ISIS...Islamic State Victims

Warbler said:
My analysis is relatively straight forward though. The corrupt shiekdoms are much more conservative than the dictatorships. It seems to be a racing certainty to my mind that they'd spawn deeply theological regimes were they to fall. I see no evidence to make me think they'd go down a democratic path in anything other than name. What that means therefore is that they'd elect Islamist parties, provided of course they even went through this process.
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That's fair enough, and there's no arguing with it.
But you did say in the earlier post that the sheikhdoms are now our second line of defence.
That's just being wildly optimistic, and it was what I took issue with.
If we to are depend on Sunni Saudi and Qatar to fight our battle against Islamic State, then, Gawd help us all.
 
clivex said:
you wont read the link but you drone for pages with waffle. I cant be bothered to read the above

lebanon was riven by factional wars. Eventually it sorted itself out to a degree and now has a democracy. Unfortunately for feeble minded far left dictator fetishists the poll suggests very very strongly that the population is very happy with that

your lie that arabs do not want demicracy us blown apart

Your lie that civil strife xan only be resolved by dictators is also blowj apart

that is that
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Oh you're so funny Clive

So you think that you should be allowed to post 2000 word lazy links and expect everyone else to read them, but won't read other people's posts - urm - words like standards, and double, do come to mind

You haven't blown any argument apart. Sadly you didn't stop to look at the data in any detail and just lazily posted it out. Had you done so you'd have had a better understanding of the dynamics involved. Had you also understood what I was saying you'd realise that there is no lie. Any exposure of one I'm afraid is lodged firmly in your imagination only. Only you could count the 40% of the Lebanese christians in the population as arabs!!! You're getting more and more desperate. You actually remind of the retreat of the international left who eventually had to fall back on Cuba as their beacon of hope as one by one every other collapsed.

If you extrapolate your own source you'll realise that 2 in every 7 of the Lebanese muslims want sharia law, and about 58% want a government that is influenced by the Quran. Do you think that's a healthy building block? I don't

Just to clarify (as I realise I have to write around you) what I'm clearly saying is that the democracy that you create will not be a liberal representative guided by political philosophy, the type of which we hear western leaders fantasise about under the guise of so-called 'moderate muslims'. The democracy that you'll create will be things akin to the Muslim brotherhood, and these stats for Lebanon bear that out very clearly were it not for the christians in the population

It's such a poor example that you've tried to invoke that its really not credible and certainly not representative. Any one daft enough to base a policy on these stats is asking for trouble.

This data is really telling you that what significant swathes of the muslim populations in the middle east want is political leadership that follows the Quran. Democracy is a vehicle to achieve this because they can replace dictators with theologically driven dictators. It's really not difficult to see. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

The west (Cameron and Sarkozy in particular) have already made one catastrophic error in identifying an Islamic movement as a pro democracy one. You actually saw the Allepo nationalists taking the **** when they called themselves a democratic movement (OK the American's weren't so easily fooled) but Cameron was (again). They realise that all they need to do is wrap their religious views and tribal grievances in a blanket of democracy and the fools will support you. Then what? Well you can see the evidence in front of you. Where is the Libyan democracy that the people wanted?

As regards the civil strife issue. I never said it was resolved. It's simply the least worst of a whole series of sub optimal outcomes. Least worst in this case means that the tensions stay within the borders of the countries concerned (for the most part)
 
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icebreaker said:
That's fair enough, and there's no arguing with it.
But you did say in the earlier post that the sheikhdoms are now our second line of defence.
That's just being wildly optimistic, and it was what I took issue with.
If we to are depend on Sunni Saudi and Qatar to fight our battle against Islamic State, then, Gawd help us all.
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They aren't the second line at the moment I'll accept, but I'm trying to scan future scenarios and reckon that in time they'll come to realise they've created a Frankenstein monster that won't observe any gratitude towards their one time sponsors. When the sheikhs come to realise that their own palaces and wealth are under greater threat from within, they'll downgrade the threat from Iran and seek some sort of accommodation before trying (and failing) to arrest the Islamic State

You noted a few months ago that in order to meet the terms of the Caliphate that the Islamic State needs to wage Jihad every year and continue to expand. It begs the obvious question of where? It's why I also think North Africa will emerge as important in the final end game

As I said, there is a deep seam of conservatism in the Gulf states already, the loyalty of the people needn't be taken for granted. We've already seen that an IS assault starts by planting populations inside the target, and that they then rise at the same time as a charge starts from beyond the border of the land identified for conquer.

