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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: IS have turned me into a hawk
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Let's turn it around: if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths at the hands of IS, Congolese militias, etc?
Let's consider that seriously. Taking a longer term view, beyond each individual case (ie fighting the war not the battle of the week), what good would intervention do? I'm sure some could be justified but there's a lot being done that is akin to poking a bear.
It didn't stop us in Kosovo when ethnic Albanians were being massacred. Is the case for intervention not different when defenceless civilians are being massacred wholesale?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Incidentally, I mentioned on the other thread, that while you can't negotiate with IS, you can with those tribes which are supporting them at the moment, and I would be amazed if this is not happening right now, offering inducements and whatnot to tribal leaders to ditch IS, and help build Iraq - that is code for 'we will offer you millions of dollars, you will have your own oil-wells, and Maliki is yesterday's poison'. Whether or not this will succeed, who knows? But who would have believed that Sunni tribal leaders would fight AQ - but some of them did.
Yup, couldn't agree more. Only a fool would rely on force in isolation: it has to be combined with negotiations with parties who're amenable.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
I completely empathise. Ferguson has had this effect on me too, actually - it seems to me that not everyone has the privilege to be able to be a pacifist. Resisting an oppressive force does seem to require violence at least sometimes.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Yeah, many Americans are horrified at all the beheadings in Missouri. What are we, French? Decapitations are so un-American.
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
Theologically the alternative is peace. Only, always, ever peace. Peace conquered the Roman Empire. Peace gave India independence. Peace gave southern blacks their civil rights.
Actually, Germanic tribes conquered the Western Empire and the Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire. Neither used nonviolent means. Did you mean Christianity conquered the Roman Empire through pacifism? Well, persecution only stopped when Christianity became the religion of the empire and the Roman Empire became Christendom. Normally, you rant against Christendom but apparently here it is a good thing. I suppose that's only a problem if you are troubled by incoherence.
Peace led to civil rights for African-Americans? Let me give you a brief history lesson, Martin. In 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and the doctrine of separate but equal paving the way for the integration of previously segregated schools. The first attempt at integration took place in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Here is a picture of that peaceful event.
Peace liberated India? Peace and the UK deciding after two world wars that it neither could nor wanted to maintain an empire liberated India. Peace will defeat ISIS when ISIS becomes tired of fighting wars. Unfortunately, the only way ISIS can grow tired of fighting wars is if they have to fight wars.
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
And I know Lamb Chopped and Beeswax Altar for two will be depressed by my saying that.
LC maybe. Baseless assertions continually repeated don't depress me. At worst, said assertions annoy me.
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
The British Empire that invented the concentration camp, you mean?
I know, right. Tragic how the British Empire systematically killed millions of Boers. Hard to believe they managed to maintain power in South Africa for nearly a 100 years after the Boer Wars.
BA I'm not quite sure what points you're making. I mentioned that Ferguson has also made me less pacifist - that doesn't mean I'm equating it with beheadings. Ferguson making me less pacifist is just a fact.
Also, the British Empire did invent concentration camps - again, just a fact. As a British person, it's not appropriate for me to decide that the British Empire was better or worse than other oppressive forces, because my people are the oppressor in this instance.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
The term "concentration camp" may originate in the Boer War, but internment long precedes it.
Given the shift in meaning, this casts far more heat than light.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Ferguson making me less pacifist is just a fact.
But why did Ferguson make you less pacifist?
A civilian police force using military weapons and pointing guns at unarmed citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and speak shows that hawkish responses create more trouble than they resolve.
[ 04. September 2014, 16:23: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I know, right. Tragic how the British Empire systematically killed millions of Boers. Hard to believe they managed to maintain power in South Africa for nearly a 100 years after the Boer Wars.
