There was an interview with a person from Palmyra. He was pretty bitter and said the world only cares about the ruins. Not much mention of people currently living in Palmyra in the media, it's all about the ruins.
Like it was all about the Buddha statues in Afghanistan... the people living in these areas and victims of the barbarians have "no face" and "no voice", and are not considered as worth as a few monuments protected by the UNESCO. That's the sad reality we're living in.
This can be a double-edged sword. Cambodia to most of the world is the amalgamation of the Killing Fields and Angkor Wat.
Unfortunately the Cambodians don't make any money directly off of Ankor Wat, but the tourism and interest it brings their country will probably help them more in the long run, even if they are only viewed as a window on the past.
I have been considering going back to help the Kurds fight ISIS for some time now. I want to say stories like this highlight the urgency of the situation, but in the face of all the murder happening in areas controlled by the dark army of Mordor, it would make me appear to have the wrong priorities. ISIS needs to be destroyed.
My father have friends working in the IDP camps. There are plenty of Kurdish doctors from Sweden going there, doing abortions on 9 year olds. Some don't survive.
The thing ISIS did to the Yezidis.. the children, the female ones. It would kill your insides and want to set the world on fire.
In fact, it wasn't just ISIS, but their Sunni muslim neighbours. As soon as they heard ISIS were nearby, they started killing their Yezidi neighbours, raping their daughters on the streets. There were mattresses and used condoms lying on the streets when the HPG (Yezidi militia) came back to Sinjar... grim scenes.
It wasn't 3 or 4, but systematic abuse on thousands.
Christians (Assyrians) weren't spared either, but not as many as 7000 Yezidis females captive since last summer. The male children are being used as human shields and sucide bombers. The female (down to the age of 6) are being sold on sex-slave markets.
"They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes."
This story is remniscent of the 1948 Israel war of independance which was also full of stories about neighbours suddenly being given the change to rape, steal and pillage.
One can only hope it ends in exactly the same way : 5 more Israels in the middle east. A Yezidi one. An Assyrian one. A Shi'a one.
You can say whatever you want to say but this islam is an ideology which is centrally focused on it's supposed superiority and the focus is the reason for this superiority : that allah will guarantee military victory. Walk near any large station in a large Western European city and you can find out for yourself (if you look the least bit dark you will find out even if you don't want to, they'll walk up to you and ask). Paris - Gare du Nord, Brussels North, Amsterdam, ... you should go to Syria and fight and kill. Feign minimal intrest and you get to find out more. Why - because allah will make you win and we'll finally punish the infidels, and everybody you hate. They'll provide a wife, and openly talk about their "attitude" to captured women - what allah "allows". The main counterargument you hear on that street - it's not a way to victory, it's a way to death.
I don't know about if this is similar in America. Does anyone have similar experiences in, say, New York ? Given where the recruitment happens in Western Europe and how successful it is in these western states, I find it extremely difficult to believe that this ISIS will remain confined to the middle east. I am terrified what will happen in Western Europe in the large cities if ISIS appears to become more successful.
This ideology needs to die, if we are to have peace.
Why are European Muslims (admittedly the sad, hopeless losers) falling into this trap? Could it be a lack of civic, constitutional nationalism and Habermassian public civil religion as opposed to bog-standard ethnocracies?
It goes without saying that what ISIS is doing is against the teachings of Islam.
What's happening is that they are making propaganda to the uneducated people who "have nothing to lose". They tell them to go carry weapons, fight for glory, and they'll be rewarded with Heaven. Pretty good deal to get out of their circumstances, right?
The fact remains though that what they preach is not of Islam.
> It goes without saying that what ISIS is doing is against the teachings of Islam.
Yes and so is everything else muslims do. For instance, there is a death penalty for muslims who choose not to live under islamic rule. And the only thing that qualifies as islamic rule, of course, is a state ruled by a caliph. [1] And no, the law does not mention the case that there is no islamic state. So sharia quite literally states all muslims should kill eachother. For some reason this is not happening. So every muslim on the planet today has committed a sin in islam, punishable by death. Or to take another issue. There is not a single mention of a headscarf anywhere in either the quran or the hadith. It says to wear loose fitting clothes, the actual word used compares the clothes to being inside a tent. Now look around, do young muslim girls wear loose fitting clothes ?
I am making a somewhat disingenuous argument, but the point is that your argument is disingenuous as well, and for the same reason : when comparing reality with a set of laws, reality is found lacking. This goes for ISIS and for every other law, principle, design, guideline, ... on our little blue ball in the dark.
So your argument is wrong. Of course they don't follow islam perfectly, nobody does and everybody knows. The real reason is "goes without saying", of course, means that you're merely pointing out that there is massive social pressure on this board, and in this country, to agree with that assessment. That I am a racist if I think otherwise. But this is a bullshit argument. It is true, because it would be a socially very, VERY uncomfortable situation if it wasn't true ... which of course doesn't change the fact that it's utterly wrong.
So in short, it doesn't go without saying at all. How much does it really match the religion's instructions ? I would argue it matches it pretty well. They've got a caliph and are waging war against anyone and everyone else, just like their prophet did. That is the basic problem with islamic terrorism : the terrorists, while not 100% perfectly right about their ideology, have a very good point. Islamic ideology glorifies this war of the prophet against the Roman Empire, and the Jewish and other states bordering it, and describes it as a war that can and should only end with total worldwide victory of the religion.
This is what muslims are teaching their children (I hope we can at least agree on those basic facts). And like every other sane person on this planet, their children don't believe them. I didn't believe my parents when they talked about this sort of shit, and I've had a few talks with my daughter where she made it very clear she doesn't believe me either. But when they get excluded out of our society, hide in their religion for it's the only thing that hasn't completely rejected them yet (keep in mind that islamic marriages are arranged. If you have no money, no amount of good looks or talking can help you). And then these people who look like clerics read to them from the exact same books their parents are telling them to live by ... and those books say to fight and kill and you'll be rewarded. Those are the books their parents talked about when they were toddlers sitting on daddy's knee, when they were happy and provided for. Now they're criminals who failed with nothing to lose ... and these clerics read from those books, and those books say to fight and kill ...
The reason this works is the ideology. And I don't care how uncomfortable that basic piece of information makes anyone. Fighting the people who are already lost is a loser's game. You must prevent, so to speak, toddlers from being raised with those books anywhere nearby.
