It was brought up in the morning links (h/t: AmSoc), but deserves expanding upon.
The Nation is more concerned with making President Trump and his administration look foolish than they are about taking terrorism or counterterrorism seriously. And I have no doubt that Ariana Grande means well, but she’s dead wrong. Inclusiveness is no strategy to fight terrorism. It is a strategy to offer people an opportunity to assimilate to an enlightened western culture. Some people will take that opportunity, as evidenced by the millions of Muslims that live peacefully among people of other religions as well as agnostics and atheists throughout the western world. But some won’t. And you can be as inclusive as you want to be, but that won’t take away their desire to impose their beliefs upon everyone else, often resorting to terrorism when people aren’t receptive.
Juan Cole writes:
ecretary of Defense Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis said in an interview on Sunday that US strategy toward ISIL has moved from attrition to annihilation. Since 2014, he said, the United States has been making it difficult for them to stay in one place, disrupting them and chasing them out of their strongholds (through airstrikes). Now, he said, the new strategy is to surround them and kill them all, to prevent the foreign fighters from returning home to foment more terrorism. He also urged a battle of humiliation against them in cyberspace, depriving them of any mantle of legitimacy. He was unapologetic about the recent Pentagon finding that a US air raid set off explosives in a Mosul apartment building, killing over 100 civilians, and seemed to pledge more reckless airstrikes.
Certainly there is a case to be made for non-interventionism. But that’s not the case Ariana Grande is calling for. (If she were, I’d be happy to cheer her on.) She calls for inclusion. Now tell me, what possible good can come from being “inclusive” toward a regime built on terror? Can we “include” into western culture their belief that women caught without an escort should be stoned to death? Can we “include” into western culture their belief that gay men and women should be tossed to their death from the highest point in town? Can we “include” into western culture the taking of sex slaves when they conquer a city? And lastly, can we “include” into western culture the celebration of slaughtering innocent people in our cities because we resist the importation of their insane lifestyle? That’s not inclusion. That’s tolerance and acceptance of barbarism. We, as a society, are better than that. And while I believe we should remain non-interventionist when it comes to global meddling, once they import that activity to out nations, we should destroy those who would perpetrate those violences with every tool that is constitutionally available to us.
The strategy of annihilation is sort of like fighting forest fires with gasoline hoses.
Actually, its not. An enemy can be annihilated. It can be rooted out and extracted like a cancer. Sure it may pop back up again at a future date, but that doesn’t mean its not worth fighting to eradicate. And its a damn sight better to have tried and failed that to succumb to evil in any form. And I have to say, the strain of any religion that accepts massacring innocent people at a concert for the spread of it, or the killing of any gay person for the spread of it, or the taking of sex slaves and stoning of women not adequately subservient for the spread of it, deserves to be wiped from the face of the earth with all haste possible.
I will give him partial credit, though. He wrote this:
George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, in other words, created the exact conditions in that country that were guaranteed to foster terrorism. Washington has never come to terms with its own responsibility for destabilizing the region.
However, he completely omits the expanded war on terror Obama waged, expanding it to nations Bush never bombed. He fomented rebellion in Libya and Syria, directly leading to the soldiers, and in all likelihood the arms, necessary for ISIS to gain a foothold. He also forgets the overwhelming bipartisan support Bush and Obama both received to wage their wars in parts of the world that posed no threat to us. I’m sure it was an oversight and not a deliberate attempt to score cheap political points. But it deserves to be mentioned.
Look, there is no surefire way to prevent terrorism. But once it reaches our shores, the individuals carrying it out deserve to be treated harshly, so long as it is within constitutional limits. And people that are guests here who return to the battlefields of the middle east should be forbidden re-entry. We are under no obligation to “include” their idiocy any longer. Neither does Britain, Germany, Sweden or any other nation that chooses to eject those whose sole purpose is conquest through barbarism.
If this runs counter to open borders libertarianism, I’ll happily accept the scorn of those friends of mine on this one issue. But open borders can exist at the same time a strong counter-terrorism operation can be waged within the confines of our Constitution. And its time we allowed the warriors to stand up and properly defend us from those who are using “inclusive” appeasement as a means to infect our society with their oppressive, pre-enlightenment form of barbarism.
**The views in this are mine alone and do not represent the views of other Glibs staff.
Comments
134 responses to “The Nation Misses The Point on Counterterrorism”
Interesting turn of phrase there. Intentional?
