How to defeat ISIL

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GIThruster
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by GIThruster »

"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

tomclarke
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by tomclarke »

GIThruster wrote:
tomclarke wrote:The problem - and it is this throughout the Middle East - is that poverty breeds terrorism. . . .

If you think that taking money away from Iraq will remove it from corrupt politicians rather than increasing the poverty - and therefore lack of willingness to cooperate finding non-violent solutions - of half the population you are wrong.
I think you'd have serious trouble identifying that as a causal relation. Lots of people live in poverty, even in the Islamic world, and don't become terrorists. In fact, it's fair to say the vast majority of the Islamic world are poor.
I am not saying that all poor people are terrorists. I'm saying that extreme poverty makes a breeding-ground for terrorists. The facts you bring in here do not contradict that and in fact indirectly support it, since the middle east has a lot of terrorists!
Its only in places like Qutar where the people share in the benefits of selling their natural gas, that they're not.
Really? There are Islamic countries which are relatively rich: Turkey for example.
Islam panders to poverty, and empowers people through hatred, so I would pose the real cause of terrorism is not poverty but Islam.
I'm as against fundamentalist Islam as you (probably more so) but that is not per se a feature of Islam. You might as well say that Christianity does the same two things - and indeed for many centuries it did. Some fundamentalist Christian cults still have these qualities.
If you read your Koran you'll see, it's all about killing the infidels, dominating the women, and pretending to be things people simply are not.
Certainly not all about that. And the nastiness towards women is duplicated in the Old Testament and used in fundamentalist Christianity as well. Mainstream Christianity, even in enlightended countries, still has female inferiority built in at a level it is difficult to shift. I'm not excusing the apalling things that are done, just pointing out that they are primarily cultural not religious, and that Christian religion, because rooted in the same culture, has the same issues although they have been partly eradicated in mainstream Christianity - but not in Mormonism, evangelicals, and many cults.
The trouble is the demonically inspired religion, and we won't see serious stops put on international terrorism so long as we treat Islam as something other than the plague it has been to the planet for 1,500 years.
We have had serious terrorism from many causes. The problem in the Middle East is partly political, partly due to poverty, partly because of the political linkage of extreme poverty and great wealth. Religion is at most an excuse. you might as well say that Christianity was the cause of the Irish terrorism. That only stopped when the UK government started talking seriously to the terrorists and resolving the underlying political issues.

I can't see any resolution of the Middle Eastern political issues in sight.

While moderate Islam doesn't cause these kinds of troubles, history and common sense observations about the teachings of the Koran, say that Islamo-fascism is the intended purpose of the Koran.
You could say exactly the same of the OT, which would apply then to the Jews and to those many Christians who believe it to be literally true and important.
Even the most historically ignorant person who holds some popular caricature of the Crusades, usually knows they were instigated not by the overabundance of fighting men in Europe who needed a more benign activity that killing each other, and not by the Pope who preached Holy Crusade, but by the Moslems who had for centuries been kidnapping, torturing and murdering pilgrims to the Holy Land.
That is a very one-sided view of a situation certainly not one-sided, since in the middle ages murder, torture, and persecution of anyone with a non-conformist religion was rife everywhere. I guess there is an assymmetry - the Holy sites of all the book religions are in one place and this is and was dominated by Islam, so you get Christian incursions there in a manner that would not be reciprocated.
This is precisely the kind of activity that Islam breeds. It teaches it. Kidnapping is right in the text.
kidnapping is right in the OT text too. I have no personal liking for any of these middle eastern religious texts unless taken as great historical documents - but saying that the Koran is worse than the OT is silly.

