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Abner Cadaver II posted:Except for how a solid third of the country refuses to believe we're secular and define themselves entirely by their particular form of Christianity. Hang on, I thought vocal minorities didn't matter?
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Jul 7, 2015 02:34
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computer parts posted:Hmm, it's almost as though non-HIspanic catholics are overwhelmingly white. You mean like the "other non-white catholic" category?
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Jul 7, 2015 02:44
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rudatron posted:This is the question that really interests me. Why is this the case? It's not as if the US hasn't attempted, with some fervor, to to take on islamism. Sure, bring up Mossadegh, but it's not as if the west hasn't tried to undermine the islamic republic. Yeah and what's "intrinsic" to islam then and how is that islamism=fascism but yet clearly islam has no intrinsic problems? One comment I have is that when these debates come up a lot of people are inclined to turn to foundation document as if it's an ultimate source. It's not. Human institutions may be informed by a text but living, changing institutions can't be entirely defined by one. And while texts don't change, the character of major religions certainly does. If we're evaluating Islam today, we need to consider it as it is today. I'm personally not sure at all what that means.
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Jul 7, 2015 03:40
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Generally, I don't think the specific doctrines of Islam have much to do with ISIS's brutality. First, because time and again religious doctrines have proven to be incredibly flexible even in the hands of the most devout believers. Even if a religion revolves around worshiping a dirt poor carpenter turned wandering preacher who spent most of his life talking about how much rich people suck, you can still end up with a large number of adherents who believe that material success is a sign of divine favor. Second, because even in recent history there are plenty of examples of non-Islamic groups that have been similarly brutal. The first terrorist organization to widely use suicide bombings (not counting the Japanese Kamikazes) was the Tamil Tigers, a secular nationalist group with a predominately Hindu membership. Their activities included bombings, massacres, child soldiers, ethnic cleansing, the works. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has had decades long civil wars full of atrocities just as bad if not worse than anything happening in Iraq or Syria today, is 95% Christian. Rwanda is 91% Christian. Many of the worst atrocities during the Yugoslav Wars were committed by predominately Eastern Orthodox Christian Serbs, often against Muslims. But I think there is a unique factor in Islam today, and that's the influence of Wahhabism. A series of historical accidents placed adherents of one of the most radical forms of Islam in control of not only the most important Muslim holy sites but also of one fifth of the world's oil reserves. Ever since the 1970s, where the Saudi government saw a huge boost in revenue as a result of the oil embargo, it has been spreading widely, and with it a lot of the things people associate with fundamentalist Islam, including veiling, draconian punishments, iconoclasm, etc. Boko Haram, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are all Wahhabi. To give you an idea of how recent a lot of this stuff is, here are a few photographs taken in Afghanistan during the 1970s:   It's like if some radical Christian sect managed to take over all of the Christian holy sites in Israel/Palestine, then an enormous amount of oil was discovered in the land they controlled, and they used the oil money to fund religious schools and missionaries around the world to spread their particular version of Christianity. INH5 fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 04:39
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Wez posted:So back on page 1 I linked articles relevant to a discussion on Muslims, Islam and Daesh. Does anyone want to actually engage with that material? Was it really your intention to have people discuss the specifics? I figured when you posted those articles you were doing so to set the boundaries of the debate and give readers example arguments from the two contrasting positions, like when newspapers put two opposing opinion pieces side by side. But since you asked: I found Wright's response piece to be mealy-mouthed and weak: [quote="The Clash of Civilizations that Isn't"]As freakouts go, this one is certainly understandable. ISIS wants to terrify us, and in the service of that mission has carried tactical atrocity to new heights of grotesqueness. And both ISIS and Al Qaeda have inspired atrocities far from their home bases. It’s natural, when you’re freaking out, to accept simple and dramatic, even melodramatic, explanations. It’s a clash of civilizations! Deep within this alien thing known as Islam is an apocalyptic belligerence that is only now emerging in full form! Nobody at The Atlantic or the New York Times has put it this way. (Wood, in fact, notes that a large majority of Muslims reject ISIS, and neither Cohen nor Wood entirely dismisses political and socioeconomic contributors to religious extremism.) But when élite and generally liberal publications start broadcasting dubious catch phrases that dovetail nicely with such explanations, I start to worry. And the process feeds on itself. The more scared we