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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: Be afraid, "Islamic State"
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
I've said it before and I'm about to say it again - a religious war requires a religious state, that is a state which is dedicated to a particular religion, or alternatively a religion which seeks to set up for itself such a religious state.
Islam is a fairly clear example of such a religion, as even within Muhammad's lifetime it set up such an Islamic state, with Muhammad as effective king even if he didn't use that title. It is quite significant that the biggest Muslim 'heresy argument' is not so much about a theological issue, as about who should have succeeded Muhammad as 'king' of the original Islamic state.
Christianity was not originally so organised; instead the apostles set up a different kind of organisation in which His kingdom is 'not of this world' and His followers, the Church, are supposed to live as peaceable resident aliens throughout the world, and in the event the world objects to their faith, Christians are supposed to accept martyrdom rather than fight for their faith and wage physical war on its behalf.
This got messed up during the 4th Century CE when Christianity was co-opted as the official Roman Imperial state religion, in defiance of a great deal of NT teaching to the contrary! The Reformation no doubt involved many 'this world' issues as well as religion, but there were clearly wars in which rival versions of Christianity played a part - at least as the main formal excuse for the fighting.
The reason for this; well, the two 'sides' in the Reformation differed in many theological areas, but they were united in the idea of having a Christian state, and so both held it perfectly proper to fight each other, martyr each other, etc.
In terms of the primary topic of this thread, 'Islamic State' is following the basic idea of Islam to have such a state. Christianity has behaved similarly to IS in the past because the version post-Constantine has operated with similar ideas for a Christian state; and there are still places such as Northern Ireland, and groups such as the 'Religious Right' of the USA where there is still fighting or a clear willingness to fight.
by IngoB;
quote:
Without the rather clearly secular interests of these German nobles protecting and pushing it, the Reformation would have fizzled out like so many religious enthusiasms before it.
I kind of agree; but the most significant point was that the wider warfare of the Reformation also allowed space for the NT to be heard and for many to recover the original 'peaceable resident alien' ideas. Those who did recover that original teaching were the Anabaptists; their ideas led to the kind of plural/freedom-of-religion state that we now more or less have in most of the West, despite a few lingering relics of the medieval state of affairs - the CofE for instance.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Did you even watch the link I sent? America spends more money on the military than anything else. Violence in the secular state is simply legitimised in a different way. "Peacekeeping" is popular. The religion of Capitalism and economic interest is more real.
We in the west are happy to bomb people into democracy when it suits our economic interests.
I did watch the link . Maybe the presenter was trying to oversimplify religion's non-culpability in stirring people to violence, the same way I'm no doubt over-simplifying the argument to the contrary.
Violence is a hard thing to quantify and measure . A pub fight, domestic violence, the soldier or civilian caught by bullets, explosives ..... etc. etc.
There is no question that Christ can turn a person away from the path of violence . It's just that the waters can so easily be muddied , the average homo-sap can so easily revert to type, (or be conditioned by the State to do so), thus we inevitably end up with a very warped reflection of the Gospel's essential message.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I've said it before and I'm about to say it again - a religious war requires a religious state, that is a state which is dedicated to a particular religion, or alternatively a religion which seeks to set up for itself such a religious state.
I haven't said it before but I'll say it now: it doesn't follow that a war that your 'religious state' engages in is therefore motivated by religion.
I applaud your commitment, though, to demonstrating that Islam is inherently violent and horrible but that Christianity just fell in with a bad crowd for a while. I blame the parents.
[ 15. September 2014, 23:02: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I blame the parents.
As do I. “'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.'”
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The thing is orfeo, that's basically it although by a gnat's whisker: The ONLY difference is - Jesus wasn't a killer.
If Christianity can justify war, capital punishment, human sacrifice, what chance does Islam have?
[ 16. September 2014, 06:00: 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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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by orfeo;
quote:
I haven't said it before but I'll say it now: it doesn't follow that a war that your 'religious state' engages in is therefore motivated by religion.
I applaud your commitment, though, to demonstrating that Islam is inherently violent and horrible but that Christianity just fell in with a bad crowd for a while. I blame the parents.
