Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 222

On September 07 2014 23:31 farvacola wrote:
Please do not take someone who says "religion doesn't affect nation building" seriously.

On September 08 2014 01:20 xM(Z wrote:
dude, in today's Israel muslim arabs get converted to judaism first, then get israeli citizenship and then benefit from 'everything' Israel has to offer (there are some minor skirmishers about skin color like it's between african-american people based on skin tones, but nothing to serious).
that's basically going religion first in nation building.

BAGHDAD — Backed by U.S. airstrikes that began in Iraq late Saturday, Iraqi special forces, allied tribesmen and local police launched a ground offensive Sunday to drive Islamic State militants out of the Haditha area.

The extremists have been attempting to break into the city and take control of its hydroelectric dam since late June, with Iraqi security forces and tribesmen holding back the near-daily assaults, said Khalid Salman Rasif, head of Haditha’s local council.

“The Iraqi army and the tribes have been surrounding Haditha to protect it, but today the special forces joined and the operation started to liberate the area,” he said. “We are on the attack.”

Brig. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saidi, an Anbar-based special forces commander, said the ground offensive was launched about 6 a.m. Iraqi special forces are calling in targets for U.S. airstrikes, he said.

BEIRUT: Tensions were heightened in the Bekaa Valley overnight Saturday, with the area witnessing a highly armed presence, beefed up security measures and kidnappings in the border town of Arsal. Clashes also erupted in Wadi al-Rayaan between Hezbollah fighters and militants on the outskirts of Arsal.

The area between Zahle and Hermel witnessed a large armed presence overnight Saturday, as locals armed themselves and took to the streets, shortly after news outlets reported that ISIS had beheaded Abbas Medlej, an Army soldier who hailed from Maqneh in the Bekaa, a source told The Daily Star.

On September 07 2014 23:13 xM(Z wrote:

...but under the tenets of Islam, they are actively denouncing your reasoning.

@radiatoren: or, you could leave Bob alone and let him catch up. he will have to; and if you don't believe that he will, well there is a precedent - you, your ancestors. they did it and no one told them what to do (no other higher rationale).+ Show Spoiler +

@JudicatorHammurabi: it's about the thought process that leads to those actions, not the religion itself. we are better then them. that mentality opens the flood doors of evil so later, what you do in its name varies based on needs/wants/capabilities.

On September 08 2014 01:43 radiatoren wrote:

And leaving Bob alone would be the easiest and probably best solution in a vacuum. I don't have a problem with the non-interventionist approach in theory - but as you indicate - when Bob has a history of being a danger to himself and others around him that is a very dangerous approach. Having instability contained is likely a better idea than letting others around him live in fear, particularly when Bob might get his hands on projectile weapons, he could hurt people with from a distance.

On September 06 2014 23:39 xM(Z wrote:
they are not irrational. they follow the Koran.
by Koran, the Jews and Christians (the only ones who are considered people of the book) can retain their religion if they pay Jizyah.
(that's in theory at least)

On September 08 2014 02:57 SiroKO wrote:


It's not that simple.
Jews and Christians can retain their religion if they entirely submit to their muslim masters & pay Jizyah, but they would still be viewed as Dhimmi : second class citizens (unable to be part of the military, governement...).

As an atheist, it worries me that people are so uneducated about the world religions, that they hide their ignorance behind wild over-simplistic generalizations about "religion" as a concept, and "humans".
Christinanity is extremly different than Islam.

In Islam (Qu'ran & Hadiths), you have a different set of precise rights and duties depending on whether you're a Muslim, a submissive Christian/jew, an infidel or polytheist, an apostate - well in that last case you have no other right than getting killed. This is mostly due to the conditions in which the words of the "Qu'ran" were revealed (war).
It is very different that the New Testament, which makes very broad and vague claims, and where the universality of rules and rights is prevalent (which led to the emergence of European humanism and Human Rights).

They're many more distinctions, but this one is the most fundamental to understand the religious conflict.

(Reuters) - A French journalist held hostage for months in Syria said on Saturday that one of his captors was a Frenchman suspected of killing four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May.

The reporter, Nicolas Henin, said he recognized Mehdi Nemmouche from video shown to him as part of an investigation. He did not elaborate on the nature of the probe, but mentioned that "a judicial procedure" had been launched while he was still a hostage.