I don't expect the second line of defence to hold. I think the west needs to consider reappraising the role of Iran too instead of being forever shackled in a cold war mentality, but I'll conceed that's equally playing with fire and could go spectacularly wrong. We possibly need a generation of politicians to emerge who don't trace their geneology to the Cold War. Cameron might be the last in the generational line who falls under the influence, albeit the mechanisms of state tend to promote reproduction of an orthodoxy

The problem I see, (Clive doesn't obviously) is that embracing democracy in name only is of limited value if all it's going to do is lead to the election of two dozen Islamic facing governments in the region with a deep theological influences. There is no strong evidence to suggest this won't happen, and particularly so in the conservative gulf sheikdoms. I also suspect that within a short matter of time these governmetns will suffer from disillusionment and become vulnerable to ever greater Islamic influences. Then what have you got? An infinitely worse predicament I'd suggest?
 
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I wonder what proportion of people in Europe would say in reply to a poll that they would like their government to be influenced by the principles of the Bible?

The biggest group in the European parliament is made up of parties describing themselves as christian democrat. What it means in practice varies greatly from one country to the next.

Turkey's government presumably qualifies as one which is influenced by the principles of the Quran. If only its neighbours were to evolve along similar lines.
 
The initial thing we need to do..and the press in particular..is stop wanting people back here who have deceided they want to join a group of killers. I'm getting a bit tired of hearing on the news how we want these young innocents back...no we don't..we don't want people of that mindset here.

What will happen at some point in the next 12 months will be someone will blow themselves up in a shopping precinct taking out hundreds of people..and it will emerge they are one of these poor innocents who we either brought back..or let come back here. It will happen..its just a matter of time

The press seem to have an odd idea about this situation and i doubt if the public as a whole want any of these people who go over there back here. People who decide to go tehre are doing us a favour by earmarking themselves as dangerous individuals..to let any of them back here is sheer foolishness imo
 
I think the more telling findings from the research can be found in the percentage of people who want to frame laws to "Strictly follow" the Quran.

Pakistan, a nuclear power, has 82% identify with this sentiment. I doubt any EU country would be remotely close to endorsing a government to strictly follow the Bible on anything approaching this scale. 15% say they think laws should follow the "values and principles" of the Quran. 0% think the Quran should have no impact on laws at all. That's medieval!!!

I haven't crawled through the glossary, but I'm interpreting "strictly follow" in the context of law rather than governance, to be a coded description of sharia?

Other countries also have desperate imbalances between the two extremes of "strictly follow" and "no influence"

Jordan = 72% against 1%
Egypt = 60% against 6%
Tunisia = 23% against 12%

Lebanon you can probably dismiss due to the 40% of the population who are christian

It's little wonder that the radicals (so called moderates) can't get any traction in the countries concerned. I think we can reasonably speculate as well that the Gulf shiekdoms would generate figures similar to those of Pakistan, or Egypt at best.

In this context, the apparent enthusiasm for democracy needs placing in perspective in order to achieve an informed understanding of what would unfold.

Pakistan if it weren't for the military, would be a deeply islamic conservative theocracy with a nuclear weapon if the people were allowed to determine the country's laws. Who could possibly welcome that? (other than Clive). Egypt we don't really need to speculate about, as we saw what was happening to the christian groups there before the military reintervened and removed the Muslim brotherhood, but there can be little doubt that on a ratio of 10 to 1 (60 v's 6) they still enjoy popular support. Tunisia is likely to slide towards the same outcome on these figures too. They're also going to be vulnerable to a returning population from Syria

All this data is really telling us is that the countries surveyed would welcome democracy as vehicle for introducing more Islamic laws.