get, the more likely our government is to react with the kind of undiscerning ferocity that created ISIS as we know it—and the more likely Western extremists are to deface mosques, or worse. All of which will help ISIS recruit more Muslims, thus leading to more atrocities in the West, as well as in the Middle East, and making the whole thing seem even more like a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. And so on. Wood’s Atlantic article has some interesting details about ISIS. For example: the group’s leader believes that he is the eighth legitimate caliph, and that the apocalypse will happen during the reign of the twelfth. Wood considers a clear understanding of this apocalypticism very valuable—a primary reason that it’s worth dwelling on the group’s religious character. But you could also argue that, if something like an apocalypse is possible, putting undue emphasis on the group’s religious character could hasten it.[/url] So the conclusion of this piece rests upon the ghastly corpse of the Bush administration's argument that withdrawal from Iraq would embolden the terrorists, resurrected and turned around in the opposite direction. The suggestion is that the United States should base its policy around the feelings and reactions of a terrorist group. And though the Iraq war was certainly an indispensable factor in the rise of ISIS, the idea that this current of violent zealotry was created out of whole cloth in the year 2003 is quite ridiculous on its face. Nessus posted:Okay, so what's the solution? Do you try to encourage incremental reforms which primarily originate from within the society, Nessus posted:helping where you can and perhaps acknowledging that their system may not perfectly resemble American/European liberal democracy even in a good situation? No. It's orientalizing nonsense to say that people from this one part of the world cannot handle basic human rights that have improved the lives of people everywhere else as much or more than the technological change that accompanied those rights' gradual march towards recognition. Nessus posted:Or do you bomb and embargo every state that has an ideology we consider unacceptable? Yes, sometimes, depending on the situation. There was that one time it was pretty necessary. Nessus posted:If the latter, where does all the necessary money and manpower come from? It's not too expensive if it's most done with drones and airpower, as it is now that we have a sane president in command. Nessus posted:Also, what would you do if your efforts to destroy the Bad Thing ends up helping the Bad Thing, because of all the casualties caused by your efforts and/or because you are really obviously trying to put a government you, a not-from-here group, want in power? Try again in 10 or 20 years with a better strategy.
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Jul 7, 2015 05:14
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So basically we keep murdering them with airstrikes until they produce a form of government similar to our own? How close must the mimicry be before the air assault stops? What measures will be taken to keep the Forever War going if some treacherous, weak-livered future generation considers peace, if only to avoid the expenditure on drone strikes? Also, does this policy extend globally? Will some alternate method be considered to (for instance) remove the threat of the Russian nuclear strike capacity, so that they can receive the loving embrace of our tutoring air power?
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Jul 7, 2015 05:18
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Liberal_L33t posted:Try again in 10 or 20 years with a better strategy. would you like to hear the definition of insanity
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Jul 7, 2015 05:19
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Seriously though the fact that the Saudi government has retained American patronage for so many decades now while being a state constitutionally dedicated to opposing liberal democracy, is one of the funniest / most depressing things about the ME. It's like a loving Monty Python skit. Ultimately I don't think American ME policy will be fixed until and unless we tell Israel to gently caress off. The whole reason we back the Saudis is because they cooperate with Israel. Support for Israel and opposition to Wahhabism don't seem to be compatible, unfortunately icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 05:27
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Liberal_L33t posted:
We must force them to be free
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Jul 7, 2015 05:29
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TheImmigrant posted:I was discussing its legal influence, and how the US is a secular nation. The wall between church and state is not impermeable in the US, but it's ridiculous to compare Christianity's influence on US policy with Islam and Da'esh. More broadly, it's ridiculous to compare contemporary Christianity's political influence with that of political Islam. Christianity has been in decline for decades, while Islam is ascendant in all areas of life where Muslims constitute a majority. I was discussing its legal influence too - 3/9 of the Supreme Court at least wouldn't agree that the US is a secular state with an impenetrable wall between church and state. Christianity's political influence may not be as great as Islam's because most Christian nations have been secularizing in the last century, but that doesn't mean it has no influence at all like you said. They're not equivalent but Christianity is still a major political force in the modern world.
