A solution for Iraq

[Tahuti]

This gets to my (as yet unstated) objections above. I believe Funky made a bit of a naive atheist critique of Islam, but misses the bigger and far more substantial critique that could be made. Religion can be both a force of peace as well as absolutely tyrannical and everything between because it is what its followers make it to be; the term followers is ultimately misleading.

That is true. However, Christianity understood by a 14th century renaissance man is different than say a Christian fanatic. Same for Islam.

And that's kinda depressing. If a whole culture arises surrounding a certain interpretation, it is really hard to kill off.

 

[kiwitt]

That "death cult" [sic] is promulgated and funded by the Saudi monarchy, whom the US is allied with and has continued to support for decades even as they fund and commit terrorist acts against us. Our actions, including particularly the invasion of Iraq, do not combat or defeat that ideology but cause people to rally around it.

Exactly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html

Eliminating the occasional militant leaders in drone and special-forces strikes is of limited use in reducing extremism if millions of radicals are being actively trained in Wahhabi madrassas across the Muslim world.

The fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda is deeply ironic since these organizations were created and are sustained, in part, by funds we hand over to the Saudis and Gulf Arab nations to purchase their oil.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

That is true. However, Christianity understood by a 14th century renaissance man is different than say a Christian fanatic. Same for Islam.

And that's kinda depressing. If a whole culture arises surrounding a certain interpretation, it is really hard to kill off.

I have more depressing news. There is a whole culture in one powerfull country growing around a fact that its goverment has fabulated reasons for declaring a war on another country. It went in, raped it and killed millions of its inhabitans in process completely destabilizing it destroying any future for it. No one was hold responsible or got punished only this country next president got Nobel peace prize.

 

[Funky]

It's in response to this line:

I still fail to see the point. We agree that the Iraq war has had terrible consequences. But why have these consequences been so abhorrent? It's because the people there follow their heinous death cult in the first place. We can blame the US for the going to war without the backup of the UN, we can blame them for fabricating reasons for the war, and we can certainly blame them for not having a follow-up plan. But we can't hold them responsible for the horrendous behaviour displayed by ISIS. Why?

For one, even the biggest critics of the war didn't forsee the extreme religious barbarism we witness every day. Certain variables, like the destabilization of Syria by the civil war against Assad, could hardly be predicted in 2003. In hindsight it is of course a lot easier to judge.

More to the point though, we cannot evaluate the issue without considering intentions.
The idea to overthrow Iraq's brutal dictator and give the Iraqi people freedom may have been naive, but it was done at least in part with good intentions. What are the reasons the US went to war? They wanted sane collaborators in the region. Access to oil most likely had something to do with it. And it is not too bold a statement that the US administration really was interested in establishing a democracy in the region, which, at least in theory, could have caused a snowball effect for the entire Middle East. Yes, their plan failed. But their intentions were largely of good nature.

What are the intentions of ISIS on the other hand? These people want to spread their vile death cult around the globe, killing anyone who will not submit. They want to impose sharia and thereby make life miserable for large parts of the population. They conduct the most gruesome executions, sell women off like animals, slaughter dissidents without second thought. These are the bad guys, and virtually all of their intentions are of huge detriment to the region and society as a whole.
Perhaps they wouldn't have risen to power so quickly without the war in Iraq (though it is rather useless discussing speculative and counter-factual scenarios). But we must be able to draw the distinction between the intentions of the US government, however deplorable the Bush administration may have been, and of this vile caliphate, which is orders of magnitude worse in every regard.

The big factors here are social, geopolitical, economic, etc. Attributing the situation to an ages-old religious conflict is obscuring the truth and making it artificially impossible to solve.

Again to my knowledge non of the IS leaders are religious man or care for the essence of Islam but are only using some twisted version of it to gain their non-religious means.