Nope. Accidental. I’m not that clever.
I fixed it too.
Hmm, I was imagining it to be one who suddenly found itself in possession of 72 virgins, all of whom turn out to be their fellow bearded jihadis. Or goats. Goats would be funnier.
Or the front row at a Rush concert.
I keed! I keed!
Gawd. You’re sick. I’d take 72 bearded virgins over that.
<fx: mutters something about the personal hygiene being better>
How did Rush become the new Nickleback?
Generational thing. Rush was the punchline in the 80’s/90’s and I never evolved beyond 1995.
I’ll get off your lawn then
See here I thought Rush fans were the punchline.
Rush has sucked longer than the Nickleback guys have been alive.
So many Rickys here.
Going to concerts, smokin dope, working on cars. That brings back some memories. Except for the kidnapping part. Did some crazy stuff, no kidnapping though.
that episode is great.
“Play that Diane Sawyer song.”
xD
Don’t really count myself a fan, but The Trees is one of the most libertarian songs ever written.
Up until the evil, profiteering capitalists turn up, looking to make some Ikea-designed oak and maple side-tables.
Who here ever thought they’d see that? Show of hands…
Question: is a different guy running the AmSoc handle now? I thought it looked like it had changed hands back at the other place, but I wasn’t sure.
Original AmSoc got his handle stolen on the Other Site by current AmSoc, who is a libertarian troll who got sick of Original AmSoc’s bullshit and decided to mess with him, and Original AmSoc disappeared for a bit after that. Current AmSoc kept the name for some reason. On the Other Site The Artist Formerly Known as AmSoc (Original AmSoc) now posts under some variant of Gilmore now, for some reason.
GLIMORE, GlLMORE, etc.
Got it. That’s what I thought but I was never 100% sure.
It was some top notch trolling. It was annoying while it was happening, but It was pretty funny when “Current” scared “Original” away.
**The views in this are mina alone and do not represent the views of other Glibs staff.
I don’t know who mina is but she sounds like a grade A shitlord.
And now it looks like we’re gaslighting you.
FUCK IT WAS THERE I SWEAR TO GOD!!
Lay off the dope Vhyrus.
Shhh… Just lay down and rest sweetie. You’ve had a long day.
If we’re going to be “taking the fight” to others, we might as well try killing all the bad guys we meet and seeing what happens.
I’m for gtfo of the Middle East. As I said the other day though, if you’re going to do battle with people withing to blow themselves up along with innocent children, what other strategy so you have other than total annialation. We got kamikazes in WW2. We nuked a city and Japan did not surrender! We had to drop two and Japan is not that goddamn big. You think they would have ever stopped fighting without annialation or us surrendering to them?
There’s not even a good analog to the divine emperor who can surrender and take the wind out of the sails of most of the fighters.
True. I’m sure if any of the ISIS leadership wanted to make any sort of deal with the infidels, they wouldn’t keep their heads very long.
It will take a Muslim strong-man to get them back under control. A Qaddafi, Hussein, or Assad who will simply kill the worst of them and intimidate the rest into behaving. That means occasionally a rebellious town gets shelled into rubble, a big-mouth preacher gets killed or locked up, and strong-man generally makes himself scarier than the radical crazies.
I don’t see any other way that ISIS gets tamed short of genocide or liberal use of nukes.
That’s the only long term solution which is why we should let it happen. Let the Middle East sort it out and yes that means some bad men will be in charge. But once some group has real power and real territory they have something to lose. Someone with something to lose is someone you can deal with.
That is one of many reason that our bombing campaign against Qaddafi was the most fucking crazy, insane, stupid, misguided foreign policy move in history.
Yeah, and after he agreed to abandon he’s quest for nukes. That’s a great message to send.
Seriously, why does anyone think the North will ever give up its bomb program? What incentive does any State have to not develop weapons if it wishes to remain sovereign?
Good luck ever getting anyone else to give up a WMD program again.
Good thing we had some of that enlightened intelligent foreign policy at the time and not the dangerous cowboy stuff that causes Europe to make fun of us.
And, it was what started the big “refugee” influx into Europe. The Libyan refugees paved the way for the millions of faux-“Syrian” faux “refugees currently making Europe such a multi-cultural wonderland.
Not quite.
