[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

I think modern war is a construct for power and the control of natural resources, it has nothing to do with religion or people or even money.

I completely agree, and I don't even think it's just modern war. It's pretty much every war throughout history. There's a heavy focus when it comes to WWII on Hitler's odd "quirks" involving a master race but, in truth, his main goal was to conquer Europe and use it as a staging area to then conquer the Americas (and presumably eventually the world). He wanted to control ALL of the resources and rebuild the world under one banner (his). It just so happened that he held many odd beliefs and, as his power started to grow, he decided to indulge those beliefs. In fact, I personally believe that is he hadn't been so distracted by his ethnic cleansing campaigns and his obsession with the paranormal, Germany probably would not have been defeated.

Anyway, got a bit sidetracked there, but these modern wars - like I was trying to say earlier, I don't think most of the people involved in these conflicts really comprehend what's going on. Even our own high level politicians in the west. I think they buy into the storyline as much as anyone else and they fully believe their role.

As for who the people directing the flow - the "scriptwriters" - are, it's also so difficult to understand. Sir Lancaster asked me earlier to explain "who" these people are, I think imagining that I was talking about some sort of Bond villain character sat in a bunker stroking a white cat, but it's not that. It's not one person or a group of people with any specific motivation. It's more like a tidal force of collective consciousness, made up of all sorts of individual motivations, and yes, at the end of the day it only ever comes down to "power".

[Sticks]

I am not sure I agree with Murdoch actually

My viewpoint has been a pragmatic one, it is not wise to publish inflammatory material that will provoke a deadly violent reaction. sometimes for a greater good we must self censor.

[Z]

Originally Posted by Cherie

Z what do you mean when the **** "eventually" hits the fan in the UK, Lee Rigby, the 7/7 bombings? and before that the IRA bombings, the UK has long been a target of terrorists. especially London, has it stopped people going about their daily business, has anyone had a second thought as to whether they should attend a crowded event, or take a train, or an airplane. No one said the World is a nice place now, but exactly when back through the ages has the World been a nice place, name me one era when dark and evil deeds were not carried out in the name of something or other, it's not so long ago we were putting kids up chimneys! at the moment countries are subject to random acts of terror, that has been the case for years, not sure what has suddenly changed? is it because people who live outside the major cities have suddenly realised oh this could come to my doorstep? because people living in major Cities have had that threat hanging over them for decades.

What I mean is that I think things are going to get worse and we're going to see more cases like the series of events in Paris happening around the world as small groups of extremist Muslims around the world start to play copycat. We live in the globalised age of information where everything is instant to us; it's going to become impossible to stop. The world has never been a nice place and has always been at war but the world has never been so well connected and now I think because of this we're right at the beginning of a new kind of war that none of us are prepared for because there is no historical precedent for it. What has suddenly changed is that we're not going through some diplomatic process where we're formally declaring war on a nation and we duke it out and then sign a treaty when someone's been battered into submission or we take their territory - the enemy is all around us, it's over the sea, it's next door, it's on another continent, it's someone we know. My belief is that soon we WILL all be too scared to go about our regular lives because our lives as we know them will be changed forever when terrorism hits us in our small communities and isn't some big city phenomenon anymore.

Originally Posted by Kizzy

I totally agree, someone posted a vid once of a news interview with a Muslim academic, he suggested that when those captured fighting for the taliban were shown videos of anti-war protests in the UK.. they couldn't believe it that we didn't want war at all as it was not what they had been led to believe.
I think modern war is a construct for power and the control of natural resources, it has nothing to do with religion or people or even money.
We just have to hope this was just a lone wolf attack with no direct involvement from any organisation.

Yes. Just as there are plenty of people in the UK who think Islam = extremism, there are people who think West = evil. Religion and people who follow one fanatically are just pawns in the battle for geopolitical control. Russia and China frequently block Eurasian relations in security council meetings to stop the USA from political manoeuvering. Meanwhile, countries that are not one of those three, and the people living in them, suffer endlessly because they've been turned into a political statement.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Sticks

I am not sure I agree with Murdoch actually

My viewpoint has been a pragmatic one, it is not wise to publish inflammatory material that will provoke a deadly violent reaction. sometimes for a greater good we must self censor.

OK

[MTVN]

Couldn't agree more with this article: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...s-9970228.html

Somehow the degree of failure of the "war on terror" launched by Bush and supported by Britain has never led to those who launched it being held culpable. Fail it demonstrably did, since in 2001 al-Qaeda had a few hundred activists confined to a few camps and towns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fourteen years later, after vast expenditure on anti-terrorism by the US and its allies, al-Qaeda-type movements control large areas of Iraq and Syria and dominate the Sunni Arab armed opposition in both countries. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, is a growing power as the shock troops of the Sunni community. On the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, some 36 police cadets were killed in the Yemeni capital Sanaa by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber.
...