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Jul 7, 2015 06:42
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Liberal_L33t posted:Was it really your intention to have people discuss the specifics? I figured when you posted those articles you were doing so to set the boundaries of the debate and give readers example arguments from the two contrasting positions, like when newspapers put two opposing opinion pieces side by side. You know I'm not Volkerball? To be fair I mistyped and my links are on page two. Would you maybe like to look at them? There's two indepth interviews with a high level Sunni figure from Syria. His opinion on Daesh is textbook orthodoxy. They are religiously deviant terrorists and it's a religious obligation to fight them. I was hoping that this thread could be an actual discussion about issue at hand rather than poo poo pile of bigotry and hamfisted apologetics. Sadly no. Wez fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 07:06
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icantfindaname posted:Ultimately I don't think American ME policy will be fixed until and unless we tell Israel to gently caress off. The whole reason we back the Saudis is because they cooperate with Israel. Support for Israel and opposition to Wahhabism don't seem to be compatible, unfortunately Seriously? Yes the USA should shift from a War on Terror to a War on Zionism. I'm sure Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Intel, IBM, HP, Motorola, Amazon, etc to name some names won't mind the shift in policy. What does Israel provide America or the West with anyways? World-leading technological advancements in science warfare and medicine, a reliable secular constitutional government of a common ideological foundation, and a rich shared cultural heritage between the nations with generations of open immigration and hundreds of thousands sharing dual citizenship? Friendly, reliable eyes and ears all over the Middle East? Jews?? Now that you mention it, Iran really has been the good guy in all of this all along. They would NEVER support Islamic terrorism to destabilize their regional rivals, fund arm and train separatist groups and ethnic cleansing death squad militias, and would never brazenly kidnap or murder Americans or Israelis. And what's a Hezbollah, are they Christians like the Kurds? Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 08:55
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As a moderate atheist I feel it is my duty to oppose the violent and ignorant sentiments of my more primitive kin. The real question is why others do not feel the same way, and why they so vehemently support bigotry, discrimination and mass killing, and why their religious sentiments seem to drive so many of them to these conclusions
Tezzor fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 09:08
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Smoothrich posted:What does Israel provide America or the West with anyways? Free skyscraper demolition
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Jul 7, 2015 09:10
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paranoid randroid posted:hey remember when you demanded a muslim poster prove he didnt harbor ISIS sympathies and also that time you accused american muslims of hyping up crimes against them to derail the narrative that theyre secretly trying to destroy western political thought I don't remember that but I do remember the time he was one of the prime parties making lame excuses for that atheist who killed three innocent American Muslims.
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Jul 7, 2015 09:15
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INH5 posted:
You have some good points but that Afghanistan stuff is bullshit. Although the wealthy elite in Kabul wee fairly secular, the vast majority of people lived in very tribalistic rural areas and hated modernization (usually with good reason). There's a reason why the resistance to the Soviet invasion was very strong.
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Jul 7, 2015 09:24
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Smoothrich posted:Seriously? Yes the USA should shift from a War on Terror to a War on Zionism. I'm sure Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Intel, IBM, HP, Motorola, Amazon, etc to name some names won't mind the shift in policy. Iran sucks too. Here's an idea, don't support either. You don't see how it undermines your claim to support liberal democracy and human rights when you simultaneously throw money and guns at a Wahhabist theocracy as fast as you can to indirectly support an apartheid state because evangelical fundies have decided Israelis are of the same mold as they are? It's impossible to support both liberal values and the apartheid state, and the United States has loudly and clearly chosen the apartheid state icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 09:44
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How about we compromise. We support nobody and bomb everybody until they become Americans.