Gaddafi was way ahead of Erdogan with the “pay me tribute or I keep sending migrants your way” scheme.
Who collects some of the proceeds of that trade may have changed, but let’s not go crazy here.
Likewise the “nukes” argument – hand them over or not, he’d have still been deposed the same way. He didn’t have them even close to ready, and would have served as “if you have WMD program, you’ll be overthrown before it’s done” example.
As you show, Gaddafi kept a cork in the African immigration to Europe. When that cork was pulled, there was a lot more immigration sourcing from Libya, and it began to include people from other ME countries. I believe the “Syrians” saw how easy it was, and began blazing their own trails that were more direct. Maybe the wave of “refugees” from Libya didn’t affect the later wave from points east, but I think there’s some connection.
Likewise the “nukes” argument – hand them over or not, he’d have still been deposed the same way.
Probably, but its the sequence that matters. He was playing nice, and Powers and Obama fucked him in the ass anyway. So why would anyone else decide to play nice?
If I recall correctly, Quaddafi (wtf the current spelling is) started making nice after 9/11 and Iraq as he didn’t want to be that guy.
You have to think that if we were out of there, Iran would put some puppet regime in place in Shiite southern Iraq and then it would be pay back time against the Sunni ISIS. Iran happy to sit back and watch our boys die right now.
Iran has been sending troops and weapons to fight in Syria since the start, and by now their casualties probably dwarf the US ones (hard to tell, since they are all “volunteers”). But yes, their primary enemy is anti-Assad opposition, and ISIS can keep for later. Much like how anti-Assad opposition sees the situation, too. They all find having ISIS around much more convenient than not having it around.
Yeap, especially when they can use them to manipulate us.
A strongman would probably be the cleanest solution, involving the least lots of life. However, I think that attrition through conventional military action will eventually destroy ISIS as an institution.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a conventional war with ISIS is a good idea. Just that such a war would result in the rapid destruction of ISIS, at least in the military holding-ground sense. Destroying ISIS’ ability to conduct terror attacks is a whole different kettle of fish.
I think we should withdrawal all troops from there. Maintain intelligence and monitor all communications in and out of terrorist strongholds for any potential planned attacks against us.
You could have got a conditional surrender out of Japan without threats of annihilation, but that’s not an outcome that you want for a war of that scale, especially after a surprise attack.
Different wars, different strategies. Annihilation in the ISIS conflict is necessary for a different reason. ISIS is actually a major strategic misstep for Islamic terrorism, because it’s a transition from asymmetrical warfare (a method that has been highly efficient) to open, traditional warfare (which they’re garbage at). Suddenly now they have to worry about things like holding and administrating territory, collecting taxes, infrastructure, supply lines, etc. It exposes all sorts of ways to hurt their operations, and when you’re fighting an enemy that is really good at traditional warfare you’re going to hurt. It’s actually preferable to have fanatics travelling to an open conflict where they expose themselves than engaging in asymmetrical warfare at home. ISIS has only thrived for so long because it’s been fighting against Arabic armies and militias, i.e. some of the worst militaries on the planet. Neutralizing their followers now, when they’re exposed and in the open, is preferable to ISIS collapsing and everyone spreading out back to their countries for more asymmetrical warfare.
I’ve thought about that too. ISIS is dangerous only because they do so openly rally the fanatics across the globe and they act as the home office. Volunteers come in, get some combat training and experience and complete their indoctrination. Then they go back home to Europe, Canada, wherever, to recruit more volunteers, intimidate the local “moderate” Muslims, and maybe commit their own acts of terrorism.
The British government is guessing that over 400 ISIS veterans are back in the UK.
“ISIS is actually a major strategic misstep for Islamic terrorism”
At some point they had to go there though. That’s their ultimate goal. A new caliphate to bring back the Islamic empire (MIGA). That’s the dream they are selling to get all of these recruits in the first place.
Yes but it’s a lot easier to sell the idea on paper than to actually put it in place. Once you actually start to lay the basis of what your idea of an ‘Islamic state’ is the other fanatics also start to get bitchy because it’s not their idea. Al Qaeda is disgusted with ISIS, it’s why they’re a part of the Al-Nusra Front/Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, a group that regularly fights against them.
It combines all the problems of actually managing a state with having to deal with both your fellow fanatics that disagree with you and states who have been doing this whole ‘war’ thing for a lot longer than you. In short it’s Islamic terrorism at its weakest, which shows the fragility of the whole idea in the first place.