On the first little para, obviously many of the wars engaged in by a 'religious state', whatever the religion, will have non-religious reasons - there was little difference in religion in WWI for example, with England's Anglicanism not so different from the Kaiser's Prussian Lutheranism. Nevertheless both sides were claiming some degree of 'crusade' aspect to their efforts ("Gott mit uns" on the Kaiser's side, for example). Even when the cause itself is not religious, being a religious state allows some dodgy attitudes - I recall a 60s protest song with lines about "With God on our side..."
I think your second para is perhaps being a little sarcastic at my expense?? But seriously, if you look at the historical development my point is essentially just true.
I'm not simplistically saying that Islam is 'inherently violent and horrible'; I fully recognise Islam's intention of peacefulness. It is simply that by having and practising the idea of a 'religious state', Muhammad sabotaged his own peaceable intentions and left his religion open to all the problems that arose in the 'established' form of Christianity - up to and including the shenanigans of the current 'Islamic State' in Syria/Iraq. This 'religious state' notion is 'built in' to Islam from the days Muhammad set up the first such state by setting his army against Mecca. It may be that some of the modern groups, particularly the 'terrorist' factions, behave in ways that would horrify Muhammad; but what was done by Muhammad in his lifetime was quite bad enough.
The NT is in fact pretty clear on how Christianity is meant to be, as I outlined in the earlier post. And the 'established' form of Christianity is clearly a late aberration, not the original teaching.
If you follow the NT, Christianity is a peaceable religion of a people of God who risk martyrdom rather than fighting and killing. If you go against the NT and try to set up a 'Christian country', then it is inherently impossible to remain peaceable.
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Works for me, Steve.
ISTM to be a particular issue for Law religions. If holiness comes through the Law, then you need a state to make the law - that's what states do, along with enforcing that Law internally and perhaps against external states. Quite apart from "Christendom's" appalling record, Christians don't need a state, or a Law - though we may thank God for the peace and stability that come about from living under a good one, and campaign against the injustice inherent in living under a bad one.
I mention this only to offer another Christian distinctive...
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
All of which ignores the fact that there are a considerable number of Muslim countries that are thoroughly secular in their governance, and no more have Islam as the established religion than 'Christian' countries in Europe have Christianity as an established religion.
You might argue that a religious state is the 'right' form for Islam, and the 'wrong' form of Christianity, but the fact is a considerable number of countries are ignoring you in both directions.
Even among countries that have Islam as the official religion, many of them do not operate as theocracies. They derive the law from the Quran only to the same extent that the laws of the UK can be seen to have origins in the Bible.
[ 17. September 2014, 02:53: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
True dat. Think Indonesia - biggest Muslim country in the world.
According to Wikipedia, it is illegal for members of other faiths to attempt to convert Muslims in Indonesia. Wikipedia also mentions this jailing of an Indonesian atheist for being an atheist.
Are these things not true?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I followed the fate of three Christian women in Indonesia nearly ten years ago here.
A sympathetic judge kept the doctor in jail because she had been overtly threatened with murder and there was nothing else he could do about it.
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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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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
True dat. Think Indonesia - biggest Muslim country in the world.
According to Wikipedia, it is illegal for members of other faiths to attempt to convert Muslims in Indonesia. Wikipedia also mentions this jailing of an Indonesian atheist for being an atheist.
Are these things not true?
My point was that Indonesia is not a theocracy. The constitution is based on Pancasila . That does not necessarily mean there will not be religious tensions.
So technically Steve Langton is incorrect here.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was illegal to convert Muslims, but it would also be illegal for Muslims to forcefully convert non-Muslims. "There should be no compulsion in religion" after all. Pancasila reflects that.
I was born and raised in Indonesia (lived there 17 years) and religious tolerance was not a problem back then. I haven't been back for 20 years but I have heard religious tensions have risen. I suppose the same could be said for the rest of the world since 9/11.
Atheism would be a difficult one for the constitution because it's technically not a religion. But the dude wasn't sentenced for blasphemy. I suppose he might be considered suspect for inciting religious hatred. But hey, that's something we deal with here in Australia too. You can't do that here.
As I understand it from friends still living there, it's hard for the government to control outbreaks of religious violence from radical Muslims. But other types of Muslims are also not immune from persecution. Your article says that too.