GIThruster
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by GIThruster »

tomclarke wrote:There are Islamic countries which are relatively rich: Turkey for example.
Turkey is a parlamentary republic, not a theocracy or Islamic republic. It is wealthy from decades of Western influence and secularism, which they are currently pissing away.
You might as well say that Christianity does the same two things - and indeed for many centuries it did. Some fundamentalist Christian cults still have these qualities.
Tom, I really hate engaging you in discussion on these religious issues, because you always want to bash Christians over and over for your atheistic views. You do not know what you're talking about. In thousands of different flavors of Christianity spread out across 2,000 years history, there has never been a single Christian sect nor cult with these qualities. None. In fact, there has never been such a cult in any other religion. This is exclusive to Islam and only arises because of its teaching. And note it rises again and again in most forms of Islam. Islam is the only religion that teaches it is supposed to conquer the world by the sword and drive it into submission to god, which is what the word "Islam" means, "submission".
And the nastiness towards women is duplicated in the Old Testament and used in fundamentalist Christianity as well.
You don't know what you're talking about, Tom. That's just the PC answer disguising the facts and hiding the truth of the issue. At the time Hebrew Bible was written, patriarchal societies were not just the norm, they were the ONLY societies. Ancient Judaism lifted women out of the darkness by teaching them for example, HOW TO READ. Accommodations toward the culture of that time are to be expected, and these only seem out of place when judged from far removed from that culture and backward in time, as is our position. If you were to look inside the culture from the present or past, what you would see is Judaism was spectacularly progressive, liberal and egalitarian for its time. Just the appearance of rule of law is enough to set it apart from all other cultures except short bursts in Babylon where the Code of Hammurabi was pursued, probably only for a single generation. The entire notion of designing a society with laws, dietary codes, disease mitigation, rules protecting widows and orphans, delineations on the limits of retributive justice, etc., had never been done before and these are the basis of all western civilization. We are what we are because of these writings. And please note--in the absence of the rule of law, the only thing left is "might makes right" which is the entire basis for all patriarchal society structure, from polygamy to skewed wages.
I can't see any resolution of the Middle Eastern political issues in sight.
Nice for once we're agreed. There is no solution. The only real solution was for the ancient Israelis to kill the ancient demon-worshipping Palestinians when they were told to, 3,600 years ago. You know, the worshippers of Ashteroth, and Dagon, and Molech and Baal. At the time the jews were instructed to kill them (and did not) the worshippers of Molech had a Bronze statue they used to heat with a bonfire from within until it was glowing hot, and then throw infants up into its arms to sear to death, as part of their worship. The servants of Baal used to dance about cutting each other and themselves in a sadomasochistic ritual that would put the Marquis De Sade to shame. And if those too gentle to obey Jews had killed these sick twisted peoples as instructed, they would have saved the 3,600 years of bloodshed that have followed. But of course when God instructed them to eliminate the Palestinians, He knew they would refuse to obey such a thing. After all, they're as self-righteous and temporally constrained as you and I in our judgements.
That is a very one-sided view of a situation certainly not one-sided, since in the middle ages murder, torture, and persecution of anyone with a non-conformist religion was rife everywhere.
It is true we see that sort of thing in Western Europe during the Dark Ages, but not as you imply--against Muslims. that was Christian on Christian action, just like the first campaigns of the first Crusade (which obviously puts the lie to the myth the Crusades were religious wars). Persecution like what is seen in the Spanish Inquisition is internal, and really political. Leaders in the Church were stealing land for personal gain. You never see Christians and Jews rationalizing killing Buddhists for example, or Buddhists rationalizing killing Taoists on religious grounds as part of a sanctioned genocide, like what we see in Sudan, and Iraq today, and all over the Islamic world for 15 centuries.

And do try to understand, Tom; in cultures before there was the separation between religion and state, this kind of persecution when it erupts for any reason, always gets couched in religious terms and justified through religious means. Our situation is far simpler than their was, and so it is harder for us to justify "in the Name of God" our thievery at war, our murder, or hatred and our fear. And note, even our separation between religion and state, comes from the Judeo-Christian teachings. Were it not for Charlemagne's conversion and commitment to the scriptures, we would likely not yet have that separation today.