True, and I don’t think we have a strategy for a successful resolution. The regional powers will deal the situation. Not nicely but decisively. As long as we want to play nation builder, we’ll still be dicking around over there for a century.
As long as we want to play nation builder, we’ll still be dicking around over there for a century.
Especially since our idea of nation-building does not have room for the sorts of things you need to put ISIS under the ground.
Even if we did the assholes that take their place would no doubt be just as evil. That is the problem we face. The only people over there that aren’t evil assholes don’t have what it takes to hold power. However we choose as president just becomes a target. They need to pick their own evil asshole.
Even if we did the assholes that take their place would no doubt be just as evil.
Probably. As long as they keep their hands to themselves, I frankly don’t care.
Note, I am saying we don’t do nation-building, so we don’t choose whoever is president.
Of course, we didn’t do dick about nation-building in Libya, as far as I know, and its as big a problem as any of the places where we have tried.
“Probably. As long as they keep their hands to themselves, I frankly don’t care.”
Which I totally agree with. Unfortunately our nation building strategy won’t leave well enough alone.
A certain mercenary has his own ideas about how we should resolve these sorts of things. In Afghanistan< at least.
Mmm. Migas. The (A) pinnacle of the old “Melting Pot” philosophy.
After we get back from our upcoming trip to Buffalo, SP will help me do a how-to video on Texas’s greatest culinary contribution to the excessively hung over.
It’s a particularly stupid article because if they knew anything about, say, the last decade and a half of Mattis interviews and commentaries he constantly and consistently has said that diplomacy is the first course of action in any Middle Eastern process. But he also points out that some of these people have divisive agendas and are not interested in outcomes that benefit both parties. When their agendas are monstrous, destructive and a threat to the United States, then violence is the only response because violence is all you’ll get in return. To paraphrase: “no matter how much you ask them to stop these people will still torture girls for learning how to read.” I’ve never even seen the guy make a comment about Islam directly, and according to his book he thinks we’re basically fighting the same conflicts Alexander the Great did.
So The Nation is arguing that a nuanced view where negotiation is paramount and violence is recognized as necessary evil to combat actual horror is inferior to the vapid cooings of an idiot celebrity.
All you need is love
And a skirt halfway up your ass.
Sri Lanka won their civil war against the Tamil Tigers (who liked to use terrorism and kidnapped child-soldiers) by annihilating them. Years of half-hearted fighting, international negotiations, etc… resulted in nothing.
Hit post too soon.
Starting in 2006 and picking up momentum in 2008, the government just started driving the Tiger fighters out of each province moving north. By 2009, they were all dead or captured and the 26 year war was over.
Ok, the Sri Lankan government most likely went overboard in finishing off the tigers, and the reason why the tigers got uppity in the first place was because the Sri Lankan government tried to make being Tamil illegal. I understand how everyone fighting was an asshat, it’s war, the first casualty is always innocence. But how in the flying hell is the breakdown of the ceasefire the fault of the UK and the US? Fuck the UN.
Yep, after Sri Lanka woke up and realized that the “peace-process” was going to work for them as well as it worked for the South Vietnamese and Israelis, they said “fuck it” and killed all the Tigers.
Then, their country whole and at peace for the first time in a quarter century, the UN gets pissy and slaps them on the wrist.
This is how the UN deals with countries with internal strife.
I’m sitting on my couch, watching Netflix, and my neighbors on the west side of the street keep throwing molotov cocktails through my window, shooting at everyone on the east side of the street, capturing and killing their children.
The people on the east side of the street take up arms, and now the UN calls that “the cycle of violence”, labels the eastside residents who organized the resistance as “warlords” and demands they disarm. UN peacekeeping is the no-fault divorce state of diplomacy.
Having a case of “UN Peacekeepers” is a bit worse than a no-fault divorce.
For a start, the incidence of rape and cowardice tends to be far lower in the latter.
Imagine your ex taking up with someone who steals his or her money and pimps out your children.
That is basically how counter-insurgency campaign went in the Philippines. Not saying it was all right or that we should have been there, but it has proven to be an effective method.
So some other gentleman was kind enough to look through the “Nigel Farage is the newest Putin/Russia puppet, look over there, guys” story, for precisely the kind of things that I’m on the lookout for, saving me the effort:
Whoops, Putin hacked my brain and made me forget to close my blockquote.