And given how this is escalating, it is a matter of time until we all agree on that point. The big question is, how many people need to die before we agree ? As I said, I have kids and find this "let's ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist" attitude EXTREMELY unacceptable.
And yes, this will cost me a lot of karma on this board. Fuck social pressure. I hope everyone who lowers the integer next to my name on an internet server feels really good about themselves and the actions they took.
There are lot of baseless and uncited claims in your post. The blog post you cited took a few verses from the Quran, and attempted to deduce rulings out of them, without going back to what scholars know.
> For some reason this is not happening.
Maybe something for you to research and find out why (hint, because Islam preserves life, and its goal is not to kill left and right, like how you're trying to make it seem to be). The death penalty in Islam is very, very strict, applicable to only a couple of situations, and can only be done by the government. Even then, people are encouraged to forgive if they are in a position to do that.
> There is not a single mention of a headscarf anywhere in either the quran or the hadith.
If you're looking for the literal word "headscarf" then yes (at least for the Quran). However, covering up (what is known as the headscarf today) is required in Islam. There is not enough space here to discuss this issue, it is sufficient to know that the Muslim women during the time of the Prophet Peace be upon him, practiced this.
> For instance, there is a death penalty for muslims who choose not to live under islamic rule.
I would like to see the source of that claim.
> And no, the law does not mention the case that there is no islamic state.
Just because there is no Caliphite state today, does not mean that there are no Islamic states. Nowhere in the sources is it stated that a Caliphite system is the exclusive way to have an Islamic state. In one Hadith, the Prophet Peace be upon him mentioned that the Caliphite period after him will be 30 years, then it will turn into kingdoms. There are dozens of Hadiths that tell people to have patience, and not to overthrow their governments, even if those governments are messing around with some religious rulings (e.g. delaying prayers until after their time). There are only two cases where it is permissible to overthrow the ruling government, none of which apply to any of the countries of the so called Arab Spring today.
We also have Hadiths that describe people with mentalities similar to what we see in ISIS today. One of these Hadiths calls such people the dogs of Hell fire.
> That I am a racist if I think otherwise.
I don't see what racism has to do with any of this. You're free to believe what you want, but it seems that the vast majority of what you believe about this topic is based on either no evidence at all, or on deliberately misconstrued "interpretations", which can be easily dismissed by a learned individual.
> How much does it really match the religion's instructions ?
It goes against it 100%. The Prophet Peace be upon him told us not to overthrow our rulers, regardless of how bad they get. They have absolutely no religious basis to their actions; none of the nearby countries recognize them as a legitimate government; we have Hadiths describing people like them.
> Islamic ideology glorifies this war of the prophet against the Roman Empire, and the Jewish and other states bordering it...
He did not wage war for the sake of waging war. This is another misconstrued view you have of Islamic history. In ALL of the wars that happened during his time, it was to either fend off an attacking enemy, or it was after a peace treaty was broken by the other party.
> and describes it as a war that can and should only end with total worldwide victory of the religion.
> keep in mind that islamic marriages are arranged
Again, more uncited claims. Arranged (i.e. forced) marriages are against Islamic teachings. Them happening in Muslim countries does not mean these practices were derived from the religion (basic correlation vs. causation fallacy).
That being said, I don't disagree that there are many misconceptions that are spread in the Islamic world, about certain rulings or teachings, that in fact, are not from Islam. It is important to educate people about what is and isn't from Islam.
> (answer to that islam instructs muslims to fight)
The goal here was to show an example that Muslims must NOT fight each other. They must not overthrow their rulers, much less fight and kill each other.
> This is supposed to refute that sharia has the death penalty ...
No. I mentioned elsewhere that the death penalty in Islam only applies to 2 or 3 very specific cases, and none of them include living in a non-Islamic state.
> For instance, Aisha was sold to him in trade for a contract that Ali would be his successor
I think this shows your ignorance, because Aisha was not related to Ali. Aisha was AbuBakr's daughter. Again, please cite your source for this claim.
You're arguments are all over the place. I mentioned that Daesh/ISIS are not a legitimate Islamic group, and the Prophet Peace be upon him warned us of people that have their ideologies. Ask a well-educated scholar today and he will tell you the same thing.
You also keep ignoring my requests for listing citations for your incorrect claims (e.g. that Aisha had something to do with Ali's position as a successor, or that the death penalty must be enforced for Muslims living in non-Muslim lands, etc.). I'm still waiting.
> I notice you don't disagree with the premise : that her marriage was based on a contract
His marriage to her was never based on a contract. This is purely made up on your part. When we discuss history, specifically Islamic history, we rely on sound narrations, which have been inspected in order to remove any falsities from them. So yes, by stating that you mixed up people and not knowing what you were talking about, I was implicitly disagreeing with your premise.
While this is not the place to discuss her age at marriage, it is sufficient to know that she had already been engaged to another person prior to her marriage to the Prophet, Peace be upon him. Not one of the non-Muslims at that time mentioned anything about Aisha's age being different from the norm when she wed the Prophet, Peace be upon him. You should know that the non-Muslims were waiting for the Prophet to do anything non-conventional to criticize him.
> have you seriously never read the story of the split between sunni and shi'a ?
The (unfortunate) split happened due to several reasons, most, if not all, mainly politically motivated. That being said, both groups are Muslims, who are forbidden to fight each other. There are attempts (even today) to bring them closer, instead of drive them apart.
> when sharia is so very clear on the issue of succession
Succession happens by a form of voting. AbuBakr (and the four Chaliphs after him -- Omar, Othman, Ali, and AlHassan) were all voted in to the Chaliph position. This era spanned 30 years, after which we had the first king, and power was inherited thereafter.
> I mean their whole raison d'etre is a blatant violation of sharia.
Are you saying that according to Shariah, power must be inherited? It is not the case: http://quran.com/42/38 (and whose affair is [determined by] consultation among themselves). Shura is a form of election. Where is the contradiction in what Sunnis did?
> heh I know why you don't want to name them. Ashamed about the apostasy laws perhaps ?
Because they are not the point of debate here. This can stay for another time if you're honestly interested.
I fail to see where it says that the death penalty is involved here. Please point out explicitly where it says that the penalty for living in a non-Muslim country is death.
