I was originally going to post this in the Paris thread, but it ended up evolving into a bigger picture that I thought merited its own thread.
The shooter who turned himself in... turns out he was a foster child, and a delinquent. Was involved in drugs and the like in school, dropped out. As I said before, he was arrested and spent 18 months in jail for helping to smuggle Jihadists into Iraq after the video footage and reports came out of what was going on at Abu Ghraib. While a crime, there is a huge difference between violent crime against civilians and helping to smuggle soldiers into a war zone.
It was in prison where he met a terrorist who was in there for plotting bomb and shooting activities in Paris, and was apparently heavily influenced and adopted this guy's ideologies. This goes back to what I said before (almost like I'm a psychic...) that prisons that don't work on rehabilitation but rather punishment that breeds more violent criminals.
The two brothers likewise were born to Algerians (low socio-economics) who died when they were little, causing them to be raised in orphanages. They were trained over-seas, and during the shooting claimed Al Qaedea was the one that told them to do this.
I'm not saying Islam is not to blame, it is... to an extent. However the core problem, as I have said time and time again and this seems to prove my point yet again, is that it is poor socio-economics and violence that allows Islam (or any other ideology, this is the exact same thing communists, right-wing terrorist groups, drug cartels and other gangs, Christian terrorists, even Buddhist terrorists and so on) to exploit these people.
I think to look at the problem as one faced will never solve anything; yes, Islam's role has to be addressed. But what also needs to be addressed, and forget even the terrorist attacks or radicalization of these groups, is that we have a serious issue of breeding violent criminals because we won't address poor socio-economics and our own inhumane acts.
- We DO need to address these violent, radical Imam's and their teachings. We DO need to address groups like Boko Haram and ISIL as the terrorist organizations they are. We DO need to address the freedoms (and lack thereof) in their countries and encourage more democratic and equal societies.
- But, what we also need to do is address the fact that, in countries like Nigeria the poverty and lack of education is overwhelming. In the Middle East, we have countries that have had their entire infrastructure destroyed by multiple wars against terrorist organizations that the United States and Russia used to fight proxy wars with each other. We need to address the fact that our torturing suspects (or even guilty parties) pisses (rightly) people off, and that people living in fear of drone strikes that murder entire families and leave children orphaned to be sucked up by terrorist organizations is only fueling radicalism. We need to address that we are terrible with the low socio-economic minority as well and have a very large problem of them being sucked up by radical organizations as well (for us, more drug cartels, gangs, hate groups like the KKK and so on).
Finally, I want to use Mexico as an example;
- in 2013, there were 22,732 reported homicides.
- Since 2006, an estimated 85,000 people have been killed because of the drug cartels. In the same time frame, Islamic terrorists have killed roughly 5,000 (and that's being generous), the majority of which are in countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq, etc. (this also includes some of ISIL's attacks on civilians). The number of people killed in Syria's civil war? 191,000, only 5% of which is attributed to ISIL.
- 10.7 Million... the number of households from which at least one member was the victim of a crime in 2013 in Mexico.
-1,698, the number of kidnappings in 2013 in Mexico.
-2,764, the number of women murdered in Mexico in 2012 (and the number has gone up in recent years).
-600% increase in reported cases of torture by police in Mexico, or 1,500 cases... 7 police have been prosecuted for it.
Mexico is considered one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman, even under places like India. Mexico is also 90% Christian.
Much of Latin America has the same issue; Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world, and you certainly don't want to go to much of Columbia. What do all these countries have in common, Latin America and the Middle East? Poor socio-economics. The violence is just as bad in Latin America as it is in the Middle East, some times worse, and in many cases it is groups that identify as Christian (looking at you, gangs like the Knight's Templar and churches down in Brasil)... yet we don't blame Christianity for these issues.
If we want to address violent criminals, we need to both look at the groups that radicalise them, but also the root causes. Improving socio-economics would go much further in ending violent crime than removing Islam or Christianity or whatever from the equation, because at the end of the day there will always be looking for someone to exploit the poor and uneducated for their own agendas. And that is a point that gets swept under the rug too often because if a Muslim does it to a Westerner, "IT HAS TO BE ISLAM!" and if a gangster does it, "Well... he just killed another criminal, so who cares?".