Not wanting to be pedantic, but did you check the links I provided in my last post? Again, it is virtually impossible to see how ISIS are distorting the text of the Koran. These people are closer to the book than anyone else. Everything they do is prescribed in their holy texts. Saying they are not religious really makes no sense at all. I realize it is hard to imagine that people really believe these things, especially for people with liberal, secular, and atheist or quasi-atheist views. But we cannot ignore the facts. And we cannot ignore what these people tell us about why they are behaving in this manner. Of course there are social and geopolitical issues involved. But they dwindle in comparison with the overwhelming role that the specific tenets of the Islamic religion play in their motivation. By denying the obvious, we are incapacitating ourselved from acknowledging the true problem and thereby hinder ourselves from being able to combat the roots of the problem, which lie in the holy texts of Islam.

 

[Ajidica]

Not wanting to be pedantic, but did you check the links I provided in my last post? Again, it is virtually impossible to see how ISIS are distorting the text of the Koran. These people are closer to the book than anyone else. Everything they do is prescribed in their holy texts. Saying they are not religious really makes no sense at all. I realize it is hard to imagine that people really believe these things, especially for people with liberal, secular, and atheist or quasi-atheist views. But we cannot ignore the facts. And we cannot ignore what these people tell us about why they are behaving in this manner. Of course there are social and geopolitical issues involved. But they dwindle in comparison with the overwhelming role that the specific tenets of the Islamic religion play in their motivation.

We have two options here:
We can assume that after 1400 years the incredibly small number of self-declared Muslims in IS stumbled across the honest-to-god real version of Islam.
-OR-
We can assume that all the other self-declared Muslims in the world don't think IS is the real version of Islam.
I'm partial to the latter, frankly. And so to are the traditional Islamic religious authorities.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...sis_baghdadi_caliphate_s_actions_against.html

1.It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a portion of a verse from the Qur’an—or part of a verse—to derive a ruling without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and objective prerequisites for fatwas , and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith .

http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/

 

[kiwitt]

I have more depressing news. There is a whole culture in one powerfull country growing around a fact that its goverment has fabulated reasons for declaring a war on another country. It went in, raped it and killed millions of its inhabitans in process completely destabilizing it destroying any future for it. No one was hold responsible or got punished only this country next president got Nobel peace prize.

May be that is why they are not part of the ICC, they are law above themselves, so they can't get prosecuted for ...

... 11 crimes which constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and which are applicable only to international armed conflicts:

• Wilful killing - YES - multiple killings by drones
• Torture - YES - Waterboarding
• Inhuman treatment - YES - Abu Ghraib
• Biological experiments - Maybe those microwave weapons they trialled
• Wilfully causing great suffering - YES - Iraq Wars
• Destruction and appropriation of property - YES - Iraq Wars and Occupation
• Compelling service in hostile forces - unknown
• Denying a fair trial - YES - multiple killings by drones
• Unlawful deportation and transfer - YES - CIA renditions via Poland
• Unlawful confinement - YES - Guantanamo
• Taking hostages - unknown

Quite a list of War Crimes.

And is it any wonder why much the world hates Americans.

 

[Antilogic]

Is it making it artificially impossible to solve, or excusing the reality that it is too unpleasant to solve?

I think it's a little bit of column A, little bit of column B. Fundamentally mis-identifying the problem, though, makes the problem that much more difficult to solve.

That is true. However, Christianity understood by a 14th century renaissance man is different than say a Christian fanatic. Same for Islam.

And that's kinda depressing. If a whole culture arises surrounding a certain interpretation, it is really hard to kill off.

Exactly. The Renaissance man imparts his own values on Christianity, just as a fanatic or a modern-day non-denominational "generic" American does. The second part of your post, I think, speaks to the early inculcation and induction into faiths.

I still fail to see the point. We agree that the Iraq war has had terrible consequences. But why have these consequences been so abhorrent? It's because the people there follow their heinous death cult in the first place. We can blame the US for the going to war without the backup of the UN, we can blame them for fabricating reasons for the war, and we can certainly blame them for not having a follow-up plan. But we can't hold them responsible for the horrendous behaviour displayed by ISIS. Why?

