So long as condemnation of the attacks is all those Muslim countries offer, there are over 5 million people with arms who supposedly hate ISIS, but won’t do shit about it.
Go to 7:00 in the video.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Very interesting. The Kingdom is trying really hard to jump aboard the PR bandwagon.
Although, if I wanted to be pedantic, I could point out that they took great pains to avoid the replication of the French Tricolore, opting for two colors or a very wide spacing. Pretty sure the Tricolore would be “idolatrous”.
Nevertheless, one must not ignore their definition of terrorism which differs wildly from ours.
[quote]loppar wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
How we never should have left 400,000 Baathists in Iraq unemployed, stripped of their pensions, but still armed and with military training, and so many of them have become part of ISIL…"
[/quote]
Actually, this part is completely true. Saddam’s Iraq, like Assad’s Syria, functioned as a bloated socialist economy where minority sunnis were running the show, paid for inefficient make believe work in the government apparatus and the military who were bought off with subsidized prices for gas and basic foodstuffs.
And then you suddenly fire all those sunnis, including hundreds of thousands of pissed of soldiers who in the general chaos absconded with their weapons. Ten years later, they’re naturally part of the nastiest sunni militia around…
Small privileges and a sense of belonging to a powerful minority elite are a BIG motivator, and people will go to great lengths to defend them. The wars in ex-Yugoslavia showed a similar tendency in a different cultural context. [/quote]
Agree, loppar. It seems like a bad idea to leave Iraq like that, right? At least in hindsight, knowing how many of the unemployed Baathists would find themselves involved with ISIL. Still, we’re now 12 years post invading Iraq, never mind looking at exactly who pulled us out of Iraq once we went in. I was just a bit frustrated to hear someone want go back and blame our part in the Iraq war for the Paris attacks, as if nothing was happening before 2003.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
…My hubs is reading a book about the French Foreign Legion set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, about Muslim jihadists in North Africa. It’s not new, and unfortunately, it’s not a war we will see an end to in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
This is so important. The fundamentals of this conflict are not considered much of the time.
For crying out loud, President Jefferson, and European countries, were dealing with this conflict circa 1800, a mere 11 years after ratification of the Constitution.[/quote]
Or, if you’re Ben Carson, from the times of the Old Testament.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
…I’m not going to hold your hand…
[/quote]
Euphemism for “well, not ‘every’.”
But even with your error it is evident that the attacks were condemned in a major manner.
Carry on.
[/quote]
Look for yourself. I’m not your research assistant. You were clearly off base when you labeled my claim as “outlandish”. All the countries on your list (and some that were not) provided statements of condemnation.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
…My hubs is reading a book about the French Foreign Legion set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, about Muslim jihadists in North Africa. It’s not new, and unfortunately, it’s not a war we will see an end to in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
This is so important. The fundamentals of this conflict are not considered much of the time.
For crying out loud, President Jefferson, and European countries, were dealing with this conflict circa 1800, a mere 11 years after ratification of the Constitution.[/quote]
Yeah. Push, there’s a big gap in what most Americans understand about history. At least in my experience, we focused much more on Western conflicts, and the history of the US. Really, most of what I know about the middle east is 6th grade history level information about Mesopotamia. Think ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, or stuff I’ve picked up from the Old Testament. I doubt it I’m unusual in that.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I’ll make another prediction: sad as it may seem, 128 deaths in Paris won’t be enough to galvanize the world to make a severe dent in Islamo-fascism. It’s not “enough”…dead people.
Something similar will have to happen in the US and elsewhere (many times over) before the will to rip out the taproot occurs.[/quote]
What’s the taproot?
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
…My hubs is reading a book about the French Foreign Legion set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, about Muslim jihadists in North Africa. It’s not new, and unfortunately, it’s not a war we will see an end to in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
This is so important. The fundamentals of this conflict are not considered much of the time.
For crying out loud, President Jefferson, and European countries, were dealing with this conflict circa 1800, a mere 11 years after ratification of the Constitution.[/quote]
Or, if you’re Ben Carson, from the times of the Old Testament.
[/quote]
I’m not so sure about 2,000 years ago, but certainly been problematic since 610 CE.
I’m thinking the problem is France’s unjust occupation of ISIS land and their evil system of apartheid.
(yes, sarcasm.)
[quote]pushharder wrote:
BTW, by my reckoning you missed more than just the 'Stan’s.[/quote]
No, I didn’t. Every other country is there, some of them more than once.
And, again, you can probably get the Stans too, if you wanted to.
Edit: For example:
http://tass.ru/en/world/836403
All that are left are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Bet I can get them, too.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
…I’m not going to hold your hand…
[/quote]
Euphemism for “well, not ‘every’.”
But even with your error it is evident that the attacks were condemned in a major manner.
Carry on.
[/quote]
Actually, it seems the proclamations of the governing elites vary greatly from the general public mood of their respective countries.
I check the infamous comments section on several Arab sites and from what I could understand with my very, very rudimentary Arabic it’s 50% “meh” and the other half tends to be much worse. From your run-of-the Arab antisemitism to mentioning Bush, Iraq…
Bosnian Muslim news sites, similar breakdown.
Here’s an example from today’s football (soccer) game between Bosnia and Ireland when Bosnian Muslim fans interrupted the tribute to the victims:
[quote]loppar wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
…I’m not going to hold your hand…
[/quote]
Euphemism for “well, not ‘every’.”
But even with your error it is evident that the attacks were condemned in a major manner.
Carry on.
