Islamic State discussion

[Dresta]

let me just add, this is all not subordinate to the fact but in spite of the violent jihadist theocratic nature of isis itself. it's a hideous organization that is guided by a depraved ideology. in other words, it's extreme.

this begs the question; why is northern syrians and iraqis supporting it? if it's because of a fervent belief in the doctrine itself, that's a very serious problem that might - MIGHT - justify the use of military force. but if it's for some other reason or a whole collection of reasons, including some mentioned in this thread, then THOSE are the issues that need to be seriously examined.

as it happens, serious examination has taken place though you rarely hear about it. there is a dynamic we've seen in the past few decades in the middle east where broad popular factions sympathize with islamic jihadists but disapprove of both their fundamentalism and their tactics. you see it with hamas and the palestinians, you see it in afghanistan from the 80s during the russian invasion all the way to the present with the mujhahadeen, you see it throughout north africa particular prior to the arab spring. and you can see it currently with isis.

people sympathize because its a nationalist resistance movement. and when western powers ignore these views and impose catastrophic foreign policy throughout the region, and then other regional powers invest the same way, you get social breakdown and upheaval and occasionally civil war.

No it isn't: it's an imperialist movement derived from religious ideology and its conferment of the divine right to rule on those who seek power over other people; it seeks the reestablishment of the caliphate, where rule is determined not by national customs, but a barbaric religious morality that many had human beings had long discarded due to their destructive and illiberal nature. It is the most reactionary geopolitical force present in the world right now, and it is drawing in Islamic lunatics from around the world (not simply from Iraq or Syria) - it cannot be defined nationalistically, it just can't.

[LJJ]

i don't see your point ljj. islamicist groups may be advocating social measures in certain cases which are an improvement over the dictatorships and military juntas that have governed each of the countries you mentioned since the second world war. and obviously there is overlap between fundamentalists and progressives. but what's your evidence for assuming that were the country to fall into the hands of the young generation you're describing, it would be more repressive and violent than regimes that have dominated in the past... much of the time with western support?

i agree with the premise that not every counterculture is the same. but we need to look comparatively at history and popular polling and see how people actually feel. and then as citizens of countries with significant interests in the region, act accordingly.

There is no specific point. Just clearing some misconceptions. The Islamic world is not suddenly going to turn into a secular, liberal society any time soon. All these countries are moving towards becoming a theocracy, even Turkey.

And IS is not some kind of backwards, extremist outlier. It's not a fad either, and their ideology is not fringe. They actually are trendsetters and populists.

[RidonKs]

No it isn't: it's an imperialist movement derived from religious ideology and its conferment of the divine right to rule on those who seek power over other people; it seeks the reestablishment of the caliphate, where rule is determined not by national customs, but a barbaric religious morality that many had human beings had long discarded due to their destructive and illiberal nature. It is the most reactionary geopolitical force present in the world right now, and it is drawing in Islamic lunatics from around the world (not simply from Iraq or Syria) - it cannot be defined nationalistically, it just can't.

the bolded is not true. it's extreme, maybe the most extreme of any groups with real significance, but it's not the most reactionary. demonstrating that would be a long digression though.

you should look at your own words. i'm curious what you believe they're reacting to / against.

regardless, i'm aware of the doctrine. you're right, its vision cannot be defined nationalistically. but the fact remains isis has been so successful and so consistently in the news because it has popular support in parts of the country and funding from other regional interests. that different people support it for different reasons is patently obvious. equally obvious is that for many people, a significant factor is nationalistic in character.

thus, it can and needs to be evaluating through a nationalistic lens. as well as an economic lens, as well as a cultural lens, etc etc etc.

you aren't doing that. you're consumed with the ideology and not plugged into the facts on the ground, which as always carry much more weight.

[RidonKs]

The Islamic world is not suddenly going to turn into a secular, liberal society any time soon.

perhaps not. the middle east has been devastated and mangled by foreign intervention for decades now. the dependence on fuel resources is completely unsustainable. and the fundamentalism is dangerous.

nevertheless, you'd be blind to fail to see movement in that direction in certain areas, with certain groups, etc. it's plagued in violence but there are "green chutes" to use the phrase of i think bill clinton.

