[Solidsnape]

I've always been of the (rather unpopular) opinion that with the Western Governmental foreign policies as they are, these attacks are inevitable.
I don't want to come across as striving to be PC but we, that is western citizens, are being made targets by our governments activities overseas.
Apart from anything else, this dynamic has pretty much went on since time memorial in human history.
Meddle, interfere and cause unavoidable collateral damage.... "The enemy" will respond in kind.
This method of international guerrilla warfare and sleeper cells that we call "terrorism" is just another change in the rule book of military engagement. It seems our governments are happy to destroy by their rules, but don't like it when the enemy alters strategy and lashes out.

This is the way I see it.
It's war, in all its horrible details.
None of it is nice. But I don't see why any of us (the English especially) should feel we should be immune.

Like I said, an umpopular opinion. I have to try not to voice it in the company of my bigoted, tabloid hungry work colleagues.
I've learned the hard way that my family isn't going to come round to it, and most of my "friends" are the same. Unable to see past the islamaphobia and somehow able to project a worthwhile and just, even righteous, cause. The propaganda department of old that was so good at demonising the Hun, then Jerry, and getting people to sign up to their almost certain death and disfigurement, in many cases, has been superseded by the media.
And most people are buying it.

I can hope I don't get trolled for venting my opinion on here.
Hope.

[Aptorian]

I understand your perspective and agree with it from a strategic perspective. But the thing about these kinds of situations is that we don't like it when it happens in our own backyard. It destroys the illusion of safety we (The West) enjoy.

Furthermore, there is a difference in war, between targeting civilian populations and hitting military or government installations. When the IRA bombed barracks and policestations in Northern Ireland you can understand it. When they hit city centers killing civilians less so.

While targeting civilian populations in a time of war might serve as an effective means of demoralizing the population and limiting the work force by attrition, it does litterally nothing to weaken the West in a time of peace and abundance.

The thing about Terror is that I have never heard about it resulting in a more constructive, more nuanced, more healthy development. Things are not going to get better in Paris now. Muslims (if it is even muslims) will not be treated better in the coming years. Aid for the peoples of the Middle East will not increase. France will not withdraw from any kind of military or economic sanctions they are already involved in.

All this will do is create an environment where these fanatics can continue their un-winnable struggle against ideologies that cannot be shot or blown up.

This post has been edited by Apt: 15 November 2015 - 12:15 PM

[Solidsnape]

Apt, on 15 November 2015 - 12:11 PM, said:

I understand your perspective and agree with it from a strategic perspective. But the thing about these kinds of situations is that we don't like it when it happens in our own backyard. It destroys the illusion of safety we (The West) enjoy.

Furthermore, there is a difference in war, between targeting civilian populations and hitting military or government installations. When the IRA bombed barracks and policestations in Northern Ireland you can understand it. When they hit city centers killing civilians less so.

While targeting civilian populations in a time of war might serve as an effective means of demoralizing the population and limiting the work force by attrition, it does litterally nothing to weaken the West in a time of peace and abundance.

The thing about Terror is that I have never heard about it resulting in a more constructive, more nuanced, more healthy development. Things are not going to get better in Paris now. Muslims (if it is even muslims) will not be treated better in the coming years. Aid for the peoples of the Middle East will not increase. France will not withdraw from any kind of military or economic sanctions they are already involved in.

All this will do is create an environment where these fanatics can continue their un-winnable struggle against ideologies that cannot be shot or blown up.

Agree. Fully.
I don't want to be the one that brought Ireland into it.
But yeah, that's what I was trying to say earlier. Generally members of the armed/security forces are targeted, as well as politicians and civil servants. These events are still not easy to accept. The Lee Rigby incident was absolutely horrendous, and produced a massive reaction from the general public. So even when the targets are military and political it's still fucking terrible.
But when civilian populations are intentionally targeted, then it becomes harder to reconcile. But if this is the only method you have which can (as you erroneously believe) produce results for your cause, then you go for it. Why show any sympathy for the enemies innocents when they clearly care not a jot for yours?

So when will we (the UK government) stop putting the welfare of indigenous populations second to its own citizens needs.
With regards to Food and Energy we have a massive responsibility to provide fair terms and payments for all our imports.

Anyway, I think education, as always, is key. Radicalisation is hard to promote in an educated, rational mind. Most of the people willing to do the damage in these cases are given 2nd hand hate, passed down by their elders. This is a hard cycle to break (Ireland again) but with education it's a more realistic battle.
Bloody hell, even my high school history class was a state sponsored propaganda lesson.
I'm drifting frrom point.
But it's all one point.