The fact remains that in most Western countries today, Muslims are free to practice their religion. I think the deduction is clear. You're free to drop by any Muslim Community Association in your area and ask them about this issue.
> what is the punishment for knowingly violating sharia ...
It depends on what was violated. Shariah means "law" or "rule". There are some violations that have penalties in the Shariah, and some that were left open (e.g. murder, vs. crossing a red traffic light). If you're trying to say that any violation of Shariah incurs the death penalty, then, you are simply wrong. No Companion or scholar had this opinion in the entirety of Islamic history.
> Both the Ummayyads and the Ottomans massacred muslim populations for living outside their borders
And who says they were right? Even Muslims admit that bad things happened during the rules of these empires. We point out these bad things, and we do not follow their footsteps.
I prefer to settle one point at a time (there are two to which I responded above), instead of being all over the place. It seems you have so many misconceptions, not based on the Quran or sound Hadith narrations, which you try to bring up each time. And I assure you that most of them are easily refuted.
> His marriage to her was never based on a contract
How many times do I need to point out references to the "agreement" in the text that is constantly talked about ?
> it is sufficient to know that she had already been engaged to another person prior to her marriage to the Prophet
Do you like to tell yourself that that justifies the rape of a 6 year old ? Do you have a daughter ? Do you think an agreement with the girl's father makes paedophilic rape moral ? Because your religion clearly is of that opinion. Note that your prophet has a lot of opinions on what he, personally, should be given, and something to fuck is often among the things he "gets" from his invisible friend, this is not a lone occurence. So answer this simple question : was Muhammad an immoral paedophilic rapist ? Or not ...
And to be honest, since Abu Bakr is a "rightly guided caliph" and made this agreement with the prophet, that means that BOTH the prophet AND the first ever muslim where paedophilic rapists. One organising the rape, one committing it. Muhammad, of course, claims this agreement was blessed by allah : so you can't even make the pathetic argument that it was just him, "not allah". Note that not even Aisha believed the revelations [1]. To be honest, actually reading the hadith you find a lot of that : verses that make it crystal clear none of the muslims with the prophet believed in his revelations. You should try it, reading those texts around book 60.
> I fail to see where it says that the death penalty is involved here. Please point out explicitly where it says that the penalty for living in a non-Muslim country is death.
The penalty for consistently refusing to comply with sharia, when you know the law and how it applies to you, is death. As you very well know. Believe it or not, you do not just get to violate sharia whenever you want according to islam. The punishment for violating something haram knowingly, repeatedly or continuously ... is death, because this constitutes apostasy. I can't say I recall the full set of requirements, but do you seriously argue otherwise ?
Knowingly not following sharia is considered apostasy, advocating not following sharia is proselytizing. Do you disagree with that ? Do I really have to dig up fatwas saying so ?
> We point out these bad things, and we do not follow their footsteps.
Reading this in a post that starts off by justifying the rape of a 6 year old girl, that is very reassuring.
> How many times do I need to point out references to the "agreement" in the text that is constantly talked about ?
You haven't pointed out any references so far.
> Do you like to tell yourself that that justifies...
You should hear what today's scholars say about this issue. Marriage is not to be forced upon the girl, and if a person (male or female) is not able to tolerate it (physically and mentally), then the marriage contract cannot go through.
Back in the day, marriage at a young age was a norm, and the Prophet Peace be upon him did not commit anything foreign to the culture in this regards. Other people at that time, Muslims and non-Muslims, married young. Even in Western cultures up to a few hundred years ago, we see similar behavior.
I take it it is clear now that Islamically, the ruler is to be elected, and not passed down as you were trying to imply before.
> Note that not even Aisha believed the revelations[1]
The link you pasted was about Fatimah and Ali, Peace be upon them. Please link to the appropriate Hadith.
> verses that make it crystal clear none of the muslims with the prophet believed in his revelations
Claim needs citation. It is quite an absurd claim, as if that were indeed the case, then Islam would never have caught on.
> penalty for consistently refusing to comply with sharia, when you know the law and how it applies to you, is death.
Again, citation needed. This is beyond a doubt not the case. Please cite your reference. A Muslim person can, for example, drink alcohol, knowing that it is not permissible, and knowing that there is a punishment if he is caught (lashing). The death penalty will never come into action here, regardless of how many times he repeats this sin.
> I can't say I recall the full set of requirements, but do you seriously argue otherwise ?
I do. Citation needed.
> Knowingly not following sharia is considered apostasy
There are different degrees of apostasy (Kufr), and only one or two of them have the death penalty (e.g. Treason). Furthermore, not any action that constitutes apostasy will result in the person automatically becoming a non-Muslim (much less get the death penalty).
The last part of the verse is: "And whosoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, such are the Kafirun" (i.e. disbelievers - of a lesser degree as they do not act on Allah's Laws).
So now you're no longer responding to my request about listing a reference that the death penalty is to be enforced on Muslims living in non-Muslim lands, or it be enforced on Muslims who knowingly commit any sin.
Also, I'm still waiting for a reference you claimed to have that Aisha was wed to the Prophet Peace be upon him as a contract for AbuBakr's succession...
> Hey now you just implied that the prophet did something wrong
No. I specifically said he did not do anything outside the norm of that time. The Arab pagans were waiting on him to do anything different from the norm to criticize him, but they never did.
> which is related to Aisha's wedding according to the highest religious authorities in Saudi Arabia
Again, put your citation as to who are these "highest religious authorities in Saudi Arabia", and what exactly they said.
> It specifically mentions that these people are like the Jews.
It's not really my problem if you can't comprehend simple English. The Ayah does not mention that these people are "like the Jews"; it is explicitly talking about the Messengers, Scholars, and Rabbis, who were upholding the law on the Jews. It says that the Torah was a light from God to be used by the former to judge the latter. Again, complete construing on your part.
If you read the incident, it is saying that those two Jews themselves accepted what was mentioned in the Torah. Even today, you will find the same penalty in the Torah.
> Why don't you interpret for me what she meant here
Secondly, this quote does not imply in any way what you originally mentioned. Aishah is one of the highest regarded sources from whom to take Hadith and religion.
> Or how about we revisit the whole "allah has 3 daughters" saga ?