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Jul 7, 2015 09:52
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This is such a stupid loving argument. To say Daesh doesn't practice "authentic Islam" is just as much nonsensical babble as it is to say the vast majority of Muslims who think they're evil fuckers don't practice "authentic Islam." It's no-true-Scotsman garbage and completely irrelevant. There is no real Islam. It's a system, or rather a collection of systems, that humans made up. What sort of a gibbering troglodyte thinks its at all appropriate or fruitful to have a conversation about "authentic" versions of it? To say Daesh doesn't do a lot of the insane poo poo they do because of their religious convictions is absurd. They believe that's what they're doing, and they're all too happy to say as much. Arguing otherwise is ridiculous. If someone tells you why they're doing a thing, telling them they're wrong and that they actually have another reason is extremely stupid unless you're making a case that they're either lying or literally insane in the delusional can't-even-remotely-process-reality way. "I'm sorry Daesh but you're totally wrong about why you're doing these things you see it isn't because of your religious beliefs no no you see it's because of other reasons here why don't you sit down and I'll tell you about your religion and culture and maybe set a few things straight." Preposterous. Of course Daesh can only exist because of Western imperialism, but it doesn't change the fact that they are a deeply religious organisation and I just cannot wrap my head around why anybody is rushing to deny that. If we're going to ask if Daesh throwing gay men off buildings and beheading people and leaving their bodies along the roadside is Islamic, we may as well ask if it was Christian for the Inquisition to torture and execute Jews and Muslims. The Inquisition sure as poo poo thought they were The Most Christian and Daesh definitely believe they're The Most Islamic so... where the gently caress does anybody see this line of questioning going? It doesn't matter, and, also, who cares? Even if it was a remotely coherent question to ask, "Is Daesh truly Islamic?" is an interrogative with an answer completely and utterly irrelevant to dealing with them as a geopolitical and humanitarian evil. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 11:14
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icantfindaname posted:Iran sucks too. Here's an idea, don't support either. You don't see how it undermines your claim to support liberal democracy and human rights when you simultaneously throw money and guns at a Wahhabist theocracy as fast as you can to indirectly support an apartheid state because evangelical fundies have decided Israelis are of the same mold as they are? It's impossible to support both liberal values and the apartheid state, and the United States has loudly and clearly chosen the apartheid state Israel is one of the world's most advanced nations in like, every way dude. In agricultural science, water conservation, pharmaceuticals, microchips, nanotechnology.. it's literally the opposite kind of nation, one driven on science, humanism, education, and collective good, instead what "evangelical fundies of the same mold" as you so anti-semitically chortled would actually imply. 20 percent of Israelis are Arab Muslims you know. They are able to vote in elections, freely practice their religion, and are afforded all the rights and protections under Israeli law as equal citizenry. You are probably safer as a Muslim in Israel than in most other Arab nations nowadays honestly, heh. Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 11:16
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Nessus posted:So basically we keep murdering them with airstrikes until they produce a form of government similar to our own? How close must the mimicry be before the air assault stops? What measures will be taken to keep the Forever War going if some treacherous, weak-livered future generation considers peace, if only to avoid the expenditure on drone strikes? All the meandering, hypothetical, dystopian bullshit in the world isn't going to convince me that bombing Daesh isn't justified and necessary.