Er...no. We managed to hold onto power for just 8 years after the end of the Second Boer War in 1902: in 1910 the Union of South Africa was formed which basically allowed the Boers to have a form of power-sharing in how the place was run by selling the non-white population down the river and restricting the franchise to just the white population. That's the only way we were able to maintain a foot in the door there, which was finally slammed in our faces by Verwoerd in 1960.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
No, I meant I don't know how the Boers managed to maintain power in South Africa for nearly a hundred years after the British killed millions of them in a concentration camps. They must have. The post I was responding to implied a moral equivalence between the Nazi concentration camp and British tactics in the Boer War.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
No, I meant I don't know how the Boers managed to maintain power in South Africa for nearly a hundred years after the British killed millions of them in a concentration camps. They must have. The post I was responding to implied a moral equivalence between the Nazi concentration camp and British tactics in the Boer War.
Exactly what I meant by more heat than light.
Equivalence is implicit in the comparison, when the only similarity lies in the name. The British military were undoubtedly callous to the prisoners in their custody, and negligent of their lives, but when the truth came out back in London, the camps caused a scandal and were swiftly improved. Negligence is different in kind to systematic genocide.
This comparison ought to be Godwinned out.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Yeah, many Americans are horrified at all the beheadings in Missouri. What are we, French? Decapitations are so un-American.
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, and all of those other places. There's a Dakota reserve (they are reserves in Canada, not reservations) where the Indians who killed Custer settled just south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the British offering the sanctuary. Who tell me Custer and company certainly deserved to be killed because of his and their conduct, particularly in killing sleeping villages indiscriminately, e.g., Cheyenne villages reminiscent of some of the more awful scenes in Joshua, though with more documentation of specific atrocities.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Are you under the impression that US school children are taught that George Custer was martyred at Little Big Horn or something?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Let's turn it around: if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths at the hands of IS, Congolese militias, etc?
Let's consider that seriously. Taking a longer term view, beyond each individual case (ie fighting the war not the battle of the week), what good would intervention do? I'm sure some could be justified but there's a lot being done that is akin to poking a bear.
It didn't stop us in Kosovo when ethnic Albanians were being massacred. Is the case for intervention not different when defenceless civilians are being massacred wholesale?
I'd suggest that the NATO countries (IIRC it was a NATO initiative, not solely British), analysed the situation quite coldly and decided it could be done successfully, mostly because there was friendly territory close by.
It's about the art of the possible, as has been said about politics.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ferguson: Peaceful, passively resistant demonstration against the authorities, asserting ones 'rights' where lawlessness is happening all around - arson, stone throwing, criminal damage and a knife wielding maniac running at the police - is being part of the problem, not the solution.
[ 04. September 2014, 17:30: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Are you under the impression that US school children are taught that George Custer was martyred at Little Big Horn or something?
No. I didn't mention children or martyrdom. Merely responding to an understanding of another us and them, non-Pogo type of post. Unless I've misunderstood you.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Ferguson making me less pacifist is just a fact.
But why did Ferguson make you less pacifist?
A civilian police force using military weapons and pointing guns at unarmed citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and speak shows that hawkish responses create more trouble than they resolve.
Actually it's not the police force's violence I'm thinking of in the case of Ferguson - sorry for making that unclear. I'm thinking of the black population of Ferguson using resistance against their oppressors (in this case the police) which was sometimes violent. Given the events of Ferguson, I believe this violence was totally justified, hence making me less pacifist.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
The term "concentration camp" may originate in the Boer War, but internment long precedes it.
Given the shift in meaning, this casts far more heat than light.
OK - British concentration camps were different to others. The British Empire was still a violent oppressive force though.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
OK - British concentration camps were different to others. The British Empire was still a violent oppressive force though.
Of course it was violent -- all governments are inherently violent (a defining feature of the state is having a monopoly on force).
As for oppressive, yes, on occasion it undoubtedly was. Given contemporary notions of legitimate government, and that no contemporary nation was democratic by modern standards, by the standards of the time it was a lot better than many of the alternatives.
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Lawrence
Ship's Grill Master
# 4913
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Posted
It is a good discussion. I support aiding those on the ground who will fight ISIS. Let's not fool ourselves though that success will bring anything but more war and suffering. Beat down ISIS in Syria? Welcome back Assad into the vacuum. Help the Kurds? Of they win, perhaps they will want to include parts of Turkey and Syria and Iran in their new Kurdish state?