The story is false. If you have basic commandment of how the Hadith was documented you would be able to answer yourself here.
It seems you are just throwing out claims, some of which are documented as falsified, and some completely made up, without responding to my requests to cite references for these claims. I won't waste my time responding to a person who is purposefully twisting and making up stories, as well as refusing to respond to my rebuttals.
The article just mentions that Islam (similar to other religions like Judaism and Christianity) does not set a minimum age for marriage. Nothing really special here.
Aishah was not 6 when the wedding happened, so you can lay that issue to rest.
> 2) massacring
Any battle that happened was either (1) out of self defense, (2) after the other party broke a peace treaty.
3) stoning
Taken straight from the Torah, which I believe you must accept given you are Christian. Try finding any incidents of stoning after the Ayah for punishment of adulterers (by lashing) was revealed.
> 4) forcing other people to stone women
They came to the Prophet, Peace be upon him, asking for the penalty for what they did, which was then picked straight out of the Torah.
> If there is one thing islam promises more than anything else, it's that the caliph will win any war, any battle.
No it does not. The Muslims were defeated in the Battle of Uhud, way before any Caliphs came into rule.
> By the way, I take it you agree on the validity of the fatwa that it is haram for muslims to not live in the state of the caliph
You're moving away from the original subject. But no, that fatwa you're referring to is just one opinion. I already answered this before, as long as you're able to practice you're religion easily, and there are many other Muslims in the same place, there no issue God willingly.
> Dr. Salih bin Fawzan
He has been severely criticized for several things he said. What you have to keep in mind is that any fatwa can be challenged. It is an opinion of one or more persons, and not binding.
> Why don't you comment on the obvious fact that they were honorable and moral by NOT following that law
So they were honorable by explicitly deciding not to follow what they believe God revealed to them? That's some double standard right there. Why did they come to the Prophet, Peace be upon him in the first place? And why did they try to hide the penalty right in front of him? It's basically picking and choosing what they like and leaving what they don't like from the Torah.
> Note that you skirt around the issue of stoning for even suspected adultery.
There is no punishment for suspected anything in Islam. We have several Hadiths that have the same meaning: ادرؤوا الحدود بالشبهات (i.e. fend off penalties with suspicion). For the penalty for adultery to hold, there needs to be four witnesses, who witnessed the actual act (not just saw a couple hugging or kissing, for instance). If any one of them decides to change his word after testifying, then the supposed witnesses will be penalized. And for your information, not once did this take place in the history of Islam. And please don't bring up what is happening in Iran today; it does not carry weight religiously; even though it is quite tragic what they're doing.
> I take it you are a sunni then
I'm Muslim. I know the position of some of the Shi'ah with regards to her. At the end of the day, the proof is on the one making the claim. The sources they use to make these false claims about her do not hold up to scrutiny (they are falsified stories).
> because of the agreement between Abu Bakr and Muhammad
I'm still waiting for a reference, even if it were a Shi'i one.
> does the prophet get to have sex before marriage
Of course he doesn't.
> and then proceeded to immediately to massacre former parts of the muslim army in what is called the "apostasy wars"
Explicitly denying an established part of the faith (in this case, Zakah) constitutes apostasy.
At the end of the day, you're not bringing up anything we haven't heard before (or just making up stories I have no idea where you came up with), hoping that something would "stick" perhaps?. Rest assured though, that over the course of the past 1400+ years, there is nothing that scholars have not been able to refute, thank God. Even with my basic knowledge, I'm able to find out the chain of narration of claims you and others make, only to discover that they are fabricated stories, or picked apart and misconstrued to try to show a certain aspect while hiding the whole story.
How on earth can you call a tribal supremacist fairy tale and its reworked descendant fertility cult "based on rational reasoning"? I shudder to think of what else is getting past your filters if those are your standards.
It is generally accepted that Lucas, Matthew, Luke and John were educated Greeks (a publican, student,and a physician), who were educated in the philosophy of reason. So was the council that collected these works into the New Testament.
In contrast islam's holy "books" were mostly orally transmitted for the first ~100 years by soldiers. The quran is a sorted list of things most of said soldiers agreed upon. The hadith is most of the things they didn't quite agree upon.
> It is generally accepted that Lucas, Matthew, Luke and John were educated Greeks (a publican, student,and a physician), who were educated in the philosophy of reason.
I'll point out that you just claimed that those four named sources were three people.
> In contrast islam's holy "books" were mostly orally transmitted for the first ~100 years by soldiers.
That's not that much shorter than the generally accepted time between the time of the events recounted in the gospels and the time that the canonical gospels were written.
> The quran is a sorted list of things most of said soldiers agreed upon. The hadith is most of the things they didn't quite agree upon.
Again, false information. The Quran was written down during the time of the Prophet Peace be upon him, as was the Hadith. Both were both transmitted orally and through scribes. We have early scribes that were written during the time of the Prophet Peace be upon him, and later on narrations that were documented decades after him, and they match perfectly.
There are multiple Qira'aat (recitations) of the Quran, all of which have sound chains of narrations back to the Prophet, Peace be upon him. The variations among certain Ayat (verses) do not change the overall meaning of them. For instance, in one recitation, you would find the word "Malik" (ملك), meaning King or Lord; and in another, you would find "Maalik" (مالك), meaning Master, Possessor, or Only Owner. Both are authentic recitations which the Prophet Peace be upon him recited during his lifetime.
If you study the history of the Arabs and Muslims, you would know that they were extremely strict in how narrations were passed down, even before Islam. We have the chain of narration for the Mu'allaqat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27allaqat), and this was pre-Islam.
People recited both from scribes as well as from memory. Memorizing large amounts of information is something very uncommon today, but was common back in the day. There are people who used to memorize hundreds of thousands of Hadiths, with the chain of narration; and some people of that nature still exist to this day, though not as many.
Even today, when children memorize the Quran, they know where what Ayah is on what page. You can ask the child to start reciting from a random page, and he/she would.
Can you show me a reference that the Turks refuse to show the Quran they have to the public, or that there were differences between that one and what was discovered in San'aa?
You make it sound like Christians aren't currently engaged in religious wars that involve the murder and rape of uninvolved non-combatants. These wars involve children as soldiers and use rape as a weapon of war.
There is at least one currently happening on-going ethnic-religious cleansing by Christians of Muslims in CAR.