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Jul 7, 2015 12:06
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Smoothrich posted:Israel is one of the world's most advanced nations in like, every way dude. In agricultural science, water conservation, pharmaceuticals, microchips, nanotechnology.. it's literally the opposite kind of nation, one driven on science, humanism, education, and collective good, instead what "evangelical fundies of the same mold" as you so anti-semitically chortled would actually imply. 20 percent of Israelis are Arab Muslims you know. They are able to vote in elections, freely practice their religion, and are afforded all the rights and protections under Israeli law as equal citizenry. http://i.imgur.com/L86hXg4.jpg https://sites.google.com/site/sourcelist1234/ http://i.imgur.com/gyKWqo3.jpg https://sites.google.com/site/myth2sources/ Let's try that again. Israel is not only an apartheid state, but a colonialist one as well. It's so obvious to anyone who has followed the conflict that you can prove it using purely 100% Israeli sources and Israeli media. Unless you think etc. drafting soldiers from only certain racial groups or allocating your settler colonists 80% of the colony's water when they're 20% of the population are modern western democratic values you don't know much about Israel or what those values are. It's why the rest of the enlightened liberal democratic West likes them as much as Iran and North Korea. http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Poll-Israel-viewed-negatively-around-the-world As someone from an actual democratic secular nation which doesn't legislate and treat its citizens differently based on race and religion, Israel absolutely does not share my values and that's without going on its colonialism and indiscriminate bombings on civilians. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 12:09
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Smoothrich posted:Israel is one of the world's most advanced nations in like, every way dude. In agricultural science, water conservation, pharmaceuticals, microchips, nanotechnology.. it's literally the opposite kind of nation, one driven on science, humanism, education, and collective good, instead what "evangelical fundies of the same mold" as you so anti-semitically chortled would actually imply. 20 percent of Israelis are Arab Muslims you know. They are able to vote in elections, freely practice their religion, and are afforded all the rights and protections under Israeli law as equal citizenry. You do know that's, well, demonstrably false. But yeah I guess incredible advancement is what happens when you get the unquestioned and full backing, funding and support of the world's premier superpower. But this isn't the I/P thread.
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Jul 7, 2015 12:12
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INH5 posted:Wahabism That's absolutely true but the case you're trying to make with Afghanistan as an example is simply a fallacy. It was the US backed Mujahedin overthrow of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul that paved the way for the taliban and the emirate of afghanistan, it's not exactly secret. Those pictures are 100% accurate though, my mother have similar ones she took when she was backpacking through Afghanistan in the 1970's, I wish I had some scanned to post since they are quite amazing in terms of the contrast of society. Sure, Kabul was where the well off middle class types lived, but most of the anti-secular poo poo was supported from Pakistan. People in the countryside were pretty positive to sending their daughters to school even if they were not living in affluence by any stretch of the imagination. Postorder Trollet89 fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 12:30
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Do certain values/teachings within Islam predispose its followers towards violence? I feel the answer is yes, but I also feel the same could easily said for any religion, especially with a focus on Abrahamic religions. Islam just happens to be stuck at a particularly bad crossroad in history with all sorts of factors lining up to really favor some of the most zealous and radical forms of religion seen since the Crusades. There are other areas of the world that have been subject to abuse by The West(Latin America, Africa, SouthEast Asia, etc) and while they suffer their own varying levels of violence it seems to be at its most vicious when Islam is involved. Also, when we are talking specifically about the Middle East and North Africa we are talking generations of social norms and traditions being threatened by encroaching Western values, and in almost every situation where conservatives find themselves threatened by something new, they react with violence. Also, I feel the natural liberal response to rush to the defense of Muslims has a lot to do with their minority status in the U.S. and other Western nations, and I think that it is pretty noble. The average person's attitude towards Muslims is one of "they are terrorists waiting to kill me" so to even admit that there might be something specific to Islam that results in higher levels of violence is a dangerous precedent to set.
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Jul 7, 2015 14:15
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If there is something specific to Islam that causes violence why is the murder rate in Islamic countries so low especially compared to other countries that have similar inequality-adjusted HDI? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI
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Jul 7, 2015 14:41
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Liberal_L33t posted:All the meandering, hypothetical, dystopian bullshit in the world isn't going to convince me that bombing Daesh isn't justified and necessary. Live in the moment, as they say.