This post has been edited by Solidsnape: 15 November 2015 - 01:32 PM

[Andorion]

I feel as if we are dealing with two things here: the long-term and the short-term

In the Long-term Solidsnape is absolutely correct. Western foreign policy has to accept a lot of the blame and not just post 9/11 policy but 20th Century policy as a whole. These problems lead back to Britain and France taking over the mandated territories of the erstwhile Ottoman Empire post WW1 as well as the shitty politics the US and Britain practised post WW2, the setting up of the Shah of Iran being the most obvious example.Their interference helped create a destructive, seemingly never ending pattern of violence.

Of course the other major element in this stew is (as I have mentioned upthread) aggressive Wahabi Islam. This is seriously long term as Wahabbism started in the 18th Century. But the adoption by Saudi Arabia of this ideology and then the continued elevation of Saudi Arabia due to US oil interests made things far worse.

So take a collection of poor or having serious income inequality unstable states, seething resentment about a hundred slights, real, and imagined, ham handed foreign policy of the West, and an ideology that makes violence ok, and what do you get? And of course you have Israel which is a huge problem all on its own, sectarian conflicts etc. The West took a bad to middling situation and made it worse

In the Short Term, Apt has a point. Most people in the West don't care about long-term history and the problems it reveals. They know they are under threat, there is an obvious group to vent their rage on and they do so.

Solidsnape said something about education. I think we need to problematize that term. Because to me, neither side, the Islamophobes in the West or the Terrorists are educated. Education isn't having a degree or being able to write awesome English or to be able to build a particle accelerator. To me, education is the ability to collect facts and piece them together in your worldview or if necessary, to build a new worldview. To be educated is to be able to ask question even when you know the answers are probably going to hurt. To be educated is to be able to use your imagination and put yourself into the other guys shoes, to be able to empathize with him and see if there really is no way to reconcile. True education make you a better human being.

Got a bit carried away there, but thats how I feel.
And Apt is totally correct. This type of violence never solves, it only escalates

[LinearPhilosopher]

whats this PC term people keep throwing around?

edit: nvm talking to my buddy he said it was politically correct.

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 15 November 2015 - 09:08 PM

[QuickTidal]

As if pure evil cowards didn't already cover the terrorists who did this...according to a survivor from the Bataclan, these assholes walked over to the disabled area and shot people in wheelchair's first. Which is a level of evil I can't even properly quantify.

[QuickTidal]

Looks like an attempt was foiled in Germany. An ambulance full of explosives found at stadium when fans were already in the seats.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 November 2015 - 08:16 PM

[Nicodimas]

On this one, I would like to learn how close this was to a actual "ambulance". If procured how did they get said ambulance??

Obviously not going to happen soon, as they will probably have to do some investigating.. But the above if true..is telling at the complexity of the situation.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 17 November 2015 - 08:25 PM

[QuickTidal]

I've read reports that just say ambulance, and reports that says made to LOOK like an ambulance.

[koehkont]

A lot of that was speculation. There was a link between something medical and explosives. They searched the medical rooms first and after that there were rumours about the ambulance. There was just a statement on Dutch television from the German authorities and they aren't going to give any more information to protect the guy who tipped them off and also to not discourage people to keep giving them tips, but they say they acted on information about a severe thread. They asked the media to not look into it any further. Also the stadium wasn't full of people yet. There were journalist and people from catering etcetera, but the 'regular' supporters were not in large numbers in the stadium.

edit: Also, so far no explosives were found, but they keep searching.

This post has been edited by koehkont: 17 November 2015 - 09:13 PM

[Macros]

this is why the media needs to fuck off and have a word with itself.

[Gorefest]

Appears to have been a false alarm. Match cancelled though.

[Tsundoku]

Lots of misinformation, some deliberate:

http://www.news.com....2f2eb117c0b8031

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

On the topic of people being morons about this, I think I saw the best one yet tonight. Apparently, according to this person, because Muslims haven't rioted and walked the streets in protest (unsure if he means in the UK or anywhere) - they all must sympathise with ISIS and probably think the victims in Paris deserved it.

And people like that are allowed to breed....

[Macros]

People sharing this god awful video claiming a polician 'lays the smackdown' on a muslim, saying 'what we're all thinking'. This is a supposedly educated woman, an American politician, whk claims 15-25% of Muslims are extremists, that's like 300 million people.
We
Would
All
Be
Dead.