Islam is unique in its religious origins, scriptures and intentions in that it teaches war against the whole world, and it is foolish to ignore this. Islam and only Islam is at war against the world.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

williatw
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by williatw »

tomclarke wrote:The problem - and it is this throughout the Middle East - is that poverty breeds terrorism. It also gives loathsome groups like ISIS, or bad but much less loathsome like Hammas, political advantage because they have money and logistics to provide aid on the ground.
We aren't going to solve the problem of poverty/Islamic extremism in the Middle East only they can do that. But if we are the only thing stopping it from becoming WWIII, then we need a sustainable model where we can intervene without bankrupting ourselves...that would be making them (Iraq, Saudis,etc.) pay us for their protection.

tomclarke wrote:If you think that taking money away from Iraq will remove it from corrupt politicians rather than increasing the poverty - and therefore lack of willingness to cooperate finding non-violent solutions - of half the population you are wrong.

The best you can have is strong political pressure to get a less bad leader - and that is what has been done.
I don't think taking money away from Iraq will improve it, that's not the point; we should be acting first and foremost in our (the US's) interest not Iraq's. If we are the only thing preventing the world from going to hell then it (our actions) have to be sustainable (from the point of serving our interests economic & political); no nation can continue to survive otherwise. Spending ourselves into bankruptcy will not help the world, and certainly not us. If you don't look after your own interest in this world, no one else will do it for you.

tomclarke
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by tomclarke »

Nations usually do act in their own interests. But there are judgments to be made. The US's very expensive (3 bn per year) support for Israel is a political stance that is not obviously in long-term US interests, but politically impossible to change. I'm not making a strong argument that it is against long-term US interests but it is certainly not sustainable in the sense that there is no solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in sight and US support for Israel keeps a bad situation static.

The reason for spending money on Iraq, and doing this in a way that gains hearts and minds - or at least does not alienate them - is that the pigeons noted at the time of the Iraq invasion have now truly come to roost. ISIS is in a position to reconfigure the Middle East in a way that is profoundly bad for US interests, and that provides a state sponsoring terrorism for real. Unlike the claims that Iraq under Saddam sponsored terrorism (wrong) and that Iran does this (nearly all wrong) ISIS is a highly efficient well funded military organisation that has developed terrorism to a high art and would without Western intervention have a strong base made of 1/2 Iraq and 1/3 of Syria.
williatw wrote:
tomclarke wrote:The problem - and it is this throughout the Middle East - is that poverty breeds terrorism. It also gives loathsome groups like ISIS, or bad but much less loathsome like Hammas, political advantage because they have money and logistics to provide aid on the ground.
We aren't going to solve the problem of poverty/Islamic extremism in the Middle East only they can do that. But if we are the only thing stopping it from becoming WWIII, then we need a sustainable model where we can intervene without bankrupting ourselves...that would be making them (Iraq, Saudis,etc.) pay us for their protection.

tomclarke wrote:If you think that taking money away from Iraq will remove it from corrupt politicians rather than increasing the poverty - and therefore lack of willingness to cooperate finding non-violent solutions - of half the population you are wrong.

The best you can have is strong political pressure to get a less bad leader - and that is what has been done.
I don't think taking money away from Iraq will improve it, that's not the point; we should be acting first and foremost in our (the US's) interest not Iraq's. If we are the only thing preventing the world from going to hell then it (our actions) have to be sustainable (from the point of serving our interests economic & political); no nation can continue to survive otherwise. Spending ourselves into bankruptcy will not help the world, and certainly not us. If you don't look after your own interest in this world, no one else will do it for you.