You take some ignorant bigot who has distorted a religious text to create something that most adherants to that religion do not recognise. That's not unique to Islam -- there is a buddhist insurgent army (dkba) and a buddhist terrorist group (969 group) and most buddhists would recognise "I abstain from killing" as one of the five most important principles of Buddhism.
> You take some ignorant bigot who has distorted a religious text to create something that most adherants to that religion do not recognise.
Not at all. Here's what I claim :
1) these islamic "holy" texts do indeed say to fight and kill, and a whole lot of other immoral despicable behavior. Islam was created in a war, continued in a war, and the early muslims did not stop fighting and massacring for hundreds of years. This is very well reflected in the religion.
2) most muslims do not believe and do not follow this, BUT DO teach these texts to their children
3) when (and if) society abandons them as young adults, and they search comfort in religion, as one does (and I'm sure you have done on occasion, Lord knows I have), islamic clerics then use these texts to support the case that they need to fight and kill for paradise.
4) That this is a growing phenomenon. Well, not really. If you read history you'll see that this was an extremely common practice even in the Ottoman empire. There's simply been a 100 year near-hiatus in this form of recruiting, and it's actually still at a very, very low level compared to what it was in the 19th century.
5) I claim the problem is that those recruiting clerics are right. That islamic texts do indeed say to fight and kill, very clearly, very directly. Stopping this phenomenon can happen in one of two ways. First, society could choose to simply never abandon anyone, ever. Second we could prevent step 2) from happening. Fighting things at the recruiting stage is an exercise in futility.
Any text can be manipulated to be violent. The concept of holy war has been in christianity for at least 1,500 years. There's plenty of vile stuff in the Bible.
Even Buddhism (which has "I will not kill" as one of its five fundamental tenets) has a buddhist army (DKBA) and a buddhist terrorist group (969 movement). Any text can be manipulated by idiots.
It's a bit disturbing to see blatant willful ignorance being pushed so fervantly.
True, of course, but some texts can't reasonably be interpreted not to be violent. About the quran we can have reasonable arguments about who one is supposed to be violent against, when and under what conditions, but you can't reasonably argue it's not calling to fight.
And judge for yourself. Take specific note of the big differences, the first link mostly consisting of calls to violence whereas the second link is mostly reports of violence. Also keep in mind that the bible is easily 3 times longer than the quran.
> Take specific note of the big differences, the first link mostly consisting of calls to violence whereas the second link is mostly reports of violence.
I disagree with that characterization, and will note further, that of those things that are "reports of violence", they are largely:
(1) reports of violence by God, or
(2) reports of violence by people acting out calls to violence from God, or
(3) reports of violence that are explicitly condoned as good
None of which are substantially different from a call to violence, especially when they are reports of future violence that meet #2 and/or #3 (as many of those from Revelation are.)
What I want to know is what in your opinion gives these kids the idea that society "abandoned" them by not arranging a marriage for them and that this all is supposed to be handed to them on a platter?
My opinion doesn't matter. Anyone who is the least bit capitalist would certainly not see it as abandoning them, of course. It is the opinion of those individuals that matters, and they certainly see things this way.
It is not just not providing a marriage, right. No job, no money, no way to be independent, no meaning in life generally ... combined with a contant barrage of commercials detailing what is important in life, and unreachable to them (think cars, what you might call "nightclub women", and the like). The marriage thing factors pretty highly.
Some of the Islamists had western education, they were from the UK or Denmark. There are reports of them asking their friends and supporters to send condoms.
Many of them have diseases and share victims.
Majority didn't use condoms given the reports from the refugee camps.
Sounds like more of the same. Exaggeration and propaganda from both sides to raise emotion and get people that have nothing to do with the fight to commit to kill. The people of the region don't even want to fight this battle.
I'd be concerned about ITAR and other issues (less so as an individual fighter, but that isn't really what the Kurds need -- what they need are the kind of resources companies or organizations could provide.)
All it would take to clear this up would be a letter of marque.
So far most of the US gear goes to ISIS.
You'd think I'd be over-exaggerating, but just last weekend US equipment (eg Humvees) that went to the Shia militia also known as Iraq "army" (ISF) was left while back while they abandoned Ramadi so ISIS could get in. Not the first time the Iraqi "army" does that.
The Peshmerga desperately need Anti-Tank/IED gear. So far they are relying on MILANs from Germany.
They have enough trained soldiers and experienced soldiers from old wars to tackle ISIS, but they are working with some really old weapons. I've seen snipers using old ww2 rifles.
No joke.
From what I understand there is a bill at congress (pushed by the Republicans) to arm the Peshmerga (Kurdistan) directly instead of relying on Baghdad (HAH!) to give the the kurds their 10% share. Not sure if it has passed yet.
Essentially the Iraqi "Army" has failed, the only thing that is stable in Iraq is the "Gold Division", essentially their Special Forces. They are pretty effective at holding ISIS at bay, but have endured heavy casualties because of the Militia/Army incompetence.
The Shia militia can't hold their grounds... except when it comes to abusing Sunni civilians.
Iraq doesn't exist anymore. It's now Iran... the US is arming Iran 😂. Let that sink in.
That sounds to me like Equipment is not what's needed, since there is hardly anyone reliable we can give the equipment to. How about deploying a few millions soldiers? A few million sounds like a unreasonably large number, but on the other hand there were 4 million soldiers in Stalingrad alone and we should be able to treat this situation as urgently as things were handled in WWII. To me ISIS is right up there with the Nazis. So let's go all out and get this done with!
The Kurds, at least in Iraq, have consistently been friends of the US, and at least compared to the other states in the region, a basically progressive and moderate government. (There are issues with Turkey and Iran w.r.t. Kurds in those countries as well as with the idea of Kurdistan, since it would potentially redraw their own borders.)
Aside from some very specialized troops (combat controllers and maybe some other SOF; high level logistics people to interface with the rest of the supply chain; some trainers and advisors) you could probably equip the Kurdish forces with modern weapons to good effect.
The biggest issue is bypassing the Iraqi central government basically admits that Iraq is/was/will always be a failure, and guarantees it. This might cause both Iran and KSA to intervene in the territory. This could lead to escalation; I'd personally be willing to accept the status quo in Syria if the alternative is a regional war.