Comparing Muslims to ISIL/ISIS/WHATEVERTHRFUCKTHEURECALLED is like saying all christians are in the KKK, even non white christians, that's exactly how stupid people are

[Aptorian]

Is this the video you are referring to?

*keep in mind this video is from June 2014*



I'd argue that she is not saying that there's 300 million terrorists but rather large areas of the Middle east and Asia where their political, cultural and religious structures create an environment for extremism. These are the parts of the world where girls aren't allowed to go to school and are married away. Places where criticizing Islam is if not a death sentence then at least a crime you will be punished severely for. Places with great poverty and lack of education or free speech.

But then again, going by her wikipedia article she is obviously an anti-Islam spokesperson. We don't know where she has those numbers from or how they are interpreting the data.

https://en.wikipedia...rigitte_Gabriel

This post has been edited by Apt: 18 November 2015 - 08:50 AM

[Macros]

I'm not watching it again, stupidity hurts, but I'm 99.9% sure one of her lines basically 'sure there's 1.2 billion Muslims, and 75% of then are peaceful people, but the rest arent'

[Cause]

Macros, on 18 November 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

People sharing this god awful video claiming a polician 'lays the smackdown' on a muslim, saying 'what we're all thinking'. This is a supposedly educated woman, an American politician, whk claims 15-25% of Muslims are extremists, that's like 300 million people.
We
Would
All
Be
Dead.


Comparing Muslims to ISIL/ISIS/WHATEVERTHRFUCKTHEURECALLED is like saying all christians are in the KKK, even non white Christians, that's exactly how stupid people are

We discussed this before somewhere. To paint any group of 1.6 billion people with the same brush would be retarded. Still we know Islamic extremism exists, we know it appeals to people in every country. I have no idea if its 0.5% or 30% but they exist. They are a threat and they should be acknowledged. As I type this my openly Gay Muslim friend is the floor above me working on his Masters. Here is where I have a problem, I would never dare to describe him as not a real Muslim (Though many Muslims, certainly not all, would). So when a terrorist blows people up in the name of Islam we should not say he was not a real Muslim. His Islamic beliefs, or the manipulation of them by someone more cynical is a very real part of the problem. Islam is not the problem. We can however acknowledge its part of the problem without launching a grand crusade to cleanse the middle east. A terrorist can be an Islamic terrorist without tainting all of Islam.

When I think of Buddhists I think peace loving Zen master hippies (Is this entirely accurate? Who knows part of the problem is we are ignorant of most cultures besides our own no matter how we try to learn of them). Their are Buddhists in Nepal who burn down mosques and kill Arabs. They are still Buddhists. We shape our religions so suit our needs. They also certainly shape us. There have been jewish and christian terrorists just as there have been great icons of peace from both religions.

We need to own up to the truth however that their exists a (fringe) belief system in Islam that promoes Islamic dominance of the world and promotes global terror.

[Macros]

I see your angle on the problem but relating to Islam in this way is counter productive.
Every religion has assholes, every religion has people who will twist the tennants of their faith to suit their own agenda, its one of the key problems with organised religion, it gives power to individuals willing to force it.

Much better would be a concerted effort to educate the world, and specifically the fear mungering, click baiting, politically agendacising, generic scumbags, media that the most important part of Islamic religion is the 99.99%, not the extremists, everyone needs to have their eyes opened to what exactly the extremists (in any religion) are saying and exactly how it is counter to that religions core beliefs, shine a light on them ideologically, paint them as charlatans, liars and fools. Highlight how they a lying to the youth of today and provide, en masse, the proper, easily obtainable, information.

Will never happen though, to many people have a vested interest in war and all its paraphernalia, too many people believe their own bullshit, too many people enjoy sitting on percieved moral high ground

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[LinearPhilosopher]

My issue with that, is that with people of a given faith, their beliefs and behaviors vary so widely from individual to individual that i can't say there's any relationship between religious association and behavior. So on the one hand saying x person is not a real adherant to any religion because of y behavior is false as it's simply put just us imprinting our own biases. But on the other hand, i think it quickly becomes a pointless distinction to make .

I've one buddy who claims hes a good xtian, yet i've never seen him or heard of him donating to charity which is a rather well documented xtian value. Quite the opposite has happened in fact. If people are dissafected or receptive to certain messages they'll listen to those messages. Given that within a given faith there's soo much written on anything, wouldn't surprise me if you could interpret it any way you want.

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 18 November 2015 - 12:50 PM