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Truck Attack in France Kills 70+

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Posts

  • Emissary42Emissary42 Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Bloody hell.

    This warrants digging up and reposting from being BOTP'd on the last page.
    Jazz wrote: »
    imhyqpin9pvw.jpg

  • Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Kinda should be some sort of "terrusm general" thread, because these things are not gonna drop off anytime soon.

    Panda4You on
  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    The Ender wrote: »
    Kaputa wrote: »
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Atomika wrote: »
    That looks like something ISIS' propaganda department would come up with

    probably (hopefully) not what the artist was going for

    I think that's why this one hit me so hard. I've seen similar images on everything from Twitter to the front page of the Irish Examiner, but none of them had the stuff going on with the tyre tracks and this one is from the freaking Guardian. Those guys are officially supposed to know better.

    Probably didn't see it.

    All I saw was the skulls, the Arabic script had to be pointed out to me before I noticed it.

    Unless you look real close its just tire tracks.

    I mean, I get the idea they were going for, and like I said a lot of artists went with a similar theme. There was one - I think it was the same illustration on the front page of the Examiner - that had red footprints trailing away from the red part of the flag, and that was just... urgh.

    But this... I mean, the skulls I could forgive, but quoting the freaking Shahada? HUNDREDS of Muslims were blown to pieces or burned alive during the holiest week of Ramadam this year! We STILL haven't figured out that ISIS don't give a flying fuck about Islam? We get a SECOND man who is some low rent wife beating petty criminal wannabe badass who claims to be the biggest baddest terrorist ever when he probably couldn't point Iraq out on a map, never mind having a fucking clue who the current head of ISIS is, and we just go along with the pretence that he was actually a devout Muslim who just never actually attended a fucking mosque?! That this is totally an Islamic extremist thing?!

    I am spectacularly not okay with this. This is the sort of shit I expect from The Sun. Do better, The Guardian. Do a lot fucking better.

    What do you mean ISIS don't give a fuck about Islam? Religious solidarity rarely holds up against sectarian differences on a local level.

    I mean, it is possible that ISIS's religiousity is a smokescreen but not, I think, a likely one, in particular given that much of ISIS's ambitions reflect al-Bagdadi's somewhat idiosyncratic approach to Islamic eschatology. But in general the information, as presented within the post has no necessary connection with relative religiousity or concern.

    I mean ISIS don't give a fuck about Islam. They don't. It's a war for territory, not a religious war. Devout Muslims do not bomb the most popular Muslim country during the holiest week of Ramadam. FFS, even the UVF and IRA took every Christmas off.
    Then why do so many of them willingly strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up? Why bother imposing an ultra-harsh salafist sharia despite the resentment this would breed in the territory you control? Why declare war on *everyone at once* and even invite global powers to come fight you, instead of, say, trying to defeat their weaker foes? IS's actions do not make sense when analyzed as if they were a rational actor with non-religious material goals.

    There are probably many in IS, maybe including their leadership, who don't personally believe the bullshit they spout and just want positions of power. But it's wrong to try to disassociate them from religious fanaticism; they are, on the whole, a bunch of religious fanatics.

    I think there's a tendency among liberals to dismiss the idea that faithful actually truly believe their faith

    As someone who grew up in a household where speaking in tongues and anointing everything in oil was a thing I can assure you some people really literally believe their interpretation of their holy book. To them the story saying god sent bears to kill kids for making fun of a bald guy is as literal historical truth as anything that actually happened

    Now I agree ISIS does have a lot of secular opportunists in their ranks, but if you go watch footage of them engaging in battle their foot soldiers never stop praying during the fighting. When they wish a suicide bomber good bye they all talk as if they are utterly convinced he is going to a better place, his little brother smiles as he leaves.

    At least some large percentage of ISIS really honestly believe they are soldiers of god

    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    So do you feel like there is any utility to attacking the "window dressing"?

    I'm thinking of things like superman ridiculing the KKK and such like.

  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    The Ender wrote: »
    Kaputa wrote: »
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Atomika wrote: »
    That looks like something ISIS' propaganda department would come up with

    probably (hopefully) not what the artist was going for

    I think that's why this one hit me so hard. I've seen similar images on everything from Twitter to the front page of the Irish Examiner, but none of them had the stuff going on with the tyre tracks and this one is from the freaking Guardian. Those guys are officially supposed to know better.

