"Religion of peace" strikes again

[untermensche]

The Taliban were a national power.

They controlled Afghanistan before the US invasion and insane plan of nation building.

It is blindness to not see the US attack of the Iraqi people has resulted in a rise in violence in the ME.

That's revisionist history! The Taliban hosted a group that attacked the US. We asked them to give up the group. They denied. Then we took them out. The nation building effort came after the needed invasion.

I have revised nothing.

The Taliban were willing to work with the US. They merely asked for evidence that the things the US said were true.

But the US does not need evidence to do the things it does. Nor does it provide evidence to support the claims it makes.

So rather than try to find some peaceful alternative the US attacked and also decided nation building was a good idea despite the fact that GW specifically said in the debates that US nation building was a bad idea.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The Taliban were not willing to work with the US. Even though al Qaeda leaders openly claimed credit for 9/11, the Taliban leadership played stalling games and refused to be serious about the issue.

 

[untermensche]

The Taliban were not willing to work with the US. Even though al Qaeda leaders openly claimed credit for 9/11, the Taliban leadership played stalling games and refused to be serious about the issue.

It was the US playing games. Planning to attack Iraq so not fully committing even after they decided to attack Afghanistan.

And no al Qaeda leaders were taking credit for 911. There was a video that surfaced after the US invasion of Afghanistan that allegedly shows them taking credit.

The Taliban would have helped the US get rid of Al Qaeda, but of course like anybody would want, before they let some foreign military come in, they wanted some evidence, but the US decided to just invade. The US does not give evidence.

And then insanely decided to try nation building.

 

[fromderinside]

2 suspects, 4 victims in Tel Aviv terror attack identified

Horrible, but hardly unusual for Islam. Also, what is it about Ramadan that intensifies these terrorist attacks? Maybe the Muslims are just being hangry ...

Wow. Way worse than the 20 killed in Miami night club last night by LGBT terrorist, I suspect from Texas given the way Lt Gov there tweeted this morning.

You're right. We should get those religious terrorists.

 

[Bomb#20]

The worst thing to happen to in the ME in the last 50 years was the US sponsored and supported attack of Iran by Iraq. State violence, nothing like ISIS.

That's just yet another of the stupid conspiracy theories so beloved in the Middle East. We started supporting Iraq two years into the war, when the attack of Iran by Iraq had already failed, and Iran was counterattacking and conquering Iraqi territory. The US government didn't sponsor or support the attack of Iran by Iraq. Why would it have done that? In 1980 Iraq was a Soviet client state! Our government didn't want the region dominated by the USSR any more than it wanted it dominated by Iran. That's why we tipped off the Iranians that Saddam was getting ready to attack; and why when he invaded, we threatened the Soviets that we'd intervene on the side of Iran if they intervened on the side of Iraq. We didn't start that war; that's on Saddam.

Of course there were tribal wars in the region before the US full invasion of Iraq. However these groups never had problems with the West.
Now a new trend emerged amongst some people resulting in groups such as Al Qaeda, Al Nursa and ISIS etc.

Are you proposing that Al Qaeda resulted from the US invasion of Iraq?!? That was in 2003. Al Qaeda took up the anti-Western terror trade around 1995. 2003 > 1995.

The US was Iraq's ally when it invaded Iran. Are you saying it was on both sides?

The US was not Iraq's ally when it invaded Iran. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, when Iraq was a Soviet ally.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26...rove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

From your link: "In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran...". 1988 > 1980.

Also secret aid to Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/w...y-in-its-war-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25— The Reagan Administration secretly decided to provide highly classified intelligence to Iraq in the spring of 1982 <rest snipped>

Yes. That's what I said. The US government didn't sponsor or support the attack of Iran by Iraq. The US was not Iraq's ally when it invaded Iran. The US only became Iraq's ally two years into the war. 1982 > 1980.

-- more than two years earlier than previously disclosed -- while also permitting the sale of American-made arms to Baghdad in a successful effort to help President Saddam Hussein avert imminent defeat in the war with Iran, former intelligence and State Department officials say.

The American decision to lend crucial help to Baghdad so early in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war came after American intelligence agencies warned that Iraq was on the verge of being overrun by Iran, whose army was bolstered the year before by covert shipments of American-made weapons

Exactly. We weren't involved in order to support the attack on Iran; we got in bed with Saddam in order to defend against the counterattack on Iraq. At the beginning, when Iran was losing, we sent arms to Iran.

I'm not saying the U.S. did the right thing, either when we helped Iran or later when we helped Iraq; there's a good case that we should have stayed out of it. The point is that untermensche blamed us for the attack. The U.S. is guilty of many things but that's not one of them.

 

[fromderinside]

Geez. Why doesn't anyone read "The Diplomat" by James Aldridge. It was required reading when I was in HS in the late fifties. It lays out most of the antecedent conditions to modern Persian situation and it was published in 1949.

 

[JonA]

Well Islam was a lot more peaceful before the US attack of Iraq and all that has happened because of it.
.

Really?

No.

Yes.

Was there an ISIS able to conquer territory before the US attack of the Iraqi people?

Eh. There has always been a lot of warlords and wars and territory changing owner there.