In the wake of the Paris killings there is much speculation about what links there may have been with foreign jihadis in the shape of Isis or al-Qaeda in Yemen. But this rather misses the point. Attacks on civilians require weapons, ammunition and the ability to use them, but no great level of combat training. What is really driving these attacks in Europe, and will go on doing so, is the collapse of so many Muslim states into violence and anarchy providing an ideal environment for Sunni jihadism to grow. Unsurprisingly, extreme fanatical Sunni jihadis, whom sympathisers might see as "holy warriors" and one Afghan journalist described as "holy fascists", do well in wartime conditions. The Isis, in particular, relates to the world around it almost solely through acts of violence.

...

The failure that has put all the world in danger is at the level of politics rather than security. It was political leaders who got rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and have tried to displace Bashar al-Assad in Syria without thinking through the consequences. One can argue about whether or not this was a good thing to do, but the result of these actions has been to open the gates to al-Qaeda, Isis and their clones. From these savage conflicts sparks are bound to fly and start fires in Europe.

[Z]

I agree with that too, Matt.

[Livia]

I wonder how the secret and diplomatic services have managed to muddle though without addressing the simplistic ideals expressed in this thread.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Livia

I wonder how the secret and diplomatic services have managed to muddle though without addressing the simplistic ideals expressed in this thread.

And I don't care if you include my ideals as 'simplistic' in that Liv.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

And I don't care if you include my ideals as 'simplistic' in that Liv.

I'm referring to the idea that we've brought this all on ourselves. I'm referring to the constant accusation that the West is responsible for the murderous terrorist actions of ISIL. Isn't that what men who beat their wives say? You made me do it. Isn't that what the people who behead journalists say? You made me do it. All the while 17 people lay dead and countless other grieve all because a group of people who want to drag us back to the dark ages took exception to a drawing.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Livia

I'm referring to the idea that we've brought this all on ourselves. I'm referring to the constant accusation that the West is responsible for the murderous terrorist actions of ISIL. Isn't that what men who beat their wives say? You made me do it. Isn't that what the people who behead journalists say? You made me do it. All the while 17 people lay dead and countless other grieve all because a group of people who want to drag us back to the dark ages took exception to a drawing.

Come on Livia, in all seriousness, do you actually believe that the attack on Charlie Hebdo had anything to do with anyone taking an exception to a drawing? In all seriousness? Do you think when they sat down and discussed the "why" of what they were about to do (because it seems to have been exceptionally well planned), they said "because they drew Mohammad!!"?

Even if you do hypothetically take this event as nothing more than random extremist action... no one actually thinks it was about the cartoons themselves. An attack on the very idea of the free press itself - maybe. To send a message. But it's not because these terrorists saw the drawings and took offense. It's just... not.


Again removing any idea of defense or blame from the scenario: the west is not responsible for the actions of these individuals. The west however is (demonstrably) responsible for creating the chaotic environment of war that has allowed these groups to thrive and grow into a very real threat. Even if that was never the intention - even if the intention was to stamp them out and truly restore democracy to these regions - that is not what happened... it all went horribly wrong and the reach of these organisations grew exponentially. Your "secret and diplomatic services" didn't manage so well there, did they? Or am I wrong? Are you going to tell me that, actually, these wars successfully achieved exactly what they set out to achieve? Because if so, the news channels I'm watching must be being broadcast from some sort of horrible alternate reality...

Pointing this out is not a witch hunt. It's not saying "BLAME THE WEST!!" for the sake of someone to blame, or to be an "apologist" for terrorists. Hell... if it WAS possible to round every last one of them into one little patch of desert and nuke the living **** out of it, I'd say why not! Go for it! I don't really care - I'm not a particularly "nice" person. At least the problem would actually be solved.

No. Trying desperately to point out that raging and shouting and bombing is not the way to go isn't for the sake of the "poor little Muslims". It's because I wholeheartedly believe that these angry actions will have exactly the same effect as they did post-911. We'll "shock and awe" at them for a bit, send in some more troops for several years, realize "oh ****, this isn't really working, we'd better get our arses out of here" and leave behind an even bigger melting pot in which ever increasing numbers of Islamic extremists will spawn. We WILL NOT wipe them out. We will make more. It's inevitable. It'll continue in this cycle until they figure out how to build dirty bombs and eventually aquire warheads and then we'll all die. Meh. At least in the meantime, we can TRY not to be a part of the problem.