You know who should care? YOU should care, because this violence is the same violence of the Muslim Extremists, just with a different headmaster.
Very good post Shir. I need to chew on that.
While Islam is certainly a contributing factor in terror attacks it is not a necessary factor, let alone a sufficient one. I don't even need to dig up the IRA or Timothy McVeigh. The more I hear about the man hunt in France the more I think about Eric Frein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Frein). Bradley William Stone (http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-six-pennsylvania-killings-target-manhunt-112149229.html) did half as much damage as the Paris gunmen, but his targets weren't political. If James Holmes had been a Muslim we'd immediately view the Aurora shooting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_shooting) as an attempted Toulouse and Montauban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_and_Montauban_shootings)style attack--except without a religious target.
My big/long term fear is that there will be a backlash against French and European Muslims that will further isolate them from society and will cause more French/European Muslims to decide that they need to turn to violence to defend themselves, their family and their religion.
The question that needs too be asked is why all these countries have such high poverty. You mentioned it but u didn't expand on it. The fact is since the end of world war 2 we have actively been fighting proxy wars with the ccommunists. It is one thing every country u mentioned and far more, have in common. Latin America the middle east central and Africa all were regions that have had massive Communist rebellions squashed by western superpowers. The CIA alone has been alone orchestrating violent coups in over 40 countries including Iran Chile and more recently the Ukraine.
Maoists claim the thirld world would be the eternal battlefeild that the Communists would fight the capitalists in until world communism prevailed. Afghanistan is the most well known example. The Soviets were beginning to take over and the west funded the mujahadeen a violent groups of religious radicals that hated American and ironically even capitalist values. But they helped us fight the real threat to the USA the Soviet union so the superpowers didn't care. South American dictators African warlords Mexican druglords were all created and funded the USA and western governments. More recently this can be seen in the Ukraine where the west is currently backing a violent Neo nazis sects who overthrew their president because he and most of his people economically favoured Russia.
All these "bad people" you are told too be afraid of were in fact allowed too rise and in many cases actually created by the western superpowers.
Why do you think we've never attacked Saudi Arabia?
I have no problem with anything you have said as I look at each point individually. I've never been one to believe that if we just get rid of religion all our problems will be solved. Far from it.
The problems of Mexico that you bring up is a great example and there is no denying that poverty and desperation will drive people to extreme behaviour. We are on the same page with all of this.
But here is where I find cause for concern.
Almost every week we are presented with a new atrocity committed in the name of Islam, committed in accordance with Quranic verse and in accordance with Muhammad's own behaviour. Bringing up problems like those that are plaguing Mexico in such threads comes across as a dodge. As an excuse to take the heat off of Islam and place it anywhere other than on the ideology that the perpetrators are actually shouting and quoting as they commit the crimes. Perpetrators that are often not poor and uneducated.
Side stepping your post for a moment, the constant repetition that blaming islam is "racist" is just annoying at this point. There is not one of these threads that has been started where this false equivalence is not brought up by someone. I don't let this mistake pass but I will be honest that it is really taxing my self discipline to not go off on this. I'd like to shout and throw insults, but I try very hard not to and keep the correction civil even though I know I'm not 100% successful.
So, I agree that there are many reasons why people would turn to violence, and I agree that religion is far from the only problem. Bringing this up in a thread like this is probably overdue, however, that in no way excuses Islam and it's extremely toxic ideas and it seems we agree on this.
Here's an example for you. Nazi Germany committed incredible atrocities and violence. Was poverty and oppression to blame? No, so that is evidence that a corrupt ideology alone can also overtake a population. Whether the ideology claims a supernatural source as Islam does is irrelevant except to the religious apologists.
Contrary to what you may believe, I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam. I've hired a Muslim and would do so again and I have repeatedly stated that those most oppressed by Islam are Muslims, especially the women.