[East_Stone_Ya]

Islamic State has global ambitions

EMMA ALBERICI: The Islamic State has also - you mentioned North Africa and its inroads there. It has also reportedly made some ideological inroads into Indonesia. So now you have young men and women carrying the IS flag through towns and villages in the world's largest Muslim state. How much of that - how much of a concern is that, given the proximity to Australia?

DAVID KILCULLEN: Well I think it is a concern and it was interesting to see - somewhat disturbing to see Abu Bakar Bashir, the head of Jemaah Islamiah, make those comments this last week suggesting that they need to think about supporting the Islamic State rather than al-Qaeda. Although it's also worth noting that he got a lot of pushback from even within the other jihadi groups within Indonesia. I think that jihadist groups in Indonesia generally have a very low level of support, dramatically lower, actually, than you see in really any other country or any other region in the world, but of course you don't need a numerically large number of supporters to be able to pose a significant terrorist threat. So I think it's a real threat, but I think there's dangers in overblowing it and potentially alienating significant numbers of people.

I think the real areas where IS is gaining adherence right now are in Yemen, in Somalia, other parts of Africa, Libya, into West Africa in the Sahel and that, to my mind, is actually the real dangerous area of this kind of expansion of the Islamic State. It's worth pointing out, though, that one of the reasons why the Islamic State is currently gathering adherence - it's like a snowball rolling downhill - its military success and the momentum that that generates causes people to join the movement. Should that military success be broken, I think that the magnetic effect of the Islamic State would dissipate to some extent.

EMMA ALBERICI: What's the relationship between al-Qaeda and IS?

DAVID KILCULLEN: Horrible. They hate each other. And in fact, one of the issues is that when the war in Syria broke out, al-Qaeda, that is, Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, designated Jabhat al-Nusra, which is a group that's fight fighting the Assad regime in Syria, as the kind of designated al-Qaeda organisation in Syria and directed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of IS, to go back into Iraq and focus on Iraq and ISIS basically said, "No, we're not going to do that, we're going to continue to operate in Syria." Al-Qaeda sent a number of mediators to try to resolve that dispute and one of them was killed in the conflict. And Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda group, has actually been fighting IS, like, with bullets on the ground in Syria over the past year or so in a number of clashes. So they're not only political enemies, they are active military opponents in Syria. And, you know, the view has been that Islamic State was even too extreme for al-Qaeda. I think that's not quite the right way to see it. Al-Qaeda is as brutal and as extreme as it ever has been, but it's a power struggle, it's a turf struggle between these two groups. I think al-Qaeda's future right now more heavily centres on Afghanistan and on what's about to happen as international forces leave the country in the next year. And the possibility of a similar collapse and loss of leverage in Afghanistan after we pull out that we've already seen in Iraq is probably the best hope for al-Qaeda right now that it could sort of bounce back after the international forces leave Afghanistan. And to some extent it's leaving the turf of the Middle East to IS right now because of their military success in Iraq.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/conte...4/s4066750.htm

[Dresta]

the bolded is not true. it's extreme, maybe the most extreme of any groups with real significance, but it's not the most reactionary. demonstrating that would be a long digression though.

you should look at your own words. i'm curious what you believe they're reacting to / against.

regardless, i'm aware of the doctrine. you're right, its vision cannot be defined nationalistically. but the fact remains isis has been so successful and so consistently in the news because it has popular support in parts of the country and funding from other regional interests. that different people support it for different reasons is patently obvious. equally obvious is that for many people, a significant factor is nationalistic in character.

thus, it can and needs to be evaluating through a nationalistic lens. as well as an economic lens, as well as a cultural lens, etc etc etc.

you aren't doing that. you're consumed with the ideology and not plugged into the facts on the ground, which as always carry much more weight.

Look, firstly you do not know what reactionary means if you think that. They desire a return to 8th-9th century barbarity and imperialism, and that is about as reactionary as you get, thank you very much.

