(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

(12-09-2015 12:36 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...ts/384980/

Quote:There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

Hmmm

Quote:The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Hmmmmmm.

Quote:Zawahiri’s companion in isolation is a Jordanian cleric named Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, 55, who has a fair claim to being al-Qaeda’s intellectual architect and the most important jihadist unknown to the average American newspaper reader. On most matters of doctrine, Maqdisi and the Islamic State agree. Both are closely identified with the jihadist wing of a branch of Sunnism called Salafism, after the Arabic al salaf al salih, the “pious forefathers.” These forefathers are the Prophet himself and his earliest adherents, whom Salafis honor and emulate as the models for all behavior, including warfare, couture, family life, even dentistry.

Hmmmmmmmm?

Quote:Denying the holiness of the Koran or the prophecies of Muhammad is straightforward apostasy. But Zarqawi and the state he spawned take the position that many other acts can remove a Muslim from Islam. These include, in certain cases, selling alcohol or drugs, wearing Western clothes or shaving one’s beard, voting in an election—even for a Muslim candidate—and being lax about calling other people apostates

Quote:Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”

Quote:According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”

Quote:Before the caliphate, “maybe 85 percent of the Sharia was absent from our lives,” Choudary told me. “These laws are in abeyance until we have khilafa”—a caliphate—“and now we have one.” Without a caliphate, for example, individual vigilantes are not obliged to amputate the hands of thieves they catch in the act. But create a caliphate, and this law, along with a huge body of other jurisprudence, suddenly awakens. In theory, all Muslims are obliged to immigrate to the territory where the caliph is applying these laws.

The f*cked part of this is that ISIS believes that Jesus will come and save them just before the end of times.

Yes. That's a part of Islamic belief. That believe Christ will come back and fight with them. I had this discussion with an ex colleague from Egypt. It's in the Koran.

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(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

And who would be better?

(12-09-2015 12:54 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  One more nugget:

Quote:Muslims can say that slavery is not legitimate now, and that crucifixion is wrong at this historical juncture. Many say precisely this. But they cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion outright without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet. “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,” Bernard Haykel says. That really would be an act of apostasy.

Yeah... All this is covered in the Islam 101 thread OP.

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(12-09-2015 08:08 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 07:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We meddle in their internal affairs, so they meddle in ours. Their meddling takes the form of killing our people. We have two options:

1) Kill them until they get tired of dying, or
2) GTFO and leave them alone, and stay TFO

Note that half-assed limited involvement is not one of those options.

I don't think option 2 will work. As the article explains, they believe they need to conquer everything. They consider just about every other Islamic organisation, going as far back as before the Ottoman Empire, to be apostate. They believe that Jihad must be waged at least once a year, and that all treaties are temporary.

Quote:The last caliphate was the Ottoman empire, which reached its peak in the 16th century and then experienced a long decline, until the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, euthanized it in 1924. But Cerantonio, like many supporters of the Islamic State, doesn’t acknowledge that caliphate as legitimate, because it didn’t fully enforce Islamic law, which requires stonings and slavery and amputations, and because its caliphs were not descended from the tribe of the Prophet, the Quraysh.

Baghdadi spoke at length of the importance of the caliphate in his Mosul sermon. He said that to revive the institution of the caliphate—which had not functioned except in name for about 1,000 years—was a communal obligation. He and his loyalists had “hastened to declare the caliphate and place an imam” at its head, he said. “This is a duty upon the Muslims—a duty that has been lost for centuries … The Muslims sin by losing it, and they must always seek to establish it.” Like bin Laden before him, Baghdadi spoke floridly, with frequent scriptural allusion and command of classical rhetoric. Unlike bin Laden, and unlike those false caliphs of the Ottoman empire, he is Qurayshi.

It's just insane. They literally believe the laws of the last 1000 years haven't been extreme enough. The Sharia Law we're we're all familiar with doesn't go far enough for them.

which is why 1 is the only answer......he knows it.....so do I

it's why it was 1)

(12-09-2015 04:07 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  There's like 1.6 billion Muslims world-wide. Finding a few places where around 50% agree on something hardly equates to "most Muslims" world over not being peaceful and tolerant as was claimed to be factual. And in the vast majority of those polls he cited, the results came nowhere near 50%.

Face it, while yes there are likely more radicals claiming to be followers of Islam and wanting to inflict death and violence than in any other religion, there just is no proof to conclude that it's most of them.