[/quote]
Actually, it seems the proclamations of the governing elites vary greatly from the general public mood of their respective countries.
I check the infamous comments section on several Arab sites and from what I could understand with my very, very rudimentary Arabic it’s 50% “meh” and the other half tends to be much worse. From your run-of-the Arab antisemitism to mentioning Bush, Iraq…
Bosnian Muslim news sites, similar breakdown.
Here’s an example from today’s football (soccer) game between Bosnia and Ireland when Bosnian Muslim fans interrupted the tribute to the victims:
https://instagram.com/p/-KIPyizSEk/?taken-by=joe.ie
[/quote]
I could post plenty from the Palestinian News groups. They think killing Frenchmen is just dandy, except when they say the attackers were Zionist Jews doing this to make Arabs look bad.
(Both articles appear in the same paper; they have a unique ability to hold mutually exclusive arguments in their heads.)
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
BTW, by my reckoning you missed more than just the 'Stan’s.[/quote]
No, I didn’t. Every other country is there, some of them more than once.
And, again, you can probably get the Stans too, if you wanted to.
Edit: For example:
http://tass.ru/en/world/836403
All that are left are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Bet I can get them, too.[/quote]
http://www.newscentralasia.net/2015/11/16/turkmenistan-sends-message-of-condolence-to-france/
http://www.uzdaily.com/articles-id-34291.htm
Done.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
At this point, it’s not seeing the big picture. Muslim Extremists destroyed the World Trade Center BEFORE Iraq. And you can look back and see horrific acts of violence during the Regan and Clinton years. My hubs is reading a book about the French Foreign Legion set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, about Muslim jihadists in North Africa. It’s not new, and unfortunately, it’s not a war we will see an end to in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
What book is that if you don’t mind?
I follow the rhetoric of the usual imbeciles closely in times like these. And I’d like to say, from the fucking bottom of my heart, that I wish Glenn Greenwald nothing but ill fortune and erectile dysfunction for the rest of his life.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
At this point, it’s not seeing the big picture. Muslim Extremists destroyed the World Trade Center BEFORE Iraq. And you can look back and see horrific acts of violence during the Regan and Clinton years. My hubs is reading a book about the French Foreign Legion set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, about Muslim jihadists in North Africa. It’s not new, and unfortunately, it’s not a war we will see an end to in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
What book is that if you don’t mind?[/quote]
Not a military history, Matty. It came up because he was reading the novel, Beau Geste. He read about it in this WSJ book review.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I follow the rhetoric of the usual imbeciles closely in times like these. And I’d like to say, from the fucking bottom of my heart, that I wish Glenn Greenwald nothing but ill fortune and erectile dysfunction for the rest of his life.[/quote]
Link?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I follow the rhetoric of the usual imbeciles closely in times like these. And I’d like to say, from the fucking bottom of my heart, that I wish Glenn Greenwald nothing but ill fortune and erectile dysfunction for the rest of his life.[/quote]
I could use a laugh today. Do you have a particularly idiotic link?
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I follow the rhetoric of the usual imbeciles closely in times like these. And I’d like to say, from the fucking bottom of my heart, that I wish Glenn Greenwald nothing but ill fortune and erectile dysfunction for the rest of his life.[/quote]
I could use a laugh today. Do you have a particularly idiotic link? [/quote]
It’s his Twitter feed this time! (Though I’m sure he’s cooking up some official, published gobbledygook, as he did after the London street beheading, designed to vaguely insinuate that terrorist attacks on Western streets really aren’t that bad…because America). Anyway, take a look at his timeline as the attack and its aftermath unfold:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
– A retweet of “The France24 coverage seems very good.” Read: “I spend all of my time talking about Islam and the West, so I can’t just sit here in silence, but I sure as hell won’t open with any kind of value judgment.”
– Next, a retweet of a report about Rouhani’s condemnation of the attack. Read: “I am supposed to at least perfunctorily express sympathy for innocents targeted by moral filth, but I sure as hell won’t do it myself. Way better to get this out of the way by vaguely suggesting something about the humane generosity of Iranian leaders. Because the real point here is that the West is evil.”
– Next, a retweet of “ISIS promised to destroy the ‘grayzone’ of coexistence between Muslims and the West, this is the goal of such attacks” Read: “The most important thing right now, as Parisians civilians are bleeding to death, is that we pivot to Islamophobia.”
– Next (and this is the next morning: nothing else on the night of the attack), a retweet of of a tweet about a piece in globalvoices. (The piece whines about how much Western attention and emotional outpouring was directed at Paris, as compared with Beirut. This is supposed to evidence some kind of callousness or exclusionary racism. Nowhere does the author stop to consider the fact that we, humans, are naturally and inescapably more shocked and disturbed when our next-door neighbors are murdered than when a family on the other side of the country is murdered. France – being our oldest ally, with which we share centuries’ worth of close history and philosophical consanguinity, which gave us the Statue of Liberty, the language of which is written in our passports, which country we visit to the tune of millions of annual visitors, and with whose people we share thick cultural bonds – is our next-door neighbor.) Read: “Reminder: the takeaway from last night’s attack is that the West is racist and hypocritical.”
And it goes on from there: more bullshit (including the usual public masturbation session while shouting the name “Snowden”), more obsessing over dumb things conservatives have said – and not a word that can be mistaken as having come from an intelligent or moral fully-human person. This from a guy who shrieks with histrionic rage when a Westerner so much steps on a jihadist’s foot.
Yeah, fuck Glenn Greenwald.
Do you think he will change his tune a bit now?