I live in St. Louis. My first memories as a child are in Ferguson. The violence in the big picture helps because we cannot ignore and must now confront the rage that is behind it. The lives of the poor on the ground in Ferguson are now a little more diminished by the now bigger lack of services and the possible lose of more by disinvestment.
Being Christian is not about trying to be pure. It is trying to figure out how to live in the muck with a shred of integrity.
Posts: 199 | From: Where once you could get a decent Brain Sandwich | Registered: Aug 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The violence is understandable Jade, but far from totally justified. It isn't justified for you or me.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Ferguson making me less pacifist is just a fact.
But why did Ferguson make you less pacifist?
A civilian police force using military weapons and pointing guns at unarmed citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and speak shows that hawkish responses create more trouble than they resolve.
Actually it's not the police force's violence I'm thinking of in the case of Ferguson - sorry for making that unclear. I'm thinking of the black population of Ferguson using resistance against their oppressors (in this case the police) which was sometimes violent. Given the events of Ferguson, I believe this violence was totally justified, hence making me less pacifist.
OK let me get this straight. The Ferguson police used tear gas and rubber bullets and didn't kill anybody. The protesters managed to shoot at least three other protesters and loot a liquor store because Brown robbed it. And that's the violence you see as justified? The violence didn't accomplish anything. Wouldn't accomplish anything. And that's the violence you consider justified. Violence against say Boko Harem isn't justified? Violence against the Central American cartels isn't justified? Hell, violence against anybody else actually killing hundreds if not thousands of people with impunity isn't justified? Really? Feguson, Missouri is the one place in the world that got you thinking maybe violence was justified. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lawrence:
It is a good discussion. I support aiding those on the ground who will fight ISIS. Let's not fool ourselves though that success will bring anything but more war and suffering. Beat down ISIS in Syria? Welcome back Assad into the vacuum. Help the Kurds? Of they win, perhaps they will want to include parts of Turkey and Syria and Iran in their new Kurdish state? [...]
Success may bring more war and suffering, but we can be near-certain that the outcome will be better than the suffering inflicted by ISIS' genocidal wannabe-caliphate. Better by several orders of magnitude.
quote:
[...] Being Christian is not about trying to be pure. It is trying to figure out how to live in the muck with a shred of integrity.
Well said. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
[code]
[ 04. September 2014, 19:30: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Are you under the impression that US school children are taught that George Custer was martyred at Little Big Horn or something?
No. I didn't mention children or martyrdom. Merely responding to an understanding of another us and them, non-Pogo type of post. Unless I've misunderstood you.
Jade Constable didn't say the Sand Creek Massacre caused her to become a hawk. Though if she had that would have made more sense. However, the Sand Creek Massacre pales in comparison to what ISIS is doing.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I am against violence as a first principle, and my view is longer than just this year or decade. Considering the biblical 3rd and 4th generation in Exodus, which I don't take so much as a curse but a statement of fact. IS - is it merely a "now" thing, or can we see the generations that set this up? I'm seeing the seeds of this rather easily one generation back.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Ferguson police used tear gas and rubber bullets and didn't kill anybody.
Part of the problem is who gets to be "anybody", with everyone else being, by default, considered "nobody".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Success may bring more war and suffering, but we can be near-certain that the outcome will be better than the suffering inflicted by ISIS' genocidal wannabe-caliphate. Better by several orders of magnitude.
And we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators!
Glad to see you're so enthusiastic about recylcing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Twenty six thousand Boer women and children died in British camps after two years.
The Americans, meanwhile, were killing one hundred times as many people in the Philippines.
Do the 'math'. That's three MILLION. That's AFTER winning the war against Spain. The same number Churchill killed in East Bengal 40 years later.
Delicately done. Especially the way we ignore it.
And IS is worse? Justifies Christians justifying war against them. Our creation like Osama Bin Laden and Hamas.
And on and on and on and on until we eventually are actually Christian, we actually try Christianity, proclaiming and following Christ and His good news of the Kingdom, in another couple or three thousand years.