The Kurds may be friends with the u.s. but the u.s. has not been friends with the Kurds. Our relationship with nato ally turkey has taken precedence and we've turned a blind eye to terrible actions by turkey against the Kurds.
"we should be able to treat this situation as urgently as things were handled in WWII."
The US went into WW II because of Pearl Harbor. We didn't go in after Hitler had invaded most of Europe. We did send war supplies but didn't send troops. The urgency was when Japan committed a formal and very humiliating act of war. So that's probably not a great example of the US treating things with urgency.
ISIS is odious, but given that we create the conditions for their existence due to previous rash military action, it would be wise to get a proper multilateral response with a full commitment and some actual hope to actually manage the aftermath with some chance of not having another horrifying group fill the power vacuum once we've stopped bombing. Realistically it's a hideous situation where if we grind ISIS into the dirt, we'll be elevating Iran's power in the region even more when we already got rid of Saddam's regime and replaced him with an Iranian puppet.
Turkey is ruled by what a number of people call a Sunni extremist, who has, for example, on occasion said he wants the position of caliph. The way he sells himself to Turkey's population is fundamentally religious in nature. He has pushed through some of islam's sexist laws, disadvantaging women, ...
Enough of your worthless rhetoric. I blocked you on Twitter because of your constant racism and ridiculous ultranationalism, and tried very hard to ignore you when you spoke on this subject before. What annoys me isn't that you're lying - this is something that comes natural to you - but that people on HN who are usually not susceptible to such empty claims don't seem to be voting you down into the ground.
1. The Iraqi army is not Shiite, it is overwhelmingly Sunni and especially in places like Ramadi. This extends to the upper military command as well[0], including the Minister of Defense.
2. The Peshmerga have more than enough weapons and have been given all the weapons they could handle. What you should be more concerned about is the Kurdistan Democratic Party refusing to arm the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Peshmerga, and arresting Yezidis (the people that ultranationalists such as yourself exploit) who try to seek arms from the Iraqi central government.
3.The bill pushed at congress has nothing to do with arming the Peshmerga, it instead has to do with violating Iraq's sovereignty (which Sunni politicians, including the governor of Anbar[1] and Iraqi separatists[2], are against), arming American-vetted militias independently and without the approval or consultation of the Iraqi government, and also refusing to arm the Iraqi government on the basis that it is exclusionary. This is all based on the fantasy that your type (the liars, the ultranationalists, the sectarianists) try to sell to the uninformed that Iraq is not providing arms to non-Shiites, which is a blatant lie. Baghdad is providing more than enough arms to every group in Iraq, and any honest observer of Iraq has the same conclusion. The Sunni forces from Ramadi also argue that the local government (read: democratically elected Sunni representatives) were witholding weapons and ammunition, of which there is plenty[3]. This includes Reidar Visser, a Norwegian historian of Iraq commenting that what the republicans are seeking is essentially a restoration of a Sunni dictatorship[4].
4. The Iraqi army has not failed. The liberation of Diyala, the liberation of Samarra, the liberation of the Baghdad belts, the liberation of various areas in Salahideen, and so on.
5. Any area the Shiite militias have entered has been held, including Diyala, Baghdad belts, various parts of Anbar, Tikrit, and so on. There has been no abuse of Sunni civilians that can be attributed to anything other than isolated incidents, and it is the Sunni civilians and politicians who call for the Shiite militias to enter their areas and provinces. Unlike yourself, it seems that outside of the Kurdish nationalists and ISIS supporters, the Iraqi people are not racist or sectarianists.
6. Iraq does exist. It is not Iran, and neither the Iraqis or Iranians want it to be that way. The US is not arming Iran, so stop with your nonsense. There is an Iranian part of Iraq, it is called Kurdistan. This is where much of the economy is dependent on Iran, the locals are an Iranic people, speak an Iranian language, and the majority of their arms come from Iran.
The problem with you ultranationalists is that while trying to make yourself victims, you come across as the most vile, oppressive, racist and overwhelmingly sectarian idiots in the region. Keep your lies to Twitter, stop trying to force it to spill into places like Hacker News.
Edit: and just for full disclosure, I am an Iraqi-born Mandaean[5] whose entire ethnoreligious group (save for a few hundred people) has been robbed, killed and ethnically cleansed from Iraq. I am not Christian, I am not Shiite, I am not Sunni, I am not an Assyrian, I am not an Arab, I am not a Kurd, I own no land in Iraq and have no role to play in Iraqi politics.
What the Shiite militias did in Tikrit[1] is an isolated incident? 100 people minimum missing is an isolated incident? I guess snowflakes don't make up snowballs after all...
So 100 names written on a piece of paper prove that the Shiite militias were oppressing Sunni civilians?
1. Are those names real?
2. Were Shiites responsible?[0]
3. Were they civilians?
4. Have they been abused?
5. Have they been released?
Linking to an allegation from early April as evidence of oppression, when the alleged group themselves deny it, isn't evidence. Feel free to link to any formal complaints or follow up articles. It's been six weeks since that article and eight weeks since the incident, so I'm sure there is a follow up by now if anything came from it.
If it did happen as described, and the missing were abused or murdered, then I hope the people responsible are punished. Until then, all we have are unsubstantiated allegations which don't appear to have been followed up.
al-Jubouri may be telling the truth in that video, but I can hardly take the words of a channel with a "Ya Hussein" flag waving in the corner at complete undoubting face value.
> What would be most helpful in defeating ISIS? Equipment? More manpower? Logistical support?
It's too late for that. They are here to stay just like the mollahs in Iran or the Talibans in Afghanistan. Most people in the west are fed up with western military involvement in the middle east anyway, rightfully so.
Perhaps what they need most is for the politics to get out of the way. There are bigger political forces at work preventing the fight from reaching ISIS. For example, American forces have ordered pesh merga to pull American citizen volunteers from the fight. When there are so many different forces at work, each with its own opinion on how things should be run, it forms this kind of stalemate that needs to come down before progress can be made. For example, Sunni militias in Tikrit stopped fighting because Western air strike command was not cooperating with those forces on the ground. This kind of thing.