So if I told you to walk into a room where 33% of the people wanted to kill you would you walk in there?

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(12-09-2015 04:16 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 04:09 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 04:07 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  There's like 1.6 billion Muslims world-wide. Finding a few places where around 50% agree on something hardly equates to "most Muslims" world over not being peaceful and tolerant as was claimed to be factual. And in the vast majority of those polls he cited, the results came nowhere near 50%.

Face it, while yes there are likely more radicals claiming to be followers of Islam and wanting to inflict death and violence than in any other religion, there just is no proof to conclude that it's most of them.

So what percentage of anti-western, jihadist Muslims would you find concerning?

100.

Lolololol...wow

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(12-09-2015 08:13 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

And who would be better?

A dictator. Like the one we got rid of. At least as far as U.S. interests are concerned. Even the Iranians might be better than ISIS.

(12-09-2015 08:18 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 04:16 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 04:09 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 04:07 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  There's like 1.6 billion Muslims world-wide. Finding a few places where around 50% agree on something hardly equates to "most Muslims" world over not being peaceful and tolerant as was claimed to be factual. And in the vast majority of those polls he cited, the results came nowhere near 50%.

Face it, while yes there are likely more radicals claiming to be followers of Islam and wanting to inflict death and violence than in any other religion, there just is no proof to conclude that it's most of them.

So what percentage of anti-western, jihadist Muslims would you find concerning?

100.

Lolololol...wow

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libs+red=pic

(12-09-2015 08:20 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  A dictator. Like the one we got rid of. At least as far as U.S. interests are concerned. Even the Iranians might be better than ISIS.

Iran wouldn't, they're Shia. Iraq wouldn't, they're majority Shia. Syria wouldn't, their ruling class is Alawite.

A dictator probably would. Who would be a good dictator?

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

(12-09-2015 11:03 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

So you want to keep meddling? So Iraq and Egypt and Libya, not to mention Vietnam, were all good situations to get involved in?

And your comments are a pretty blatant and unwarranted mischaracterization of my position. It's none of what you said. It's that our resources are finite and limited, and every war in the world is neither our mission nor our problem.

(12-09-2015 11:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:03 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

So you want to keep meddling? So Iraq and Egypt and Libya, not to mention Vietnam, were all good situations to get involved in?

And your comments are a pretty blatant and unwarranted mischaracterization of my position.

What's your position?

(12-09-2015 11:08 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:03 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

So you want to keep meddling? So Iraq and Egypt and Libya, not to mention Vietnam, were all good situations to get involved in?
And your comments are a pretty blatant and unwarranted mischaracterization of my position.

What's your position?

That I don't want young Americans to sacrifice life and limb in a war that not only are we not trying to win, we don't even know whom we want to win.

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:02 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  No way you can have dealings with ISIS, even in secret, any more than you trust Iran.

The point is that you need some sort of Sunni government in charge of ISIS's current area. If not ISIS, then who?

That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

We shouldn't care much (well, except if we feel like we have a moral obligation to try to prevent killings there), IF the lunatics stay in Iraq and Syria and don't export their hate here, but that's a big IF. A dictator is less likely to gain anything by exporting violence as they have more practical considerations in mind, like just holding on to power.

(12-09-2015 11:08 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:03 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 08:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  That would be preferable, certainly, to have an actual government. I don't see ISIS being able to really "govern" anything except at the point of a gun, just like a dictator, but worse.

But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

So you want to keep meddling? So Iraq and Egypt and Libya, not to mention Vietnam, were all good situations to get involved in?
And your comments are a pretty blatant and unwarranted mischaracterization of my position.

What's your position?

(12-10-2015 09:40 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  We shouldn't care much (well, except if we feel like we have a moral obligation to try to prevent killings there), IF the lunatics stay in Iraq and Syria and don't export their hate here, but that's a big IF. A dictator is less likely to gain anything by exporting violence as they have more practical considerations in mind, like just holding on to power.

Responding to both. I'm not saying that we are fine with killing. What I'm saying is that whoever takes over there is going to continue killing. When we try to prevent that by "winning their hearts and minds" they respond by doing things like 9/11 and Fort Hood and San Bernardino. The only way we are going to stop the killing is by killing them until they get tired of dying. And then when the next group of killers comes to power, we kill them until they get tired of dying. That seems to me to be a colossal waste of time and money, not to mention the lives and limbs of our 20-somethings. There's a cost-benefit analysis that must be conducted, and right now the potential benefits (replacing one group of killers with another) do not justify the costs (lives and limbs of our younger generation).