*Reads through, scratches head*
Looks pretty sensible to me.
Then there is this, not so sensible: “He was unapologetic about the recent Pentagon finding that a US air raid set off explosives in a Mosul apartment building, killing over 100 civilians, and seemed to pledge more reckless airstrikes.”
I love that. Isis packs a building full of civilians and explosives then plants snipers on the roof to draw fire. When we bomb them, not knowing the civilians are there, in order to stop the snipers it is a reckless airstrike. I bet Juan Cole is a combat vet that knows exactly what he is talking about.
Just got this text. Maybe I should go. I don’t have a MAGA hat though.
“Hey this is Jackie J with Indivisible OH12! We’re organizing a massive March for Truth this Saturday at 10:00 AM. We’re sick of the lies from Trump! Are you free?”
Watch out for some paragon of progressive tolerance looking to start a conversation between your skull and a bike lock.
Sounds like a great way to get a mansplaining from a 9mm hollow point.
Yeah, I’m not someone people usually mess with.
The agenda. I’m 10 minutes away. Bonus, there is a pizza place I’ve been wanting to go to around the corner. I don’t really want to waste my Saturday trolling though.
http://progressohio.org/event/march-for-truth-columbus/
I actually agree with a couple of their points but I don’t think they want them universally applied.
Which lies are they talking about? Or do they just want him to admit to the crimes that CNN created for him?
I’m sure it won’t be theirs.
Are you free?
Nope. I’m American, instead.
This road has been traveled before. If you are curious where it leads…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdist_War
I just glanced over that link but here is what I remember – Tired of endlessly fucking around (what we are doing today) Kitchener came down on Sudan like a hammer. He killed anything that moved, razed Khartoum to the ground, killed the Mahdi, burned his body and scattered the ashes in the nile. If the war hadn’t started and caused Kitchener to have to go back to Scotland we probably would not be having the problems we are today.
Mattis is right. Annihilation is the only way to win this. Kill them all.
Some people will take that opportunity, as evidenced by the millions of Muslims that live peacefully among people of other religions as well as agnostics and atheists throughout the western world. But some won’t take that opportunity, as evidenced by the millions of Muslims that cannot live peacefully among people of their own religion or other religions.
Its hard, given the millions who do provide actual support and/or express agreement with the jihadis, that this isn’t a widespread cultural problem.
The strategy of annihilation is sort of like fighting forest fires with gasoline hoses.
You do know that setting backfires is a widely used tactic for fighting forest fires, and is damn near mandatory for any kind of controlled burn, yes?
Look, there is no surefire way to prevent terrorism. But once it reaches our shores, the individuals carrying it out deserve to be treated harshly, so long as it is within constitutional limits.
If only there was a way to reduce it from reaching our shores, short of glassing the entire Muslim world. . . .
“that this isn’t a widespread cultural problem.”
I’m certainly not going to argue that it is not a huge cultural problem, especially in the Middle East. It is important to keep in mind that over 20% of the world’s population (about 1.6 billion people) are Muslim. If even 1% of those were true hardcore jihadist, we would have a serious existential threat. Just a point, not a rebuttal.
Europe may well have an existential problem but that’s a different issue.
I’ve been arguing that point with people for years. Given the people, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they didn’t grasp math.
Sam Harris has argued very convincingly against the liberal trope that, “Jihadis are a tiny tiny minority of muslims”, ergo no one should be concerned about Islam writ-large.
He’s pointed out that when you’ve polled many so-called “moderate” muslim populations, huge swaths – anywhere from 30% to 60% – express agreement with ideas like “Apostate regimes do not have legitimacy”, or “Blasphemers should be killed without trial” or “Suicide bombers are generally justified”…. or many many other ‘completely contrary to basic Western values’ ideas
as the joke goes =
“A radical islamist wants to cut your head off”
“A moderate islamist wants a radical islamist to cut your head off”
I don’t think this is quite the same as the standard Yokel claim that Islam itself, or “all muslims” are inherently a problem. But i think it is far more-accurate than the lefty idea that “Terrorists aren’t really muslims” or that certain aspects of Islam have anti-western political ambitions.
A second point which endlessly needs reminding =”Islam” as referenced here isn’t simply a ‘religion’ in a Western sense. Islam is a civilization which *includes* various religious groups, and many competing identities and political interests.