[MTVN]

Those 17 dead are at least owed our understanding, our appreciation that the rise of Islamic extremist groups is an incredibly complex phenomenon and - like it or not - Western foreign policy is a part of that phenomenon. Western involvement in the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a part of this story. As Robert Fisk was writing the other day, the bloody history of French-Algerian relations are a part of this story. Pretending it isn't will get us nowhere. Claiming that its tantamount to victim blaming to try and analyse the context behind these attacks will get us nowhere.

To quote from that article by Fisk:

Maybe all newspaper and television reports should carry a “history corner”, a little reminder that nothing – absolutely zilch – happens without a past. Massacres, bloodletting, fury, sorrow, police hunts (“widening” or “narrowing” as sub-editors wish) take the headlines. Always it’s the “who” and the “how” – but rarely the “why”. Take the crime against humanity in Paris this week – the words “atrocity” and “barbarity” somehow diminish the savagery of this act – and its immediate aftermath.

We know the victims: journalists, cartoonists, cops. And how they were killed. Masked gunmen, Kalashnikov automatic rifles, ruthless, almost professional nonchalance. And the answer to “why” was helpfully supplied by the murderers. They wanted to avenge “the Prophet” for Charlie Hebdo’s irreverent and (for Muslims) highly offensive cartoons. And of course, we must all repeat the rubric: nothing – nothing ever – could justify these cruel acts of mass murder. And no, the killers cannot call on history to justify their crimes.

But there’s an important context that somehow got left out of the story this week, the “history corner” that many Frenchmen as well as Algerians prefer to ignore: the bloody 1954-62 struggle of an entire people for freedom against a brutal imperial regime, a prolonged war which remains the foundational quarrel of Arabs and French to this day.

So yes, nothing can justify these attacks. There is not a shred of responsibility that the cartoonists need to take for the way that they were gunned down in cold blood. ISIS and Al Qaeda are murdering scum who deserve no sympathy. No one has sought to deny any of that. But let us not allow it to wilfully blind ourselves to the wider picture, a picture that is far bigger than three gunmen and some offensive cartoons. Let us not allow it to prevent us from trying to comprehend the true extent of the threat, it's character, it's motivation and it's background. Otherwise we will never be able to confront it, otherwise we will just feed the perpetual cycle of violence.

Edit - was posting the same time as TS above - I share his sentiments

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by MTVN

So yes, nothing can justify these attacks. There is not a shred of responsibility that the cartoonists need to take for the way that they were gunned down in cold blood. ISIS and Al Qaeda are murdering scum who deserve no sympathy. No one has sought to deny any of that. But let us not allow it to wilfully blind ourselves to the wider picture

I've said this quite a few times over the last few days but, apparently, it's still being a sympathiser.

I guess I look at it as being like this but on a grander scale: The majority of notable psychopathic serial killers have seriously messed up backstories. Yes, they are monsters. Yes, they are unfathomably dangerous, yes they have killed innocent people and destroyed other innocent lives in the process and yes, they should almost always be put down like dogs for it because they are indeed "unfixable monsters". But does that mean that we should entirely ignore their backgrounds - childhoods filled with extreme abuse (often sexual, usually at the hands of their own parents) that broke and twisted them into what they became. Does that inspire sympathy? In some, maybe. For me, not really. They became what they became. Regardless: it should NEVER be ignored, because understanding and acknowledging what CREATES monsters is what will allow us to stop them from being created in the first place. Countless books have been written on the psychologies of these people. And it has positively impacted how we care for and protect young people.

There is absolutely no point in wiping terrorists from the face of the planet whilst failing completely to acknowledge what the circumstances were that created such hatred in the first place. We have to examine it and acknowledge the past to ensure that history stops repeating itself. What baffles me, is the number of people in threads like this who would cry "none of that matters a jot!" and ignore it completely in favour of unbridled rage and revenge. Baffles me, but doesn't surprise me.

[arista]

Ch4HD News Live just confirmed
the Terrorist who took over the Kosher market
and shot dead the Police Women
had shot a jogger some time before

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Livia

I'm referring to the idea that we've brought this all on ourselves. I'm referring to the constant accusation that the West is responsible for the murderous terrorist actions of ISIL. Isn't that what men who beat their wives say? You made me do it. Isn't that what the people who behead journalists say? You made me do it. All the while 17 people lay dead and countless other grieve all because a group of people who want to drag us back to the dark ages took exception to a drawing.