    Probably didn't see it.

    All I saw was the skulls, the Arabic script had to be pointed out to me before I noticed it.

    Unless you look real close its just tire tracks.

    I mean, I get the idea they were going for, and like I said a lot of artists went with a similar theme. There was one - I think it was the same illustration on the front page of the Examiner - that had red footprints trailing away from the red part of the flag, and that was just... urgh.

    But this... I mean, the skulls I could forgive, but quoting the freaking Shahada? HUNDREDS of Muslims were blown to pieces or burned alive during the holiest week of Ramadam this year! We STILL haven't figured out that ISIS don't give a flying fuck about Islam? We get a SECOND man who is some low rent wife beating petty criminal wannabe badass who claims to be the biggest baddest terrorist ever when he probably couldn't point Iraq out on a map, never mind having a fucking clue who the current head of ISIS is, and we just go along with the pretence that he was actually a devout Muslim who just never actually attended a fucking mosque?! That this is totally an Islamic extremist thing?!

    I am spectacularly not okay with this. This is the sort of shit I expect from The Sun. Do better, The Guardian. Do a lot fucking better.

    What do you mean ISIS don't give a fuck about Islam? Religious solidarity rarely holds up against sectarian differences on a local level.

    I mean, it is possible that ISIS's religiousity is a smokescreen but not, I think, a likely one, in particular given that much of ISIS's ambitions reflect al-Bagdadi's somewhat idiosyncratic approach to Islamic eschatology. But in general the information, as presented within the post has no necessary connection with relative religiousity or concern.

    I mean ISIS don't give a fuck about Islam. They don't. It's a war for territory, not a religious war. Devout Muslims do not bomb the most popular Muslim country during the holiest week of Ramadam. FFS, even the UVF and IRA took every Christmas off.
    Then why do so many of them willingly strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up? Why bother imposing an ultra-harsh salafist sharia despite the resentment this would breed in the territory you control? Why declare war on *everyone at once* and even invite global powers to come fight you, instead of, say, trying to defeat their weaker foes? IS's actions do not make sense when analyzed as if they were a rational actor with non-religious material goals.

    There are probably many in IS, maybe including their leadership, who don't personally believe the bullshit they spout and just want positions of power. But it's wrong to try to disassociate them from religious fanaticism; they are, on the whole, a bunch of religious fanatics.

    I think there's a tendency among liberals to dismiss the idea that faithful actually truly believe their faith

    As someone who grew up in a household where speaking in tongues and anointing everything in oil was a thing I can assure you some people really literally believe their interpretation of their holy book. To them the story saying god sent bears to kill kids for making fun of a bald guy is as literal historical truth as anything that actually happened

    Now I agree ISIS does have a lot of secular opportunists in their ranks, but if you go watch footage of them engaging in battle their foot soldiers never stop praying during the fighting. When they wish a suicide bomber good bye they all talk as if they are utterly convinced he is going to a better place, his little brother smiles as he leaves.

    At least some large percentage of ISIS really honestly believe they are soldiers of god

    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    You're beating a strawman. The question was not "what is the best predictor of violence" but rather "do (or do not) IS care about Islam?" at which point the only salient consideration is what you term "window dressing" - to whit the ideological concerns of the organisation as a whole and the individuals that support it.

    It is also manifestly unclear to me what the allusion to clubs, corporations, police et al achieves for your position. Certainly the tactics might be universal what that demonstrates is not apparent. The fact that the goals to which these tactics are employed is to further an Islamist agenda seems relevant. It also seems unlikely that a more generic "Young Man's Organisation for the Bombing of Random people" would have the same successes that IS has achieved - why do you think that would be?

    As for my alleged biases against religious cultures and fundamentalism - please expand on what exactly you think they might be. Because firstly, it isn't obvious to me that you do know what my position is let along my motivating biases and secondly, I would be greatly surprised if we did not share the exact same biases.

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Nobody is using them as "the standard" of all Islamic groups.

    I'm personally only saying that denying the use of Qur'an as a motivational tool to kill people is silly. It's not window dressing.

