Paris attacks 13-11-15

[Fragile Bird]

23 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well think about it. What would the response be if a nuclear device was detonated in a major European city? And then the question becomes: Why would that response be any less justified after what has already happened in Paris and Brussels?

Is it because a couple of hundred deaths are somehow still acceptable?

Now I'm getting curious too.  You once again avoided answering the question.  What solution would you propose?

[Swordfish]

3 minutes ago, MercifulChief said:

That was not simply repression.  It was a near total destruction of their populace,  assimilation and re-education of the survivors and only then into repression. 

Taking care of radical Islam the same way is nigh impossible and terrible to think of.

 

1 minute ago, Lordsteve666 said:

Yeah but when one of your "options" for solving the problem happens to pretty much amount to genocide then anything is better than that, even difficult political and social changes.

I'm not saying it's a viable option, or that it's something we should be persuing.  I'm saying the notion that it's never been successful is demonstrably false.

[Clueless Northman]

1 minute ago, MercifulChief said:

Taking care of radical Islam the same way is nigh impossible and terrible to think of.

We can restrict this to taking care of Islamists inside Europe. That's a far smaller amount of people than the whole Muslim population of Europe. And, well, no need to be as bloodthirsty.

Just banning any preacher/imam who ever studied in Saudi Arabia from entering the EU, and expelling all those who have, would be a start. Then, rounding up every jihadi thug who comes back from Syria, Somalia and a few similar places and jailing them for good would also considerably reduce the number of skilled agents. Sure, left to their own devices, local thugs can do harm, but they haven't the experience of people coming back from ISIS-land, nor the determination.

I mean, it's not hard of thinking of a few ways to reduce the risks. It would require political leaders to be useful and stop being the incompetent buffoons who couldn't even rule their countries if everything was fine and sunny... (and EU leaders have shown how abysmally mediocre they were in the last 15 months).

[Free Northman Reborn]

9 minutes ago, MercifulChief said:

That was not simply repression.  It was a near total destruction of their populace,  assimilation and re-education of the survivors and only then into repression. 

Taking care of radical Islam the same way is nigh impossible and terrible to think of.

All that says is that you view current European values as more important than the lives of those who are killed by Islamic terrorism. And of course, I would not choose the Native American example. We need not view our only options as being at the most extreme ends of the spectrum imaginable.

Some European values and laws have to go, in my view. Because they make you weak and vulnerable to an enemy that laughs at those values. But that by no means equates to "concentration camps and exterminations", as some absurdly try to argue.

But a "fit in or f**k off" approach to immigrants, followed by some robust enforcement of that attitude would be a good first step. Followed by a harsh response to those who try to use violence to resist that approach.

Soon those who don't like it in this new Europe will leave of their own accord. And those who remain will of necessity be of the "fit in" variety.

 

 

 

 

[Lordsteve666]

2 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

All that says is that you view current European values as more important than the lives of those who are killed by Islamic terrorism. And of course, I would not choose the Native American example. We need not view our only options as being at the most extreme ends of the spectrum imaginable.

Some European values and laws have to go, in my view. Because they make you weak and vulnerable to an enemy that laughs at those values. But that by no means equates to "concentration camps and exterminations", as some absurdly try to argue.

But a "fit in or f**k off" approach to immigrants, followed by some robust enforcement of that attitude would be a good first step. Followed by a harsh response to those who try to use violence to resist that approach.

Soon those who don't like it in this new Europe will leave of their own accord. And those who remain will of necessity be of the "fit in" variety.

 

 

 

 

Yeah but the current situation is not just as simple as a group of people coming here to get freebies and then attack us if they dislike our actions around the world. A lot of people coming west are doing so out of desperation as places like Syria/Iraq/Libya go to utter shit thanks to western interference.

We in Europe and the US have created in the middle east one almighty fucked up shithole of a mess with our constant meddling over the years and it is no wonder that people there want to harm our way of life.
If the western world wasn't so involved in the middle east and left the place to its own devices would we be getting targeted so readily? And to not be involved means a lot has to be changed, we need to be less reliant on their oil for example so we don't have to go around kissing the arses of regimes like Saudi Arabia and so that when someone like IS appears there can just ignore it because it won't affect our national oil supplies.
But to be less reliant of middle eastern oil means a cultural change in the west so we don't need to go looking for it there. That means a society that can be more self-sufficient and able to support its citizen having a reasonable level of comfort without meddling with the rest of the world. Then we won't need to go round the world pissing off people who will later attack us when we meddle in their neighborhood.

[mormont]

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Stoking Western anger is one of their goals, but they don't need it and they're not depending on it.

The evidence is that they do and they are.