I understand that there are many people who are too dumb or unthinking to make the distinction between people and ideology but that fact alone is not enough to silence me about just how horrible this religion is. And also, I don't think it makes any sense to lump all religions together as though the specifics of the dogma have no influence.
Quote from: Poison Tree on January 08, 2015, 07:39:52 PM
My big/long term fear is that there will be a backlash against French and European Muslims that will further isolate them from society and will cause more French/European Muslims to decide that they need to turn to violence to defend themselves, their family and their religion.
My long term fear is that we are becoming accustomed to Islamic inspired violence and will shrug our shoulders and not say a word out of fear of more violence. That what we are seeing is perhaps a true clash of cultures that has no solution other than complacency.
The only reason people blow Islam out of proportion is because of 9/11 and other events that happened "recently". Violence in Mexico has been going on for a long time now, and people just don't care. I agree with you, but what can we do with either case?
QuoteNazi Germany committed incredible atrocities and violence. Was poverty and oppression to blame?
Uh... what?
Germany was in TERRIBLE financial shape after WW1. The poverty rate in Germany was severe after reparations and the American banks failed (Germany was taking huge loans from American banks to pay off their debts to the rest of Europe). Germany just started mass producing money, and the mark became useless, till you had bills like these...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/50_millionen_mark_1_september_1923.jpg)
... the crashed economy and national shame that Germany faced after WW1 are the two most cited reasons I have seen as to why Hitler was able to raise to power. So both poverty and oppression from foreign forces were the two main issues.
QuotePerpetrators that are often not poor and uneducated.
Obviously the two above, but which terrorists are you referring to that were both wealthy and educated? The vast majority of the lenient 5000 deaths I posted above were committed in countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria... all of which suffer crippling poverty and pathetic education levels. Of the 1000 or so that happened in the west, the majority as far as I can tell were committed by minorities like the Paris shooters.
QuoteBringing up problems like those that are plaguing Mexico in such threads comes across as a dodge.
I am really trying to find it but failing, but there is a picture that really struck me from the Los Caballeros Templarios of a church where they go to be blessed by (St. Maria I believe) before they kill their rivals (i wouldn't recommend searching too much on the Knights Templar unless you like pictures of decapitated heads and mutilated bodies that puts ISIS to shame, as I learned searching for that picture).
They don't necessarily use the Bible as their excuse (gang wise anyways, though their treatment of gays and the like they certainly do), but they certainly use the same religious icons and are just as brutal as what you find in the middle east, and for the same things... power in a powerless state. The gangs of Mexico and groups like ISIL and Al Qaedea have alot more in common than you would think.
Quote from: Shiranu on January 08, 2015, 10:40:46 PM
Uh... what?
Germany was in TERRIBLE financial shape after WW1. The poverty rate in Germany was severe after reparations and the American banks failed (Germany was taking huge loans from American banks to pay off their debts to the rest of Europe). Germany just started mass producing money, and the mark became useless, till you had bills like these...
... the crashed economy and national shame that Germany faced after WW1 are the two most cited reasons I have seen as to why Hitler was able to raise to power. So both poverty and oppression from foreign forces were the two main issues.
It's true they suffered greatly after WWI. The losers usually do. Poland, Bulgaria and other were faced with economic hardship as well. But the German economy picked up tremendously in the 1920's. The US lent Germany huge sums of money, the economy was rebuilt and unemployment was greatly reduced. So prosperous was that decade that it was known as the "Golden Years" in Germany. Like everyone else, they suffered from the great depression but I guess we have differing ideas of what extreme poverty and oppression really look like. I've heard lots of reasons as to why Germany went crazy and I've heard the theory you put forward before, but it doesn't come close to answering the question IMO. This from the Wikipedia entry on WW1 reparations:
Quotethe consensus of contemporary historians is that reparations were not as intolerable as the Germans or Keynes had suggested and were within Germany's capacity to pay had there been the political will to do so.
QuoteObviously the two above, but which terrorists are you referring to that were both wealthy and educated?
