At Least 120 Dead in Paris Attacks

[civman110]

All Muslims are not terrorists, but enough are to matter. It needs to be addressed and until it is, letting in more Muslim immigrants is simply irresponsible.

People should have been wise to this years ago. Many were, but they were drowned out by political correctness and neo-liberalism.

 

[aelf]

[my bold emphasis above]

'Splinters' within Islam (Shia and Sunni) have been fighting amongst themselves in case you hadn't noticed.

Uhh, yes. And so?

 

[Thedrin]

FarmBoy:

Akka:
For the record : I don't ask them to grab a gun and go fight ISIS, but to actively teach their own about tolerance, integrating in their host country and how secularist laws trump religious laws. If they already do it, fine. If not, they're just blowing hot air.

You aren't going to get this. You can get secular laws coexisting in the big bag of humanity with God's laws, at least most of the time. You can even get reconciliation between the two, but you won't get the rank you want there. The best you'll get out of trumping is a suppression by threat of force.

Then they have no business living in secular countries and end up giving the far-right munitions.

I have difficulty imagining any Christian or Muslim doing this, or anyone practicing any religion that describes how a person should live their life. Coexistence is the best you can get. It's easier for Christianity to co-exist with our secular laws because those laws were developed in societies largely built on Christian teachings, but I still don't see Christians doing this.

Your bar is absurdly high.

 

[abradley]

You know what happened when Christianity 'reformed' itself? Yep, the Thirty Years' War.

I think moderate Muslims' approach is way better. If the goal is peace, trying to splinter the faith more by drawing a line between the 'loyalists' and 'reformists' isn't going to help as much as peacefully going about their lives. ISIS is a product of imperialist adventures and war; it will continue to attract psychopaths, and there is as much that moderate Muslims can do to fix it as you can do to fix the banking system.

If you want more war in the Middle East that will spill over to Europe, then, sure, calling for the moderates to "reform Islam" is probably one way to go about it.

IMO When Christians reformed it was mainly a back to the basics movement, throw out the corrupt and decadent papacy.

Islam has already had that with Wahhabism:

Alastair Crooke
Fmr. MI-6 agent; Author, 'Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution'
Email
You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
Posted: 08/27/2014 11:56 am EDT Updated: 10/27/2014 5:59 am EDT
{Snip}
THE SAUDI DUALITY

Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.

One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)

The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse -- and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export -- by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.

But this "cultural revolution" was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab's Jacobin-like hatred for the putrescence and deviationism that he perceived all about him -- hence his call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries.

MUSLIM IMPOSTORS

The American author and journalist, Steven Coll, has written how this austere and censorious disciple of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, despised "the decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drum pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who travelled across Arabia to pray at Mecca."

In Abd al-Wahhab's view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated Abd al-Wahhab by their honoring of saints, by their erecting of tombstones, and their "superstition" (e.g. revering graves or places that were deemed particularly imbued with the divine).

All this behavior, Abd al-Wahhab denounced as bida -- forbidden by God.

(Continued)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html

So, ISIS is like the Christian Reformation 'Back to the basics.'

Islam's reformation is here and has been here with Wahhabism.

 

[aelf]

I'm sure you agree, then, that calls for the reform of a religion are probably not going to help to bring about world peace? Seems like peacefully going about their lives is the best thing moderate Muslims can do.

 

[Ice_Tyrant]

All Muslims are not terrorists, but enough are to matter. It needs to be addressed and until it is, letting in more Muslim immigrants is simply irresponsible.

People should have been wise to this years ago. Many were, but they were drowned out by political correctness and neo-liberalism.

So your solution is to treat every refugee like garbage because of those among them that could become terrorists. Because attitudes like that have done so much in the past to prevent terrorism.

So instead of taking in Syrian children you'd prefer Europe to send them all back to Syria where they could easily fall under the sway of groups like ISIS and be indoctrinated to fight for them.

ISIS gets it's numbers through poor uneducated Muslims who have no where else to turn or finally find a purpose in their life through fighting jihad. A good way to stop that would be to provide an education for refugees or other Muslims already living in western countries and help them find job opportunities and such.

By the way I just want to point out that in america there have been like 14 or something mass shootings and like I don't think any of them were done by muslims.

 

[Leoreth]

People should have been wise to this years ago. Many were, but they were drowned out by political correctness and neo-liberalism.

Hahaha now I really want to know what you think neo-liberalism is.

 

[abradley]

I'm sure you agree, then, that calls for the reform of a religion are probably not going to help to bring about world peace? Seems like peacefully going about their lives is the best thing moderate Muslims can do.

That's what most Muslims do now.

IMO The main difference between Islam and Christianity is the founders, Mohammed was a warrior prophet, Jesus was a pacifist.

Both religions expect the followers to copy the founder's life style.

 

[abradley]

So your solution is to treat every refugee like garbage because of those among them that could become terrorists. Because attitudes like that have done so much in the past to prevent terrorism.

So instead of taking in Syrian children you'd prefer Europe to send them all back to Syria where they could easily fall under the sway of groups like ISIS and be indoctrinated to fight for them.

ISIS gets it's numbers through poor uneducated Muslims who have no where else to turn or finally find a purpose in their life through fighting jihad. A good way to stop that would be to provide an education for refugees or other Muslims already living in western countries and help them find job opportunities and such.