For one, even the biggest critics of the war didn't forsee the extreme religious barbarism we witness every day. Certain variables, like the destabilization of Syria by the civil war against Assad, could hardly be predicted in 2003. In hindsight it is of course a lot easier to judge.

I disagree that the critics of the war did not foresee the troubles we have today, only that they were systematically marginalized and ignored. And I'm not saying they got the exact dates and locations right like some kind of prophecy, but rather that the broad outlines of the chaos that would ensue after the invasion was known. It's a similar pattern that has been observed before: the war is never over by Christmas, guerrilla resistance is notoriously difficult to handle, etc. This time ain't different.

But here's how I'm seeing it, for this particular point at least: you are making an argument that the violence is inherent to the faith, and we knew that people of that faith existed in Iraq before the Iraq invasion. We also knew that the local strongman was suppressing that, which is one of the reasons the US used to support him (1980s after Iran fell to an Islamic revolution). So taking an action that would remove this strongman and risk unleashing this violence is tantamount to carelessly throwing lit matches around and being shocked when a powder keg or kerosene-soaked rags burn. You were throwing matches, dude, why didn't you expect fire? Not in hindsight, in 2002-3?

Now, I don't necessarily agree with the premise about the religious aspect, I'm just trying to work within the logic of that worldview to make that point.

More to the point though, we cannot evaluate the issue without considering intentions.
The idea to overthrow Iraq's brutal dictator and give the Iraqi people freedom may have been naive, but it was done at least in part with good intentions. What are the reasons the US went to war? They wanted sane collaborators in the region. Access to oil most likely had something to do with it. And it is not too bold a statement that the US administration really was interested in establishing a democracy in the region, which, at least in theory, could have caused a snowball effect for the entire Middle East. Yes, their plan failed. But their intentions were largely of good nature.

What are the intentions of ISIS on the other hand? These people want to spread their vile death cult around the globe, killing anyone who will not submit. They want to impose sharia and thereby make life miserable for large parts of the population. They conduct the most gruesome executions, sell women off like animals, slaughter dissidents without second thought. These are the bad guys, and virtually all of their intentions are of huge detriment to the region and society as a whole.
Perhaps they wouldn't have risen to power so quickly without the war in Iraq (though it is rather useless discussing speculative and counter-factual scenarios). But we must be able to draw the distinction between the intentions of the US government, however deplorable the Bush administration may have been, and of this vile caliphate, which is orders of magnitude worse in every regard.

Intentions don't translate well, and people will rally around their fighters/champions when attacked, no matter about the intentions, superior culture or faith, or whatever. That's happened here recently with 9/11 and President Bush, who went from narrowly winning in one of the most controversial elections in our history to having an overwhelming mandate with a 90% approval rating.

Not wanting to be pedantic, but did you check the links I provided in my last post? Again, it is virtually impossible to see how ISIS are distorting the text of the Koran. These people are closer to the book than anyone else. Everything they do is prescribed in their holy texts. Saying they are not religious really makes no sense at all. I realize it is hard to imagine that people really believe these things, especially for people with liberal, secular, and atheist or quasi-atheist views. But we cannot ignore the facts. And we cannot ignore what these people tell us about why they are behaving in this manner. Of course there are social and geopolitical issues involved. But they dwindle in comparison with the overwhelming role that the specific tenets of the Islamic religion play in their motivation. By denying the obvious, we are incapacitating ourselved from acknowledging the true problem and thereby hinder ourselves from being able to combat the roots of the problem, which lie in the holy texts of Islam.

I'll confess I did not read your particular links. I have encountered these arguments (and quotes/evidence supporting them, sounds like Hirshi Ali or Sam Harris) before, and I think they are in error.

I'm not saying they are not religious (although the former Baathist officials in ISIS are presumably motivated by different goals than al-Baghdadi), I'm saying they are using religion as a cynical excuse for their otherwise nefarious purposes, and you gotta address that. Or, that they are disturbed individuals and thus their particular take on faith is disturbing, just like the pretty chill dude sitting next to me in the office has a pretty chill take on it. It's not The Big External Driving Force that people make it out to be.