Look - it's abit like this:

Survey is made, and it indicates that Muslim countries want greater democracy
Lemmings leap in the air with joy - this is good right? - let's support them
Instead you should be giving it a cautious welcome but asking what sort of government's are they likely to elect?
Same survey suggests that they want laws and a government to strictly observe the Quran
But you said they wanted democracy though? not Theological conservativism
Here's the paradox, the survey is indicating that they're seeing democracy as a gateway to Islamification
Is democracy quite so good now?
err.... possibly not

It's clearly a mistake to rush head long into a commitment the moment you hear the 'D' word without exploring first where it's likely to lead. You can't simply continue only hearing the bits that you want to hear, and ignore the implications. That's a reckless and wantonly irresponsible way of formulating policy, and frankly we've seen too much of it in the west as a generation of hapless leaders reach for their auto default position the moment somone pushes the right button

63% of Tunisians favour democracy, and 50% take positive views of Hamas, and 40% take a positive view of Hezbollah - careful what you wish for Clive. They didn't survey ISIL of course, but given the number of Tunisians fighting for them, the need to do so probably doesn't need surveying
 
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Warbler said:
Pakistan, a nuclear power, has 82% identify with this sentiment. I doubt any EU country would be remotely close to endorsing a government to strictly follow the Bible on anything approaching this scale. 15% say they think laws should follow the "values and principles" of the Quran. 0% think the Quran should have no impact on laws at all. That's medieval!!!
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Essentially these countries need wiping off the face of the Earth. Very little good or decent is going to come out of them for at least 200 years. Your medieval comment is apt, these cunts are 500 years behind the times.
 
I wonder what it says about the intelligence of 13% of the Pakistani population too? I mean, if you were approached by an American research firm and asked if you approved of Al Qaeda would you really answer 'yes'?
 
Grey said:
I wonder what proportion of people in Europe would say in reply to a poll that they would like their government to be influenced by the principles of the Bible?

The biggest group in the European parliament is made up of parties describing themselves as christian democrat. What it means in practice varies greatly from one country to the next.

Turkey's government presumably qualifies as one which is influenced by the principles of the Quran. If only its neighbours were to evolve along similar lines.
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Quite frankly that is the template for the Middle east. Aside from Israel of course ..

they have already recently pushed back against a mildly Islamist agenda and there is a strong belief in the tradition of attaturk that secular government is the key.

As we know, the majority of Arab nationals want democracy, accountability and representation. They abolsutely do not want gadafi and sadam Hussein. Who would? But to achieve this the democracy has to be founded on clear principles.

Western democracies are by a any number of measures extremely successful largely because governance is not driven by identity and religious groupings. Once sectarianism creeps in, then you have problems. Witness Northern Ireland

lebanon has also shown the way forward. That state was an absolute basket case not so very long ago and the factions were all over the place. Now they have a working democratic system which now has the support of a whopping majority of the population. This is again a significant template. If they could, so could others

many said that the Africans and Latin Americans would never shake off dictators and there was of course a whiff of "that's all they understand" too. How wrong was that?

but reminded me of a overhead conversation between two radley undergraduates when I was at college. Very typical public school "socialists". Praising gadafi to the hilt and ......dripping with absolute contempt for the oiks who dare to want to vote . They of course, knew what was best for them
 
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clivex said:
Quite frankly that is the template for the Middle east. Aside from Israel of course ..

they have already recently pushed back against a mildly Islamist agenda and there is a strong belief in the tradition of attaturk that secular government is the key.

As we know, the majority of Arab nationals want democracy, accountability and representation. They abolsutely do not want gadafi and sadam Hussein. Who would? But to achieve this the democracy has to be founded on clear principles.

Western democracies are by a any number of measures extremely successful largely because governance is not driven by identity and religious groupings. Once sectarianism creeps in, then you have problems. Witness Northern Ireland

lebanon has also shown the way forward. That state was an absolute basket case not so very long ago and the factions were all over the place. Now they have a working democratic system which now has the support of a whopping majority of the population. This is again a significant template. If they could, so could others

many said that the Africans and Latin Americans would never shake off dictators and there was of course a whiff of "that's all they understand" too. How wrong was that?

but reminded me of a overhead conversation between two radley undergraduates when I was at college. Very typical public school "socialists". Praising gadafi to the hilt and ......dripping with absolute contempt for the oiks who dare to want to vote . They of course, knew what was best for them
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It might be what you and I would want for the Middle East but it won't be possible to impose such a solution from the outside.
 