How about the perpetrators of 911. Or Osama Bin Laden,or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Even the underwear bomber was from a wealthy family. For the others, I can't buy into the idea that unless they have the same level of wealth as western nations this can be used as an excuse. I can see this in places like Somalia and Liberia and Nigeria, but not every nation in the middle east.
QuoteThe vast majority of the lenient 5000 deaths I posted above were committed in countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria... all of which suffer crippling poverty and pathetic education levels. Of the 1000 or so that happened in the west, the majority as far as I can tell were committed by minorities like the Paris shooters.
The tribal regions of Pakistan may not be wealthy, but you can't say they lack for food and shelter and lump them in with true poverty like in sub saharan Africa. They have enough of their own power to keep everyone out of their region that they don't want there. I don't see them as poverty stricken or oppressed. They are the oppressors. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran likewise. There is as much or more poverty in parts of China and the south Pacific.
Iraq is not poverty stricken, it it is now a war torn nation. Perhaps we should have left the dictator in power, but the fact is that once he was removed and the opportunity was present for the people to self rule, it was Islam that raised it's ugly head and put an end to any hope of democracy.
QuoteI am really trying to find it but failing, but there is a picture that really struck me from the Los Caballeros Templarios of a church where they go to be blessed by (St. Maria I believe) before they kill their rivals (i wouldn't recommend searching too much on the Knights Templar unless you like pictures of decapitated heads and mutilated bodies that puts ISIS to shame, as I learned searching for that picture).
They don't necessarily use the Bible as their excuse (gang wise anyways, though their treatment of gays and the like they certainly do), but they certainly use the same religious icons and are just as brutal as what you find in the middle east, and for the same things... power in a powerless state. The gangs of Mexico and groups like ISIL and Al Qaedea have alot more in common than you would think.
I'm an atheist so pointing out that Christianity has a bad track record is not going to make me forgive Islam for it's violent nature. As to gangs and war lords and others who seek power, they tend to cause problems for years, not centuries like Islam has. Horrible individuals are far easier to deal with than horrible ideologies.
I think the OP's point is that Christians have been and currently are far more murderous and violent then Muslims. Christians have persecuted every religion on earth. And also claim they're successful enslavement indoctrination and colonization of other religions is proof their God is more powerful and therefore more just. This is obvious
There were three major attacks this week other than Paris. Nigeria suffered over 100 murders Yemen had a bombing at a police school were over 30 dies Iraq had over 20 killed yet our media focuses on the Christian deaths in France. If I have too explain why this is too the people on THIS forum all hope might be lost.
Here is an organized effort too euthanize the Muslim world in favor of the Christians
Supporting this genocide as an atheist is a reasonable as an atheist supporting the Holocaust
I also don't think it's as simple as violence is violence though all of it is bad.
Mexicans killing each other over turf wars is not the same as the exporting of violence for reasons of revenge as done by Islam.
The British documentary "Undercover Mosque" does not have a Mexican equivalent. http://vimeo.com/19598947
Nor do murders like that of Theo Van Gogh, the danish cartoon incident, the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the attacks in Canada, Australia, France, the UK, Spain etc...
Mexican and Colombian drug cartels may be as violent, but it's a different kind of violence. They are not at all like ISYS.
Here's what Walter Laqueur has to say about the subject of terrorism and poverty.
QuoteIt is not too difficult to examine whether there is such a correlation between poverty and terrorism, and all the investigations have shown that this is not the case. The experts have maintained for a long time that poverty does not cause terrorism and prosperity does not cure it. In the world’s 50 poorest countries there is little or no terrorism. A study by scholars Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova reached the conclusion that the terrorists are not poor people and do not come from poor societies. A Harvard economist has shown that economic growth is closely related to a society’s ability to manage conflicts. More recently, a study of India has demonstrated that terrorism in the subcontinent has occurred in the most prosperous (Punjab) and most egalitarian (Kashmir, with a poverty ratio of 3.5 compared with the national average of 26 percent) regions and that, on the other hand, the poorest regions such as North Bihar have been free of terrorism. In the Arab countries (such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but also in North Africa), the terrorists originated not in the poorest and most neglected districts but hailed from places with concentrations of radical preachers. The backwardness, if any, was intellectual and cultural â€" not economic and social.