    Also note I'm not saying they aren't taking shit out of context and only teaching the parts they want.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Panda4You wrote: »
    Syrian asylum seeker "previously known to the police" started chopping up people in Reutlingen today, one dead. Scumbag's under arrest.
    bbc.com/news/world-europe-36879196
    Emissary42 wrote: »

    So, uh, I can't see this doing good things for anyone's, especially europe's and especially especially germany's, desire to take in refugees.

  • RchanenRchanen Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Panda4You wrote: »
    Syrian asylum seeker "previously known to the police" started chopping up people in Reutlingen today, one dead. Scumbag's under arrest.
    bbc.com/news/world-europe-36879196
    Emissary42 wrote: »

    So, uh, I can't see this doing good things for anyone's, especially europe's and especially especially germany's, desire to take in refugees.

    Which is, of course, the point.

  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Rchanen wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Panda4You wrote: »
    Syrian asylum seeker "previously known to the police" started chopping up people in Reutlingen today, one dead. Scumbag's under arrest.
    bbc.com/news/world-europe-36879196
    Emissary42 wrote: »

    So, uh, I can't see this doing good things for anyone's, especially europe's and especially especially germany's, desire to take in refugees.

    Which is, of course, the point.

    Not really? I mean, the first attack there seems to just be someone flying off the handle. Not part of any sort of coordinated campaign.

  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    RE separate general terrorism thread: If there's interest I can put together an OP tomorrow afternoon with links to (and some very basic summaries of) academic papers involving terrorism, as well as an introductory write up. I'm already writing a short (3 page) introductory level write up on "lone wolves", radicalization/self radicalization, and some general misconceptions about terrorism and terrorists, so it would be parallel to that.

  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    The pregnant woman story is horrifying and I hope too impractical to be true.

  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    The pregnant woman story is horrifying and I hope too impractical to be true.

    As Munich proved, sometimes the wild cards just snap and try to kill a bunch of people.

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    The pregnant woman story is horrifying and I hope too impractical to be true.

    There have been IEDs stuffed in the anuses of dead animals.

    Shit is nuts, fam.

  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    RE separate general terrorism thread: If there's interest I can put together an OP tomorrow afternoon with links to (and some very basic summaries of) academic papers involving terrorism, as well as an introductory write up. I'm already writing a short (3 page) introductory level write up on "lone wolves", radicalization/self radicalization, and some general misconceptions about terrorism and terrorists, so it would be parallel to that.
    The Ender started a thread of ISIS/ISIL/IS

    https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/202027/isil-know-thy-enemy/

    But it stopped after just over three pages.

    I found it interesting and am certainly interested in the thread that you have planned.

  • Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Emissary42 wrote: »
    This was a suicide bomb at a music festival, btw. Motherfucker was stopped at the entrance and detonated it when he realized he wasn't getting in. No casualties so far but 15 wounded, 3 seriously so.
    Edit: Ah, your link had most of the info? It was initially reported as a gas explosion at a restaurant.

    This was the fourth attack in Germany the past week.

    Panda4You on
  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    I think we have to be careful how we categorize these attacks and not simply just lumb them all together into one big terrorism pile.

    The Munich attack seemingly has nothing to do with ISIL etc. and is apparently more a Columbine style attack.

    The Reutlingen attack is as for now supected to be a personal/domestic thing that escalated further.

  • Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    Still, they'll be seen as instances where MENA individuals are trying to harm/kill whomever they can.
    Because that's what happened.

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    It's just that for example some conservative politician her are drumming up that the military should be allowed to deploy domestically because "terrorism" when a good part of these attacks don't fit that bill and the military would have been completetly useless anyway.

  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    edited July 2016
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    Dedwrekka on
  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    The concept of killing non believers who will not convert or pay tribute, and prophecy for the establishment of a future caliphate (khalifa) are in the hadiths.

    Islamism as a movement is new, but it's not entirely separate from Islam, or the ummah. And many parts of Sharia that Islamists wish to implement, through force or cultural subversion, are widely supported in the ummah.

    Like Evangelicals here in the US, Islamists don't always separate political Islam and Islam. And neither do critics of Evangelicals, because the politics of "political Christianity" are just as steeped in Christianity (and specific interpretations, accurate or inaccurate) as Islamism is in Islam.