I'm fully aware of Little Rock and vastly impressed at Eisenhower, a superb warrior who, like many soldier Christians, struggled magnificently to square that circle. Interfering in the Middle East and South East Asia after ending the Korean War with non-empty threat of nuclear holocaust on China. You see Beeswax, we're EVOLVING. As St. Martin said, the arc is long.
I'm a great believer in the we're halfway there theory of evolution. So maybe we've only got 1700 years until we give peace a chance.
Till Shiloh come.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Success may bring more war and suffering, but we can be near-certain that the outcome will be better than the suffering inflicted by ISIS' genocidal wannabe-caliphate. Better by several orders of magnitude.
And we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators!
Glad to see you're so enthusiastic about recylcing.
Recycling's great, but my posts have been noticeably absent of support for a fresh invasion. The Kurds don't want us to "liberate" them, they want air support, guns, and armor, and thankfully, we've heeded the call.
How d'you think the international community ought to respond to ISIS?
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Twenty six thousand Boer women and children died in British camps after two years.
The Americans, meanwhile, were killing one hundred times as many people in the Philippines.
Do the 'math'. That's three MILLION. That's AFTER winning the war against Spain. The same number Churchill killed in East Bengal 40 years later.
Delicately done. Especially the way we ignore it. [...]
The vast majority of civilian casualties Philippine-American war were due to a cholera epidemic. Atrocities were committed, which led to outcry back home and court martials. The Bengal Famine was, likewise, a natural disaster, the negligent response a mix of British and Indian failure of government.
None of this is comparable to ISIS' calculated barbarism and genocide.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Byron: Yes. It is. Torture. Summary executions. Killing children. etc
Martin: It's not 1700 years. Probably closer to a million for humans and perhaps 4 billion for life.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Byron: Yes. It is. Torture. Summary executions. Killing children. etc [...]
None of which were the policy of Britain or America.
When torture was policy post-9/11, it was done in secret by executive fiat, and thrown out when challenged in Congress and the courts.
Even if, arguendo, this moral equivalence stands, so what? It has no bearing on whether we should aid the Kurds, and other groups, in fighting ISIS.
What should we do?
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Byron: Yes. It is. Torture. Summary executions. Killing children. etc
Martin: It's not 1700 years. Probably closer to a million for humans and perhaps 4 billion for life.
No. It isn't.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm using it as an analogy no prophet. I'm FULLY conversant with our evolution. We're half way to being significantly Christian. And modern humans will be gone within a couple of hundred thousand years at the most.
'Natural' disasters, what a joke. The Four Horsemen always ride in series. The first is always false religion.
And in the Boer War and the Philippine-American war and the entire C20th and previous 20 that is Babylonian, captive, confused, hollow, broken, prostituted, whore-war mongering Christianity.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Arminian
Shipmate
# 16607
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Posted
I'm not sure that Jesus was a pacifist. Surely the whole point of Jesus is that he is like God the father in nature - hence his comments to Philip 'if you've seen me you've seen the father'.
I'm sure God would prefer that people repented and turned away from violence - but sometimes a culture arises that is so violent that God after many warnings wipes them out. The Mosaic law wasn't exactly that tolerant of murderers either.
My brother in law, an ex serviceman pointed out that in his experience some people get on such an adrenalin high from killing they just keep going and can't be reasoned with. Isis appear to be acting in this way. How can you negotiate with them ? Andrew White has said that they can't be negotiated with (and he has negotiated with many in Iraq).
I see only 2 options. Do nothing and hope they go away (which didn't work with Hitler). Or take them out now before they can spread to even more Arab states. We have a duty to help those on the receiving end of Isis because we helped create the instability that allowed them to move in. Doing nothing will cause deaths. We need a broad coalition of states fighting Isis with Muslim nations part of that coalition IMO.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But a large part of the cause is Western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has been a major source of fuel in the growth of ISIS. Doing nothing will, at this point, serve to strengthen them.