I agree that the best answer is probably the least objectionable dictator. Saddam was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Mubarak was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Qaddafi was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Many years ago, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. So we toppled them, or allowed them to be toppled. Which situation of those is better off today than it was before?

If the national resolve is sufficient to support all-out war with overwhelming force, then we should conduct an all-out war with overwhelming force. Afghanistan after 9/11 is probably the only place where that kind of resolve could have materialized, but we didn't go in to win there either. It's pretty common knowledge that we had opportunities for drone shots at bin Laden or Mullah Omar or both in the early going in Afghanistan, but passed them up because of worries about collateral damage. That's not fighting to win. And the leaders of organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS know that we are not going to fight to win, so as long as they can hide behind women and children, they are perfectly safe. Fighting against the US is a no-risk strategy for them.

I'm frankly tired of fighting wars that we don't intend to win. Vietnam cured me of that, and subsequent events have just reinforced the lessons that we did not learn in Vietnam. Now we are taking it one step further, fighting a war where we don't even know whom we WANT to win. It's absolute batsh*t crazy.

(12-10-2015 10:53 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:08 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:06 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 11:03 PM)DogPoundNorth Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 10:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But why do we care about that?

Yeah, why would you care about other lives? especially Muslims? We are christians after all, and like Jesus said "Those who are not christians are my enemies and my enemies must suffer."

So you want to keep meddling? So Iraq and Egypt and Libya, not to mention Vietnam, were all good situations to get involved in?
And your comments are a pretty blatant and unwarranted mischaracterization of my position.

What's your position?

(12-10-2015 09:40 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  We shouldn't care much (well, except if we feel like we have a moral obligation to try to prevent killings there), IF the lunatics stay in Iraq and Syria and don't export their hate here, but that's a big IF. A dictator is less likely to gain anything by exporting violence as they have more practical considerations in mind, like just holding on to power.

Responding to both. I'm not saying that we are fine with killing. What I'm saying is that whoever takes over there is going to continue killing. When we try to prevent that by "winning their hearts and minds" they respond by doing things like 9/11 and Fort Hood and San Bernardino. The only way we are going to stop the killing is by killing them until they get tired of dying. And then when the next group of killers comes to power, we kill them until they get tired of dying. That seems to me to be a colossal waste of time and money, not to mention the lives and limbs of our 20-somethings. There's a cost-benefit analysis that must be conducted, and right now the potential benefits (replacing one group of killers with another) do not justify the costs (lives and limbs of our younger generation).

I agree that the best answer is probably the least objectionable dictator. Saddam was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Mubarak was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Qaddafi was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. Many years ago, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was that, but that wasn't good enough for us. So we toppled them, or allowed them to be toppled. Which situation of those is better off today than it was before?

If the national resolve is sufficient to support all-out war with overwhelming force, then we should conduct an all-out war with overwhelming force. Afghanistan after 9/11 is probably the only place where that kind of resolve could have materialized, but we didn't go in to win there either. It's pretty common knowledge that we had opportunities for drone shots at bin Laden or Mullah Omar or both in the early going in Afghanistan, but passed them up because of worries about collateral damage. That's not fighting to win. And the leaders of organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS know that we are not going to fight to win, so as long as they can hide behind women and children, they are perfectly safe. Fighting against the US is a no-risk strategy for them.

I'm frankly tired of fighting wars that we don't intend to win. Vietnam cured me of that, and subsequent events have just reinforced the lessons that we did not learn in Vietnam. Now we are taking it one step further, fighting a war where we don't even know whom we WANT to win. It's absolute batsh*t crazy.

Can't disagree with any of that. I'm not even optimistic that if we went in there to win, that the end result would be much better. We'd have to occupy all or most of Iraq and Syria, meanwhile the ISIS fighters crawl into their holes and wait until we leave, all the while maintaining a low level of continual attacks on our troops.

(12-10-2015 11:03 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  Can't disagree with any of that. I'm not even optimistic that if we went in there to win, that the end result would be much better. We'd have to occupy all or most of Iraq and Syria, meanwhile the ISIS fighters crawl into their holes and wait until we leave, all the while maintaining a low level of continual attacks on our troops.

And that's the BEST possible outcome.