And is it any wonder why much the world hates Americans.

That's probably one of the reasons why The Greater Good Intentions don't seem to translate very well.

 

[Farm Boy]

That and lack of monsters in counterbalance. They'll rise, don't you worry, they'll rise.

 

[KmDubya]

May be that is why they are not part of the ICC, they are law above themselves, so they can't get prosecuted for ...Quite a list of War Crimes.

And is it any wonder why much the world hates Americans.

I'll take jealousy for $1000 Alex

The ICC and the UN is a joke made up of either third world dictators or piss ant little countries who pine for the days when they and their opinions mattered to the world.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Is it making it artificially impossible to solve, or excusing the reality that it is too unpleasant to solve?

The economic reality is that the resources of the middle east need to be bled inexpensively into the west for western culture to continue in the comfort to which we are accustomed. If you explain to people in the west what is actually required of them in order to bring the middle east "into the fold of civilized nations" you are going to get a 90% or better response somewhere along the lines of "Less than 400 horsepower? Who the ^%$#$% wants to drive that?"

By portraying the problem as insoluble we save people from facing their own grim responsibility for refusing to solve it. That, my friend, is the road to popularity. "They hate us because the economic sanctions we insist be imposed on them are leading to widespread starvation," will not net you nearly as many smugly satisfied voters as "They hate us because their religion demands it" will.

I'll take jealousy for $1000 Alex

The ICC and the UN is a joke made up of either third world dictators or piss ant little countries who pine for the days when they and their opinions mattered to the world.

I rest my case.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I'll take jealousy for $1000 Alex

The ICC and the UN is a joke made up of either third world dictators or piss ant little countries who pine for the days when they and their opinions mattered to the world.

Unlike some fascist goverments the more illumined ones respect opinions of others becouse its quality is never matter of the size of the territory. Too bad for you. With this mind set you could have made excelent career only a century ago...

 

[Farm Boy]

You can still get a job with that mentality in several very hot economic areas today.

 

[Funky]

We have two options here:
We can assume that after 1400 years the incredibly small number of self-declared Muslims in IS stumbled across the honest-to-god real version of Islam.
-OR-
We can assume that all the other self-declared Muslims in the world don't think IS is the real version of Islam.

With all due respect, this is a gross distortion of the both the historical and modern-day facts.

The 1,400 years of Islamic history have seen countless Jihads and wars of religious expansion. Mohammed himself was a warlord who conquered the Arabian peninsula. After his death it took only slightly more than 100 years for the Muslims to spread their religion to the entirety of Northern Africa and Spain in the West, Eastern Turkey in the North, and up to China and India in the East. This was not done by peaceful missionaries, it was a violent conquest which forced religion upon the people by the sword. In doing so, the conquerors were following the example of their prophet and the words in the Koran, which called them to spread Islam around the world and convert or kill the infidels. The Ottoman Empire's enormous expansion was likewise justified by the tenets of Islam, which declare Jihad a holy duty for Muslims.
While the history is not all too relevant in the context of this discussion, implying that it took 1,400 years for Muslims to extract the message of Jihad out of the Koran is at best wishful thinking.

More to the point though, today we are not talking about small numbers of Muslims who hold reprehensible beliefs. You mentioned ISIS - the estimates of their army size goes up to 200,000 fighters. But this is just one group. Groups like Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Al Quaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, or Hisbollah are responsible for acts of violence almost on a daily basis. And there are countless others, these are just the most prominent ones I mention from the top of my head. Even more frightening is the support these groups receive, especially in the Muslim world but also in growing numbers in the West. Check the polls. This is not some minor issue, we literally are dealing with hundreds of millions of Muslims with iniquitous beliefs.