I do think that a distinction can be drawn between people who actually practice the faith and people who just say, “yeah, I believe in Allah,” but don’t live according to their holy book in any way whatsoever. The second group I consider to be much closer to atheists than anyone else.
of course. That’s not really what i’m talking about tho.
In many ways the “islam” i’m talking about is mostly unconcerned with the subject of “personally held religious views”.
as an example of what i mean – CIA/FBI and Israeli interrogations with terrorists they’ve caught/captured (e.g. failed suicide bombers, or wounded jihadis on battlefield) have found that a surprisingly high proportion of these jihadi types either “grew up largely secular” or never actually spent very much time devoted to the religion at all (a large number had only been converted within recent years).
In fact, if they were given trivia questions on basic Islamic “beliefs” they would often get things wrong. They were hardly ‘muslim’ at all from the POV of religious qualifications.
Yet at the same time they would announce their conviction and willingness to die in the *name* of Islam. and profess their desire to bring about a muslim caliphate, and to see infidels brought to heel.
The difference here is that the “Islam” they’re talking about is the conception of their society and civilization. Not the mere-religion; its their entire culture which they see as embodied in the concept of Islam. They themselves *are* Islam, as far as they’re concerned = its part of what they represent. its a civilization they see themselves defending.
this is the problem with the Western POV. We see Islam as just another “religion”, and that religion is a thing separate and subservient to Government or politics or law or culture, etc. That distinction is completely missing in the concept of Islam as a civilization.
Oh, that’s actually pretty interesting. Thanks for the insight, Gilmore. I’ve liked what I’ve heard/seen from Sam Harris, I’ll have to check out a bit more of his work.
”Islam” as referenced here isn’t simply a ‘religion’ in a Western sense
I think the misunderstanding that it is a religion much like Christianity that drives much of the mistaken belief that “Islam isn’t the problem”. Islam, unlike Christianity or other major religions, is a totalizing belief system. It requires that everything be subjected to it – civil society, government, family life, etc. Westerners think of religion as something you leave at the chapel door after an occasional visit. Islam doesn’t work like that.
My impression is that the only way a true believer Muslim can assimilate into a Western society in any meaningful sense is to stop being a true believer.
^this.
That’s what I’m talking about with people who say “I believe in allah,” but completely ignore the tenants of the faith. Even though they say they are – they’re not muslim, they’re not islamists.
This is why many westerners think that islam is a religion of peace – they see their well-adjusted neighbors working middle-high class jobs and think that muslims from ultra-poor Lybia or Afghanistan are totally the same.
This is why many westerners think that islam is a religion of peace
Well, that and they’ve had bad translation (hint: its more “submission” than “peace”) jammed down their throats for years.
*Modern Christianity
Christianity in the 8th-17th Century was a different animal.
I think (as per my above comment) this is mostly right, but articulated incorrectly.
Islam is not a “belief system” which “subjects” all those other things. Islam is a civilization with institutions and history and culture AND a range of belief systems within it.
You’re still categorizing Islam as primarily a religion, albeit a religion which dominates its civilization. I think its the other way around – identification with Islam-as-Civilization comes before the ‘religion’, which is ultimately subordinate. Necessary but not sufficient.
This may sound like irrelevant, pedantic niggling, but i think its actually important. (*it mostly comes from Sam Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”, fwiw) I think the confusion of “Islam” as merely a religion is part of the Western inability to understand why we’re having a conflict in the first place.
I think it also helps explain why i disagree with your last statement. I think mere-“muslims” who grow up in the West, who’ve effectively adopted Western civilization, generally aren’t a problem at all. they can indeed be “true believers” in islam; its just that they no longer see Islam itself as a entity which supercedes all Western Society. Its just a religion. You might argue that the koran says they should kill nonbelievers etc. But the bible has similar demands which “true christians” ignore in the West. What the book says simply doesn’t matter in the same way when you’ve accepted the superstructure of Western society. By contrast, if you believe Islam (the civilization) is at War with that Western construct, then what the book says is a wonderfully convenient excuse to go on a kill-spree.
“By contrast, if you believe Islam (the civilization) is at War with that Western construct, then what the book says is a wonderfully convenient excuse to go on a kill-spree.”
