Paris: Dozens Killed In Terrorist Attack

[Tom Sawyer]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Islam spread throughout the middle east by violent extremists 900 years before there were even western powers or their foreign policy.

Oh, come on. That was all a reaction to genocidal war crimes in the area by the Roman Empire. There is nothing bad that anyone in the Middle East has ever done that wasn't directly caused by Westerners pushing them to do it.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Islam spread throughout the middle east by violent extremists 900 years before there were even western powers or their foreign policy.

Same could be said of the Teutonic Order at the same time.

Don't get going on this who was shitting on who. Humans are just shitty to each other.

Meanwhile in Meso America:

Show

 

[Jokodo]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Islam spread throughout the middle east by violent extremists 900 years before there were even western powers or their foreign policy.

And Christianity was enforced by  Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire before Islam even existed. This doesn't prove anything about Christianity today. Today's Christian fundamentalism, as today's Muslim fundamentalism, are essentially a reaction to modernity. If you want to argue that there's continuity, you're gonna need to do a bit more work.

 

[TSwizzle]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Gore Vidal famously referred to the USA as the United States of Amnesia. The late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai put it a little more delicately, quipping, “One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory.”

In order to understand the rise of militant Salafi groups like ISIS and al-Qaida; in order to wrap our minds around their heinous, abominable attacks on civilians in the U.S., France, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, Turkey, Yemen, Afghanistan and many, many more countries, we must rekindle this historical memory.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/17/we_...0s/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Salon, always good for a chuckle.

 

[Nexus]

I live in a predominantly Christian country, but the only form of protest against ISIS from Christians I've seen is putting Arabic 'n' (for Nasraani - Christian) in their facebook profile pic. I've seen daily street protests by the Kurdish (mostly Muslim) minority during the siege of Kobani, and fairly regular ones before and after that, on the other hand.

Glad I could help.

That didn't help at all. I said show me the Muslims protesting en mass like they do when cartoons offend them. I don't expect Christians to protest ISIS because ISIS isn't besmirching Christ's message of peace and love. If self proclaimed John Lennon fans started murdering people I would expect Beatle fans to denounce the killers not Rolling Stones fans.

 

[Nexus]

Islam spread throughout the middle east by violent extremists 900 years before there were even western powers or their foreign policy.

And Christianity was enforced by  Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire before Islam even existed. This doesn't prove anything about Christianity today. Today's Christian fundamentalism, as today's Muslim fundamentalism, are essentially a reaction to modernity. If you want to argue that there's continuity, you're gonna need to do a bit more work.

Yes once Christianity was co-opted by Romans the violent enforcement began. But it had a 300 year history of peace before that. Islam can't claim the same. Its never been peaceful and loving. The fundamental ideologies are different as their early histories show.

As far as what it means in modern times, the evidence is clear. One out of a million Christians are wacky enough to peacefully protest funerals to spread the message "God hates fags". While moderates all around them condemn those actions.

To qualify as a moderate Muslim all you have to do is not blow yourself up and murder dozens of people.

Now there have been a few Christian nuts that killed people. The grand total for christian anti-abortion killings have been eight in the US and 17 attempted murders. Do you really want to measure that against the number of Muslims killing for Allah in the last 40 years and still claim Christians are just as bad?

 

[TSwizzle]

It is now being reported that an ambulance packed with explosives was found outside the Hannover Stadium where the Germany v Netherlands soccer friendly was to take place. We live in interesting times.

 

[Jokodo]

And Christianity was enforced by  Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire before Islam even existed. This doesn't prove anything about Christianity today. Today's Christian fundamentalism, as today's Muslim fundamentalism, are essentially a reaction to modernity. If you want to argue that there's continuity, you're gonna need to do a bit more work.

Yes once Christianity was co-opted by Romans the violent enforcement began. But it had a 300 year history of peace before that. Islam can't claim the same. Its never been peaceful and loving. The fundamental ideologies are different as their early histories show.

As far as what it means in modern times, the evidence is clear. One out of a million Christians are wacky enough to peacefully protest funerals to spread the message "God hates fags". While moderates all around them condemn those actions.

To qualify as a moderate Muslim all you have to do is not blow yourself up and murder dozens of people.

Now there have been a few Christian nuts that killed people. The grand total for christian anti-abortion killings have been eight in the US and 17 attempted murders. Do you really want to measure that against the number of Muslims killing for Allah in the last 40 years and still claim Christians are just as bad?

If you think that my post is about claiming that "Christians are just as bad", you may want to read it again. That's not at all what I was saying.