I've always wondered what the world would look like now if the West had simply done nothing after 9/11 ,( apart from bolstering security).
Rather like the arguments around that everything would have turned out better if Britain and the US hadn't joined WW1 and defeated the Kaiser.
I'm afraid the world just isn't like that . We do what we feel to be right at any given time . Doing nothing with IS now strikes me as being like the Lindisfarne monks holding up a stick to the Viking marauders.
But I agree not easy , and certainly not at all likely to be clear-cut or decisive.
[ 05. September 2014, 08:53: Message edited by: rolyn ]
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
You have to combine military action - particularly, helping the Kurds, and other groups fighting IS - with political pressure. In particular, those tribal leaders currently giving free passage to IS should be negotiated with, to see if they will accept a role in Iraq which is different.
At the moment, many of the Sunni tribes feel seriously disaffected, as (they claim) Maliki imprisoned thousands of them. This was their reward after fighting Al Quaeda (some of them).
I don't know whether some political agreement like this can be found in Iraq; otherwise, partition beckons.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Had you been in the Second Temple when Jesus was clearing it of the moneychangers, you would probably not have thought He was much of a pacifist.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
After years of reflection on this topic, I think that if humanity has a common cause it is to control and corral psychopathic behaviour, not use it cynically for political ends.
I used to think psychopathy was a more a matter of nature, but in recent years it does seem to me that it is possible to manipulate a desire for a fairer world (in itself a good thing) into a hatred of those perceived to be the generators and sustainers of unfairness, and suppress or even destroy the normal capacity for empathy, creating its place both burning hatred and a capacity for violent, psychopathic, behaviour.
Of course it is easy to point that finger at extreme factions within Islam (or 20th Century Fascist movements) and say, well, yes. That's what they do. But there's more to it than that.
I'm calling the process "enemisation" and its ally is the notion that "these people are too dangerous to live". Whereas the really dangerous people are those who do the manipulating. Create the zealots.
Love of enemies may enable us to come to terms with those who are the real enemy, rather than just the manipulated and deluded. And if we can't manage love, at least we might try respect and understanding about what made them that way.
In the end, psychopathic behaviour needs to be controlled and in the last resort force may be needed. But if there is a real enemy in this it is those soulless people who seek, and far too often succeed, in creating soullessness in others.
[In this context I am using soulless to mean lacking human feelings and qualities].
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You have to combine military action - particularly, helping the Kurds, and other groups fighting IS - with political pressure. In particular, those tribal leaders currently giving free passage to IS should be negotiated with, to see if they will accept a role in Iraq which is different.
At the moment, many of the Sunni tribes feel seriously disaffected, as (they claim) Maliki imprisoned thousands of them. This was their reward after fighting Al Quaeda (some of them).
I don't know whether some political agreement like this can be found in Iraq; otherwise, partition beckons.
Back in the 1970's and 1980's no minister would have advocated negotiations with the Provisional IRA. Of course, we know now that HMG was negotiating, as well as carrying out security operations and infiltrating the PIRA to such an extent that the UK government had a better idea of what the PIRA was doing than the PIRA's own high command did.
It has to be a twin track approach, and it will be the negotiations that lead to the settlement, while the security operation keep the pressure on IS, or anyone else, to negotiate. Going out there to destroy IS, without countering the reasons for its very existence, solves nothing and won't bring peace.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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3M Matt
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# 1675
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Posted
The argument that "war doesn't solve anything" seems to me comparable to saying that "weeding your garden doesn't solve anything - the weeds just grow back".
Well, yes, but if you never weed at all, the garden will be completely overrun.
We will never wipe out evil. There will be no war to end all wars.
Fighting wars is like gardening. You can do a little bit regularly and keep the borders in order, or you can sit back, do nothing, wait till the weeds threaten to completely engulf your house, and then engage in a massive bout of pruning and weeding.
Most people think the first approach is preferable where gardenining is concerned, however, we tend to think the second is preferable where war-fighting is concerned.
ISIS is a particularly aggressively spreading weed and will englulf the whole garden pretty quickly. We need to stamp on it - and hard.