Exactly. Religion is just a justification for what they want to do anyways, and it helps them to recruit ignorant people to the cause. The same thing happened in early Christianity. A lot of atrocities committed in the name of God that had much more earthly motivations. You can customize scripture to your convenience. Lots of cults start this way.
Islam is not a “belief system” which “subjects” all those other things. Islam is a civilization with institutions and history and culture AND a range of belief systems within it.
I don’t disagree with this, as I’m not sure the distinction really makes a difference. Islam was started as a religion (interesting theory – it is the evolution of the Arian heresy booted out of Christianity at Nicaea). Its current status as a “civilization” is the end result of its totalizing nature.
It does when the left wants to claim that “Islam isn’t the problem”, because they’re reducing an entire civilization to the question of religion.
They are right that the mere-religion isn’t the problem = but its the wider Islamic civilization which is in conflict with the west. Islamic political movements, islamic identities, etc.
I’d disagree for many reasons. it presumes without the religion you’d lose most of the rest of the features of the civilization, when i think the nature of the religion itself was influenced by the culture and social facets of arab society.
Basically, you’re claiming “religion” is the sine que non, without which the other features couldn’t exist. I think that’s a hard case to make given that ‘Secularized’ Egypt + Iraq + Syria have produced just as rabid jihadis as Theocratic Saudi Arabia. and that (as noted above) many (if not most) of these jihadis turn out to have a relatively superficial relationship with the religion itself.
The left would argue that ISIS isn’t really islamic because of this – or that its a “perversion of islam”. When they say this, they’re trying to basically ‘wash the hands’ of the religion, and absolve it of responsibility, and pretend that there’s “some other thing” (not-Islam) which makes these crazy people do crazy things.
The point that they miss is that ISIS et al are entirely islamic – its just that mere-religion is not “all of islam”
Ah, good points, G.
It seemed to me from that interview that Harris was basically saying that 30-60% believe basically in Sharia Law (and all of the human rights violations that go with it) which is no doubt a barbaric 8th Century way of thinking. We of course also see massive human rights violations in communist countries as well. We don’t have the resources nor the ability to police what these people do in their own countries. Our concern is obviously with terrorism against us
(leaving immigration for another argument). I’m not going to argue his numbers, but I did not see data that indicated that large percentages of Muslims support blowing up little girls at concerts.
Yes. He’s discussed in other contexts (like his podcasts) some of the other topics i was talking about.
Pew Poll = Is Suicide Bombing of civilian targets a legitimate way to defend Islam from its enemies?
low end in the mid-teens (Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia), high-end in the 40-65% range (Gaza, Bangladesh)
Well we know they don’t value human life the same way we do. “To defend Islam from it’s enemy’s” is a defensive statement. That puts them in a me or them state of mind. That still obviously doesn’t justify that response from our pov. It also doesn’t cost them anything to say that. What percentage of muslims have carried out suicide bombings against civilians. That’s the more relevant number.
The thing that actually stands out the most for me is the fact that the question specifies “targeting civilians”
I am not as sanguine as you re: the implications of large numbers of people saying, “yeah, its ok to murder civilians en masse as long as they’re not muslims”
Also = If you actually still subscribe to the idea that Islam = “just a Religion”, its far harder to explain how a religion can have enemies. Which survey respondents apparently had no problem believing.
The question presumes that “Islam” can be attacked and harmed. Not “muslims”, but Islam itself. which is a bizarre concept if you believe that Islam is just a body of ideas within a religion.
If you believe, like i do, that Islam actually represents their collective social, supra-national, civilizational Identity, and that it exists in opposition to “The West”, much the same way the US and Soviets did in the Cold War, it makes a lot more sense.
Yes, I agree with that. Islam is an identity much more than just a religion. I’m not trying to be sanguine about it nor am I trying to be an apologist. I agree that it’s an atrocious thing to say. What I’m saying it that while the beliefs of a large percentage of them may well be f’d up that has not translated into a large percentage engaging in actual terrorism. So their committment to those beliefs seem to stop short of any action on their part. Are they answering the question that way because it’s expected of them, it as a warning to not mess with them, or because they’re actually willing to blow themselves up. Certainly those attitudes do foster a breeding ground for bad actors. But the fact remains the percentage of active participants is miniscule compared to the number of adherants. Are we going to bomb them all for having ignorant beliefs that that the vast majority don’t act on? I’m not saying we should sweep that shit under the table either. We should be honest about it. But we should also have some perspective on the actual threat which is not the majority of Muslims dispite they’re literal interpretation of the Koran.
from Juan Cole’s piece
after a quick google to remind myself who Juan Cole was (his name seemed familiar)
Oh, right. He was one of the vigorous defenders of the Iraq Invasion.
