Saddam didn't seem to care when we gave him a stern talking to....

You seem to think the invasion only involved Saddam.

Yes, he was a dictator we helped gain power then convinced to invade our enemy at the time, Iran, and we supplied him and Iran weapons for a decade.

It was quite profitable.

And the terrorist attack of the Iraqi people, Saddam was one person among millions that were attacked and bombed and killed and maimed and tortured, was very profitable as well.

You believe the US has the right to do unthinkable things to people on a whim. It can support a dictator thus harming a population once and then to make up for it harm that population even worse. Destroy their country and set up a government of the terrorists choosing.

You firmly believe two incredibly bad things make a good thing.

It is disgusting.

 

[metacristi]

The West may have made a series of mistakes in the past 50 years by invading some muslim countries etc but the main factor behind the huge rise of fundamentalism in the region remain of course Islam itself; the invasion of Iraq may have not been justified but it was not the main factor for the catastrophe which followed. Surprisingly as it may seem but the West's biggest mistake in the period after WW2 was to think that the medieval Islam is a spent force and that the Islamic countries could easily be channeled toward a modern future (by believing in a benign Islam the Americans 'catalysed', inadvertently, the rise of ISIS*, finally it was a big mistake to allow Iraqis to put sharia at the basis of the state in the post-Saddam era etc).

I think the biggest factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is oil. Now they have the money to cause trouble.

There are other roots of course but without Islam it is unlikely that these people would have kept such an animosity toward the West, which actually helped them to become rich (just look at Japan and Germany). Islam is still the main culprit, for example in Iraq most of the insurgencies against the West were led by self-described religious parties and there are very good reasons to think that very few other types of insurgencies would have led to the monstrosities of ISIS.

Of course if one holds that Islamism has very little in common with Islam (popular today even among some of those who draw attention about the dangers of political Islam) then one could find appealing that the oil found in fundamentalist held countries is enough to explain the observed facts. Unfortunately Wahhabism etc, Salafism more broadly, are not aberrations invented out of the thin air by some heretics, actually they are the equivalent of the Christian Reformation, being strong returns toward the Islam of the first muslims (who thought among others that their duty is only to wage Jihad, the conquered infidels being those who have to labour for them).

Islamism is not a recent invention, being in fact strongly rooted in Islam (albeit the modern Islamists borrowed from what was worst in Europe as well). In other words Islamism is the intrinsic political part of Islam, even the so called 'classical' Islam (more moderate) sharing many with the violent & discriminatory Salafism in this respect until the Western Powers forced a change, primarily because open Jihad against the infidels became basically impossible to fight. Destroying Wahhabism, other Salafists or Khomeini's type of Shi'ism will not automatically kill Islamism (which is dangerous even in its 'quiet' forms, no open revolution at the moment). As I said one does not need oil (although it is a catalyst) to see islamists in power, even in the West.