A 'nationalistic' lens is a meaningless concept in a region that is not divided along the lines of nationhood or ethnicity. There is no need for a 'nationalistic lens' and any attempt to analyse the situation as such is thoroughly nonsensical. Ideology is the driving force behind this behaviour, and if you cannot see that then you are simply blind to the facts and to world history. Religious and quasi-religious (e.g. Marxism, Nazism etc.) ideologies are needed to justify such barbaric behaviour - and it is the individuals who peddle such sophistries, and who purport to be capable of moulding societies to their own design, who routinely create some of the most barbarous conditions the modern world has ever seen time and time again. Fanatical ideological belief is what lies at the foundation of this kind of suffering, and it always has been. But you will of course ignore this because it does not fit with the traditional loving leftist political agenda that deems all human beings cuddly little teddies at heart, made wicked by the darned environment of exploitation from which they arose.

[RidonKs]

you've pretty much got me pegged. and i suppose we fundamentally disagree. no sense getting into a long dialogue about human nature on insidehoops.

the difference between us is i'm talking about current affairs. you're generalizing.

i made reference to a whole host of facts (that i can source for you if you're interested) that i believe are highly relevant to western foreign policy in the region which has now reached the extreme of airstrikes. that policy needs to be justified. it hasn't been.

all you can do is paint the entire region with a broad religious / sectarian brush and then point to your picture and say this is the way it is. you need to offer evidence to support your theory. this is serious business and lives are at stake in a highly unstable and very significant region of the world.

of course not everybody is a teddy bear. i don't believe that. there are many dangers in the world. but the most important thing WE can do isn't to denounce and decry and defame, no matter how legitimately we can justify our indignation. that's what i see primarily from western intellectuals who talk about this stuff.

we need to look at OUR policies and ensure they're pragmatic and morally justifiable. it's a rare case to find that they are often either of those. on the pragmatic side, there are threats to be neutralized. but support for rogue militant fundamentalist elements throughout the middle east and west asia isn't just senseless and morally unjustifiable policy, it has had the effect of exacerbating the threat. and the other day bill clinton came out and called obama's unwillingness to syrian rebels a failure.

and to answer the question you're about to beg, no, it isn't all our fault or anything of the sort. but the only effect we can have is on our policy. not theirs. and at the moment, "our" is defined for me by my canadian citizenship which is under crucial influence from the american government, leader of the free world and dominant in force and diplomacy internationally and with a bevy of state allies around the world sympathetic to its intentions, whatever they may be.

[senelcoolidge]

Can someone have enough balls and stand up to these people. Atomize them. Erase them from history. The world will be a better place without them. The regular people in the Middle East and all over the world will have less worries.

[RidonKs]

Can someone have enough balls and stand up to these people. Atomize them. Erase them from history. The world will be a better place without them. The regular people in the Middle East and all over the world will have less worries.

because they aren't all sitting in one ****ing giant stadium you idiot

[senelcoolidge]

because they aren't all sitting in one ****ing giant stadium you idiot

yes we all know that dummy. but it can be done if people cooperate. Why does the United States have to do everything most of the time. I like that France is taking some of these non-Muslim refugees. The U.S. should do the same rather than allowing so many illegal aliens from the southern border. It seems like our leaders who should be really smart defy logic in their actions...money talks.

[RidonKs]

yes we all know that dummy. but it can be done if people cooperate. Why does the United States have to do everything most of the time. I like that France is taking some of these non-Muslim refugees. The U.S. should do the same rather than allowing so many illegal aliens from the southern border. It seems like our leaders who should be really smart defy logic in their actions...money talks.

you're reducing an unbelievably complicated operation, importing human beings who aren't crazy suicidal jihadists, to "oh this country needs to accept more of them". that's silly, no? american immigration policy should be a barrier to prevent mexican immigration and open arms for peaceful muslims? no, that's a bad plan on top of the fact that it's completely impractical

[Godzuki]

i made reference to a whole host of facts (that i can source for you if you're interested) that i believe are highly relevant to western foreign policy in the region which has now reached the extreme of airstrikes. that policy needs to be justified. it hasn't been.

.

u should start being more explanatory with examples since you're always saying stuff like this. Like you can do this and that but not bothering, or just never being fully detailed, almost purposely cryptic.