What else might this guy have recommended in the past?
Oh right = he was a bullish advocate for overthrowing Libya
Iraq hawk, Libya hawk…. now blames ISIS on “Blowback”
Top Men.
You can journalist better than WaPo. Quick, go get us that Russian Trump connection while you’re at it.
Sort of OT: A German family friend came into town and we started discussing immigration issues in Germany and the Merkel government. The family friend isn’t anti-immigrant but she did express some sort of bitterness that they are having lots and lots of Muslims moving to Germany and not conforming to their culture and living on the dole having babies after babies. On top of not conforming to their culture, her and other Germans feel that the current Muslim population want to force their values down their throats and throw a bitch fit whenever a German tells them to fuck off. Also, there has been problems of rape that the German government refuses to address which is another source of bitterness.
I mean one day the German people are going to get tired of this shit but right now are too scared to do anything about it because of their past.
The tide will certainly turn eventually, and things are going to get ugly. It’ll be a random event, and no one will see it coming. When it happens, I think we’ll all know.
I used to stream some videogames on twitch and most of my viewers were in Europe. Every single one that discussed this subject with me said that the immigrants are wrecking their neighborhoods and causing crime to increase.
Personally, I don’t know that Europe has the social capital to change its slow-motion conquest by Muslims. I think it may already be too late, absent an exercise in ethnic cleansing that I just don’t see happening.
“Europe” is too broad for this discussion, as while it seems quite likely that France, Germany, and Sweden will succumb to the caliphate, I don’t see any chance of the easterners succumbing and there’s probably a good chance the UK will withstand the movement as well.
UK? Don’t bet on it. The Bulldog Breed is heavily mutt nowadays.
Fair point, Gad. Western Europe may be a goner. Eastern Europe has a shot.
An interesting take.
Sean Davis is collecting takes so hot they can barely be handled.
Twitter is exploding in impotent rage. Behold the glory.
Those are so delicious I don’t think I need to eat lunch.
Scroll down. I love the email where Hillary insists on taking a separate plane from Michelle to attend, I believe, a funeral.
So, they’re actually going with the old journalism joke “world to end, women and minorities hardest hit”, but for real?
Yep. The left has become a complete parody of itself. Spacetime folds and a new singularity of ultimate derp forms around it, orbiting the progosphere like some foul moon.
It’s hard to believe that they can get dumber but there seems to be no limit on their derptardness.
One of the replies claims “Trump’s decision to pull out of the #ParisClimateAccord will
disproportionately harm women”
Which, if true, would necessarily imply that adhering to the accord would
disproportionately *benefit* women. I suspect without further evidence
that the poster thereof hasn’t really thought of that though.
It’s official! US is out of the Paris Agreement. For this one day, I’ll pull out the 4chan God-King memes to celebrate this decision.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-To8–L-rrQ4/Vy9rwZ9q3VI/AAAAAAAADEU/aJ_61aec_xsTUbCw3ey67gWhXZg9iYg9gCLcB/s1600/trump-angel-warrior-618×403.jpg
http://www.infostormer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Trump-Emperor1.jpg
ACLU Opposes Maine Bill Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation
If anyone thought that the ACLU didn’t need to finally be put out of its misery.
Civil liberties for them, not for us. Goes to show you that Reason’s dream of a libertarian-left civil liberty alliance is nothing but a wishful mirage.
It must be strangled in the cradle. Any gains we’ve made will be lost to cozying up to the left. The left deserves only annihilation. Let it die.
After dealing with two terms of palace guard media under Obama, it’s just mystifying to see the actions of folks who should know better.
I wonder how Ms. Amarasingham would feel if it happened to her?
They actually said this:
I just can’t even.
So NOW they get all small government?
You mean passing a law that might just “save one child” wouldn’t be worth it?
Good to know, ACLU. Good. To. Know.
The idea that uncles and cousins will flood in to avenge their ISIS relatives strikes me as highly unlikely. You cannot convince me that the supply of people who are willing to support ISIS’s abhorrent practices is unlimited. Kinship only goes so far.