Who has the "real" version of Islam? I don't really care (as far as I am concerned they are all made-up fantasies). What I do care about is that the violent and inhuman behaviour of Muslims around the globe can be directly connected to specific verses in the Koran and the Hadith. It's laudable that many Muslims somehow manage not to take commands literally like "kill them [the infidels] wherever you find them", which appear hundreds of times in various shades in their holy texts. But to accuse groups like ISIS of distorting the Koran when they act exactly as their holy book prescribes simply makes no sense.

There is a whole culture in one powerfull country growing around a fact that its goverment has fabulated reasons for declaring a war on another country. It went in, raped it and killed millions of its inhabitans in process completely destabilizing it destroying any future for it. No one was hold responsible or got punished only this country next president got Nobel peace prize.

It's always strange for me in these debates to find myself having to correct how certain events, which I am deeply opposed to, are displayed. I was against the Iraq war, in fact I took part in the peace rallies here in Germany. But let's get things straight. The US did not go in and "rape" the country, whatever that may mean. The US army killed a few 10,000 people at most, mostly Iraqi soldiers. And the US did not "destroy its future", that is the doings of ISIS and other radical religious groups. I am not excaulpating the US from its resposibility for the war, nor individual American soldiers for their misdeeds. But we must keep things in perspective.

There is, however, a group that is, literally, raping and killing all the infidels they find in their newly conquered territories. Zainab Hawa Bangura of the United Nations describes the process in an interview with a German news outlet. When ISIS capture a Jesidi village, all "men" above the age of 14 are killed immediately, often in gruesome and agonizing executions. All women and girls are stripped naked and put in line to have their value estimated, after which they are sold in public markets as sex slaves. The suffering they have to endure is so intense that many try with all their might to commit suicide. Those who do not please their pervers owners are burnt alive.
How can people behave like this? Again, it is all in the Koran. The Koran tells Muslims to kill infidels. It tells them that they can keep sex slaves. It's written black on white. This is not a good book. It is an abhorrent book which contains inconceivably malicious messages.

American foreign policy can be criticized for many of its missteps. And it is. In fact, there is hardly an easier endeavour than to jump on the bandwagon and point out just how bad the evil Americans are behaving. But let's get real. The Americans are not exhibiting behaviour anywhere close to what Muslims are doing around the globe. It's not even on the same spectrum. The West in general is not exhibiting this behaviour. In fact, nobody on this planet is doing this, apart from Muslims, who are doing it all the time. I know this is an inconvenient truth, but it is the truth. Again, check the list of terror attacks in the last years. Apart from the odd exception they are all committed by Muslims. On a daily basis. This is the current evil in the world. It is not America. It is Islam.

And just to conclude, I am well aware that what I write may sound inflamatory, especially to Muslim readers who want nothing to do with the violence and inhumanity prescribed in the Koran. Due to our emotional attachment to religion, any criticism of our faith is often viewed as an attack on us, as people. This is not my intention. I am criticizing ideas, ideas that lead to normal human beings behaving like vile monsters. And unfortunately it just so happens that the Islamic holy texts are full of such ideas.

 

[JollyRoger]

At least they aren't reading the Bible.

 

[classical_hero]

Errr, no. The mess in Syria was not related to Iraq at all, but was aggravated by the ISIS insurgency - another direct result of the collapse of Iraq. Which, obviously, was a consequence of the Bush invasion of Iraq.

When the troops were still in there the insurgents were basically defeated, but as soon as the troops left they gained control and we have seen what they did. The removal of the troops was devastating and the primary cause of the problems we are seeing right now.

 

[Antilogic]

That and lack of monsters in counterbalance. They'll rise, don't you worry, they'll rise.

A depressing thought.

With all due respect, this is a gross distortion of the both the historical and modern-day facts.

The 1,400 years of Islamic history have seen countless Jihads and wars of religious expansion. Mohammed himself was a warlord who conquered the Arabian peninsula. After his death it took only slightly more than 100 years for the Muslims to spread their religion to the entirety of Northern Africa and Spain in the West, Eastern Turkey in the North, and up to China and India in the East. This was not done by peaceful missionaries, it was a violent conquest which forced religion upon the people by the sword. In doing so, the conquerors were following the example of their prophet and the words in the Koran, which called them to spread Islam around the world and convert or kill the infidels. The Ottoman Empire's enormous expansion was likewise justified by the tenets of Islam, which declare Jihad a holy duty for Muslims.
While the history is not all too relevant in the context of this discussion, implying that it took 1,400 years for Muslims to extract the message of Jihad out of the Koran is at best wishful thinking.