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Jul 7, 2015 14:48
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INH5 posted:
Thanks for the great pictures/info. But I do have a quibble. You seem to have sidestepped the seismic earthquakes that pretty much destroyed Afghan society and civil institutions circa the late 1970s (in no small part due to the Soviets) before the emergence of extreme religious factions. Religious fervor does not happen ex nihlio. It is instrinsically associated with poverty and lack of stability. It was no accident that Wahhabi life profilerated so much in the last couple of decades. It was kind of inevitable. A strong, self sustaining set of already created institutions, belief, and viewpoint of a fiery upending of the existing world order is incredibly attractive to those most suffering, in any society. And once those conditions are ameliorated, the most extreme output of that viewpoint also naturally retreats. A bit of a tangent, I'm currently reading State v. Defense (recommended by some smart goons in the US poli thread). Its incredibly instructive to see the similarities between the fear of creeping of Islam-ism and previous fears of a looming Communist threat. As in the drumbeat of fear and otherism caused by the seeming insurmountablily of that belief structure, in regards to countries like Greece and Turkey, when their internal political processes, culture, and economy were by far more important. Reactionary statements and actions are less than useful. Flailing at shadows can be a danger.
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Jul 7, 2015 14:59
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Liberal_L33t posted:All the meandering, hypothetical, dystopian bullshit in the world isn't going to convince me that bombing Daesh isn't justified and necessary. As it should be, in the true spirit of US foreign policy. Short-term consequences are the only consequences, and at no point should you think any further than the point where your principles appear unquestionable.
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Jul 7, 2015 15:42
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Smudgie Buggler posted:This is such a stupid loving argument. To say Daesh doesn't practice "authentic Islam" is just as much nonsensical babble as it is to say the vast majority of Muslims who think they're evil fuckers don't practice "authentic Islam." It's no-true-Scotsman garbage and completely irrelevant. There is no real Islam. It's a system, or rather a collection of systems, that humans made up. What sort of a gibbering troglodyte thinks its at all appropriate or fruitful to have a conversation about "authentic" versions of it? This is exactly the angry postmodernism I wanted to post. The nicer version of a religion isn't "more real" than the unpleasant one.
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Jul 7, 2015 15:57
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ToxicAcne posted:You have some good points but that Afghanistan stuff is bullshit. Although the wealthy elite in Kabul wee fairly secular, the vast majority of people lived in very tribalistic rural areas and hated modernization (usually with good reason). There's a reason why the resistance to the Soviet invasion was very strong. Uhhhh, because they were being invaded by a foreign country intent on propping up a brutal, violent dictatorship that banned religion and killed or imprisoned tens of thousands of people in a campaign of iron-fisted repression?
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Jul 7, 2015 16:22
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Liberal_L33t posted:All the meandering, hypothetical, dystopian bullshit in the world isn't going to convince me that bombing Daesh isn't justified and necessary. The way you're talking, we'd begin bombing those local forces if they didn't institute a robust constitutional democracy immediately (possibly we would give them a break in the bombardment to attempt to hold an election - but God help them if the Islamic Democratic Party wins 32%!!) You may call it dystopian bullshit, but "We're going to bomb all other countries that don't share our system of government until they do" is spectacularly dystopian in its own right. The Iraq War, which was the longest war we've been involved with ever as a nation, took what - eleven years? Twelve? This bombing campaign would be indefinite. Nessus fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 16:32
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What happens if the ISIS is defeated on the battlefield. A vaccuum of power, open to any bloodthirsty enough to fill it. America's focus will be three continents away, until it is inevitbaly pulled back by the next spectacularily awful thing.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:34
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icantfindaname posted:Seriously though the fact that the Saudi government has retained American patronage for so many decades now while being a state constitutionally dedicated to opposing liberal democracy, is one of the funniest / most depressing things about the ME. It's like a loving Monty Python skit. You really can't think of a reason that the US is supporting KSA other than it playing nice with Israel? I can personally think of at least two things: one is a black liquid that runs your car, the other is a place where literally every Muslim is expected to visit at least once in their lives.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:53
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Shageletic posted:What happens if the ISIS is defeated on the battlefield. A vaccuum of power, open to any bloodthirsty enough to fill it. America's focus will be three continents away, until it is inevitbaly pulled back by the next spectacularily awful thing. This time we'll just make sure it's a pro-USA strongman in charge! That always works out well for us. Brannock posted:Hang on, I thought vocal minorities didn't matter? Wow, I guess in dismissing one poster's hand-wringing over the very existence of a vocal minority of Muslim extremists and in dismissing another's assertion that Christianity has no political influence in the US, I have referred to two distinct vocal religious minorities with differing degrees of power in different cultures. What a wacky world it is! Abner Cadaver II fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 17:57
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You really can't think of a reason that the US is supporting KSA other than it playing nice with Israel? I can personally think of at least two things: one is a black liquid that runs your car, the other is a place where literally every Muslim is expected to visit at least once in their lives. I'm not exactly sold on the second one being a substantial reason - the main geopolitical importance of Saudi control of Mecca (and Medina) is that they get first dibs on Sunni theological evolution, and setting aside for a moment that whole "coopted scholars have no credibility" thing, ibn Saud's choices of favorite seminarians leave something to be desired from a US strategic perspective. I'd argue that it's considerably more important that we see some benefit from quashing pan-Arab inclinations, and propping up the Saudis happens to do that quite nicely (and provide a counterbalance to Iran, although the main reason we're opposed to Iran is that the Saudis hate them, sooooo). It's mostly the oil thing.
