^^So everything is good then/
I never thought The Onion would be so right on. This was a piece from 2003.
http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-regio-11534
If you are implying that taking action on an issue of this magnitude makes everything ‘good’, then you are not someone who deals with real problems.
^^Sure, if it floats your boat. Let’s see how successful we have been in Iraq. We got rid of Saddam, found no WMD, disbanded the Iraqi Army, many whose professional officer corp are now working for ISIL, made Iraq into an iranian puppet state, ended up having more people dead than would have been if Saddam had been left in place, etc. About the only good that’s come out of this is a possible viable Kurdish state.
We tried to introduce democracy into a country and region where there is no history or culture or understanding or value of democracy. They only want dictators either religious, military or royal.
What good is there in constant finger pointing and offering mea culpa? Does it make any difference to correctly ascertain whom is to blame for trying to make the Middle East a better place? Wars are messy and rarely accomplish much. The US might have erred and caused more harm than good, but there is no certainty that the radicals would have stayed put and that genocides could be avoided. That entire region has been the site of battles for thousands of years.
In the meantime, should our governments not look at solutions to mitigate or eradicate the current problem of fast developing terrorism? Should the US look at the history of Europe and learn from the ample mistakes made in allowing the cancer of radical Islamism to reach todays’ level? Should our government not drop the blinders and admit that the words terrorists and radical islamists belong in the same sentence?
Denmark, Belgium, France, the UK might find themselves in a hopeless mess but the rest of the world should learn about the perils of allowing cancerous radical cells to grow because of political apathy. Could Molenbeek or the no-zone banlieues develop on US soil? More than probably!
“Should our government not drop the blinders and admit that the words terrorists and radical islamists belong in the same sentence?”
Uhmmm…@Zeldie, I know plenty of examples of terrorists who aren’t radical islamists. Christians who bomb abortion clinics? The rampaging Buddhist monks killing women and children in Myanmar?
Well, katliamom, when you are talking about abortion bombers or Buddhist monks, you should feel free to use the terms Christian terrorist and Buddhist terrorist. However, when talking about people who commit atrocities in the name of Islam, it is equally appropriate to call them Islamist terrorists. It’s just a little silly to be coy about something that the perps are shouting from the rooftops.
It’s even more silly – dangerous, even – to be coyly defending bigoted statements. That’s how extremists get their start.
But we don’t call people who bomb abortion clinics, shoot doctors, attack random Muslims or people thought to be Muslim or deface synagogues “Christian terrorists.” They’re Christian, they’re terrorists, and they’re terrorists in the name of their perverted views of Christianity, but we don’t call them “Christian terrorists.” Why is that?
Radical Islamists are the alligators closest to the boat right now though.
What are we doing arguing over what to call them? It’s what to do about preventing their attacks in our country that we should be talking about.
Hmm.
- Personal choice
- Lack of sufficient examples to form a data set
- Some people actually do call them that
You keep telling yourself that if it helps you cope.
Of course it’s not even remotely true, but you do whatever works for you.
As I said elsewhere, I work with a Muslim group (note, not an Islamist group), and they are the absolute first to call these terrorists Islamists or Islamic terrorists. Why is that? Oh right. Because other Muslims are the first targets and they don’t have to pretend away reality in order to avoid being called racist.
And extremists really don’t get their start based on anyone else’s words.
And facts can’t be bigoted. The people who committed the attacks in Paris are Islamic terrorists. They are Islamists. They are acting in furtherance of their religion. We know that because they said so.
This is an interesting article.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-lesson-in-hate-109822568/?all&no-ist
@TatinG Sadly, there was one country that had a democracy that we decided to help overthrow. Iran. Basically, every time the West has involved itself in the politics of the Middle East, we’ve royally screwed up.
But zoosermom, do you call people who shoot doctors “Christian terrorists”? They’re terrorists, they’re Christians, they’re terrorizing based on their religious beliefs, but you don’t call them Christian terrorists-- at least, in previous discussions I don’t recall you doing so. I suspect that’s at least partially because you, a sane Christian who abhors the idea of murdering doctors and firebombing medical clinics, don’t want to associate yourself with murderers. Calling them “Christian terrorists” makes it seem like going into churches and shooting doctors is some kind of mainstream usual Christian practice, which it is not.