More to the point though, today we are not talking about small numbers of Muslims who hold reprehensible beliefs. You mentioned ISIS - the estimates of their army size goes up to 200,000 fighters. But this is just one group. Groups like Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Al Quaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, or Hisbollah are responsible for acts of violence almost on a daily basis. And there are countless others, these are just the most prominent ones I mention from the top of my head. Even more frightening is the support these groups receive, especially in the Muslim world but also in growing numbers in the West. Check the polls. This is not some minor issue, we literally are dealing with hundreds of millions of Muslims with iniquitous beliefs.

Who has the "real" version of Islam? I don't really care (as far as I am concerned they are all made-up fantasies). What I do care about is that the violent and inhuman behaviour of Muslims around the globe can be directly connected to specific verses in the Koran and the Hadith. It's laudable that many Muslims somehow manage not to take commands literally like "kill them [the infidels] wherever you find them", which appear hundreds of times in various shades in their holy texts. But to accuse groups like ISIS of distorting the Koran when they act exactly as their holy book prescribes simply makes no sense.



It's always strange for me in these debates to find myself having to correct how certain events, which I am deeply opposed to, are displayed. I was against the Iraq war, in fact I took part in the peace rallies here in Germany. But let's get things straight. The US did not go in and "rape" the country, whatever that may mean. The US army killed a few 10,000 people at most, mostly Iraqi soldiers. And the US did not "destroy its future", that is the doings of ISIS and other radical religious groups. I am not excaulpating the US from its resposibility for the war, nor individual American soldiers for their misdeeds. But we must keep things in perspective.

There is, however, a group that is, literally, raping and killing all the infidels they find in their newly conquered territories. Zainab Hawa Bangura of the United Nations describes the process in an interview with a German news outlet. When ISIS capture a Jesidi village, all "men" above the age of 14 are killed immediately, often in gruesome and agonizing executions. All women and girls are stripped naked and put in line to have their value estimated, after which they are sold in public markets as sex slaves. The suffering they have to endure is so intense that many try with all their might to commit suicide. Those who do not please their pervers owners are burnt alive.
How can people behave like this? Again, it is all in the Koran. The Koran tells Muslims to kill infidels. It tells them that they can keep sex slaves. It's written black on white. This is not a good book. It is an abhorrent book which contains inconceivably malicious messages.

American foreign policy can be criticized for many of its missteps. And it is. In fact, there is hardly an easier endeavour than to jump on the bandwagon and point out just how bad the evil Americans are behaving. But let's get real. The Americans are not exhibiting behaviour anywhere close to what Muslims are doing around the globe. It's not even on the same spectrum. The West in general is not exhibiting this behaviour. In fact, nobody on this planet is doing this, apart from Muslims, who are doing it all the time. I know this is an inconvenient truth, but it is the truth. Again, check the list of terror attacks in the last years. Apart from the odd exception they are all committed by Muslims. On a daily basis. This is the current evil in the world. It is not America. It is Islam.

And just to conclude, I am well aware that what I write may sound inflamatory, especially to Muslim readers who want nothing to do with the violence and inhumanity prescribed in the Koran. Due to our emotional attachment to religion, any criticism of our faith is often viewed as an attack on us, as people. This is not my intention. I am criticizing ideas, ideas that lead to normal human beings behaving like vile monsters. And unfortunately it just so happens that the Islamic holy texts are full of such ideas.

...dude, everything about Islam you have written is equally true of the Bible and many other violent faiths. Colonization and the Crusades were not happy-go-lucky kumbaya moments. This should tell you that a random and violent bronze age text does not necessarily turn ordinary people into mass murders, but other factors are involved. These are sorely missing in your analysis.