Also, from my understanding, what I've heard from people that are there is that small arms and especially antiarmor weapons are what is needed (some volunteer fighters are having to trade cash for weapons). ISIS has a hell of a lot of American equipment via IA (Iraqi Army) forces. IA is fighting, but they have had to withdraw from some areas against the quick offense of ISIS, which has resulted in powerful equipment captured. The Jordanian pilot they recently murdered was shot down with a MANPADS from a stockpile they captured some months before. ISIS has M1 Abrams. As an (American) infantry veteran, this is the fact that concerns me the most: There are not a lot of things that can kill an Abrams. We are going to need a lot more air support, and it's going to take a committed ground force to stop their advance, let alone push them into retreat and defeat.
Probably what they need most is a committed ground force. We need another Iraq War, with hundreds of thousands or millions of people on the ground, fighting ISIS in the streets. Unfortunately, Dubya already blew through the Iraq War we need. I saw earlier today that 57% of Americans support ground forces in Iraq to fight ISIS. 1) ISIS almost certainly wouldn't exist if Saddam was still around (i.e. it's our fault). 2) So many people are so tired of war, that even in the face of this pure fucking evil, it will be hard to convince the public to start another one.
That being said, if we don't destroy ISIS, it will be a defining force of evil in the 21st century. They will not stop in Syria or Iraq. They will move into and attack Europe and the Americas. It is a global problem that needs to be destroyed.
Why is the US military not destroying our own equipment that has fallen into enemy hands?
This does not take boots on the ground. This can be done with drone strikes, supported from aircraft carriers locally and with pilots in the Las Vegas desert.
This is our mess, and we should be required to clean it up.
EDIT: Also, as a US citizen, how could one be prevented from being renditioned against one's will back to the US by US military forces if in Syria or Iraq fighting against ISIS as a volunteer. Just curious.
The Iraqi Shiites and Kurdish Christian/shiites should be fighting Isis. Saddam (a Sunni himself) kept the Sunni radicals in check for decades. If the people of the region won't do it or even try why should you? It's like the u.s. never learns and keeps getting taken advantage of by people that don't even align with their beliefs.
There is solid science behind what is moral in the world. It's a good idea for countries to work together to maintain a moral standard internationally.
No, there is not. That is a ridiculous statement. As a American I prefer the rights of an individual, but most the world favors the right of the community. The areas that Isis controls and taken over gladly go to Isis because they are Sunni. If we went by your belief we would support Isis.
This is not a ridiculous statement. You should inform on the theory -- there are many basis for morality modeled by theories as diverse game theory, social dynamics, utility theory and evolutionary dynamics.
Of course, I wouldn't dare say a single definition is unequivocally better or something, but there are models.
I think a large part of the world lacks even baseline education and stability that would be required to make a principled choice on morality. And then (specially in that region) there are complicated matters such as religious fanaticism and ethical rivalry -- things which hopelessly lack even self-consistency in the scientific sense.
My wife and I had the opportunity to travel to Palmyra in 2010, and it was an extraordinary experience. Not only are they some of the most spectacular ruins in the world, but while we toured, there was almost no one else there. It's just crazy to take in vistas like [0] and feel like we're the ones there to appreciate it.
Nevertheless, the potential damage is insignificant compared to the human losses under both Assad's regime and ISIS.
Historical ruins is our shared heritage and our countries should take blame for everything that lead to this situation, should they take harm. And I mean [almost] every country.
By playing petty and pointless political games we're about to lose things we have no hopes to ever have back. Will people learn? These days I think the only way for humanity to save face is to die off entirely.
First paragraph is gold. Every country responsible involved in the proxy wars and game playing that has resulted in threats to these ruins is behaving in a criminally careless fashion and should be brought to account for their misdeed. The second paragraph is also gold until the last sentence which is absolute shit.
Humanity dying off is much much worse than ancient ruins being destroyed. Ancient ruins don't mean anything if there aren't any people around to experience them.
I invite you to tell that to the people who gave their lives trying to save archives, artifacts and records when the National Library in Sarajevo was shelled in 1992. I guess some people think these things are worth dying for.
Misanthropy and careless childish avocation of destruction rather than constructive aims is the macro issue here.
Maybe we can learn from history and rather than brutishly lash out in anger or fear we could attempt to build new bridges least we forget why the old bridges failed.
Understanding the history of the rise of ISIS might help us avoid similar situations in the future, and it might help us to reconcile with them if such a thing is even possible, but mere knowledge alone will not defeat ISIS. It may be that their movement is unsustainable and will wither away on its own, or it may be that local forces will eventually be able to defeat them, but if not then either we will take action against ISIS at some point, or we will have to coexist with them. Considering that this is a group whose express goal is the assimilation or destruction of all human cultures not their own, peaceful coexistence seems unlikely. (To be clear, I don't consider ISIS a global threat obviously, but they are certainly having a great deal of success locally at the moment.)
The West is so morally compromised here that it's hard to imagine that we could credibly (in the eyes of non-ISIS players in the region) take action against them, but that does not mean that destroying ISIS is not the right thing to do in theory. It just means that we probably can't do it. That's not a defense of ISIS though, it's an indictment of many decades of utterly stupid and short-sighted policy in the Middle East.
Well yeah, Daesh are shit lords and should be neutralized.
The set of dominoes and destabilization of that entire region really probably could have been prevented. When economies collapse and people are hungry and desperate that doesn't really help encourage stability or sanity.
When a person dies we also lose something we'll never get back. And the person who dies? They lose the entire universe and all of its future possibilities.
Sorry but I disagree it's fault of everyone else. True Bush invasion started this. But as far as the collapse of security forces in Iraq (which allowed ISIS to gain infamy), most of the blame lies with the Iraqi govt.
You can't stop a few hundred (or a thousand) guys with AK47 with pickups when your solders have M1 tanks?
Political game playing by anti-Assad and anti-Iranian powers were also directly responsible for the rise of ISIS. These share a portion of the blame for some ISIS's misdeeds.
As long as we're assigning blame let's actually blame the people directly encouraging this, the wahhabist/salafi crusaders that are heavily funded and protected by the Saudi government and who have been at it long before Isis.
People keep forgetting that the Muslims all around the world are traveling there to rape children and murder civilian "apostates".
This isn't some "tiny" minority, they are over 100 of millions of supporters and people who approve of the doctrine that allows sex-slavery and killing apostates.
