Isis Releases Video Beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians

If you're saying what I think you are, there's a rather elementary problem with it.

If we kill those who live by the sword, we're destined to die by the sword.

 

The biggest factor is the majority of these extremist groups are state sponsored. Their governments might openly condemn them but are financing them in the background. I read recently Qatar is the biggest sponsor in the Middle East but not sure if true. It also just came out the King of Saudi Arabia who just died and was supposedly an ally was giving these groups huge sums of money.

ISIS is a little different. They generate their own revenue. Self sustaining. We need to go after their sources of revenue whatever they might be if that's even possible.

 

ISIS robbed some banks .. its said they got some $400 million from Mosul financial institutions..

 

The problem is that most people in the middle want the caliphate. They want israel wiped off the map and every jew destroyed. they want an all out war with america. and they want islam to spread across the planet by the sword. this has been shown in multiple polls now. it's an issue of education, worldviews and beliefs.

 

It will probably take a new 'Rape of Nanking' to waken the civilised world. As it did for FDR and the USA.

Then.....

 

Let me clue you into the gist of the article and its final conclusions:

"And yet the risks of escalation are enormous. The biggest proponent of an American invasion is the Islamic State itself. The provocative videos, in which a black hooded executioner addresses President Obama by name, are clearly made to draw America into the fight. An invasion would be a huge propoganda victory for jihadists worldwide: irrespective of whether they have given baya'a to the caliph, they all believe that the U.S. wants to embark on a modern-day Crusade and kill Muslims. Yet another invasion and occupation would confirm that suspicion, and bolster recruitment. Add the incompetence of our previous efforts as occupiers, and we have reason for reluctance. The rise of ISIS, after all, happened only because our previous occupation created space for Zarqawi and his followers. Who knows the consequences of another botched job?"

"The humanitarian cost of the Islamic State's existence is high. But it's threat to the United States is smaller than its all too frequent conflation with Al-Qaeda would suggest. Al-Qeada's core is rare among jihadist groups for its focus on the "far enemy" (the West): most jihadist groups main concerns lie closer to home. That's especially true of the Islamic State."

The Atlantic argues against military intervention, criticizes our handling of the occupation of Iraq (clearly a jab at George Bush), and downplays their threat to the U.S. I'm a little confused how that translates to "a neo-con trumpet for the military industrial complex".

Oh that's right....you didn't read it so have no idea what you're talking about. Alrighty then.

 

I wouldn't be so sure of that. It is just so that a lot of people there who think otherwise have learned the hard way not to state such things in public.

It also seems to depend on the country. Not every country or person wants this caliphate at all. A lot of muslims that also would prefer to live in a caliphate still reject this current one of ISIS. Same with education. Seems there are a lot of educated people in for example Iran. They also keep their mouth shut when others on the street yell stuff about Israel etc. It can easily have serious consequences. But a lot of them really don't want to islam to spread with this kind of violence at all. That's a ridicilous generalisation to make. They are happy to be able to live their (for them) normal every day lifes, just like you or me. And they wish you the same.

 

Well, I am making a generalization based on actual empirical polls, data, and powerful currents in the middle east world which have existed for decades, while you are making a generalization based on a desire to avoid offending people or drawing hasty conclussions which might be unpleasant.

I leave it to you to determine whether your intentions are here to bring forth the truth or to cloud it.

Are there people who don't like ISIS in the middle east? Of course. Are there people who don't want to destroy Israel? Of course. (As an aside, I generally despise Israel, just so we're clear. I'm as far from a Zionist as you could think, but just shy of wanting to commit genocide. I am also fairly disgusted by judaism.) Are there people who are reasonable and can live in the 21st century as good human beings? Absolutely.

Unfortunately it appears that all these people are outnumbered by those who, because of their allegiance to Islam, and because the penalty for leaving Islam is death (both politically and as a matter of basic Quranic principle), and the penalty for criticizing Islam, is at BEST, severe physical torture, people who are caught in a bind where they have to act the way they are, because to do so otherwise would be to be ostracized from their communities and frankly they couldn't imagine going against the worldview of their parents and neighbours (just as we cannot imagine going to Baghdad tomorrow and joining ISIS).

So there is a reality here which, first and foremost, we must absolutely not dance around, tiptoe around, or mumble quietly; the biggest problem in the middle east is ISLAM. There are other problems too such as political corruption and economic problems . . . I read that in 2002 the combined GDP of all Arab nations was that of Spain. This is an issue, and you absolutely must see that believing in a 14th century philosophy about martyrdom, jihad, the subjugation of women, and being ruled over by an invisible angry god who is greatly passionate about the prosperity of certain peoples over others of his own creation, who declared his laws to an illiterate warlord merchant in a cave, through an angel who only spoke arabic, etc, is a prime contributor to this.

America has the exact same problem, where, without writing a whole massive post about the effects of fundamentalist christianity on the USA, I'll just mention one statistic; the rate of STD prevalence is 70 times higher than in the rest of the 1st world, due to christian abstinence "education".

If you do not connect the dots and see what a corrosive influence abrahamic religions have on the development of humanity then you are truly wilfully blind.

 

Let's close this one since we've drifted so far from the news story. Feel free to open another discussion outside of latest news.