On September 08 2014 01:53 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:

Who is "Bob" supposed to be? Islamic extremists?

On September 08 2014 03:54 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:

Going back to what I was saying in a post on the last page, most Muslims are not "true" Muslims (as according to Quranic law / Sharia), because literally most the bullshit sadistic stuff in the Quran like Jizya is entirely ignored in most Muslim places. If I'm not mistaken, the only place in the world where Jizya exists is Raqqa, Syria, imposed by ISIS. And really, Saudi Arabia is extremely unique in imposing Islam as far as majority Muslim countries go, even nowadays where we have seen a colossal rise in Islamism compared to even 10, nevermind 20, years ago. But it's quite astonishing how many "educated" people can be so ignorant on places that are literally in the news every single day.

Islamic extremism has grown exponentially only in recent years, in particular due to people like Khomeini, Al Qaeda, the destruction of or chaos in influential secular republics like Iraq and Egypt, and the Islamization of other influential nations. Even Turkey is becoming more "Islamic", pissing all over Ataturk's legacy. Before the Islamic Revolution in Iran, by far the biggest threat to Mideastern stability were Egyptian-Israeli relations which was not even a religious affair but one of Zionism/Israeli nationalism and Egyptian Arab nationalism. However, it's arguable that the US takes the 1st place spot, as it has been paramount in fucking up stability and order in the Mideast, and has a 60 year legacy doing it, picking up where the French and British left off.

And I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you regarding Christianity being the key in influencing modern social standards. It's very arguable that Marxism (which was anti-religious, at that) is most responsible for humanism and human rights. I like Marxism a lot less than I like Christianity, but the fact of the matter is the influence of Marxism was so unimaginably large that it caused a global social revolution that actually gave people basic rights and living standards. His ideas which includes a ton of things we take for granted today were very radical in the late 1800s. Like, living wages? Public services and social security? Working rights? Jeez. Before that, almost everyone in the world was literally a wage slave or rural serf if they weren't in the tiny minority of aristocrats and high-paid professionals. The first 1900 years of Christianity did very little to influence modern humanism compared to 19th/20th atheistic ideologies, the impact of which very strongly defines your country for example today. People in the US/Europe were literally treated like shit until ~80-90 years ago.

"Anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with Church dogma must be burned without pity."
- Pope Innocent III

Many Arab citizens feel that the state, as well as society at large, not only actively limits them to second-class citizenship, but treats them as enemies, impacting their perception of the de jure versus de facto quality of their citizenship. The joint document The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, asserts: "Defining the Israeli State as a Jewish State and exploiting democracy in the service of its Jewishness excludes us, and creates tension between us and the nature and essence of the State." The document explains that by definition the "Jewish State" concept is based on ethnically preferential treatment towards Jews enshrined in immigration (the Law of Return) and land policy (the Jewish National Fund), and calls for the establishment of minority rights protections enforced by an independent anti-discrimination commission.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence stated that the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. While formally equal according to Israeli law, a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or wrote in The Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the Events of October 2000

On September 08 2014 05:38 xM(Z wrote:
taking excerpts out of their context then nitpicking at them is the norm of the day.
i compared Christianity in inquisition times represented by the Roman Catholic Church, with today's Islamist view pushed by IS.
the point is valid, fair and still stands.
IS beheaded them, catholics burned them.

@ JudicatorHammurabi: if you'd read more from that wiki page you found those 20% percent in, you'd realize that taking the Israeli version for granted is not that ... fair.

(anyway, it's off-topic; won't comment on it anymore)

On September 08 2014 12:07 Pr0wler wrote:
Your religious debate is good and all, but what does that have to do with the war in Iraq ? The only Islamic thing about ISIS is their name and the way they talk. It's obvious why they are fighting... The usual reasons - money and power.

BTW it's really cute how NATO now forces everyone to spend 2% of GDP on defense for some reason. Instead of spending on something useful, suddenly we should all "upgrade" our defense to meet the "threats" from Islamic state and (maybe, not really) Russia. Guess who will sell us the new weapons and equipment .

On September 08 2014 16:35 zatic wrote:
Yeah, please, stop the my-religion-is-better argument.

This thread is about Syria / Iraq.