Also: fact checking time. Estimates on the number of killed, wounded, and displaced in Iraq range from 150,000 on the low side to up to a million or more (wiki lists several of these studies, with their varying dates and methods of counting). Downplaying this as "we mostly killed soldiers, and not too many" is a cavalier attitude towards suffering that causes people to sympathize with and join the other side.

When the troops were still in there the insurgents were basically defeated, but as soon as the troops left they gained control and we have seen what they did. The removal of the troops was devastating and the primary cause of the problems we are seeing right now.

If Australia is so concerned with this issue, perhaps they should put a few divisions in Iraq. Stop volunteering my neighbors.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

@Funky: I can agree with you to large extent but there are some half-truths and ignorance of subtler fact which can be as destructive as lies.

The result of U.S. invasion was over million of dead that something which is well documented. If there isnt single family in the country which remains unaffected in fatal way I think I can call the invasion to be kind of rape. I know how people and their lifes break down after limited natural disaster. This thing was total on the whole country and society.
When country doesnt serves its citizens proper way and cant guarantee their basic needs and stability its been destroyed together with its future. This may be hard to grasp from socialistic republic of Germany but its simple fact.
The perspective is that if you going to kill my relative intentionaly or not I may not feel the same way about it but the demage is going to be simillary heart-brasking.
You may enslave people in subtler ways through economic means which may be more torelable for the moment but the act itself is an act of unaccaptable barbarism.

Regarded Islam I have to admit my ignorance yet again but its specific religion which played its global role to balance earlier Christianity. It forced Christians not to abandon or neglect the material world almost the same way some eastern religion did which led later to the West development and prosperity. With its threath and zeal it injected dynamism into the West.
Islam like many other religions has higher and lower path. The higher cares mainly for illumination while the other allows taking up the sword in certain situations.
Religion in its outward aspect serves as a stabilizator. Thats what religions has been doing for centuries and by removing it from already unstable region you are asking for more trouble.

You are asking how can people behave like this? Look what nazis have been doing. Does it mean I have to hate and curse all the Germans? No just like with muslims I am going to respect Germans and act fair and support the progressive elements within the society. We have to take honest and positive aproach. And if we dont try to ecxploit our partners playing side-games they are going to respect us back.

 

[Berzerker]

Being German doesn't sign you up for the ideology of Nazism, being Muslim does sign you up for the ideology of Islam

 

[kiwitt]

@Funky ... a great assessment of the current situation, albeit with a few errors as pointed out above. It also, made me think about the idea of "The Greater Good", mentioned earlier.

I don't think, the US or the West, can apply the logic of "The Greater Good" to the situation in the Middle East. With each head of a Muslim faction killed (drone strike or whatever), another soon replaces them, generating even more revenge and hatred, by the new leaders that replace them. To some extant, I even think Osama Bin Laden was not as bad the Muslim militant leaders we now have. So for each one killed a worse one becomes the new leader.

This is why a new political strategy needs to be applied. I think the best strategy is containment within what is defined as the Middle East and let those factions defend or attack as necessary (including Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran). In addition, due to the aforementioned leader changes, taking sides would also be a risky option as feeling towards the US and West can change with that leader change.

For humanitarian issues, I think we should support the use of the existing Muslim organisations like the Red Crescent and then let them negotiate how and where they can provide assistance.

 

[Ajidica]

While the history is not all too relevant in the context of this discussion, implying that it took 1,400 years for Muslims to extract the message of Jihad out of the Koran is at best wishful thinking.

I don't think you know how Islam defines jihad.
http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/un...jihad-a-misunderstood-concept-from-islam.html
I'm partial to trust actual Islamic scholars on interpreting the Koran and Hadith; but that is just me.
All religions have had a violent, sordid past full of events they aren't proud of. I trust you are well read enough to not need a refresher course on all of the nasty and brutal actions done by Christians in the name of God.