williatw
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by williatw »

tomclarke wrote:The reason for spending money on Iraq, and doing this in a way that gains hearts and minds - or at least does not alienate them - is that the pigeons noted at the time of the Iraq invasion have now truly come to roost. ISIS is in a position to reconfigure the Middle East in a way that is profoundly bad for US interests, and that provides a state sponsoring terrorism for real. Unlike the claims that Iraq under Saddam sponsored terrorism (wrong) and that Iran does this (nearly all wrong) ISIS is a highly efficient well funded military organisation that has developed terrorism to a high art and would without Western intervention have a strong base made of 1/2 Iraq and 1/3 of Syria.
Those are the reasons why we don't want ISIS to take over Iraq...the current Iraqi Shite government however faces doom from ISIS takeover far more immediately and far more personally than we do. Make it clear we will throw them to the wolves if they don't play ball on our terms. Use that, to make the Iraqi gov pay us to save them (and deal with a long term problem for us); have them beg us to save them, they will agree to almost anything to save their skins. We gain a sustainable answer to the problem of ISIS; if we have to have troops parked there for 30yrs a generous stipend paid for by the Iraqi's and Saudi's (possibly even Iran to) would help considerably selling the idea to the American public. Paid for either with cash, hard assets or maybe much cheaper oil from Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia; that would go over nicely as a political sell to the American Public, without whose support no long term solution is sustainable anyway. Their (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran's govs) running scarred, use that to our advantage; that's what great nations do; negotiate like you have a pair, not be some kind of putz country. Maybe that's why Putin etc. doesn't respect us so much.

Diogenes
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by Diogenes »

williatw wrote:
Diogenes wrote:The only thing I cared about was whether Saddam could create or already had an atomic weapon. Given the evidence available at the time, and given the risk posed by such a threat, Invading the country was exactly the right thing to do.


Once having established that the threat was not so great as we had been led to believe, we should have packed up most of our crap and left. That business of trying to re-engineer Iraqi society was utter bollocks, and we should have never attempted it. And that is where we went wrong.
That was your man Bush Junior that tried that ill-considered idea. His daddy had more sense making our allies (and the Saudis) pay us to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait..in spite of the incompetence of our ambassador April Glaspie that lead Sadam to think we didn't care if he invaded Kuwait.


You will not find me defending George W in this regard. I was very much against his efforts at social engineering at the time. I think i've mentioned more than once how I was screaming at the radio when I heard Paul Bremer was going to throw all Bathe Party members out of government and disband the Iraqi army. That idiocy turned out exactly the way I expected it to, and there was no rational reason for it.

As for Pappa Bush being correct, No. George HW should have made it a foundational part of the mission to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He did not because he was so worried about damaging his &^%*&)#* Coalition.


It was the same sort of idiocy that John F Kennedy committed when allowing the Invasion of Cuba to go ahead. He was so worried about what the rest of the world thought of him that he completely forgot what the important objective was.


As it turned out, since Saddam Hussein continued being a problem in the area, much of the country felt the job was bungled and unfinished. I think this contributed somewhat to his Defeat in 1992.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by Diogenes »

tomclarke wrote:The problem - and it is this throughout the Middle East - is that poverty breeds terrorism.


Poverty is one component of terrorism. Islam is another. I don't hear about too much terrorism coming from the poor non-Islamic parts of the world.



The foundational ideas of a culture have a great deal of impact on the eventual disposition of that culture.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by Diogenes »



Two of the Poison Ivy schools chiming in? Pretty good evidence that the opposite is true.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:
paperburn1 wrote:I seen that movie TOO, it was a radioactive dinosaur.
The radioactivity they emit causes cancer (depending). But we have a cure for that. If it was legal.



Yup. Marijuana is now a Saint's relic or something. It doesn't matter what is wrong with you, MJ will cure it!
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

hanelyp
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by hanelyp »

- I see the social order that tolerates terrorism breeding poverty.

- I see no way for a radical social engineering project to succeed without steady effort for as long as it takes for most adherents of the old order to die and be replaced by people educated in the new order.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

tomclarke
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by tomclarke »

Diogenes wrote:
tomclarke wrote:The problem - and it is this throughout the Middle East - is that poverty breeds terrorism.
Poverty is one component of terrorism. Islam is another. I don't hear about too much terrorism coming from the poor non-Islamic parts of the world.