This is why it's different to the nastiness that goes on in Africa. Yes, horrible things happen, but usually by half-witted, ill equipped groups of thugs. They aren't going to take over the world...just make their particular corner of it rather horrible.
ISIS on the other hand is smart, well equipped and ambitious. That's why we must face it with significant use of force.
There is however a problem: Much of ISIS includes British nationals, and american nationals.
We are going to be severely hampered in this fight by the threat of a) terrorist attacks at home and b) the political blowback in Islamic communities in the west.
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
Hence the lurid trending stories on social media and elsewhere today about the unfortunate woman in Edmonton (North London, not Alberta ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ) who was beheaded yesterday by an 'Islamic fanatic' - an example of blowback in the making.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Sioni Sais
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# 5713
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Posted
Your weeding analogy is a good one.
It is easy to wipe out all the weeds in a garden. You can torch any green living thing or spray paraquat (or similar) and there will be no weeds. It will kill everything else besides.
The problem in the Middle East right now is IS/ISIL, not all the life in the region, or on the planet for that matter. One way or another IS/ISIL needs to be brought under control and that needs to be done with precision and care to avoid pissing off everyone else in the region. They are after all in a better position to oppose IS/ISIL as it matters more to them, and they have the local knowledge.
In short, yes, we can put our foot down hard, but we have to put it down in the right places.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
We have to help others put their foot down hard. If the West just go in mob-handed, there will be blowback. It's a recruiting sergeant for the militants.
But if the Kurds and other Iraqui forces push IS back, that is very different, and of course, we can help them, and we are. Plus, of course, negotiating with various groups, esp. tribal leaders, who at the moment, are saying, fuck the West, fuck Maliki, we are giving IS free passage through our territory.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
As an example, the West no doubt could assassinate many of these tribal leaders, in order to decapitate the Sunni tribes. However, this would be insanity, and would probably lead to a massive increase in IS recruitment.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Yesterday the police were being very insistent that the killing of the 82 year old woman in North London was nothing to do with terrorism. The perpetrator had previously been attacking cats and dogs, and has now been sectioned. i.e. kept in secure mental hospital provision. In the context an unfortunate expression.
[ 05. September 2014, 11:57: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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beatmenace
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# 16955
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Posted
Penny S said:
quote:
Yesterday the police were being very insistent that the killing of the 82 year old woman in North London was nothing to do with terrorism. The perpetrator had previously been attacking cats and dogs, and has now been sectioned. i.e. kept in secure mental hospital provision. In the context an unfortunate expression.
From my time working in mental health, it was noticable that some of the residents sometimes became fixated with certain news stories, which in some cases fed into the psychosis. It may turn out that the 24/7 media coverage of IS atrocities may have played a part here.
More will come out but I just have a bad feeling about the role of the media here.
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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Stejjie
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# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
More will come out but I just have a bad feeling about the role of the media here.
I've been thinking the same thing more widely about the whole situation with IS, rather than that specific and utterly tragic death.
It seems to me that the media are actually doing IS a favour by bigging them up as such a huge threat, not just to Iraq and Syria, but to the West. That's how IS wants to be seen and I'm sure they'd take anything that portrays them in that light. If they think they're a threat, it'll embolden them to push harder.
Not only that, but it'll only serve to attract British and other Western wannabe jihadis to their cause. It glamourises them, makes them seem a worthwhile cause to join, a real chance to bring about a "true" Muslim order in the Middle East and the West.
I'm not sure this makes sense and I don't for one moment want to suggest that IS are not a threat to anyone, or to minimise the horrendous suffering that they're causing. But I do think that the media's continual bigging them up as the worst existential threat we've ever faced will be counter-productive and will make actually dealing with them (however we do that - I really haven't a clue) that much harder.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Stejje
Very good point. The tabloids in particular seem to be feasting on this stuff, and as you say, actually giving them glamour.
It reminds me of M. Thatcher's idea of depriving some groups of the oxygen of publicity.
But the mass media will never accept this, as it sells newspapers, I guess.