Correct. In spite of all the news they make with their targeted brutality, ISIS isn't even currently winning the body-count game; that honor goes to Assad's untargeted brutality. And the Syrian civil war is hardly the worst thing to happen in Islamdom in living memory -- Assad at his worst is a piker compared to Saddam. He murdered more just of his own subjects than Assad's and ISIS's totals put together; when you count the dead from the war he started with Iran, that probably triples his total. And Saddam may well have been out-murderered by Turkey's rulers in the 1915 Armenian genocide.

There has been no non-national force just running around conquering lands in a long time. ISIS represents something that hasn't existed in the ME for over a hundred years.

PLO, The Kurdish Pashmerga and Lebanese Hezbollah are all non-state forces that conquered lands in the last century, before the US invasion. ISIS is nothing new.

You mean the Peshmerga?

They haven't moved since 1920.

What lands has Hezbollah been conquering? Please be specific.

There has been nothing like ISIS in the ME in well over a hundred years.

The US attack of the Iraqi people did not improve anything in the ME.

It is the major cause for a lot of violence we see today. Especially in Iraq.

The old "no true violent, oppressive theocracy" fallacy, eh?

 

[untermensche]

The old "no true violent, oppressive theocracy" fallacy, eh?

Insane.

It is no armies roaming around taking land.

Yes there are places that non-national forces are defending.

But I know the difference between offense and defense.

 

[Bomb#20]

But there's an obvious recent example of a non-state outfit very like ISIS, that was running around conquering lands before the US attack on the Iraqi government: the Taliban. The Taliban were "non-national" in pretty much the same way ISIS is. They were mostly Afghans but with a lot of non-Afghan volunteers, just as ISIS is mostly Arabs but with a lot of non-Arab volunteers; and they mostly conquered Afghanistan but also controlled part of Pakistan, just as ISIS mostly conquered Syria but also controlled part of Iraq.

The Taliban were a national power.

They controlled Afghanistan before the US invasion and insane plan of nation building.

ISIS is a national power, a power of the Arab Nation. They control as much as they can hold of Greater Syria. The fact that they don't recognize the legitimacy of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the arbitrary borders the French and British drew through Arab lands does not make them a non-national power in any substantive sense. The fact that the Taliban conquered 90% of Afghanistan from the previous government and ISIS never got close to that percentage of Syria is simply because Assad is more militarily capable than Rabbani was; that doesn't make ISIS non-national either.

It is blindness to not see the US attack of the Iraqi people has resulted in a rise in violence in the ME.

The US attacked the Iraqi government, not the Iraqi people. At the rate Saddam was killing his own people we may well have been a net positive for the Iraqi people; and if we were a net negative it's because the Iraqi people have been attacking one another, not because we were attacking them. Whatever rise in violence we are responsible for resulted not from our attack but from our subsequent idiotic decision to disband the Iraqi military. And whether the current level of violence in the ME is a rise or a fall depends on which prior year you pick as your baseline.

In any event, the Syrian civil war is the predictable result of the Arab Spring and Assad's refusal to compromise with his people's demands. Syrians saw progress against dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and were inspired to hope; but theocracy is better at recruiting fighters and seizing opportunity than liberalism is. So Syria was doomed from the start to have ISIS or somebody like ISIS, whether we'd attacked Iraq or not. That we screwed up and unintentionally made ISIS become a lot stronger is on us. But don't kid yourself that the ME would have been peaceful if only we'd kept our stupid clumsy hands off it.

 

[untermensche]

The Taliban were a national power.

They controlled Afghanistan before the US invasion and insane plan of nation building.

ISIS is a national power, a power of the Arab Nation.

They control territory in Iraq and Syria.

That is binational in terms of territory, but they are neither part of the Iraqi or Syrian government so not national at all.

It is blindness to not see the US attack of the Iraqi people has resulted in a rise in violence in the ME.

The US attacked the Iraqi government, not the Iraqi people.

No. The goal was to overturn the government.

The people were attacked as well as anybody in the way.

It was a massive act of State terrorism.

 

[Bomb#20]

ISIS is a national power, a power of the Arab Nation.

They control territory in Iraq and Syria.

That is binational in terms of territory, but they are neither part of the Iraqi or Syrian government so not national at all.

By that criterion the Taliban aren't national at all. They control territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan, binational in terms of territory, and are neither part of the Afghan or Pakistani government so not national at all. You argue for your contention that the Taliban are national and ISIS non-national only by dancing back and forth, using one set of definitions for the Taliban and conflicting definitions for ISIS.

The people were attacked as well as anybody in the way.

It was a massive act of State terrorism.

Proof by repetition, par for the untermensche course.

 

[untermensche]

They control territory in Iraq and Syria.

That is binational in terms of territory, but they are neither part of the Iraqi or Syrian government so not national at all.

By that criterion the Taliban aren't national at all. They control territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan, binational in terms of territory, and are neither part of the Afghan or Pakistani government so not national at all. You argue for your contention that the Taliban are national and ISIS non-national only by dancing back and forth, using one set of definitions for the Taliban and conflicting definitions for ISIS.