In fact, according to Pew Research as of 2013, the numbers reach up to approx. 800 000 000 muslims who think that honour killings are justified amongst other things.
So your contention is that all these people's families are perfectly fine with them going to the Levant for a little sun and frolic? If they have such a support base for all these terrible things then why do they have to hide where they are going? I'm no friend to organized religion, but I remember enough about the so-called rules of jihad to remember that you need your father's permission. When you start going on about "the Muslims" you're the mirror image of all these assholes like Qaradawi that go on about "one Ummah" and the "rope of Allah"
I think the contention is that this does not matter - it is an intolerable situation. I think the contention is that having a subgroup in society with 1% of their people willing to kill cannot possibly be contained by a police force, and cannot possibly peacefully exist alongside other groups.
Add to that the fact that 50% or more of those muslims will protect the 1% extremists from the police force in all but the most offensive cases.
Let's face facts here : islam is a religion that was created in a massive war, that is on occasion blamed for starting the dark ages by cutting off all sea based trade in Western Europe and more than half of land based trade. The ideology internalized war during it's formation period. Hell, in the hadith you find plenty of references why the early caliphs "chose" islam, and the reason was they were at war. The religion survived only because it could convince large amounts of people to fight anyone else around them. Further in it's history it spread by war and it is absolutely unique in the sheer amount of genocides that just happened to take place just at the edge of islam, at the point where it was spreading. The biggest slaughter in history, the Mongol conquest of India, with the lower end of death toll estimates at over 3 times the WWII total death toll (over 30 times bigger than the holocaust), and may have killed half a billion (close to 100 holocausts), was an islamic expansion war.
And I wouldn't worry about them going to the middle east - or anywhere - that's temporary. This will spread, and the time will come when the fight is simply local.
The biggest slaughter in history, the Mongol conquest of India, ... may have killed half a billion
Wow.. That's incredible considering that the WORLD population in 1200-1300 was only 400m people. In fact, it's so incredible, I think I'm going to need to see some references.
It is incredible. The reason they could kill so many is that they were at it for several hundred years and attacked different regions. So the population had some time to replenish before the next series of genocides started. Individual campaigns had death tolls in the 10-50 million range. There were 6 major campaigns. Several had multiple decades of genocide.
And of course, death tolls are a guessing game, as are population figures. So yes there are legitimate arguments about these figures.
Ah, I see this is the Isaac Asimov approach to Islamic historiography.
I don't think even Will Durant would toss around numbers like that. And 50% of Muslims sheltering extremists is a totally indefensible number. Maybe after the whole country had been subjected to sustained modern propaganda techniques of the sort we have not yet seen any Islamist regime deploy.
As somebody who used to work on Middle Eastern affairs for the U.S. government (and, full disclosure, a CSIS alum), I thought that this was a pretty solid op ed:
Iraq is majority Shia. Iran is majority Shia. Isis is Sunni. Saddam was Sunni, a minority in Iraq, but saddam kept the Sunni in power. When he was deposed the Sunni were repressed and pushed into a repressed role. However they... Fuck it. It would take a week of Ivy League lectures to explain what's going on. My point is that we fucked things up by getting rid of saddam and not putting a powerful repressive regime in place. But, also, the people of the region want to live under Isis and if we're not willing to utterly destroy them (which I don't think we are) then we should just let the people of the region take care of it.
Yeah, fine. If we had any decency, we'd deploy the Marines to protect the ruins, sort of like we deployed the Coast Guard to protect BP's interests in the Gulf. Not.
I checked out your profile and it is apparent you are a smart guy. However, as a former Marine Science Technician in the USCG, your comment is not only insulting, but has no basis in reality. Marine Environmental Response actions are incredibly difficult, complex, and dangerous. I would recommend reading the Deepwater Horizon ISPR to get a sense of how challenging this incident was, what was learned, and maybe get a perspective of how serious this kind of mission is to the men and women of the Coast Guard.
I think you took the comment the wrong way. It wasn't to denigrate the Coast Guard, but to say we'll clean up BP's mess because we're a corporatocracy, but not send the Marines in to save something of historical value. It was a knock at what the US government puts value on.
Perhaps, but MER missions have zero to do with protecting corporate interests. They have everything to do with minimizing impact to the environment, the marine and coastal ecosystem, and our fisheries. The Coast Guard is also tasked with protecting the Maritime Economic Defense Zone, so I guess you could argue that there is a financial motivation to protect our nation's interests, but I don't like the implication that the CG is a corporate shill. I lived in that world and I understand the mission and the people. Maybe I'm just too sensitive...
At some level we're probably just going to disagree. There is ample video of various agencies of the federal government along with local and state law enforcement being used to prevent news organizations from filming the environmental impact across the gulf coast, and the Coast Guard was one of these. I also believe that injecting nearly two million gallons of Corexit was done without regard for the impact on marine life; it was done to ensure that the oil would settle on the bottom of the gulf. So less spoiled beaches was obviously good, but the impact on marine life and ecosystem made the spill much much worse. Read the Wiki page on Corexit (FWIW, I have a degree in chemistry from UNC-CH).
And since you mentioned the Marine Economic Defense Zone (otherwise known as the Exclusive Economic Zone), this is presumably what entitled a Coast Guard cutter to board my sailboat about 3 NM off the coast of Bimini in international waters? You all forced me to reduce speed to 3 knots and spent two hours searching my boat. So long in fact that you made me arrive in Miami after dark. You all kept telling me that it was a safety search (flares, life jackets, etc.), but we all know you were looking for illegal immigrants, drugs, and guns. And you found none. But you did endanger myself and my girlfriend. And for the record, my girlfriend attended the Coast Guard Academy in 1984.
I'm glad you were or are in the Coast Guard. I know you would have done your best to rescue me if I'd triggered my EPIRB. We're not debating that. But I do believe that the US military was essentially deployed to protect BP's image in the Gulf although there's an idiom that goes something like, 'never ascribe to malice that which can otherwise be ascribed to stupidity'. So maybe all that just happened because of the same incompetence that gave us Michael Brown as FEMA director for Katrina. It's not like I claim we have a functional federal government.
I can see how it could have been taken that way. If I were in the Coast Guard, I would have been insulted too if it was insinuated that I only worked to protect corporate interests over mitigating an environmental disaster.
It's not a matter of "what" the government values, it's "where".