We are not NATO livia we're just bods on a forum discussing contemporary issues.
Nobody is saying anyone is directly responsible for the rise and rise of terrorism against the west, there's just a few theories being kicked about is all.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Those 17 dead are at least owed our understanding, our appreciation that the rise of Islamic extremist groups is an incredibly complex phenomenon and - like it or not - Western foreign policy is a part of that phenomenon. Western involvement in the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a part of this story. As Robert Fisk was writing the other day, the bloody history of French-Algerian relations are a part of this story. Pretending it isn't will get us nowhere. Claiming that its tantamount to victim blaming to try and analyse the context behind these attacks will get us nowhere.

To quote from that article by Fisk:



So yes, nothing can justify these attacks. There is not a shred of responsibility that the cartoonists need to take for the way that they were gunned down in cold blood. ISIS and Al Qaeda are murdering scum who deserve no sympathy. No one has sought to deny any of that. But let us not allow it to wilfully blind ourselves to the wider picture, a picture that is far bigger than three gunmen and some offensive cartoons. Let us not allow it to prevent us from trying to comprehend the true extent of the threat, it's character, it's motivation and it's background. Otherwise we will never be able to confront it, otherwise we will just feed the perpetual cycle of violence.

Edit - was posting the same time as TS above - I share his sentiments

No, sorry MTVN - you are posting from a totally different perspective from T.S and certain others, though T.S does keep changing his stance.

I agree with most of what you say and I genuinely respect your passion and belief in what you are saying - it is patent.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

No, sorry MTVN - you are posting from a totally different perspective from T.S and certain others, though T.S does keep changing his stance.

I agree with most of what you say and I genuinely respect your passion and belief in what you are saying - it is patent.

Stick to your own perspective and let others figure out where they stand on theirs maybe?
I happen to agree with MTVN as it is a much more honest and pragmatic view than many, the age of denial and belligerence is over.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

No, sorry MTVN - you are posting from a totally different perspective from T.S and certain others, though T.S does keep changing his stance.

Not entirely sure what qualifies you to decide which perspective someone else is posting from... but anyhoo...

Whilst my posts may at times be "babbling" (I prefer "rambling", personally) and a couple of the things I say may appear to be contradictory, e.g. trying to understand the perspective of Muslim communities and what turns people to terrorism whilst similtaneously not giving a **** if they're wiped out in nuclear hellfire, this is only because I often post a "train of thought" rather than a focused and referenced thesis. Ultimately, this is a chat forum and not an academic discussion. My exact thoughts and opinions on many issues are not 100% nailed down and do occasionally alter slightly, and don't have the quality of steely obstinance that yours appear to (perhaps that comes with age?), but I do feel comfortable in assuring you that my "stance" on this issue, broadly, has not "changed" at all.

[arista]

[James]

From the article.

The failure that has put all the world in danger is at the level of politics rather than security. It was political leaders who got rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and have tried to displace Bashar al-Assad in Syria without thinking through the consequences.

I'm no great expert on the subject, but surely the Syrian civil war (which has fueled extremism) started because of the Arab Spring protests, and those started because people in a lot of these countries were sick and tired of being ruled by dictators.

I do think we blame ourselves too much for a lot of these problems.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

No, sorry MTVN - you are posting from a totally different perspective from T.S and certain others, though T.S does keep changing his stance.

I agree with most of what you say and I genuinely respect your passion and belief in what you are saying - it is patent.

Thanks Kirk, but reading the post that TS made just before mine I do agree with a lot of what he says, and a lot of what he's said throughout the thread. I don't agree with the theory of who's pulling the strings though.

Originally Posted by James

From the article.



I'm no great expert on the subject, but surely the Syrian civil war (which has fueled extremism) started because of the Arab Spring protests, and those started because people in a lot of these countries were sick and tired of being ruled by dictators.

I do think we blame ourselves too much for a lot of these problems.

Mmm to some extent maybe. But the character of opposition forces was IMO always a lot more sinister than we in the West realised, not just in Syria but elsewhere. I'm not sure it's coincidence that in the countries where we once hailed the birth of the Arab Spring there now exists chaos, violence, and hotbeds of dangerous ideologies. Perhaps the only country that has emerged in a reasonable state is Tunisia. Egypt turned reactionary and is now essentially a military dictatorship. In Libya you have numerous warring militias fighting over Gaddafi's ruins. In Syria the only meaningful opposition that now exists is that of the extremists; ISIS and their cronies.