    NSDFRand on
  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    The concept of killing non believers who will not convert or pay tribute, and prophecy for the establishment of a future caliphate (khalifa) are in the hadiths.

    Islamism as a movement is new, but it's not entirely separate from Islam, or the ummah. And many parts of Sharia that Islamists wish to implement, through force or cultural subversion, are widely supported in the ummah.

    Like Evangelicals here in the US, Islamists don't always separate political Islam and Islam. And neither do critics of Evangelicals, because the politics of "political Christianity" are just as steeped in Christianity (and specific interpretations, accurate or inaccurate) as Islamism is in Islam.

    The hadiths are not all equal or widely upheld as rules of the religion. Hadiths are accounts of people who say that they heard Muhammad say something and weren't collected until well after his death and the unreliability of this kind of text is widely accepted among Islam. They're ranked based on how well they're sourced, and many of the more radical claims by Islamists and anti-muslim people are based in hadiths that are poorly ranked, or they're willfully misinterpreted to mean widely different things than the typical understanding of them.

    In the Caliphates the proscription among non-believers was simply an additional tax (the Jizya) that affected healthy, young, adult, sane, free, males, and even that wavered over time. The jizya paid out to the infirm, needy, and the underprivileged even among the people who were non-believers.

    Claiming that majority Islam is saying the same thing as the Islamists on this stance is simply incorrect.

    People don't separate Islam from political Islam because there isn't a separation, because Islam was constructed as rules for a nation state as well as a religion. However there is a difference between political Islam and Islamism. Islamism is an offshoot of the political nature of Islam, and reinterprets many of the political tenets of Islam towards its ultra-conservative purpose.

    You are also incorrect about how people and the media portrays christians and political christian organizations, as many outlets don't place precedence on the religious aspects of the groups as much as they do on their message and intended purpose. The headlines don't read "Christians protest soldier's funeral" they read "WBC protests soldier's funeral", and they don't say "Christians suspected in lynching" they read "KKK suspected in lynching".

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    That's absolutely correct, there are a multitude of flavors of Islam that find different texts canonical and believe them literally to different amounts. Is Jihad a personal struggle or is it that you have to spread Islam by violence - it depends on your interpretation.

    The issue is the 100 or so million people who follow ISIS' brand of Islam (thankfully the vast, vast majority of them would never consider strapping a bomb on themselves) who believe that Mohammed's reign ought to be emulated and that 7th century Saudi Arabia was just the bees knees

  • WiseManTobesWiseManTobes Registered User regular
    So it's a religion that picks and chooses what parts of it's religious texts to follow at basically whatever whim suits them that week, and just sort of ignoring the text as a whole except for a few extremist sections?

    You'd think Muslims and Christians would get along better with so much in common

    Steam! Battlenet:Wisemantobes#1508
  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    So it's a religion that picks and chooses what parts of it's religious texts to follow at basically whatever whim suits them that week, and just sort of ignoring the text as a whole except for a few extremist sections?

    You'd think Muslims and Christians would get along better with so much in common

    History teaches us otherwise. Religious extremism isn't different from any other form of extremism, and has a very low tolerance for ideological heterodoxy.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    So it's a religion that picks and chooses what parts of it's religious texts to follow at basically whatever whim suits them that week, and just sort of ignoring the text as a whole except for a few extremist sections?

    You'd think Muslims and Christians would get along better with so much in common

    I tend to think that people trying to make the law more "christian" shouldn't also be fear mongering about how "sharia law" is subverting the national law for religious goals, but these people tend to take the stance that it's only wrong when other people do it.

  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    edited July 2016
    So it's a religion that picks and chooses what parts of it's religious texts to follow at basically whatever whim suits them that week, and just sort of ignoring the text as a whole except for a few extremist sections?

    You'd think Muslims and Christians would get along better with so much in common

    The parts that tell you why you are the chosen ones to be rewarded forever while those other people will burn in hell are the best parts though.

    Otherwise it's just a bunch of onerous shit like 'feed the hungry', 'take care of the sick', and 'provide for the homeless'. Where's the fun in that?

    tinwhiskers on
    6ylyzxlir2dz.png
  • [Tycho?][Tycho?] As elusive as doubt Registered User regular
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    The concept of killing non believers who will not convert or pay tribute, and prophecy for the establishment of a future caliphate (khalifa) are in the hadiths.