What I'm claiming is that an analysis of currents within modern Islam that starts with "1300 years ago..." is just as flawed as an analysis of modern Christian currents that starts with "1700 years ago..." when the currents we're taking about have emerged and taken their present shape on a scale of decades.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I live in a predominantly Christian country, but the only form of protest against ISIS from Christians I've seen is putting Arabic 'n' (for Nasraani - Christian) in their facebook profile pic. I've seen daily street protests by the Kurdish (mostly Muslim) minority during the siege of Kobani, and fairly regular ones before and after that, on the other hand.

Glad I could help.

That didn't help at all. I said show me the Muslims protesting en mass like they do when cartoons offend them. I don't expect Christians to protest ISIS because ISIS isn't besmirching Christ's message of peace and love. If self proclaimed John Lennon fans started murdering people I would expect Beatle fans to denounce the killers not Rolling Stones fans.

So, a Muslim who's offended enough to protest Salman Rushdie 26 years ago or Charlie Hebdo recently must also must march in the streets against IS and if they don't then...they approve of the attacks?

Do we know how many people regardless of background or religion are protesting IS and, out of those, how many of them are Muslim?

IOW, how do you know they're not protesting, other than there are not to your awareness exclusively western Muslim protests in sufficient numbers to offset those other demonstrations?

 

[Jokodo]

The European countries with the highest percentage of Muslims are, in this order, Kosovo (close to 90%), Albania (around 60%), Bosnia-Herzegovina (40%), Macedonia (30%), Montenegro (19%), Bulgaria (13%).

And what do they all have in common, besides having more Muslims and less Islamist violence than France et al.? They're all ex-Communist countries.

That's not the only thing they have in common vis-á-vis France et al. It's not even particularly meaningful to say that they have that in common - the history of relations between communist states and religious communities is much too complex to meaningfully speak of the capital-c Communist Way of Dealing with Islam.

Another thing they definitely do have in common, though, is that their Muslim minorities (or majorities) have a centuries-long presence and are established at all levels of society. A bit like Catholics in Germany or the Netherlands. While in France, Muslims are part of a post-colonial population, two generations away from people who didn't have any citizen rights (even when Algeria was considered a French province, Algerian Muslims were exempt from citizenships), and still hugely underrepresented in the higher strata of society, a situation that is kept stable by informal but efficient mechanisms. A bit like Catholics in 1970s Northern Ireland.

What this tells us is that, just as Western Civilization finally figured out how to defang Christianity, Communism figured out how to defang Islam. Bravo! It did something useful during its eighty-year run.

So while Derec is technically incorrect to argue that Muslims collectively cause mayhem whenever they are present in significant numbers, the mere fact that there's an obvious massive exception to his generalization has policy implications for the West only if the West (a) is able to figure out how Communism pulled off that feat, and (b) is prepared to do what it takes to repeat it.

Based on your unconfirmed causal hypothesis.

There have been wars in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina within my lifetime, but the general consensus seems to be that they were instigated by Serb nationalists (i.e. anti-Muslim bigots like you);

You say that as though there was no history prior to the instigation by Serb nationalists; you are giving a free pass to the culture of anti-Serb bigotry among Muslim ethnic Albanian nationalists that spawned the KLA.

The KLA was established in 1992, five years after Milošević' notorious speech, three years after the autonomy statute had been revoked, and at a time when the campaign of closure of Albanian-language schools and replacing Albanian officials and white-collar workers with Serb ones in companies with public ties was well underway. That does not justify attacks against Serb civilians, but I think you have the causal pathway backwards there.

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally I blame the Koch brothers for the attack . The existence of Daesh is a direct result of the continued economic viability of oil, and the economic viability of oil is a direct result of the Koch brothers' continued interference with the development and subsidization of better alternatives such as nuclear power and solar power.

First we had blood diamonds and now we shall have blood oil. It has nothing to do with Islam because if they were christian, we would see the same situation emerge. If the oil were so much useless sludge, they would be forced to get real economies with real technology and real education. Instead it is simply 'hold the land, have power, money, influence'.

 

[angelo]

So in your thinking we forget about the atrocity because more than that number of victims die on the roads every year.

It wouldn't be a totally bad idea.

Certainly it would do far more to prevent future terrorism if everyone (and in particular the news media) simply ignored them and got on with life as if they didn't exist.

Instead, they kill a few hundred people, and terrorise, not just the couple of thousand witnesses, and the friends and relatives of the victims; but instead billions of people who all rush to do ISIS's work for them by posting about their atrocities across the world.

Terrorism was a LOT harder back in the 19th century, when only the people in the immediate vicinity found out about what had happened before it was stale news; Why anyone in Australia should feel threatened by an event that killed less than a thousand people on the other side of the planet is beyond me.

Let's not forget the terrorist plots that were caught in the bud. The toll world wide would be much worse had it not been for Western security measures.

 

[Nexus]

It has nothing to do with Islam because if they were christian, we would see the same situation emerge.