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a theological scrapbook
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by orfeo;
quote:
You might argue that a religious state is the 'right' form for Islam, and the 'wrong' form of Christianity, but the fact is a considerable number of countries are ignoring you in both directions.
So what? Humans are sinful and get things wrong. But I don't think it can be denied that a religious state of any kind creates problems which are not created by a religion whose adherents on principle live as peaceable 'resident aliens' and do not try to run the state or use the police and military powers of the state on behalf of their religion. And as we see with IS, holding the religious state idea and trying to impose it also creates major problems.
On the issue of 'secular' Muslim states - some of these exist in imitation of western democracy rather than following Islamic ideas; they are often the result of former western colonialism. In other cases the secularism is a result of the rather inevitable effect whereby if you declare everybody in your state to be Muslim (or Christian or whatever) you'll have an awful lot of people whose religion is only nominal, only superficial conformity, and there will be a tendency over time to lose the strong original religiosity.
There are other issues and possibilities here as well - I don't think we need to get bogged down in detail of all the options....
I should point out that for me, one of the things 'Christendom' needs to repent of is the simple fact that at the time Muhammad founded Islam, 'Christendom' set completely the wrong example. Muhammad probably copied the state church without ever realising that it wasn't authentic Christianity.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
On the issue of 'secular' Muslim states - some of these exist in imitation of western democracy rather than following Islamic ideas;
How does that fit with the Quranic idea that there should be no compulsion in religion?
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a theological scrapbook
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Evensong;
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
On the issue of 'secular' Muslim states - some of these exist in imitation of western democracy rather than following Islamic ideas;
Evensong response;
How does that fit with the Quranic idea that there should be no compulsion in religion?
Haven't time for a really detailed reply; but to me, marching an army to Mecca to set up an Islamic state would seem to be pretty much 'compulsion in religion', as would quite a few of Muhammad's other actions. How did he fit his own actions with the claimed divine word?
My point here was, in response to Orfeo, that yes many modern states in the Muslim world are nearly secular and this is partly because of the phenomenon I've noted elsewhere of a gradual decline over time in religiosity of religious states and partly because of the example or even interference of western powers. These situations are always confusing.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
At first, I could see the sense in the US helping the Kurdish fighters fight IS.
Today's paper has the headline 'Cameron prepares the path to war with Isis'.
This is classic mission creep - you start off with a little limited bombing, to help troops fighting on the ground in N. Iraq; but now it seems that the US, and a ton of other countries, are preparing to bomb Iraqui and Syrian IS positions.
How will this end? It seems very unpredictable now. I wonder if Western boots on the ground are on the way.
This is like deja vu all over again.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Today's paper has the headline 'Cameron prepares the path to war with Isis'.
This is classic mission creep
And what paper would that be?
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Today's paper has the headline 'Cameron prepares the path to war with Isis'.
This is classic mission creep
And what paper would that be?
The FT warns of "Mission creep for Obama", so it isn't the Guardianistas after Cameron this time.
[ 24. September 2014, 19:10: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
FT still quite lefty, though.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
FT still quite lefty, though.
So what would be righty? Kill, kill, kill!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Anglican't: quote:
FT still quite lefty, though.
That was a joke, wasn't it?
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
FT still quite lefty, though.
So what would be righty? Kill, kill, kill!
FT has often had a left-wing bias, editorially. Never understood why. They backed Kinnock over Major in '92!
Presumably their readers want the market data stuff and skip over the editorialising?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Anglican't: quote:
FT still quite lefty, though.
That was a joke, wasn't it?
No, not at all - see post above.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, Anglican't is right, FT has quite often supported Labour, not sure why.
[ 24. September 2014, 19:35: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
FT still quite lefty, though.
Compared to most of Fleet Street, it is out there with the International Marxist Group.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
The point is of course that the OPINION of the FT editors is that there is mission creep.
Those same FT editors are of the OPINION that Labour is better than Tory.
Suddenly there is no surprise in the headline is there.
Nice to see a former Labour Party leader who was (a) voted in as leader by the members of the labour party and (b) voted in as Prime Minster three times by the electorate, coming out and saying that boots on the ground will be needed.