By the way I just want to point out that in america there have been like 14 or something mass shootings and like I don't think any of them were done by muslims.

JUst heard on FNC that one of the attackers had a passport showing he'd entered EU as refugee:

Syrian passport found on attacker was used to seek asylum in Greece as one Briton confirmed dead
David Cameron says Britain must be braced for casualties with France in lockdown after a series of coordinated terror attacks which killed 129 and injured 352 across Paris on Friday. Follow latest updates
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...tacks-isil-suspects-arrests-victims-live.html

How many others?

 

[innonimatu]

I saw the following line on FB (below a pic from the Paris attacks)

"If anyone was wondering what those refugees were running away from, now you know".

Which while somewhat (for most cases) a hyperbole, is poignant as well (although i can easily see how it can be read as reactionary or way too focused on the plight of the refugees when today there is this other main event anyway).

Those stunts will only make those against accepting refugees angrier. Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan do not border on the EU. Trying to move into the EU has an economic motivation.

The Libyans, those have good cause for complaint. They are just across the sea, and their country was thrown into anarchy and handed over to religions fanatics by France and its allies.

Also, I doubt any claims by the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" that they are in any way involved in organizing these attacks. They waited until the news were out with details to come forward with claims, echoing those details that were already public. It's just opportunism.
Seems to me that the media is once again doing them a favor spreading their propaganda and making them more important than they actually are.

But there's little doubt that wahabist ideas are behind this. Saudi Arabia, that has been the real enemy for a long time: of muslims, christians, atheists and everyone who doesn't not behave according to their medieval ideology. Too bad no government has the balls to declare war on that country.

 

[civman110]

Hahaha now I really want to know what you think neo-liberalism is.

Modern day liberals.

Conservatives are today's classical liberals they stand for the same things that liberals USED to.

 

[Akka]

I have difficulty imagining any Christian or Muslim doing this, or anyone practicing any religion that describes how a person should live their life.

Then, again, they have no business coming in a society that defines itself as secular.

Your bar is absurdly high.

It's low enough an entire country managed to reach it. If it's too high for fundies, they might want to go live elsewhere. Door is open.

 

[Narz]

One of the reasons I've kept coming back to this forum over the last 7 or so years is that it always seemed like a good place for intelligent discussion on the things going on in the world. It's really upsetting to see so much Islamophobia here. To really say that this is all as simple as "Oh, they read a holy book and now they are violent." is just ignorant. There is at least nearly 100 years of history that has gone into creating Islamic extremism. If it was really the norm for Islam all this time, then I don't understand how Muslims could have ever built thriving civilizations in places such as India or Turkey.I think all this extremism was actually born as a reaction against Western Imperialism in the 20th century.

The West may have fanned the flames but we didn't start the fire.

 

[Gary Childress]

Modern day liberals.

Conservatives are today's classical liberals they stand for the same things that liberals USED to.

Not sure, as it is a rather ambiguous term, but I think you may have it reversed. Some of what is called "conservatism" is sometimes called "neo-liberalism" in so far as they expound many "classical" liberal economic theories. That's how I've heard the term used. "Neo" seems to often be applied to movements that go back and rehash older ideas, "Neo-Platonism" for example.

In any case "liberal" and "conservative" are difficult terms to grapple with.

 

[civman110]

The West may have fanned the flames but we didn't start the fire.

The fire has been burning for about 2000 years.

Not sure, as it is a rather ambiguous term, but I think you may have it reversed. Some of what is called "conservatism" is sometimes called "neo-liberalism" in so far as they expound many "classical" liberal economic theories. That's how I've heard the term used. "Neo" seems to often be applied to movements that go back and rehash older ideas, "Neo-Platonism" for example.

In any case "liberal" and "conservative" are difficult terms to grapple with.

I'd have to say you're right. Poor use of terminology on my part.

I just wanted to make a distinction between the liberals of today and what they used to be.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

IMO When Christians reformed it was mainly a back to the basics movement, throw out the corrupt and decadent papacy.

A back to basics movement that led to religious wars, witch burnigs, and rising antisemitism...

 

[Narz]

ISIS gets it's numbers through poor uneducated Muslims who have no where else to turn or finally find a purpose in their life through fighting jihad. A good way to stop that would be to provide an education for refugees or other Muslims already living in western countries and help them find job opportunities and such.

I'm not so sure, many of them maybe but many seem to have other options as well as decent education.

If terrorism springs solely from poverty we'd see more variety in where terrorists are from and their religions.

 

[Narz]

The fire has been burning for about 2000 years

Well technically Islam isn't that old.

 

[civman110]

Islam has always been just as imperialistic as the West, they just haven't been as successful at it because of the West.

In fact, the Islamists were far more brutal in comparison. For example, compare slavery in the Islamic world to slaverly in the West.

Well technically Islam isn't that old.

I know, that's why I said "about" I couldn't recall the exact year it was founded, but it was imperialistic even in it's founding.

 

[civman110]

The Greek government has announced one of the terrorist gunmen who had a part in killing over 120 in Paris on Friday evening entered Europe while masquerading as a refugee just six weeks ago.