I'm sure there were some in the original Arab Spring protests who craved western style democracy and were sick of their dictators, our media seized on that to present it as the long-awaited Arab awakening, evidence that the Neocons were right all along - they all wanted democracy really, we just needed to show them they wanted it. But the opposition was also always less unified than we liked to think, it was always plagued by infighting, differing motivations and ethnic/religious tension. A lot of these Middle Eastern countries have always been melting pots of such tensions, and as brutal as they were the only things keeping a lid on those tensions were the dictators. They go and you have a dangerous power vacuum, as you have now in Libya, in Iraq, and to some extent in Syria, though it'd be worse if Assad had been removed. A lot of Middle Eastern dictators were/are monsters, but they understood their countries. We didn't. Almost every country in recent years that we thought was ready to rise up against their leader has gone to hell.

I'm reading a book atm on how much of a failure it was to try and impose western style democracy on Iraq and it has this quote in from T.E. Lawrence. He was writing in 1917 but it seems to apply today: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is."

[Nedusa]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Come on Livia, in all seriousness, do you actually believe that the attack on Charlie Hebdo had anything to do with anyone taking an exception to a drawing? In all seriousness? Do you think when they sat down and discussed the "why" of what they were about to do (because it seems to have been exceptionally well planned), they said "because they drew Mohammad!!"?

Even if you do hypothetically take this event as nothing more than random extremist action... no one actually thinks it was about the cartoons themselves. An attack on the very idea of the free press itself - maybe. To send a message. But it's not because these terrorists saw the drawings and took offense. It's just... not.


Again removing any idea of defense or blame from the scenario: the west is not responsible for the actions of these individuals. The west however is (demonstrably) responsible for creating the chaotic environment of war that has allowed these groups to thrive and grow into a very real threat. Even if that was never the intention - even if the intention was to stamp them out and truly restore democracy to these regions - that is not what happened... it all went horribly wrong and the reach of these organisations grew exponentially. Your "secret and diplomatic services" didn't manage so well there, did they? Or am I wrong? Are you going to tell me that, actually, these wars successfully achieved exactly what they set out to achieve? Because if so, the news channels I'm watching must be being broadcast from some sort of horrible alternate reality...

Pointing this out is not a witch hunt. It's not saying "BLAME THE WEST!!" for the sake of someone to blame, or to be an "apologist" for terrorists. Hell... if it WAS possible to round every last one of them into one little patch of desert and nuke the living **** out of it, I'd say why not! Go for it! I don't really care - I'm not a particularly "nice" person. At least the problem would actually be solved.

No. Trying desperately to point out that raging and shouting and bombing is not the way to go isn't for the sake of the "poor little Muslims". It's because I wholeheartedly believe that these angry actions will have exactly the same effect as they did post-911. We'll "shock and awe" at them for a bit, send in some more troops for several years, realize "oh ****, this isn't really working, we'd better get our arses out of here" and leave behind an even bigger melting pot in which ever increasing numbers of Islamic extremists will spawn. We WILL NOT wipe them out. We will make more. It's inevitable. It'll continue in this cycle until they figure out how to build dirty bombs and eventually aquire warheads and then we'll all die. Meh. At least in the meantime, we can TRY not to be a part of the problem.

That's a very pessimistic fatalistic view of things, surely there are some other endgame options.

Maybe the put them all into a field and set off a few warheads is a better option.

I'm getting very depressed about this whole situation, as it does seem to be getting worse year by year.





.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Stick to your own perspective and let others figure out where they stand on theirs maybe?
I happen to agree with MTVN as it is a much more honest and pragmatic view than many, the age of denial and belligerence is over.

Are you telling me that I cannot have an opinion on another poster's perspective?

Don't even try giving me orders.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Thanks Kirk, but reading the post that TS made just before mine I do agree with a lot of what he says, and a lot of what he's said throughout the thread. I don't agree with the theory of who's pulling the strings though.

The trouble is MTVN - T.S's points which you agree with, are not only a complete reversal of his stance but also are the very points I made which he heavily criticised me for and posted responses taking me to task for holding those views. He even uses the terminology I used which he professed in several responses to 'deplore'.

This is why I stated that your perspective was different.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

Are you telling me that I cannot have an opinion on another poster's perspective?

Don't even try giving me orders.

Are you ordering me not to give you orders?..

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

The trouble is MTVN - T.S's points which you agree with, are not only a complete reversal of his stance

No.

but also are the very points I made which he heavily criticised me for and posted responses taking me to task for holding those views.

No...

He even uses the terminology I used which he professed in several responses to 'deplore'.