The foundational ideas of a culture have a great deal of impact on the eventual disposition of that culture.
UK bombing of Dresden. Designed to demoralise Germany by causing civilian deaths.

UK and US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Aim to win the war through massive destruction of civilians. It worked.

Provisional IRA (supported by US) killing thousands in Northern Ireland. Enforcing control by torture (knee-capping anyone who got out of line).

Those are just the ones I know about from the UK!

Terrorism comes from:
political grievance
poverty
lack of effective rule of law
bad people

You need all four. Unfortunately there is no lack of bad people everywhere.

A lot of it is Muslim - and a lot of it is not. Human capacity for evil is in no way the province of one religion. In many cases (say Dresden) the line between terrorism and legitimate warfare is blurred. If you believe in the political struggle and remember the people who killed your family you are inclined to see acts of terror, if the only way to strike back, as legitimate. There is undoubtedly a fundamentalist Muslim ideology that encourages hatred of the other and terrorism. Just as there are fundamentalist Christian and Hindu ideologies that do the same.

Since there are a very large number of good Muslims in the UK (and I'm sure the US is the same) who are seriously religious (generally more serious than is the case for Christians) and whose religion encourages them to be peaceful, virtuous, and law-abiding, to treat their religion as evil is an act of sectarian religious stupidity that beggars belief.

And that attitude does more to encourage terrorism than anything else.

93143
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by 93143 »

tomclarke wrote:I guess there is an assymmetry - the Holy sites of all the book religions are in one place and this is and was dominated by Islam, so you get Christian incursions there in a manner that would not be reciprocated.
[*facepalm*]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmouk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_J ... _%28637%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80 ... ntine_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine% ... eljuq_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_co ... f_Hispania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

How did you suppose the Holy Land got "dominated" by Islam?

I'm not going to engage further right now. I don't have time.

tomclarke
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by tomclarke »

LOL. We are not talking here about which religion is associated with countries that have conquered (militarily) which countries. Rome, UK, US, France have all done pretty well. As did Byzantium, Egypt,...

The issue is do we find that lone non-Muslims in a Muslim country are treated worse than lone non-Christians in a Christian country.

My point was merely that you get a lot more of the first kind than the second, and therefore likely more bad treatment just because the numbers are higher. I truly don't know who is treated worse - in the times we talk of people could be tortured or killed on a whim, and whether you are treated well or badly depends on the local powers. To make a true comparison you would need a lot of detailed data. I'd be interested if you had that.
93143 wrote:
tomclarke wrote:I guess there is an assymmetry - the Holy sites of all the book religions are in one place and this is and was dominated by Islam, so you get Christian incursions there in a manner that would not be reciprocated.
[*facepalm*]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmouk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_J ... _%28637%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80 ... ntine_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine% ... eljuq_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_co ... f_Hispania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

How did you suppose the Holy Land got "dominated" by Islam?

I'm not going to engage further right now. I don't have time.

paperburn1
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Re: How to defeat ISIL

Post by paperburn1 »

The firebombing of Dresden was not designed to cause civilian deaths. It was to help the Russians.Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government center, and a key transportation point to the East.
It was intended to cause mass evacuations of the city which would slow/stop German reinforcement making a easy way to the eastern front. Also Dresden was the one of the few industrial base not yet hit by the allies. Its war efforts were in direct support of the eastern front.
Unfortunately our efforts worked far better than intended and the firestorm that happened caused many more civilian deaths than intended . The fires burned so brightly and hotly they literally used up all the oxygen to the point where humans would pass out from the lack of air, then burn to death. shortly after that firebombing was ordered not to be used and declared to be a war crime.
The physic behind what happened and how / why there were so many casualty is really quite fascinating .

But No, the intention was not to cause civilian causality but force a mass evacuation of the city. Dresden was not the first city nor the highest number of casualties. It was just taken up as a focal point for history revisionist.
In 1949 they ban firebombing to create a firestorm after evaluating the effects on the city's that had firestorms.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

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