And going into a nightclub and shooting young people listening to music is not a mainstream Muslim practice. The six million Muslims who live in France are not at war en masse with other French citizens. If they were, more people would be dead.
Give it more time and a higher population of radical muslims. More people will die at the hands of these current terrorists.
As for reminding us that every religion under the sun has radicalism in it’s past and present - does that mean that since all religions do it, it’s not really a bad thing? Or that all religions are bad because of the radicalism that exists in all of them? Or that since everyone else has radical members and in its past or present, they shouldn’t see these attacks as anything but karma?
Back in the mid-80s, my Saudi squash partner and his sisters called them Islamic terrorists, even back then. I kinda of think that they have purview over what is the proper name to call these guys, as it was their families fighting them the most during that time.
Anyway, is not calling them Islamic, which they call themselves, considered disrespectful by the PC crowd? The PC crowd keeps telling us that it is offensive not to acknowledge what others self-identity as. And today, college applications, students can identify pretty much as anything they want, and must be respected.
However, in this case, the PC crowd, is saying the exact reverse - even though the terrorists self-identify as Islamic, call their state the Islamic State, say they want to create an Islamic caliphate throughout Europe. we should for some reason not call them that. No wonder college students are messed up - adults are teaching them inconsistent nonsense.
Nogo zones in banlieues or in Paris are an invention. There’s even a libel lawsuit pertaining to that.
Yup, the term is Islamist terrorist. Not “muslim terrorist”. But Islamist terrorist indeed.
(“Islamic” applies to art and architecture. Daesh’s use of the term is deliberate and political.)
Europe has not been apathetic - freedom of faith is much more restricted there than in the US in the first place, and radical Islam, in France especially, has been more watched than about anywhere.
Don’t you remember the law on face covering, that allegedly targeted demonstrators in balaclavas but was widely understood to target niqab-dressed women? Do you remember how that was received in the US?
I really don’t think France, or Europe, can be the counterexample of anything.
At the same time, religiosity is very low in France compared to the US. The least religious state in the US, Maine I believe, is still more than twice more religious than France - as per reading religious books/texts, praying, attending a place of worship monthly or more.
(Most French people I know consider themselves atheists who celebrate Christmas for the kids. Religion is a sort of cultural tradition - there are Advent calendars that totally don’t refer to Jesus’ birth and both the Jewish and Muslim membersin my “French family” celebrate Christmas. A little cousin who was seen as exceptional because she ‘did her communion’ on Easter was totally unable to explain why bells dropped chocolates in the garden and “rang for joy” on that day or what Easter was. For a lot of French people, churches are seen as places you visit for the architecture or for cultural events. I’m not sure I’ve been to a religious ceremony actually… trying to think… even the weddings: The only way to get married is to go through a Republican Townhall, with “republican” readings - you can have whatever religious ceremony afterwards of course, but it doesn’t count officially and I can’t recall a single religious wedding, at least, where I was invited.)
During lunch, I heard an imman say on French TV, about one of the terrorists “I’m surprised he changed so much, he was an ala carte Muslim.” Which everyone widely understood because “cultural Muslims” (or “ala carte Muslims” as fellow believers say) are the largest Muslim group in France.
Of course “behave like a local Muslim, drink, go out in nightclubs, shave your beard” is a principle given to would-be terrorists. (Which means they’re told to do the exact thing they’ve been branwashed to see as sin, the first step - first sacrifice your soul and then your life, in order to have eternal life and bring the caliphate about, or at least apocalypse to the apostates and the heathens.)
Many Daesh warriors consider French Muslims as apostates, by the way. Traitors.
In a cathedral today, there was a religious service conducted by a Catholic Bishop, an Imam, and a Rabbi, representing the unity of French believers.
There also was a “Congress” meeting (apparently, this is very rare, and it takes place in Versailles, not in Paris) to represent the unity of the nation.
The French president said something like “This isn’t a conflict of civilizations, because they have none.”
Terrorism isn’t a civilization. Terrorism isn’t a religion.