Good treatment of Muslims in Western countries decreases their recruitment from those countries. Good relations between the West and Muslim countries strengthens the hand of the Muslim countries fighting IS on the ground. Good treatment of Muslims by the West removes one of the main propaganda weapons that reduces the increasing internal dissent in their territory.

The reverse of each of these points is also true.

Why else are they carrying out these attacks?

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The conditions that drive people to them existed before people started to feel scared, they still exist now and they're extraordinarily difficult to alter.

They're extraordinarily easy to alter. Just treat Muslims with the same dignity and respect as every other citizen of your country. Job done.

By all means investigate terrorist threats vigorously, but remember that the target is terrorism, not Islam.

20 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There is an unpleasant trade-off: reacting harshly drives incites more hatred, but reacting softly lowers the threat of retaliation for future attacks and makes them technically easier.

Retaliation is not a threat. It's the goal.

[MercenaryChef]

19 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

We can restrict this to taking care of Islamists inside Europe. That's a far smaller amount of people than the whole Muslim population of Europe. And, well, no need to be as bloodthirsty.

Just banning any preacher/imam who ever studied in Saudi Arabia from entering the EU, and expelling all those who have, would be a start. Then, rounding up every jihadi thug who comes back from Syria, Somalia and a few similar places and jailing them for good would also considerably reduce the number of skilled agents. Sure, left to their own devices, local thugs can do harm, but they haven't the experience of people coming back from ISIS-land, nor the determination.

I mean, it's not hard of thinking of a few ways to reduce the risks. It would require political leaders to be useful and stop being the incompetent buffoons who couldn't even rule their countries if everything was fine and sunny... (and EU leaders have shown how abysmally mediocre they were in the last 15 months).

Certainly this won't create even more extremists. 

Are you truly so clueless?

[Clueless Northman]

By the way, I'm not sure people see how there's quite patronizing and insulting speech on both sides of the discussion is.

Really, what does the "Oh, it's not entirely their fault, Western societies are guilty as well, that's why they're acting out" stance truly mean, what does it look like, specially to the millions of Western Muslims who live quiet lifes without causing trouble to other people? Because that smells a lot like "Oh, it's not really their fault, they don't truly have agency, they're Muslims after all, they can't helpt it but be violent in such a situation", which is a prejudice usually more clearly expressed by far-right / anti-Muslim people but seems to be equally hold by people on the other side, just under a different disguise.

That might not be the intent, but it surely looks like that from the outside.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

The evidence is that they do and they are.

Good treatment of Muslims in Western countries decreases their recruitment from those countries. Good relations between the West and Muslim countries strengthens the hand of the Muslim countries fighting IS on the ground. Good treatment of Muslims by the West removes one of the main propaganda weapons that reduces the increasing internal dissent in their territory.

The reverse of each of these points is also true.

Why else are they carrying out these attacks?

They're extraordinarily easy to alter. Just treat Muslims with the same dignity and respect as every other citizen of your country. Job done.

By all means investigate terrorist threats vigorously, but remember that the target is terrorism, not Islam.

Retaliation is not a threat. It's the goal.

But what is the ultimate end state of this supposed goal of theirs? A religious war between the West and Islam? If so, so be it. It's not like it hasn't been going on for 1400 years already.

There can be only one winner of such a conflict. As the stronger power by far, we are remarkably terrified of this eventuality. Maybe it is time for it to come and be done with.

[Magnar of Skagos]

RIP to all the Europeans that died in this attack. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

[The Killer Snark]

30 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

By the way, I'm not sure people see how there's quite patronizing and insulting speech on both sides of the discussion is.

Really, what does the "Oh, it's not entirely their fault, Western societies are guilty as well, that's why they're acting out" stance truly mean, what does it look like, specially to the millions of Western Muslims who live quiet lifes without causing trouble to other people? Because that smells a lot like "Oh, it's not really their fault, they don't truly have agency, they're Muslims after all, they can't helpt it but be violent in such a situation", which is a prejudice usually more clearly expressed by far-right / anti-Muslim people but seems to be equally hold by people on the other side, just under a different disguise.

That might not be the intent, but it surely looks like that from the outside.

The very Far Right holds this attitude because of blanket bigotry, and the Far Left is as prone to holding the same attitude because of Cultural Relativism, which is equally bigoted/racist because it denies the ability of individuals from less democratic communities to be better, by assuming uniform identity instead of individual recognition of good and evil.  I've been deeply saddened all day on Twitter by the relentless tweets of idiots who swerve to both, and the same, extremes. I think the hatred that many of the Right is directing towards Islam would be better directed at the European leaders who have made no effort down the years whatever to deport known radicals and closely monitor demographics and to make sure (this being a wartime situation no matter what propagandist rags such as The Guardian pretend) that the only Muslims entering Europe, for reasons of global security, are proven wartime refugees. Only a tenth of the first generation migrants some German populations have been open about replacing European populations with, for 'reverse colonialist' reasons, whatever they are, have been Syrian refugees. We need to enforce far tighter border controls, the current EU government needs forced from power for gross incompetence and even wilful treason, and we need to start mass deporting known radicals now. There are over 2000 of these people known for a fact to be extremists by the authorities in the UK, and we have been powerless to get rid of them because of the EU.