    Islamism as a movement is new, but it's not entirely separate from Islam, or the ummah. And many parts of Sharia that Islamists wish to implement, through force or cultural subversion, are widely supported in the ummah.

    Like Evangelicals here in the US, Islamists don't always separate political Islam and Islam. And neither do critics of Evangelicals, because the politics of "political Christianity" are just as steeped in Christianity (and specific interpretations, accurate or inaccurate) as Islamism is in Islam.

    The hadiths are not all equal or widely upheld as rules of the religion. Hadiths are accounts of people who say that they heard Muhammad say something and weren't collected until well after his death and the unreliability of this kind of text is widely accepted among Islam. They're ranked based on how well they're sourced, and many of the more radical claims by Islamists and anti-muslim people are based in hadiths that are poorly ranked, or they're willfully misinterpreted to mean widely different things than the typical understanding of them.

    In the Caliphates the proscription among non-believers was simply an additional tax (the Jizya) that affected healthy, young, adult, sane, free, males, and even that wavered over time. The jizya paid out to the infirm, needy, and the underprivileged even among the people who were non-believers.

    Claiming that majority Islam is saying the same thing as the Islamists on this stance is simply incorrect.

    People don't separate Islam from political Islam because there isn't a separation, because Islam was constructed as rules for a nation state as well as a religion. However there is a difference between political Islam and Islamism. Islamism is an offshoot of the political nature of Islam, and reinterprets many of the political tenets of Islam towards its ultra-conservative purpose.

    You are also incorrect about how people and the media portrays christians and political christian organizations, as many outlets don't place precedence on the religious aspects of the groups as much as they do on their message and intended purpose. The headlines don't read "Christians protest soldier's funeral" they read "WBC protests soldier's funeral", and they don't say "Christians suspected in lynching" they read "KKK suspected in lynching".

    May I ask where the distinction between Islamism and political Islam comes from? Everything I can remember uses the terms basically interchangeably. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is often used as an example of an Islamist political party that got to power. They weren't however violent or ultraconservative.

    mvaYcgc.jpg
  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    [Tycho?] wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    The concept of killing non believers who will not convert or pay tribute, and prophecy for the establishment of a future caliphate (khalifa) are in the hadiths.

    Islamism as a movement is new, but it's not entirely separate from Islam, or the ummah. And many parts of Sharia that Islamists wish to implement, through force or cultural subversion, are widely supported in the ummah.

    Like Evangelicals here in the US, Islamists don't always separate political Islam and Islam. And neither do critics of Evangelicals, because the politics of "political Christianity" are just as steeped in Christianity (and specific interpretations, accurate or inaccurate) as Islamism is in Islam.

    The hadiths are not all equal or widely upheld as rules of the religion. Hadiths are accounts of people who say that they heard Muhammad say something and weren't collected until well after his death and the unreliability of this kind of text is widely accepted among Islam. They're ranked based on how well they're sourced, and many of the more radical claims by Islamists and anti-muslim people are based in hadiths that are poorly ranked, or they're willfully misinterpreted to mean widely different things than the typical understanding of them.

    In the Caliphates the proscription among non-believers was simply an additional tax (the Jizya) that affected healthy, young, adult, sane, free, males, and even that wavered over time. The jizya paid out to the infirm, needy, and the underprivileged even among the people who were non-believers.

    Claiming that majority Islam is saying the same thing as the Islamists on this stance is simply incorrect.

    People don't separate Islam from political Islam because there isn't a separation, because Islam was constructed as rules for a nation state as well as a religion. However there is a difference between political Islam and Islamism. Islamism is an offshoot of the political nature of Islam, and reinterprets many of the political tenets of Islam towards its ultra-conservative purpose.

    You are also incorrect about how people and the media portrays christians and political christian organizations, as many outlets don't place precedence on the religious aspects of the groups as much as they do on their message and intended purpose. The headlines don't read "Christians protest soldier's funeral" they read "WBC protests soldier's funeral", and they don't say "Christians suspected in lynching" they read "KKK suspected in lynching".

    May I ask where the distinction between Islamism and political Islam comes from? Everything I can remember uses the terms basically interchangeably. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is often used as an example of an Islamist political party that got to power. They weren't however violent or ultraconservative.