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Jul 7, 2015 18:10
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You really can't think of a reason that the US is supporting KSA other than it playing nice with Israel? I can personally think of at least two things: one is a black liquid that runs your car, the other is a place where literally every Muslim is expected to visit at least once in their lives. Those too, and those strengthen my point. The US doesn't give a poo poo about liberal democracy or human rights, it gives a poo poo about cheap oil and about helping people we think are evangelical fundies like us to commit ethnic cleansing. It will be impossible for the US to effectually promote liberal democracy and human rights until it drops those things Like it's almost Kafka-esque that people are complaining that there's no liberal democracy in the ME as their own country does basically everything in its power to stamp liberal democracy out wherever it goes icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 18:13
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Wez posted:The follow up interview with Bernard Haykel, the expert cited in The Atlantic article. Wez posted:You know I'm not Volkerball? To be fair I mistyped and my links are on page two. Would you maybe like to look at them? There's two indepth interviews with a high level Sunni figure from Syria. His opinion on Daesh is textbook orthodoxy. They are religiously deviant terrorists and it's a religious obligation to fight them. For an easy example, throwing gay people off of buildings/stoning them to death is is not an Islamic thing, there are many Christian in America who would be happy to do that if given the chance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States One very notable incident: quote:September 22, 2000 – Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, 43 years old, and severely injuring six others. Ronald said he was angry over what his name now meant, and deeply upset that three of his sons had changed their surname. He claimed that he had been told by God to find and kill lesbians and gay men, describing himself as a "Christian Soldier working for my Lord;" Gay testified in court that "he wished he could have killed more fags," before several of the shooting victims as well as Danny Overstreet's family and friends. Say, how about ISIL's famous Islamic tactic of using SVBIEDs aka Suicide Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices? http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/shot-dallas-police-headquarters-car-article-1.2256922   quote:The SWAT team tried to reason with Boulware, but negotiations deteriorated and cops were left with only one option. No wait, I'm sorry again it was a white guy who did it, so it's not terrorism it's a "lone wolf attack" because only Muslims can do terrorism. 
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Jul 7, 2015 18:34
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Main Paineframe posted:Uhhhh, because they were being invaded by a foreign country intent on propping up a brutal, violent dictatorship that banned religion and killed or imprisoned tens of thousands of people in a campaign of iron-fisted repression? The elites supported the Communists (mind boggling I know).
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Jul 7, 2015 19:37
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Holy poo poo ignorant Afghanistan chat, part of the reason the central government was as repressive as it is was because trying to violently force modernization on the rural areas because the fundamentalists in the rural areas were violently resisting modernization and secularization. The Soviets invaded because the central government was losing/lost that fight. Basically iron fisted secular government trying to force modernization on the same sort of violent religious fanatics that still control the rural areas. The idea that Paktika looked like 70s Kabul before the US came in and helped the resistance take over is a loving joke.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:57
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