Grey said:
I wonder what proportion of people in Europe would say in reply to a poll that they would like their government to be influenced by the principles of the Bible?

The biggest group in the European parliament is made up of parties describing themselves as christian democrat. What it means in practice varies greatly from one country to the next.

Turkey's government presumably qualifies as one which is influenced by the principles of the Quran. If only its neighbours were to evolve along similar lines.
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if the questions was asked whether they wanted Christian principles say, then I reckon you would get a high percentage. Especially in the Catholic countries

does this mean they want a theocratical dictatorship? Have they ever voted for such parties?

No
 
Pakistan has the by far lowest % for democrcay out of the Muslim States and the most in favour of the Koran influencing the state

there is a lot wrong with Pakistan but it does have elections

it has not elected a theocratical dictatorship.
 
Jesus christ. Everyone should read about the bravery of those hotel staff. Extraordinary. They genuinely put their lives on the line. Very moving
 
clivex said:
Pakistan has the by far lowest % for democrcay out of the Muslim States and the most in favour of the Koran influencing the state

there is a lot wrong with Pakistan but it does have elections

it has not elected a theocratical dictatorship.
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You could of course say that the difference between the expressed preference and the revealed preference casts a whole question mark over the accuracy of Pew Research, but then there have been times in the stop-start history of Pakistani democracy of course where the military (and more recently the ISI) have intervened aka Egypt, so perhaps they prevented the direction of travel that would have unfolded had events been allowed to run their course? We don't know

My own understanding is that a lot of the power is actually shovelled out to the provinces and state governors, and that religious politics is quite widely practised in the so called badlands where the Pakistani Taleban have a power base. The central government have normally been more preoccupied with good old fashioned corruption. There's always been a conflict between Karachi and Lahore too. I seem to think that Karachi is normally regarded as the more progressive, but the pendulum swings between the two

I'm sure that long term Clive your solution of trying to lead these countries into some kind of liberal democracy is the best answer. I just very much doubt it can be achieved, and the power of a religious orthodoxy is much harder to throw off than a political philosophy. I'm far from convinced that the cost of doing so also justifies it when we ourselves become targets for fanatics who would otherwise be locked in a battle with their own dictators (who for the most part enjoyed the upper hand). We've basically removed some of the biggest restraining influences and they've then used this to seek out new targets, including ourselves, but more obviously their own people of course.

My own solution isn't really a solution, it's more of management/ containment strategy based on a dismal assessment of the situation. Having said that, had it been followed post 9/11, we wouldn't have a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, we wouldn't have 3000 migrants flooding across the Mediterranean each day from a broken Libya, and we would probably have had a faster resolution to Afghanistan given that forces wouldn't have been diverted in Iraq
 
Well in a quite remarkable turnaround (it's taken this government close to four years now to work it out) it looks as if they're finally gearing up to extend military attacks against IS into Syria. In other language it's support for Bashir Assad, someone who not so long ago they were trying to overthrow. I also assume that it's a tacit acknowledgement that they made a catastrophic error of judgement in Libya too

Michael Fallon's speech tomorrow has been so clearly leaked in advance that you can pretty well rely on it I'd have thought. I'm guessing he's going to attempt some deft footwork to try and say that attacking IS in Syria isn't support for Assad, and might even have the audacity to suggest that we're trying to make up for not intervening earlier in support of the so called moderates, albeit he will likely want Labour party support for this so shouldn't really sink to this level. In any event, had he bombed Assad like they wanted to but were saved from themselves by Ed Miliband, IS would be in Jordan and threatening Lebanon by now. The so-called moderate muslims would clearly have perished and gone the same the same way as the infinitely bigger, better trained, and better equipped Iraqi army. Any one who falls for either of these justifications is being willfully blind I'd suggest and simply refusing to see this for what it is because it's a grave admission of previous stratgeic misjudgement.

OK I don't know what Fallon is going to say precisely, but he'd be better off coming clean and saying it is support, but not an endorsement, and that events had turned out so differently to what they'd expected (because they're stupid) that they have indeed been forced into a reappraisal. I reckon people would accept that. I also expect him to try and pretend that events unfolded in such a way that no one could possibly have foresseen them. Don't fall for that either. Events unfolded in a perfectly foreseeable manner, if the likes of myself could do so, then it's inexcusable that the combined might of the FCO and HM government couldn't. We've basically got muppets on the tiller

Pity we made him get rid of his chemical weapons!