Also you should try taking some blame, or spreading it around some, instead of putting it all entirely on America constantly. There are reasons why we go into these places, and a lot of that fault lies on your people, the people around them, and how there is always some issues we end up getting involved in because it affects us, or the security of neighbors/world.

I constantly see a few posters here always sympathetic to Iran like they aren't that bad, pretending to use their President as their leader, which again is not being fully honest/aware....or how its always the US's fault for all of the middle easts problems, acting like Islamic extremists don't affect anyone other than in their countries. They are rarely honest about the Palestinian vs Israeli issues only talking about the human shield losses without mentioning the Hamas aspect.

There is just so much disingenuous with many of you who constantly expect the rest of us to be sympathetic to the anti US side IMO. We're not perfect but we do try to help in many situations we don't really have to, which is more than i can say for the rest of the countries in this world. All of the demonization's of us are incredibly one sided ignorance in everything i've ever read from the posters here.

[Brizzly]

I was just reading up on the ISIS leader and found a month old reports that claims Abu Bakr was trained and educated by the Mossad and British intelligence.

I myself think this is a load of bullcrap, mostly because the sources comes from the Snowden files, which yet hasn't been released.

What do yall think about this?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/isis-le...reveal/5391593

http://www.infowars.com/nsa-doc-reve...ligence-asset/

[RidonKs]

u should start being more explanatory with examples since you're always saying stuff like this. Like you can do this and that but not bothering, or just never being fully detailed, almost purposely cryptic.

Also you should try taking some blame, or spreading it around some, instead of putting it all entirely on America constantly. There are reasons why we go into these places, and a lot of that fault lies on your people, the people around them, and how there is always some issues we end up getting involved in because it affects us, or the security of neighbors/world.

I constantly see a few posters here always sympathetic to Iran like they aren't that bad, pretending to use their President as their leader, which again is not being fully honest/aware....or how its always the US's fault for all of the middle easts problems, acting like Islamic extremists don't affect anyone other than in their countries. They are rarely honest about the Palestinian vs Israeli issues only talking about the human shield losses without mentioning the Hamas aspect.

There is just so much disingenuous with many of you who constantly expect the rest of us to be sympathetic to the anti US side IMO. We're not perfect but we do try to help in many situations we don't really have to, which is more than i can say for the rest of the countries in this world. All of the demonization's of us are incredibly one sided ignorance in everything i've ever read from the posters here.

i haven't just not been cryptic in this thread and others i've participated in, i've been completely explicit. as i've said before, if you want sources to back up any of my claims, you should feel free to ask. i'll provide them or search them out if need be.

i also haven't been shy to accept full responsibility for my actions, as any rationally thinking person should. my responsibility lies primarily with my citizenship with regard to this particular issue, and as a canadian living in a democracy, i'm very concerned with the current administration which has demonstrated a real nasty streak since it got into office and has pursued objectives i personally find unsettling.

and i also have somewhat of a responsibility to use my energies to act on my beliefs in whatever way i can. i probably don't commit enough of my energies to international affairs since i'm much more active locally, but i do my best. but i certainly ensure i'm properly informed before i decide on acting.

as an american, you have a responsibility for american policy. you do live in a free country with a vaguely democratic system. you need to act.

as for people who sympathize with american enemies... that shouldn't concern you. literally, it shouldn't. it may annoy you but so do mosquitoes. if you think people are disengenuously representing themselves as part of the counter culture and likes cheering against the authorities, **** them. they are as inauthentic as supporters of the gop. or maybe they're iranian emigrants. who knows.

that's not what i talk about in these threads. ever. i'm interested in the facts on the ground and how our powerful state governments that are nominally under democratic control should properly respond in the most pragmatic and sympathetic way. for peace, justice, and most of all, freedom.

[Patrick Chewing]

Terrorists giving Islam a bad name

Hope they burn in hell

Islam gives Islam itself a bad name. This kind of radical ideology has been allowed to flourish under Islam rule for many years. If Islamic leaders across the globe did anything about it, we wouldn't have these kind of problems, at least in this large a scale.