Sunni & Shia - Can you tell the difference?

[grangerm]

What is important is ,how to classify the enemy,not some vague terms such as what hat they wear or what religious sect they are.

If they can't figure out the black and white difference between a Sunni and a Shia, how can we expect them to be able to determine the shades-of-grey difference between a potential ally or a potential enemy?

 

[MobBoss]

I would laugh to this statement if the subject wouldn't be so serious.
Could you go with straight face to say that score to a family that has lost their loved one on Iraq?

Sure. Matter of fact, I think its a slap into that families face if we dont finish the job we started. One..its a volunteer force. People join up knowing the risks. Second, freedom isnt free. People in the military go and serve the nation and its interests abroad, regardless of whether people like you agree with it or not. The military has won the war. Fact. The only way we can lose is if the bleeding hearts at home cant stand to lose people finishing the job. Its a dangerous business, but its what soldiers do. They know far better than you what the risks are...and yet they still do it.

Yeah, but that goal of "liberation" part would have been even harder to reach then and explain to the public.

Not really. We would have just started with a blank slate, much more like we did in Japan and Germany and in South Korea.

 

[MobBoss]

How have elections made terrorism less of a problem in the world?

Full stop. We cant continue this discussion if you refuse to acknowledge that having free elections and drafting and implementing a constitution qualifies as "significantly tangible".

You cant kill an idea with bullets.

Well, at the least you can turn it into a bad idea instead of a good idea. Like I asked you before...do you think Germany will ever again invade its neighbors because they think its a good idea?

There will always be people to take their place. The US needs to remove the need for terrorism in order to defeat it. You arent dealing with Bader Meinhoff here.

Remove the need for terrorism? What need was there in the first World Trade Center bombings? Or the embassy bombings? I think you fail to understand what the need for terrorism is. At its very root it is simply a bid for power, by using terror tactics to undermine the government by making it appear powerless to protect its citizens. The NEED for terrorism wont end until the perpetrators of it or us...are dead.

And I am still waiting for an honest answer. Which group has attacked England more in the last 5 years...the IRA or Islamic Fundamentalists? Does no one have the courage to answer?

 

[Peri]

Well I dont think elections have solved the problem of terrorism.
Need was the wrong word. I meant causes of terrorism.
The answer to that is obvious but the real question should be why have we been attacked?

The Germany example is silly and surely you realise that.

 

[JollyRoger]

Its like playing a football game and the score is 63-0 at the half in our favor...and yet we decline to take the field to play the rest of the game.

Going by Rumsfeld statements that this game would take 6 month tops, I would say that we are in about the 8th game not halftime.

 

[MobBoss]

Well I dont think elections have solved the problem of terrorism.

I cant imagine sheer anarchy doing much better. At least with an elected government it has a chance.

Need was the wrong word. I meant causes of terrorism.
The answer to that is obvious but the real question should be why have we been attacked?

Why have we been attacked? Because no matter what we would do aside from embracing Islam, we are seen as the Great Satan and infidels. We dont have to do a single thing aside from embracing our seemingly decadent lifestyle for them to hate us.

The Germany example is silly and surely you realise that.

No...its not silly. I dont make posts just because they are silly. I meant what I said. Seriously, considering what happened to them in WWII, how long do you think it will be before Germany ever tries to absorb one of its neighboring countries via a war ever again?

And please, take a second to answer my still outstanding question: Who has attacked England more in the last 5 years...the IRA or Islamic Fundamentalists...

Oh the heck with it...since you people keep ignoring the obvious because you dont want to see the truth...the answer is Islamic Fundamentalists! Taddaa.

So much for that sphere of terrorism influence.

 

[Peri]

I cant imagine sheer anarchy doing much better. At least with an elected government it has a chance.

Well considering in Iraq there was no terrorism before the invasion it is ridiculous to celebrate the elections there as the right way to solve terrorism.

As for Afganistan the government which is slightly older seems to have had no effect. The Taliban is resurging.

Why have we been attacked? Because no matter what we would do aside from embracing Islam, we are seen as the Great Satan and infidels. We dont have to do a single thing aside from embracing our seemingly decadent lifestyle for them to hate us.

It is that kind of blinkered military solution only approach garnished with the infantile soundbites from the government that is perpetuating the problems.

No...its not silly. I dont make posts just because they are silly. I meant what I said. Seriously, considering what happened to them in WWII, how long do you think it will be before Germany ever tries to absorb one of its neighboring countries via a war ever again?

Germany suffered a serious pummeling in 1914-1918 War. That didnt make a difference to its territorial ambitions. Your example is silly because you ignore all other the factors that have contributed to Germany's lack of territorial ambition.

And please, take a second to answer my still outstanding question: Who has attacked England more in the last 5 years...the IRA or Islamic Fundamentalists...

Oh the heck with it...since you people keep ignoring the obvious because you dont want to see the truth...the answer is Islamic Fundamentalists! Taddaa.

So much for that sphere of terrorism influence.

I dont understand your point here at all


As an edit. Since you like WWII references how about this one. After WWII The US rebuilt Europe to stop it turning to Russia.
Yet no one in the current administration is advocating a new Marshal Plan. There is no plan to prevent people turning to radical Islam by giving them an alternative. Instead of invading Iraq the money spent on that could have been used to rebuil Afghanistan. Why isnt there? Because Republicans would rather spend their tax dollars on war as a problem solver than on building countries. After all GWB thinks that is social work and beneath the US.
As a result the US is losing this war.