The Taliban controlled Afghanistan. They are a displaced national power. ISIS never controlled either Iraq or Syria. It is made up of pieces of both and people from many nations.

The people were attacked as well as anybody in the way.

It was a massive act of State terrorism.

Proof by repetition, par for the untermensche course.

Proof that simple facts can be ignored by the deceitful.

The way you understand actions is to say how would you label them if they happened to you.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which religion of peace are we talking about?

Judaism, the root cause of these problems?

Or Islam, the cause for this reaction to decades of oppression?

And I suppose women are the cause of rape?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

2 suspects, 4 victims in Tel Aviv terror attack identified

Horrible, but hardly unusual for Islam. Also, what is it about Ramadan that intensifies these terrorist attacks? Maybe the Muslims are just being hangry ...

Amazing. People conducting guerrilla warfare trying to end occupation of their turf are called terrorists and its all because they are Muslim?

Wow. Jim Jones, er, Derec is alive and still thinks he can foist off this stuff.

Get back into your spider hole.

Guerrillas attack enemy forces. Terrorists attack civilians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well Islam was a lot more peaceful before the US attack of Iraq and all that has happened because of it.

That is because this is political, not religious violence.

Yes, Judaism is the root cause of all problems, like Christian children ending up as matzo balls etc.

Judaism is responsible for a 50 years of occupation, oppression, theft and murder.

1) Plenty of violence over there before Iraq.

2) It most certainly is religious. They make no bones about wanting to bring Israel under Islamic control and genocide the Jews.

3) 50 years is cherry-picked data. You're going back to the 67 war--but that war came about because of Muslim violence and was predicated on driving the Jews out.

4) Even if Judaism is responsible for 50 years of violence that's nothing compared to the nearly 1,500 that Islam is responsible for.

- - - Updated - - -

Well they have a right to be pissed, the Muslims did invade and occupy their land after all.

Which Muslims?

The ones Israel has been torturing and repeatedly attacking for the last 50 years have been barely able to occupy anything.

Occupying isn't even the right yardstick. They're plenty able to launch violent attacks, they're a threat.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Once a Muslim land always a Muslim land. http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=88185

Don't be an Izlamohfob.

Not always since Islam didn't even exist before the 7th century. Palestine wasn't under Islamic rule until the 10th c.

Not a rebuttal. Islam is supposed to conquer land. It's just they feel especially strongly about land they lose control over--that's akin to a slave revolt.

- - - Updated - - -

That kind of dog should be put down. And you should not be allowed to have another dog.

Exactly.

This matter should be removed from the abusive master.

Yup, people like Abbas.

- - - Updated - - -

Really?

Yes.

Was there an ISIS able to conquer territory before the US attack of the Iraqi people?

Earth to untermensche: Things were even more violent over there before.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Eh. There hs always been a lot of warlords and wars and territory chaning owner there.

I would agree with untermensche but not as an impression that it is a defence action etc.
In removing people like Saddam (and Ghadafi) is it created a power vacuum which was filled by some real new strains of fanatic. Or I would say the US created the sewers for such fanatics to breed and flourish in.

No. We didn't create the sewers. Rather, we removed the forces that kept the problem mostly under control and thus allowed others to create the sewers.

Groups like ISIS didn't spontaneously arise, there's a large amount of Sunni/Shia violence. It's just things like the Hama massacre were hardly news. Or the huge numbers of dead in the Iraq/Iran war. It's just with the removal of some of the dictators keeping a lid on things there was a lot more room for the Islamists to stir up trouble in those of the wrong faith.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There has been no non-national force just running around conquering lands in a long time. ISIS represents something that hasn't existed in the ME for over a hundred years.

It is ridiculous to say it is just business as usual.

The worst thing to happen to in the ME in the last 50 years was the US sponsored and supported attack of Iran by Iraq. State violence, nothing like ISIS.

Yeah, it's what happens in the Middle East without a brutal dictator keeping them in their place. You like freedom--see the results of too much freedom!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What lands has Hezbollah been conquering? Please be specific.

There has been nothing like ISIS in the ME in well over a hundred years.

The US attack of the Iraqi people did not improve anything in the ME.

It is the major cause for a lot of violence we see today. Especially in Iraq.

From a practical standpoint Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But there's an obvious recent example of a non-state outfit very like ISIS, that was running around conquering lands before the US attack on the Iraqi government: the Taliban. The Taliban were "non-national" in pretty much the same way ISIS is. They were mostly Afghans but with a lot of non-Afghan volunteers, just as ISIS is mostly Arabs but with a lot of non-Arab volunteers; and they mostly conquered Afghanistan but also controlled part of Pakistan, just as ISIS mostly conquered Syria but also controlled part of Iraq.

The Taliban were a national power.

They controlled Afghanistan before the US invasion and insane plan of nation building.

It is blindness to not see the US attack of the Iraqi people has resulted in a rise in violence in the ME.

Pay attention to the news, not just the west-bashing.

The Taliban conquered most of Afghanistan from the government that was formed when the Russians were expelled. Remember how we used the Northern Alliance as the ground troops to conquer Afghanistan? Ever wonder where they came from? They were the remains of the legitimate government of Afghanistan.