    Islam was a political power basically from the beginning, long before Islamism was a term. That people let Islamism be called "political Islam" is something of an issue because there are very clear cut examples of Islam as the basis of a political system that looks nothing like Islamism and because it's a term used by outside analysts rather than by the people who make up the group. In general Islamism is used to describe the ultra-conservative fundamentalist political offshoots of Islam, and I think there needs to be a clear distinction between them and Islam as a political power. If there's to be any clear discussion to be had, the distinction between a political structure that helped make Baghdad the intellectual wonder of the world and the political movement that burns those books should be made clear.

  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    The way Islamism is referred to in the media tends to point to the variations of Political islam that have these key features:
    1. Literalism. Don't confuse this with bi-la kayfa (accept without knowing, also known as qu'ranic literalism, which is a way of interpreting qu'ranic metaphors), but more in the form of "This is what the Qu'ran/Hadith says. Obey!"
    2. Ultra-Conservatism. Complete opposition to bid'ah (innovation).
    3. Revivalism. Nostalgic looks back into the history of islam. and generally quite far back (The Ottoman empire is not conservative enough. Abbasid or even Rashidun is where it's at.).
    4. Theocracy. The integration of state and religion.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • [Tycho?][Tycho?] As elusive as doubt Registered User regular
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    [Tycho?] wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    I simply look at the data. This is one area where I am constantly disappointed by yourself and @Apothe0sis for choosing to indulge your bias against religious cultures & personal anecdotes of religious fundamentalism over what we can actually measure.

    If it were true that religious institutes & affiliations had a strong causal influence over a propensity for violence / terrorism, then that should be reflected in crime / security data. We should see that strong religious convictions & growing-up in religious households is predictive of violent behavior.


    It isn't. As some rather snarky studies point out, there is a stronger relationship between having an engineering degree and terrorist activity than there is between being a devout Muslim / Christian. 'At least some ISIS soldiers really believe they are soldiers of God' is probably true, but is also not a worthwhile observation. Most of the people who become suicide bombers are born again, brand new converts to the religion who were experiencing being part of a social group for the first time.

    The introduction material is not, 'Here is a Koran; go study this text and make sense of our interpretation & get closer to God,' it is, 'Here is a burn bag & disposable cell phone. Here is your password. Here is some illicit material & training. Welcome to our special club, soldier,'

    The religious material is window dressing to an arrangement that is used by every successful club, corporate entity, police agency & military organization that wants to attract talent (also every cult, mob ring or drug cartel). Focusing on that window dressing misses the essential features.


    Wh-what?

    No, to ALL of this.

    Most suicide bombers are forced to do it under the penalty of everyone they know getting a pistol round in the head, or forced as children. Hell, there have been reports of women getting a child ripped out of their womb and replaced with C4, so she would be a bomb-carrier but still just look pregnant.

    They don't kill the true believers because those are valuable and easy to manipulate and they spend months training them and thousands equipping them. You find the easily-coerced, easily-overpowered and make them bomb the shit out of people. Women and kids, adults, even the disabled. When my unit was in Korengal Valley, about 99% of the VBIED drivers were unwilling recruits from the small villages in the area, who would pull up to the FOB in tears.

    It's not window dressing. Islam is one of the three central motivating factors in Wahhabism, along with past tragedy and crushing poverty.

    To excuse the negative influence the religion has on Islamic terrorist groups is just plain batshit crazy.

    Wahhabism is also a ultra conservative false throwback movement that sets itself up as returning to a time that, in reality, never actually existed.
    Using them as your measure for what Islam is like is like using the KKK as your measure for Christianity, PETA as your measure for animal welfare activists, or TheAmazingAtheist as your measure of Atheists.

    Assuming that Islam is a guiding factor in terror ignores that it's got a lot of history of being the exact opposite.

    Islam isn't a non zero factor in contemporary terrorism. The current "wave" is heavily rooted in the reaction of the "Islamic world" to the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and then only a few years later a US military presence in Lebanon). A significant portion of the grooming, radicalization, and recruitment process centers on Islam, whether conversion or recruitment of those who are already Muslim, and the religious justifications for "jihad".

    Recognizing this isn't the same thing as blaming Islam for terrorism (something that existed long before the current "wave", and long before even the advent of Islam).