I suppose at some level, also, some people enjoy all the drama and bloodthirstiness.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Byron: Yes. It is. Torture. Summary executions. Killing children. etc
Martin: It's not 1700 years. Probably closer to a million for humans and perhaps 4 billion for life.
No. It isn't.
Death ≠ death for you, and/or, you don't accept human evolutionary science?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Well, we all die. When we die, we are all dead. However, for those of us still alive, circumstances surrounding the death remain important.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
beatmenace - the thought had occurred to me, too, but without the experience to place any weight on it.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
Penny S said:
quote:
Yesterday the police were being very insistent that the killing of the 82 year old woman in North London was nothing to do with terrorism. The perpetrator had previously been attacking cats and dogs, and has now been sectioned. i.e. kept in secure mental hospital provision. In the context an unfortunate expression.
From my time working in mental health, it was noticable that some of the residents sometimes became fixated with certain news stories, which in some cases fed into the psychosis. It may turn out that the 24/7 media coverage of IS atrocities may have played a part here.
More will come out but I just have a bad feeling about the role of the media here.
excellent beatmenace, informed experience of triggering.
Sorry but I want to comment about other mails swimming up stream. It's the Talisker Storm.
Stejjie. Spot on too, it sells ink and TV licenses and Mars Bars. Network (1976) is fulfilled.
Johnny English and 3M Matt. Weeding. The Israelis have just been mowing the grass, as they call it, in Gaza. You do not speak with Jesus' voice. For the kingdom of peace. You speak on your own recognizance. Which is fine. As long as you don't dress it up as Christian. Christians though you are. And yes, you're on the same spectrum. Get above it. And q. And rolyn.
Or keep using the world's wisdom.
Barnabas62. Right on 'enemisation'. Wrong on everything else ![[Smile]](smile.gif) There is NOTHING psychopathic about IS any more than there was about Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Just ordinary people JUST like us, but for fortune, not brain lesions.
IS are rational.
And saving the worst till last
Arminian.
quote:
Originally posted by Arminian:
I'm not sure that Jesus was a pacifist. Surely the whole point of Jesus is that he is like God the father in nature - hence his comments to Philip 'if you've seen me you've seen the father'.
I'm sure God would prefer that people repented and turned away from violence - but sometimes a culture arises that is so violent that God after many warnings wipes them out. The Mosaic law wasn't exactly that tolerant of murderers either.
My brother in law, an ex serviceman pointed out that in his experience some people get on such an adrenalin high from killing they just keep going and can't be reasoned with. Isis appear to be acting in this way. How can you negotiate with them ? Andrew White has said that they can't be negotiated with (and he has negotiated with many in Iraq).
I see only 2 options. Do nothing and hope they go away (which didn't work with Hitler). Or take them out now before they can spread to even more Arab states. We have a duty to help those on the receiving end of Isis because we helped create the instability that allowed them to move in. Doing nothing will cause deaths. We need a broad coalition of states fighting Isis with Muslim nations part of that coalition IMO.
Yep, Jesus believed in God the Killer, the God of redemptive violence so well described in the five books of Moses. Finally edited nearly a thousand years after their setting. And Jesus lived a transcendentally peaceful life, although He was mean to a some inanimate objects and livestock and a fig tree. It doesn't matter how we interpret His words used in battle against the culture that spawned them, in its own language. Interpret His ACTIONS which speak infinitely louder than any interpretation of His words.
Soldiers get carried away. That's what we train them for. Have you ever met a para? Members of the SAS? SBS? I have had the inestimable privilege of many friends in those units. You wouldn't want them as enemies. You wouldn't have them as such for very long. A heartbeat or two.
I see a third way. The express image of the SON in the Father. That is not the way even of negotiation. It is the way of Islam. Submission to God. S-L-M. Peace.
I wonder if we'll EVER try it? As He and His followers did once upon a time, long, long ago. How do we evolve back to that eh? Back to IS turning us into harmless doves.
Blaming IS for OUR righteous, innocent, feckless, murderous hearts is childish projection.
Keeping Jesus from returning.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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