 

[Whomp]

Well considering in Iraq there was no terrorism before the invasion it is ridiculous to celebrate the elections there as the right way to solve terrorism.

Terror from whom? Those that don't want democracy in Iraq. However, there's no going back thirty years to the days of Saddam's tyranny and there's no going back a thousand years to the days of the Sunni Caliphs. It's over...The fact remains the elected officials are still in office and students are going to school.

 

[Peri]

Well considering many arguments in this thread have related to Islamic terrorist groups its a fair bet I meant that.

And how is your post relevant to that quote?

 

[Whomp]

Well considering many arguments in this thread have related to Islamic terrorist groups its a fair bet I meant that.

And how is your post relevant to that quote?

Who's the primary terror group in Iraq today?
Al-Qaeda trying to restore the status quo of Sunni tyranny.
But the locals are fighting back.
Look at their failed assault against the offices of the local government in Mosul which left dozens of the assailants dead or arrested and the second was the attack in Salah Addin province that resulted in nothing but calls from the locals for further support from the government to assist them in abolishing the terror group Al-Qaeda and in more reconciliation meetings between tribal leaders to forge unity against the takfiris.

 

[Peri]

But as I keep saying this happened as a result of the invasion.
No invasion = no Islamic terrorist cells in Iraq

 

[Whomp]

But as I keep saying this happened as a result of the invasion.
No invasion = no Islamic terrorist cells in Iraq

Instead, continued tyranny by the Sunni minority. Iraq's political culture had been poisoned by a racialist Arabism that had wrecked and unsettled Arab and Muslim life in the 1980s and 1990s. The Tikriti rulers had ignited a Sunni-Shia war within and over Islam. Saddam had, for all practical purposes, cut off the Iraqis from the possibility of a decent, modern life.

This could impact more than just Iraq. Sunni autocrats have quite a bit to lose oppressing their people.

 

[Peri]

That example of brutal repression can be applied to many states which the US supports so again I ask where is the relevance to a war against Terrorism?

 

[Whomp]

That example of brutal repression can be applied to many states which the US supports so again I ask where is the relevance to a war against Terrorism?

The war on terror comes in so many different ways. Freedom of choice, to vote, economics.

Today there Sunnis have 58 deputies in Parliament, a vice president, a deputy prime minister and a speaker of Parliament; all were elected by the people of Iraq.
The Shia majority of Iraq was for decades oppressed and discriminated against. They did not even have the right to practice their religious ceremonies in Najaf.

The city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan region now has more than 2,000 millionaires. Before liberation, the city had 12.

It's about a police station somewhere in Iraq, the place was about to be hit by a suicide bomber riding a vehicle laden with explosives. The driver approaches the entrance to the station which is surrounded by concrete walls. Several police officers open fire from their ak-47's on the incoming suicide bomber but he keeps closing in. As the vehicle passes through the gate and past the last barricade all of the officers run away seeking shelter…except for one extraordinary man. One police officer held his position and was still standing in the way of the terrorist and kept on firing his rifle at the windshield until the vehicle was just meters from the officer, then…BOOM. So the policeman is a victim and the bomber too is a victim? No. One is an anti-life criminal while the other is a hero, but on paper, some idiots describe them both as victims of the war.

It's relevant because it gives people a chance for a different life (even beyond Iraq). Terror is ignorance of a better life beyond the autocratic rulers, bonyads and ant-modernist (Apartheid against women) Wahhabists.

Iraq has the potential to make a better life viral for Muslims. I'm afraid people in this country and what is dogma in Europe are losing concept of this.

 

[Peri]

Oh I see you have redefined it to mean anything you like really. My mistake. I thought we were using the meaning of the word terrorism (when used in a political context) to define the War on Global Terrorism.

 

[Whomp]

Oh I see you have redefined it to mean anything you like really. My mistake. I thought we were using the meaning of the word terrorism (when used in a political context) to define the War on Global Terrorism.

Isn't the war on terror more than just combat?
Or are the appeasement strategies of the '80's and '90's preferable?

 

[MobBoss]

Oh I see you have redefined it to mean anything you like really. My mistake. I thought we were using the meaning of the word terrorism (when used in a political context) to define the War on Global Terrorism.

Peri it has become obvious to me that you are simply arguing for arguements sake in the face of logical and well spoken debate, like from Whomp here. You simply will no concede any point, no matter how true.

Whomp: Very well said.

 

[Peri]

This is very weird. MB advocates in his posts that the military option is the the right one then applauds Whomp for saying there is more to it than that.

 

[MobBoss]

This is very weird. MB advocates in his posts that the military option is the the right one then applauds Whomp for saying there is more to it than that.

I use a hammer and mallet approach....whomp uses a scalpel. Both are effective in their own respective ways.

Again, the military option only opens the door for a lot of the things Whomp is pointing out to happen. Just like the rebuilding and support of such great nations today as Germany, Japan or South Korea involved a lot after the military option, so it is in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

[Peri]

The military option isnt working and there is no plan B.

I have a lot of questions on this issue but I feel I dont get proper replies. I feel I am being told that things are because they are. Dont question us and shut up.

I have asked why the the invasion of Iraq was crucial to the War on Terrorism when there were no Islamic terrorist groups in Iraq prior to the invasion.
Id like to know why some feel that the military option is the only option in this war?
Id like to know why the money spent on invading Iraq wasnt used to save Afghanistan and prevent the spread of Radical Islam.

I put to you that elections are not stopping terrorism. Then Whomp quotes me out of context and goes off on a tangent. Then you agree with something that he says that I posted ages ago. Yet you say I want to argue for the sake of it.