There might even be some scope here for trying to forge a link with Russia and see if we can smoke the peace pipe there a bit too for we're going to need a full global alliance of the capable and willing to tackle this threat going into the rest of the century

Still, it's a step in the right direction, what it really needs of course is for the American's to throw in too, then we might begin to see the retreat of IS as the Syrian army have shown a greater appetite to fight than their Iraqi counterparts
 
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Good !
I only hope that it won't develop into a cover for bombing ("by mistake") Assad forces at some time in the future.
 
My bigger concern is whether we've got the domestic threat covered.

I get a bit nervous about knee jerk reactions and government's who make policy up as they go along, and this one has been doing this since they came to office with regards to foreign affairs

I'm actually curious as to how the Tories are going to spin this given that a few years ago they wanted to bomb Assad, and now find themselves seriously suggesting that they bomb the forces opposed to him. This is the biggest conversion since St Paul fell down on the road to Damascus. They really are clueless, but sadly they're endangering us all because they're hopelessly locked in a politics that belong to the 1980's

Having said that, we need a bit of context, as it's difficult to imagine flying half a dozen Tornados around Syria looking for Subarus is going to make a great deal difference unless the American's can be persuaded to play big time. IIRC France had already passed a motion which they never enacted after the American's backed off last time when Assad was forced into disposing of his chemical weapons.

Ultimately we need the big boys to come to the table with a substantive commitment get on top of this, and sadly we're still no nearer really seeing this happen. The other thing we need to accept (and I think this is crucial) is that your bombing campaign is pretty well useless unless you're doing it in such away as to support activity on the ground. Like it or not, that means co-ordinating activity with Assad as he's the only credible on the ground force capable of taking a fight to ISIS
 
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You should all check out Dan Carlin's hardcore histories podcast on iTunes. The short of **** going on now re ISIS now is is eerily similar in parts to the events in Germany 500 years ago after Luther challenged the Catholic Church and the Anabaptists came to prominance.
 
Euronymous said:
You should all check out Dan Carlin's hardcore histories podcast on iTunes. The short of **** going on now re ISIS now is is eerily similar in parts to the events in Germany 500 years ago after Luther challenged the Catholic Church and the Anabaptists came to prominance.
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After the last episode of Wolf Hall, there was an interview with Mark Rylance and Peter Kosminsky, the director whose current project is about ISIS and he said exactly the same thing, what ISIS are doing now with beheadings and burnings is exactly what was happening in most Western cultures 500 years ago.
 
That's okay so, ............ that sort of mitigates and excuses the obscene behaviour of the ISIS islamofascist criminals -- the fact that "we" were doing it half a millennium back (not that I believe for one moment that the sexual slavery of 9-year-old little girls and mass beheadings of non-believers were a regular thing in "most Western cultures 500 years ago").

Steady on, folks.
 
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I am just reporting what he said. That's what he implied as in their beliefs are 500 years behind the West's. In no way am I agreeing or condoning that view.
Girls were betrothed/married at younger than 9 and I am sure some were sexually exploited, but the records from that time would not always reflect those facts.
Mass executions/persecutions were not uncommon on religious grounds 500 years ago in most Western cultures, or indeed longer ago than that. The early crusaders left a bad stain on history with their actions.
 
And the only thing they have learned in 500 years is how to be experts in manipulating social media
 
icebreaker said:
That's okay so, ............ that sort of mitigates and excuses the obscene behaviour of the ISIS islamofascist criminals -- the fact that "we" were doing it half a millennium back (not that I believe for one moment that the sexual slavery of 9-year-old little girls and mass beheadings of non-believers were a regular thing in "most Western cultures 500 years ago").

Steady on, folks.
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Not excusing it, but ritual executions were happening in Germany 500 years ago. It comes back to my earlier point on this thread - Ghenghis Khan and his ancestors set back that region of the world 500 years. In the 1200's the Middle East and China were far more advanced than Europe - the Mongols tore them both apart, and it was only the death of Ghenhis's son that stopped them laying waste to Western Europe.
 
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