These findings, however, have had little impact on public opinion (or on many politicians), and it is not difficult to see why. There is the general feeling that poverty and backwardness with all their concomitants are bad â€" and that there is an urgent need to do much more about these problems. Hence the inclination to couple the two issues and the belief that if the (comparatively) wealthy Western nations would contribute much more to the development and welfare of the less fortunate, in cooperation with their governments, this would be in a long-term perspective the best, perhaps the only, effective way to solve the terrorist problem.
Reducing poverty in the Third World is a moral as well as a political and economic imperative, but to expect from it a decisive change in the foreseeable future as far as terrorism is concerned is unrealistic, to say the least. It ignores both the causes of backwardness and poverty and the motives for terrorism.
Poverty combined with youth unemployment does create a social and psychological climate in which Islamism and various populist and religious sects flourish, which in turn provide some of the footfolk for violent groups in internal conflicts.
http://www.laqueur.net/index2.php?r=2&rr=2&id=8 (http://www.laqueur.net/index2.php?r=2&rr=2&id=8)
I tend to blame "backwards thinking" more than poverty, such as thinking it is a good thing killing people over cartoons.
I see you missed the point where I said "poverty = violence" not "terrorism". And my last lines about it all being about who the "headmaster" in the region is.
Let's look at the poorest 50 countries...
1. Afghanistan - terrorism, because Americans and Russians promoted terrorist groups like Al Qaedea to fight proxy wars with each other.
2. Angola - huge crime rates.
3. Bangladesh - Some terrorism, a shit load of crime.
4. Benin - High crime, some ethnic violence and a little Boko Haram influence.
5. Bhutan - A bit of an exception to the rule, low crime... except for Indian terrorist groups who come across the border.
6. Burkina Faso - High crime, terrorists and pirates that have migrated over from Somalia.
7. Burundi - Same as above, high crime from Somali terrorists and pirates.
8. Cambodia - Improving, but still has a huge problem with crime. Thankfully more petty crime than the rest, but muggings and human trafficking are still an issue.
I would go on, but I think you get the point... poverty stricken countries are simply more violent than wealthy countries (which is a bit of common sense, I would think...).
Now, I completely disagree with his "In the world’s 50 poorest countries there is little or no terrorism.". Afghanistan is low terrorism? Burkina Faso? Burundi? Looking at the list, I see 17 countries that have terrorist problems, some of them serve (looking at you, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia... you too Myanmar, don't think you get left out just because you have Buddhist Terrorists).
Blackharvest216 also pointed out why terrorism is an issue in some of these countries and not others... because the West and Russia are the ones that trained them and funded them in these countries! And while no longer such an issue, the terrorist groups through out South America that were trained to fight the Communist states (or likewise to fight the Democratic states by the Soviets)... did Islam have anything to do with them? What about the Buddhist monks who are committing terrorist acts in Myanmar? And if you were a Mexican civilian, would you not consider it a terrorist act when a gang cuts your son or brother's head off with a chainsaw and sends you the video and says, "Don't fuck with us."? What is that, if not terrorism?
QuoteMexican and Colombian drug cartels may be as violent, but it's a different kind of violence. They are not at all like ISYS.
Since both of you apparently missed the last line, I will say it again...
QuoteYou know who should care? YOU should care, because this violence is the same violence of the Muslim Extremists, just with a different headmaster.
A Dream Imposed Before its Time Becomes a Nightmare (http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/01/a-dream-imposed-before-its-time-becomes-a-nightmare/)
excerpt:
QuoteEssentially the Islamic invasion of the West is only a secondary threat to our freedom. It is an unanticipated by-product of that utopian pipe-dream, the great globalisation project. The purveyors of the latter have gleefully welcomed it and are now busy utilising it to achieve their own malignant ends.