Who has the "real" version of Islam? I don't really care (as far as I am concerned they are all made-up fantasies). What I do care about is that the violent and inhuman behaviour of Muslims around the globe can be directly connected to specific verses in the Koran and the Hadith. It's laudable that many Muslims somehow manage not to take commands literally like "kill them [the infidels] wherever you find them", which appear hundreds of times in various shades in their holy texts. But to accuse groups like ISIS of distorting the Koran when they act exactly as their holy book prescribes simply makes no sense.

I take it you didn't read the link (or even the quote) I provided which included a letter by over 100 prominent Muslim scholars on that very topic.

Executive Summary
1.It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a portion of a verse from the Qur’an—or part of a verse—to derive a ruling without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and objective prerequisites for fatwas , and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith .
2.It is forbidden in Islam to issue legal rulings about anything without mastery of the Arabic language.
3.It is forbidden in Islam to oversimplify Shari’ah matters and ignore established Islamic sciences.
4.It is permissible in Islam [for scholars] to differ on any matter, except those fundamentals of religion that all Muslims must know.
5.It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.
6.It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.
7.It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.
8.Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.
9.It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief.
10.It is forbidden in Islam to harm or mistreat—in any way—Christians or any ‘People of the Scripture’.
11.It is obligatory to consider Yazidis as People of the Scripture.
12.The re-introduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam. It was abolished by universal consensus.
13.It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert.
14.It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights.
15.It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights.
16.It is forbidden in Islam to enact legal punishments (hudud ) without following the correct procedures that ensure justice and mercy.
17.It is forbidden in Islam to torture people.
18.It is forbidden in Islam to disfigure the dead.
19.It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God ﷻ.

http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/
Cherry picking verses from the OT and NT would allow me to construct Christianity as a religion that condones selling people into slavery, murder of infants, and calls upon believers to take "flaming vengeance those who know not god and obey not the gospel".
In Catholic history, the same office that called on Christians to butcher their way to Jerusalem, ordered people to be burned at the stake, and declared that democracy was a moral evil incompatible with Christianity is today, well, not saying those things and tries to be (with some success) a defender of human rights and peace in the world.
Martin Luther wrote books called "On Jews and their Lies", yet Protestantism no more requires anti-Semitism than pizza requires mushrooms. Sure, it can exist, but that doesn't mean it has to go together. (Indeed, it is better when mushrooms stay far away from pizza.)

There is, however, a group that is, literally, raping and killing all the infidels they find in their newly conquered territories. Zainab Hawa Bangura of the United Nations describes the process in an interview with a German news outlet. When ISIS capture a Jesidi village, all "men" above the age of 14 are killed immediately, often in gruesome and agonizing executions. All women and girls are stripped naked and put in line to have their value estimated, after which they are sold in public markets as sex slaves. The suffering they have to endure is so intense that many try with all their might to commit suicide. Those who do not please their pervers owners are burnt alive.

Yes, ISIS is a horrible, nasty, brutal, barbaric entity.
Which is why leading Muslim scholars and religious authorities are condemning ISIS as a perversion of Islam. Even al-Qaeda says ISIS is wrong.

"[Al-Qaeda] has no connection with the group called the ISIS, as it was not informed or consulted about its establishment. It was not pleased with it and thus ordered its suspension. Therefore, it is not affiliated with al-Qaeda and has no organisational relationship with it.
...
The General Command also emphasised that the group's leaders "disavow sedition among the mujahideen factions in the Levant" and the "shedding of protected blood".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26016318

And just to conclude, I am well aware that what I write may sound inflamatory, especially to Muslim readers who want nothing to do with the violence and inhumanity prescribed in the Koran.

If it makes any difference, I'm not Muslim, consider myself agnostic, and went to a Catholic university in the American Midwest.
I know one poster here briefly thought I was Muslim because my avatar is a crescent moon and star. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with Islam and instead is the symbol of Saint Nerevar, Azura, and the Nerevarine; One-Clan-Under-Moon-and-Star, from Morrowind.