The absence of Venezuelan christian terrorists disprove your hypothesis that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. While perhaps any group of people could use terrorism to further their goals, Islam as a core part of a person's identity certainly increases the probability that person will die or kill innocent people to get what they want.

 

[Metaphor]

Personally I blame the Koch brothers for the attack . The existence of Daesh is a direct result of the continued economic viability of oil, and the economic viability of oil is a direct result of the Koch brothers' continued interference with the development and subsidization of better alternatives such as nuclear power and solar power.

First we had blood diamonds and now we shall have blood oil. It has nothing to do with Islam because if they were christian, we would see the same situation emerge. If the oil were so much useless sludge, they would be forced to get real economies with real technology and real education. Instead it is simply 'hold the land, have power, money, influence'.

Why are people so wretchedly obsessed with denying the obvious? If we were to believe the atheists on this board, no action has ever been the result of religion. The burning of heretics has nothing to do with religion, the singling out of individuals by religion and killing them has nothing to do with religion, moral codes taken from holy texts and preached every week in places of worship have nothing to do with religion.

 

[angelo]

My comment sailed over your head.

People are claiming that Muslims in general should be doing.......something......in response to violence from ISIS.

Why?

They have nothing to do with it.

Muslims are condemning this.

Are they? Moslems are permitted to lie if it furthers the cause. They say one thing in Arabic for Arabic ears, another for the Western pc brigades.
The grand mufti of Australia Ibrahim Abu Mohammed issued a statement soon after the attacks saying "Islamophobia was to blame for the attacks. Shifting the blame is this guys hallmark.

 

[bilby]

It wouldn't be a totally bad idea.

Certainly it would do far more to prevent future terrorism if everyone (and in particular the news media) simply ignored them and got on with life as if they didn't exist.

Instead, they kill a few hundred people, and terrorise, not just the couple of thousand witnesses, and the friends and relatives of the victims; but instead billions of people who all rush to do ISIS's work for them by posting about their atrocities across the world.

Terrorism was a LOT harder back in the 19th century, when only the people in the immediate vicinity found out about what had happened before it was stale news; Why anyone in Australia should feel threatened by an event that killed less than a thousand people on the other side of the planet is beyond me.

Let's not forget the terrorist plots that were caught in the bud. The toll world wide would be much worse had it not been for Western security measures.

Western security measures don't require the interest or involvement of civilians. I am not suggesting that police anti-terrorism units should ignore them; just the general public.

All the public 'security' stuff is just there to make us feel like something is being done; It does more harm than good.

 

[bilby]

Muslims are condemning this.

Are they? Moslems are permitted to lie if it furthers the cause. They say one thing in Arabic for Arabic ears, another for the Western pc brigades.
The grand mufti of Australia Ibrahim Abu Mohammed issued a statement soon after the attacks saying "Islamophobia was to blame for the attacks. Shifting the blame is this guys hallmark.

If only it was possible for non-Arabs to learn Arabic; It would only take a tiny handful of us, and their cunning ruse would become impossible.

But sadly, Arabic is incapable of being understood by non-Arabs, so they can get away with this darstadly trick.

Either that, or your assertion would be obviously COMPLETE BOLLOCKS.

 

[angelo]

When did these public outrages over drawings begin?

Was it before or after the US attacked Iraq and in the mind of many the Muslim world?

Yes. Tens of thousands of muslims protested against Salman Rushdie for example in the 80s.

Don't mention the thousands who rioted in the streets and many deaths at the Danish cartoons saga.

 

[angelo]

Let's not forget the terrorist plots that were caught in the bud. The toll world wide would be much worse had it not been for Western security measures.

Western security measures don't require the interest or involvement of civilians. I am not suggesting that police anti-terrorism units should ignore them; just the general public.

All the public 'security' stuff is just there to make us feel like something is being done; It does more harm than good.

I imagine the pollies in Canberra disagree with that statement, when ASIO uncovered a plot to attack parliament house.

Personally I blame the Koch brothers for the attack . The existence of Daesh is a direct result of the continued economic viability of oil, and the economic viability of oil is a direct result of the Koch brothers' continued interference with the development and subsidization of better alternatives such as nuclear power and solar power.

First we had blood diamonds and now we shall have blood oil. It has nothing to do with Islam because if they were christian, we would see the same situation emerge. If the oil were so much useless sludge, they would be forced to get real economies with real technology and real education. Instead it is simply 'hold the land, have power, money, influence'.

 

[untermensche]

Yes. Tens of thousands of muslims protested against Salman Rushdie for example in the 80s.

Don't mention the thousands who rioted in the streets and many deaths at the Danish cartoons saga.

You paint with a broad brush.

There are the many who protest what they consider blasphemy and the tiny few who would actually kill somebody over it.

As evidenced by the tiny few who actually do kill people over it.