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Middle East Thread


Red Phoenix
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You sure sound like a defender of Islam.

 

It is undeniable that Islam has taken a battering since 9/11, much of it justified.

 

From Indonesia to Morocco to Washington there have been numerous atrocities committed in its name. You say by a small minority, but I ask - how small?  Not very I imagine.

I defend Islam no more, or less, than anything else. I just don't like lazy opinions.

 

In what way has Islam taken a battering since 9/11, and why should it be justified?

 

In America, the NRA invokes God in support of its cause, in reality I don't think he has given it much thought, nor do I blame him for the annual firearms carnage Stateside.

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I think the rise of fundamentalism is linked to the West's attitude to Muslims in general. I've never lived near a Muslim community but am told by people who did that you very rarely saw a burkha until the 'war on terror', and that in the 70s and 80s they'd go out of their way to try and assimilate, wearing western clothes, getting involved in local politics etc.

 

I think the feeling of being vilified and under siege has allowed more hardline elements to gain control, as they always do in times like this.

 

When I was a kid you couldn't fart near the concept of immigration without someone giving you a funny look, these days it's openly encouraged to say people should 'learn the language' and 'fit in'.

 

Britain First.

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I think that would be true of Islam as well. And what the Israeli's do in Gaza is hardly Christian.

 

I am no particular defender of Islam. I just don't think that Islam should be judged by the actions of a relatively small number of extremists who have exploited a situation that the West largely created in Iraq.

Fair point.

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I defend Islam no more, or less, than anything else. I just don't like lazy opinions.

 

In what way has Islam taken a battering since 9/11, and why should it be justified?

 

In America, the NRA invokes God in support of its cause, in reality I don't think he has given it much thought, nor do I blame him for the annual firearms carnage Stateside.

 

Bali, Djerba, Madrid, London, Karachi, Kandahar, Mumbai.

 

The list is endless.

 

I am not saying the West is blameless, far from it, however this is a discussion about Islam (at least I thought it was) and I am saying that many people's perceptions (me included) of it have changed over recent times.

 

I think most people would laugh now if you called it a religion of peace when you see some of the carnage that has been caused in its name.

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I think the rise of fundamentalism is linked to the West's attitude to Muslims in general.

Religious fundamentalism thrives in times of hardship and oppression.

 

I think it would be wrong to directly link ISIS with mainstream Islamic thought. In Iraq, when the state has been dismantled ( courtesy of the US), and armed factions leave you in fear of your life, two things tend to happen. Firstly, your mortality focusses the mind on religion, secondly you tend to support the side most likely to win at that time. If you then create an enemy, you have a very potent cocktail which ISIS have been slurping from.

 

As for Islam generally, I think that most Americans are blissfully unaware of how American support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians is seen beyond their shores. They forget how the CIA imposed the Shah in Iran and stole Iranian oil wealth. They forget that the US was perfectly happy to hen arm Iraq against Iran when he Shah was deposed. They do not question how the US came to invade Afghanistan when the 9/11 conspirators were largely Saudi and Saudi funded.

 

Islam is as diverse as Christianity - which in Wales, Rome, Uganda and Brazil has very different faces.

 

I despair of the default position of successive American and British governments that every ME flare up should be addressed by the military. Understanding why events happen, and then trying to do better seems to elude both of them.

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I think that would be true of Islam as well. And what the Israeli's do in Gaza is hardly Christian.

 

I am no particular defender of Islam. I just don't think that Islam should be judged by the actions of a relatively small number of extremists who have exploited a situation that the West largely created in Iraq.

 

They are not claiming it is Christian, they are claiming it is to protect their national interest.

 

P.S. I am not a defender of Israel.

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Religious fundamentalism thrives in times of hardship and oppression.

 

I think it would be wrong to directly link ISIS with mainstream Islamic thought. In Iraq, when the state has been dismantled ( courtesy of the US), and armed factions leave you in fear of your life, two things tend to happen. Firstly, your mortality focusses the mind on religion, secondly you tend to support the side most likely to win at that time. If you then create an enemy, you have a very potent cocktail which ISIS have been slurping from.

 

As for Islam generally, I think that most Americans are blissfully unaware of how American support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians is seen beyond their shores. They forget how the CIA imposed the Shah in Iran and stole Iranian oil wealth. They forget that the US was perfectly happy to hen arm Iraq against Iran when he Shah was deposed. They do not question how the US came to invade Afghanistan when the 9/11 conspirators were largely Saudi and Saudi funded.

 

Islam is as diverse as Christianity - which in Wales, Rome, Uganda and Brazil has very different faces.

 

I despair of the default position of successive American and British governments that every ME flare up should be addressed by the military. Understanding why events happen, and then trying to do better seems to elude both of them.

 

I thought you didn't like lazy arguments.

 

The point I have bolded is totally incorrect.