[Hereward]

Please explain how the EU has prevented the UK government from getting rid of these people.

[Altherion]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

Why else are they carrying out these attacks?

They're extraordinarily easy to alter. Just treat Muslims with the same dignity and respect as every other citizen of your country. Job done.

This might decrease the prevalence of such attacks, but it will not eliminate them. The fact that they're discriminated against makes it worse, but even if we could magically make that go away, they would still be poor and not have much of a chance of moving up in the world. The conflict here is one of ideologies. The West doesn't really have a shared one -- there is a long and ever-expanding list of things one should not do or say, but there is no overarching common purpose, no common worldview, nothing that gives direction to life. The closest thing we have to this is avarice, but this works against the second generation Muslim immigrants because they tend to be poor and know that they'll stay this way. Radical Islam offers them a shared worldview and makes them the good guys.

The people pushing this ideology are not about to stop it either: remember, we're bombing them in what they believe to be their territory and we've been doing this for years and supporting people who oppress them even longer than that.

16 minutes ago, mormont said:

By all means investigate terrorist threats vigorously, but remember that the target is terrorism, not Islam.

This is theoretically true, but in practice, the process of such investigations necessarily impacts primarily Muslim communities.

[Tijgy]

The late major of Molenbeek did wave any possible criticism to issues in his town aside as an attack to multicultural society. And now we have a town which has been constantly connected to the last terror attacks.

The problem is people do not dare to speak against certain issues inside the muslim community because they would be named a racist from the moment they dare to talk. And if people still talk, their word do not mean anything because they are called a racist. 

So these issues are never solved, they fester, young people radicalize and everything is blamed on the fact the rest of the population is apparently xenophobic who do not want to hire them, threat them more severe in class which has as result they do not graduate, the fact they cannot speak their own language at the court yard, ... 

The current situation in Molenbeek, Brussels and Belgium is created because of laxity. I was angry at the Belgian politicians for the Paris attacks. And now I am just in shock to feel any anger. 

 

[The Killer Snark]

Hereward - You realise that Angela Merkel threatened potential miltary action against European countries that refused to tow the line with her open borders quotas. The reason so many radicals among the current generation of Muslims in the UK exist is because of EU interference in the deportation of Abu Hamza, and other people like him who our authorities have always kept records on.

Tijgy -  I take it you've read today's Independent editorial. They tacitly blamed the Brussels attacks on the very same thing, implying that if the increasingly marginalised Belgian people had been more open to the radicals the radicals would have felt less marginalised in a society they currently hold so much sway in that there are armed police protecting Belgians in the streets.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 hours ago, Togi said:

 

Clearing quote

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

53 minutes ago, The Killer Snark said:

Hereward - You realise that Angela Merkel threatened potential miltary action against European countries that refused to tow the line with her open borders quotas. The reason so many radicals among the current generation of Muslims in the UK exist is because of EU interference in the deportation of Abu Hamza, and other people like him who our authorities have always kept records on.

Tijgy -  I take it you've read today's Independent editorial. They tacitly blamed the Brussels attacks on the very same thing, implying that if the increasingly marginalised Belgian people had been more open to the radicals the radicals would have felt less marginalised in a society they currently hold so much sway in that there are armed police protecting Belgians in the streets.

Where did Merkle threaten military action?  A link would be wonderful?

[The Killer Snark]

Scot A - This appears to be a Far Right site, and therefore a certain level of tubthumping must be expected, but regardless of that, what Merkel is quoted as saying here, or strongly implying, has been documented elsewhere on the 'Net: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/merkel-threatens-war-if-countries-oppose-muslim-invasion-and-close-borders.html/

[Tijgy]

1 hour ago, The Killer Snark said:

Tijgy -  I take it you've read today's Independent editorial. They tacitly blamed the Brussels attacks on the very same thing, implying that if the increasingly marginalised Belgian people had been more open to the radicals the radicals would have felt less marginalised in a society they currently hold so much sway in that there are armed police protecting Belgians in the streets.

I did not read it. This is coming from reading and listening to several articles in the Flemish media concerning research of sociologists, ... by things said by politicians in the Flemish parliament. 

[The Killer Snark]

Tijgy - They are so utterly predictable, these people. I knew that either The Indepedent or The Guardian would put this spin on it before I saw the editorial.