[quote]LoRez wrote:
So this whole thing has gotten me a bit confused. I’m having trouble making sense of some things.
I can understand the idea of wanting to [re]establish an Islamic state, or at least, an Arab Islamic state. A lot of Arabia has been messed with by external forces for a very long time; from Turkish Ottoman rule, to British and French colonial rule, to the “false” governments of the last 80 or so years. We have this genuinely organic development of a nation-state, based on an ideology, and they’re willing to fight to the death for it. That’s happened a few times in history. I kind of get it.
If they want to try this grand experiment of a pure islamic state, and try and make it work in the modern world, and they figure out a way to coexist with the rest of the world, I’m pretty ok with that. (Now, obviously the human rights and women’s rights issues I’m less happy about, but I vary between the view of “that’s none of our business” at one end, and at the other end, psy-ops intervention to incite internal reform, once some things have stabilized.)
What I actually have a problem with is this whole terrorist contingent. That doesn’t seem to fit well into the narrative. There’s obviously a military contingent focused on expanding and defending their territorial claims, and I understand that, but these terrorist attacks all seem to work against that goal.
And perhaps the military leadership is trying to get control over that. (I mean, pissing off the EU, Russia, China and the US within a few weeks of each other is not exactly the best foreign policy. Kind of undermines their stated goals to be a nation-state.)
On the other hand, if they’re truly wanting to play by 7th century rules – 20th century tactics like the threat of destruction don’t seem to be making a dent – it seems like the only way they’ll concede defeat is by being conquered. A genuine invasion, occupation, and assimilation by some foreign power that intends to maintain the territory. Not someone who wants to create a transitional government, but someone willing to actually rule the territory and invest in infrastructure.
The chances of any European State or the US making a return to colonialism seems pretty slim, but there’s one way for that to happen. A corporation taking that role also seems unlikely; I mean, there’s no real equivalent to the East India Company any more, and I doubt any actual nation is going to allow that to happen.
From a regional standpoint, along the invasion-line, there’s really not much for big players in the area that I like, but given the current circumstances, I wouldn’t mind something like: Saudi decides to expand territory to the Northeast, Iranian secularists revolt against Muslim (Arab-ish) rule, and Iran invades to the Southwest, and the two of them somehow just figure it out. Obviously unrealistic.
But really, at the most basic level, I’m ok with any direction that leads toward building and maintaining infrastructure, and a cessation of all the destruction. If that can happen internally, that’s even better. If that has to be externally imposed, I guess that’s what will have to happen.
Right now there seems to be minimal infrastructure (left) to begin with, and it seems like many nations are hell-bent on destroying that. I just don’t see how that’s going to leave the situation any better.
I don’t have any answers. Just trying to make sense of some things.[/quote]
LoRez, regarding some things that Bismark copied and pasted, there does seem to be some credence that their goal is for Islam and the Crusaders (everyone else) to come to a head, and whoever wins has God on their side. It’s pretty fucked up.
I know it’s cracked but apparently this guy went through all of their Dabiq publications, and wrote about it, eg general trends, things that stood out.
Number 4 has what I just wrote about.