 

Take the 9/11 hijackers, they were all middle class, well educated individuals who were no more oppressed than you or I.

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Bali, Djerba, Madrid, London, Karachi, Kandahar, Mumbai.

 

The list is endless.

 

I am not saying the West is blameless, far from it, however this is a discussion about Islam (at least I thought it was) and I am saying that many people's perceptions (me included) of it have changed over recent times.

 

I think most people would laugh now if you called it a religion of peace when you see some of the carnage that has been caused in its name.

That list is dwarfed by civilian war deaths in Iraq alone.

 

I think that all religions have the capacity for peace and war and wouldn't single Islam out one way or another.

 

I respect your opinions, I just think that asking questions can help shape them.

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That list is dwarfed by civilian war deaths in Iraq alone.

 

I think that all religions have the capacity for peace and war and wouldn't single Islam out one way or another.

 

I respect your opinions, I just think that asking questions can help shape them.

 

Absolutely agreed.  The Iraq war was a blight on humanity.

 

However, if you believe the official reasoning, that was done for non-religious reasons and with the best of intentions.  As crazy as that sounds now.

 

In any event, I am not sure it was done as an anti-Islam war, rather an oil grab war or GWB wanting to finish off what Daddy started.

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I thought you didn't like lazy arguments.

 

The point I have bolded is totally incorrect.( Religious fundamentalism thrives in times of hardship and oppression.)

 

Take the 9/11 hijackers, they were all middle class, well educated individuals who were no more oppressed than you or I.

I was suggesting that the fundamentalism of ISIS is born out of hardship and oppression, and stand by that view.

 

The 9/11 hijackers, I think, were driven by a broader sense of injustice which I believe the majority of Americans were unaware of.

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I was suggesting that the fundamentalism of ISIS is born out of hardship and oppression, and stand by that view.

 

The 9/11 hijackers, I think, were driven by a broader sense of injustice which I believe the majority of Americans were unaware of.

 

I think that view gives the nutjobs a free pass.  There are many hard up and opressed people in the world who don't turn to massacring people.

 

They probably aren't too hard up now either after their recent bank raid in Mosul.

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However, if you believe the official reasoning, that was done for non-religious reasons and with the best of intentions.  As crazy as that sounds now.

I think you are right.

 

I don't think that the motivation for the US was evil, just a misplaced, but honest, sense of right and wrong, and a catastrophic miscalculation of what was to follow.

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I think that view gives the nutjobs a free pass.  There are many hard up and opressed people in the world who don't turn to massacring people.

 

They probably aren't too hard up now either after their recent bank raid in Mosul.

There was, and is, no excuse for 9/11. But there was a reason.

 

Democracies do have the capacity to reflect, and Obama has I think made good progress in reshaping US foreign policy.

 

On topic, the people who will fashion an enduring settlement in the Middle East are the countries of the region. I don't know whether the governments of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan etc are silent on what is going on, or whether what they are saying is not being reported.

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I was suggesting that the fundamentalism of ISIS is born out of hardship and oppression, and stand by that view.

 

The 9/11 hijackers, I think, were driven by a broader sense of injustice which I believe the majority of Americans were unaware of.

 

Its a bit simplistic to put it that way. The hardship and oppression are exploited by the rich who use radicalism in say the house of saud  with USA arms and backing to get poor people to go off and kill some other poor people, in Vietnam the rich Americans sent poor americans to do similar things under a banner of capitalism, a form of religion but any idea a poor person holds can be exploited by the powerful one. 

Violence is not born out of oppression any more than pacifism is, violence is no more born out of poverty than affluence, its a phychological nothing more, anger has many outlets but if you put oil in your car you support the system by participating in it just by putting fuel in your car its akin to what ISIS is doing simply as they exist to keep control of oil with the house of saud and by extension the western backers down to the western gas guzzling consumer, we are all cogs and we support their fundamentalism wholeheartedly and willing to pay through the nose just to have the opportunity to do so. Closing our eyes, blaming Islam, just matters of distraction.

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Please enlighten me.

 

No worries

 

 

The US government trained, armed, funded and supported Osama bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan during the cold war. With a huge investment of $3,000,000,000 (three billion US dollars), the CIA effectively created and nurtured bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network using American tax-payers money. Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, where such an enormous sum sum of money would have had extraordinary value.
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xerxes, on 14 Aug 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

 

I think you are right.

 

I don't think that the motivation for the US was evil, just a misplaced, but honest, sense of right and wrong, and a catastrophic miscalculation of what was to follow.

Which is why they should not be the "world's police" and definitely not allowed near the middle east. They are constantly miscalculating events that are none of their business (well they make it their business if there's oil involved) and it inevitably ends up in a complete mess. The middle east would be a better place if they stopped interfering and only did so by request.

 

All empires fall and they have started their decline. They won't go down without a fight though and will bomb the fuck out of everyone and everything won't they.

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