Over several decades, by means of a carefully planned and orchestrated campaign whereby the young and the gullible of all ages have been infected with Pathological Altruism, that terminal Ebola of the mind, inculcated through the vectors of false cultural anthropomorphism and white guilt, they have carefully removed the goalposts of our democracy and established a wide open playing field upon which the Great Game must be played according to their rules â€" which are essentially any rules that they care to impose.
Now, with each passing day, they draw ever closer to achieving their objective through the clandestine encouragement of the Religion of Death and Slavery by establishing a protective shield around these cretinous barbarians as they subjugate us, the indigenous inhabitants, through a campaign of terror, intimidation and disinformation. The demonising and criminalisation of free speech is a minor but very important part of this process, for when freedom of speech has gone all other freedoms will follow. Thus are the deconstructionists close to establishing the desired socio-political environment wherein they can justify and thence implement their long planned unilateral seizure of absolute power via a ‘diversity’-indoctrinated and enriched Judiciary, Legal Apparatus and Police Service.
This article may give a pause for tought for some.
Quote from: Shiranu on January 09, 2015, 04:30:07 PM
Since both of you apparently missed the last line, I will say it again...
QuoteYou know who should care? YOU should care, because this violence is the same violence of the Muslim Extremists, just with a different headmaster.
In that case I will have to continue to disagree.
You are seeing no difference between methodology and motivation. If two different people cut someones head off you are implying that the motivation is irrelevant. I don't see it that way.
Here is just one example of what I mean. The violence we see in areas of very high poverty are not being exported globally by a network of believers. So no, this is NOT the same violence as the Muslim extremist.
It's not that I don't care, it's that our reaction to each HAS to be different. You respond to everything with compassion whether it is warranted or not.
I have considered your OP and I reject the notion that Islamic violence is the result of poverty and oppression.
Islamic ideology was not caused by poverty. Muhammad was a merchant and his preachings became more violent as he became more powerful and conquered more territory.
In fact, I'd say that Islam and it's violent tendencies is more a cause of poverty than a result of it.
QuoteLet's look at the poorest 50 countries...
* How many of those 50 countries have Islam?
* The failures - political, intellectual, economical, moral, social, are the results of Islam.
I do not think that poverty and lack of education causes terrorism.
By this theory the people of Haiti should strap on suicide belts and rampage all over the planet. They don't.
Most Islamic terrorist are reasonably well off, educated and financed by guess what? Your tax dollars that the administration shovels over to Islamic countries by the cart loads. Billions of it. (Jizya?).
What happens to all that money? It goes into Swiss bank accounts for the corrupt despots, whom want to keep the population poor and uneducated.
Easier to control them.
List of ongoing armed conflicts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)
How many of those are attributed to Islam? About 95%
The fascist temptation is always present. There's also something like THE FASCISM OF ANTI-RELIGIOUS UTOPIANS
From this link: *link removed*
Some fundamentalist Christians blame homosexuals for some of the main evils in the world, like some atheists blame religious people (“people with gods kill peopleâ€) for some of the main evils in the world. That’s why certain atheists say: “Get rid of the merchants of religion in our schools!†As if we’re perverting the youth. This mirrors the reasoning of some religious fundamentalists who ask to “Get rid of the merchants of sexual perversion â€" homosexuality â€" in our schools!†As if gays are perverting the youth.
Edit: removed personal link -PickelledEggs
Quote from: Elke on January 27, 2015, 04:07:35 PM
The fascist temptation is always present. There's also something like THE FASCISM OF ANTI-RELIGIOUS UTOPIANS
From this link: https://erikbuys.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/the-fascism-of-anti-religious-utopians/
Some fundamentalist Christians blame homosexuals for some of the main evils in the world, like some atheists blame religious people (“people with gods kill peopleâ€) for some of the main evils in the world. That’s why certain atheists say: “Get rid of the merchants of religion in our schools!†As if we’re perverting the youth. This mirrors the reasoning of some religious fundamentalists who ask to “Get rid of the merchants of sexual perversion â€" homosexuality â€" in our schools!†As if gays are perverting the youth.
Nice to meet you, Elke! I see you are posting the same shit post all over the place. Do you mind making an intro so we can get to know you better?
(strike 2)