    When you just refer to it as Islam you're conflating Islamism, cultural Islam, and Islam. Islam is the religion, it's adherents are Muslims.
    Islamism is militant Islam revivalism that tries to promote Islam as the sole political force of a region via invasion, coup or uprising. The followers of this militant political movement are Islamists.
    Cultural Islam is those who have nationalistic or cultural Muslim ties.

    The process of grooming and recruiting new soldiers/infiltrators focuses on Islamism and calls on cultural ties to draw people in. Saying that it's Islam is simplifying it too much to make a clear point. Because there's a number of key differences between Islam and Islamism that are important like nation building, the call for it to forcefully spread out to more and more countries, and the intolerance of foreigners and non-believers. Those are key aspects of Islamism, but aren't key parts of Islam, that are emphasized in the rhetoric of Islamist groups.

    Yes, Islam is a part of the basis of Islamism, but focusing on that instead of the parts of Islamism that set it apart from Islam, such as calling people to go out and kill non-believers and set up Islamic states, is ignoring the most important points when discussing terrorist attacks or ISIS and frames it as an issue with all Muslims rather than an issue with Islamism.

    The concept of killing non believers who will not convert or pay tribute, and prophecy for the establishment of a future caliphate (khalifa) are in the hadiths.

    Islamism as a movement is new, but it's not entirely separate from Islam, or the ummah. And many parts of Sharia that Islamists wish to implement, through force or cultural subversion, are widely supported in the ummah.

    Like Evangelicals here in the US, Islamists don't always separate political Islam and Islam. And neither do critics of Evangelicals, because the politics of "political Christianity" are just as steeped in Christianity (and specific interpretations, accurate or inaccurate) as Islamism is in Islam.

    The hadiths are not all equal or widely upheld as rules of the religion. Hadiths are accounts of people who say that they heard Muhammad say something and weren't collected until well after his death and the unreliability of this kind of text is widely accepted among Islam. They're ranked based on how well they're sourced, and many of the more radical claims by Islamists and anti-muslim people are based in hadiths that are poorly ranked, or they're willfully misinterpreted to mean widely different things than the typical understanding of them.

    In the Caliphates the proscription among non-believers was simply an additional tax (the Jizya) that affected healthy, young, adult, sane, free, males, and even that wavered over time. The jizya paid out to the infirm, needy, and the underprivileged even among the people who were non-believers.

    Claiming that majority Islam is saying the same thing as the Islamists on this stance is simply incorrect.

    People don't separate Islam from political Islam because there isn't a separation, because Islam was constructed as rules for a nation state as well as a religion. However there is a difference between political Islam and Islamism. Islamism is an offshoot of the political nature of Islam, and reinterprets many of the political tenets of Islam towards its ultra-conservative purpose.

    You are also incorrect about how people and the media portrays christians and political christian organizations, as many outlets don't place precedence on the religious aspects of the groups as much as they do on their message and intended purpose. The headlines don't read "Christians protest soldier's funeral" they read "WBC protests soldier's funeral", and they don't say "Christians suspected in lynching" they read "KKK suspected in lynching".

    May I ask where the distinction between Islamism and political Islam comes from? Everything I can remember uses the terms basically interchangeably. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is often used as an example of an Islamist political party that got to power. They weren't however violent or ultraconservative.

    Islam was a political power basically from the beginning, long before Islamism was a term. That people let Islamism be called "political Islam" is something of an issue because there are very clear cut examples of Islam as the basis of a political system that looks nothing like Islamism and because it's a term used by outside analysts rather than by the people who make up the group. In general Islamism is used to describe the ultra-conservative fundamentalist political offshoots of Islam, and I think there needs to be a clear distinction between them and Islam as a political power. If there's to be any clear discussion to be had, the distinction between a political structure that helped make Baghdad the intellectual wonder of the world and the political movement that burns those books should be made clear.

    Is this your opinion of how things should be, or is this distinction adopted by certain writers/thinkers/whomever? A quick googling shows no real difference between the terms, from the wiki page to british newspapers to US think tanks.

    To my past example, how would you refer to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (at least as it was under Morsi, I'm not even sure if it really exists anymore). It is a party of Islamism, or political Islam, or something different?

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