Sure there are those who oppose him from his own side, but you have to question their judgement don't you. I mean, they did like him at one time.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I would have thought mission creep isn't a matter of opinion. You take a statement about what the mission would be, you take later actions as part of the mission, and you see whether or not one fits within the other.
[ 25. September 2014, 02:55: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I heard two fatwas/edicts were recently issued against ISIS.
I'm glad someone had the courage to do that. Probably won't affect ISIS directly, but maybe it will make someone think twice about joining.
I hope the two clerics stay safe.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
FT still quite lefty, though.
Compared to most of Fleet Street, it is out there with the International Marxist Group.
Most of erstwhile Fleet Street is crypto-UKIP, these days. The FT remains resolutely Blairite - pro-Europe and seriously relaxed about people getting filthy rich.
As to the bit about mission creep, that's just common sense. Name any international conflict of recent years that has been put to bed by a couple of well placed air-strikes. Exactly. Once it's been established that a few bombing raids won't persuade ISIS to sign up to secularism, representative democracy and the rule of law either the US et. al. can shrug their shoulders and say "well, we tried" or they can increase their involvement in the region. Which do you think is most likely?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
As to the bit about mission creep, that's just common sense. Name any international conflict of recent years that has been put to bed by a couple of well placed air-strikes.
World War Two.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
As to the bit about mission creep, that's just common sense. Name any international conflict of recent years that has been put to bed by a couple of well placed air-strikes.
World War Two.
Woah! If I'd have said that the peace-first mob would be baying for my blood! "Well placed" indeed.
But surely those two "well placed" buckets of sunshine prove my point upthread. If it worked then, why can't it work now?
[ 26. September 2014, 07:40: Message edited by: deano ]
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I presume that Sioni was being sarcastic. Deano, on the other hand, has just outed himself as a certifiable idiot.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
But surely those two "well placed" buckets of sunshine prove my point upthread. If it worked then, why can't it work now?
Define "work".
Your problem is that you treat the situation as resolved the second the fighting stops. As if world history, and Japanese history, ended in August 1945. As if the narrative was "there was a bomb, and then everyone lived happily ever after. The End."
Meanwhile, here in the real world, we notice how conditions in Germany after World War I helped set up World War II. We notice how Al-Qaeda was made up of the people who fought the Soviets for us in Afgahnistan in the 1980s. We notice how the current mess is linked to the power vacuums created by the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Not that many years ago, we had all the declarations about how Al-Qaeda was smashed and a spent force. Now, we have a new organisation that is being labelled as bigger and badder than Al-Qaeda ever was.
Your idea of something 'working' is that you drop a nuclear bomb and THAT conflict is over, so you walk away saying "job done" and with a satisfied smile on your face. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of disrupted lives are left in your wake, societies crumble, and out of the discord emerge new problems that the next person in your job will have to wrestle with.
Personally I'd prefer solutions that remove the motivation to wreak havoc, rather than just removing the current capacity to do so.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's a bit like the myth of dragon's teeth - soldiers spring up from the ground, but when you try to suppress them, you sow more teeth.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
But surely those two "well placed" buckets of sunshine prove my point upthread. If it worked then, why can't it work now?
Define "work".
Your problem is that you treat the situation as resolved the second the fighting stops. As if world history, and Japanese history, ended in August 1945. As if the narrative was "there was a bomb, and then everyone lived happily ever after. The End."
Meanwhile, here in the real world....
... you list a whole series of bad things, none of which state what happened to Japan and Germany at the end of World War TWO. You have avoided the truth.
The bombs did stop world war two and both Japan and Germany rebuilt and became prosperous, successful nations no more likely to start a war than you would.
[ 26. September 2014, 09:34: Message edited by: deano ]
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But in the Middle East, every Western 'solution' has produced a new problem, which then requires a new solution, which ...
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
From which it follows that a few thousand square miles of irradiated landmass is just what the Middle East needs to sort its problems.
I daresay we could give the policy a snappy name - Chernobylisation?
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
Or the middle east needs to solve its own problems. Which is fine but...
(A) They have no track record of doing so
(B) They must stop attacks on the west.
It seems to me that there is an acceptance on the ship that the west must accept a number of western deaths so that the middle east can solve its own problems. This is unacceptable to me.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
We are supposed to be bombing ISIS at the request of the government of Iraq. It is generally considered ill mannered to drop thermonuclear bombs on the territory of one's allies, even when parts of that territory are currently held by Islamic fundamentalists.
Moreover there are currently international flashpoints involving both Russia and China, at present. It might be worth giving serious thought to as to whether or not we want to announce to a watching world that we have no serious objections to great powers using thermonuclear warfare as an instrument of policy in regional disputes.
There might also be undesirable consequences both in the field of nuclear proliferation and in terms of our alliances in the region with fairly major knock on effects to the state of the global economy.
It would also be a war crime, would be of highly doubtful utility in achieving any reasonable policy aim and would reduce our name in much of the world to a hissing and abhorrence but frankly as we appear to have decided that there's something liberating about being a sociopath I assume those objections don't count for very much.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Deano, your reasoning here is similar to me suggesting I mount a bazooka to the front of my bike and take out every car and lorry I see because the number of cyclists killed by them is unacceptable to me.
i.e. disproportionate overkill.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I don't think the argument is that we have to accept a number of Western deaths, but that these are in large part caused by Western intervention. Hence, if this were to stop, the deaths would stop.
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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
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But Obama has little choice, does he? If he stands back, he is the six stone weakling, in US political terms. Maybe he genuinely feels impassioned about IS, and maybe he is thinking of his 'legacy' and political virility.
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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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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Or the middle east needs to solve its own problems. Which is fine but...
(A) They have no track record of doing so
(B) They must stop attacks on the west.
It seems to me that there is an acceptance on the ship that the west must accept a number of western deaths so that the middle east can solve its own problems. This is unacceptable to me.
The 'Middle east" does not make attacks on the west. Some people from there and elsewhere besides commit crimes targetting places and people in and from 'the west'. It's like blaming Smith & Wesson for every shooting: there's a connection, but it's not the whole story.
I agree with you that the Middle east doesn't look like becoming peaceful in a hurry, but the western habit of half-assed interventions doesn't help, and there is a long & inglorious history of those. Now we have everyone jumping on the 'Air strikes on Syria' bandwagon, which will disrupt ISIL, and many of the groups opposing ISIL too, including President Assad's government, who remember were the baddies until about six months ago.
While many in the West (and some Arab nations too now) are happy to deploy shiny kit that is fairly safe to use, there are few willing to commit thousands of troops who will have to get on the ground and deny it to ISIL, or any successor. It isn't where you start that matters, but where you end up, and I don't see Cameron, Obama or many others showing a willingness to confront that, because it's an odds-on way to lose popularity.
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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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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't think the argument is that we have to accept a number of Western deaths, but that these are in large part caused by Western intervention. Hence, if this were to stop, the deaths would stop.
Leaving the jihadists free to kill as many non-muslims as they want inside their borders. Sweet deal... For some.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't think the argument is that we have to accept a number of Western deaths, but that these are in large part caused by Western intervention. Hence, if this were to stop, the deaths would stop.
Leaving the jihadists free to kill as many non-muslims as they want inside their borders. Sweet deal... For some.
Yeah, but your solution kills millions of the aforementioned non-muslims inside their borders. You do know that nukes are remarkably indiscriminate, don't you?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Deano, my local playing fields have a vacancy, for someone to move goal-posts. If you like, I could put your name forward. Experience is required, so you should be OK.
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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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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't think the argument is that we have to accept a number of Western deaths, but that these are in large part caused by Western intervention. Hence, if this were to stop, the deaths would stop.
So do you think, for example, that the death of David Haines was as a result of western intervention? If you do, do you think western governments should consider themselves responsible for his death?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I suppose neutron bombs (remember those?) distinguish between people and buildings, destroying the former but leaving the latter intact...rather like mortgages.
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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
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I suppose neutron bombs (remember those?) distinguish between people and buildings, destroying the former but leaving the latter intact...rather like mortgages.
If a neutron bomb able to distinguish between good guys and bad guys could be devised, it might serve a purpose.
For anyone in possession of such a device.
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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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