I won’t belabor this, as reports of Islamic terrorism are so frequent, and now so horrible in nature, that we’re almost getting inured to them. Now we learn that ISIS is not only killing people for being gay by throwing them off buildings, but also killing men and boys for the horrible and anti-Islamic crime of breeding pigeons. (That, of course, would have doomed Darwin.)
The report on executions for pigeon-breeding comes from NBC News:
Raising doves and pigeons is a deadly pursuit in ISIS-controlled Iraq.
The popular hobby is in the sights of extremist Islamist fighters, who this week rounded up 15 boys and young men in the eastern province of Diyala for pursuing a pastime now deemed un-Islamic. Three have already been executed, according to a security official in the area who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.
Abu Abdullah, a 52-year-old farmer, told NBC News about the moment earlier this week that six gunmen barged into his home and dragged away his oldest son, who is 21.
“My son was standing beside me. I asked them why, and they said, ‘He is not following the real Islam, he must be punished for being a pigeon breeder. This habit is taking him away from worshiping Allah,” Abdullah said on the telephone.
The fighters put the household’s pigeons in bags and burned them. Then they took away his son.
“I begged them again to know where are they taking him, what are they going to do to him. They said he is going to be taken to be judged according to the Islamic Sharia,” Abu Abdullah said. “They pushed me, and when my son tried to stop them from pushing me they beat him. Then they put him inside the car and left.”
Why is this so anti-Islamic? It’s fatuous:
The hobby, which was especially popular among middle and lower classes before the U.S. invasion in 2003, has been targeted by extremists of all stripes. Suspicion of bird-breeders stems from the fact they tend to feed their animals at the same time devout Muslims traditionally hold their first of five daily prayers.
This distrust has prompted some clerics to issue fatwas against bird breeders.
A fatwa? If we didn’t already know that extremist Islam is a form of insanity, this should convince you.
And Pink News reports, with disturbing photos, that ISIS has executed two gay men by throwing them off buildings. This was apparently announced in advance, since the photos show a crowd gathered below the building waiting for the men to fall. I’m sure many of them cried “Allahu akbar.”
You can see the photos by going to the link, and then clicking the next link (or the screenshot below) that says ”
That second page adds this:
In further images, far too disturbing to be published on PinkNews, the corpses of the men were photographed lying on the street in front of an angry crowd.
ISIS released other images alongside the gay executions showing a woman being sentenced to death by stoning. A further shocking image, again too disturbing to publish on PinkNews shows the woman’s corpse under a mound of rubble.
Another set of images show two men, described as thieves being crucified and then being shot in the head from behind.
Well, the photos aren’t as disturbing as the videos of ISIS cutting the heads off hostages, and I’ve seen a couple of those. Religion has driven these people over the edge, turning them into automatons who lack any feelings we’d describe as “human.” I have no idea how to solve this problem, but let’s begin by saying that these two instances of barbarism—murder for homosexuality and pigeon breeding—are due not to colonialism, or oppression by the West, but simple delusion caused by faith. There is no other explanation.
I shouldn’t have to keep making that point, but apologists like Karen Armstrong keep arguing that this kind of violence has nothing to do with “true” religion. Of course she defines “true” religion as “religions that don’t practice violence,” so it all becomes a horrible tautology. We’ll deal with Ms. Armstrong’s latest book, and her interview about it, later this week.
h/t: Linda Grilli, pyers
Jesus Christ…if they’re going after hobbies that might compete with five-a-day ass-waving sessions, it’s pretty clear that they’re going for a degree of totalitarianism that makes 1984 seem like a bastion of liberal enlightenment.
Those poor people caught in the middle of this…they haven’t a clue what’s being done to them and what they’re either embracing or passively supporting by failure to rebel.
Worse…those who, for example, blame Charlie Hebdo for their own massacre? This is the “end game” they’re inviting for the rest of us, as well.
Sharia is the greatest threat to civilization we’ve faced in a long time. I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or not, if you fail to renounce Sharia in its entirety, you’re complicit in these murders and endorsing the same worldwide.
It seems generally agreed upon that you can’t have Islam without Sharia. Tough shit. I don’t give a fuck what happens to Islam, but Sharia is intolerable.
b&
That’s tough luck! They must either find a way of having Islam without sharia or should that be impossible, then the best is to not have Islam
They [Muslims] have to loose the faith. The culture (particularly borne of the middle-east) is fine: the music, the art, the clothing…all good. Islam, as an organized religion demanding irreverent respect, is the antithesis of all that is good in the world.
It’s not like this has not happened before: Judaism is fully developed without a need for god.
While you’re absolutely right, as a matter of rhetoric, it’s probably not the most effective strategy to tell the Muslims that they should be more like the Jews….
b&
It is a long shot. I don’t know how long it will be become Muslims become reasonable
s
I hope someone presses Reza Aslan on this.
As I was reading this, I imagined that 52 year-old-man years before all this horror, speaking about his hopes for his son and what he thought his future would look like. He probably never imagined that his son would be round up like that. It’s so horrible and cruel – every bit of it!
These thugs are twisted and I’m sure must attract the most gruesome of society to join their ranks, much like cruel men flocked to join the Nazis to help them commit atrocities.
What’s even more worrisome is that, as we saw in WWII, there are frightening numbers of humans who either revel in such or are too cowardly to say, “NO!” to the demands of the lunatics to partake of the orgy of violence.
If it were only a Charles Manson here and a Son of Sam there, we could deal with that pretty easily. But when they turn out in the numbers that they did in Germany almost a century ago, and that they are now in the Middle East….
b&
Marx’s formulation now strikes me as an insult to opiates.
Marx was right…for some people.
For others, religion is a weapon used to enforce their authority.
They’re the drug lords.
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Yes, I suppose they are.
This is very disturbing.
These guys are like walking limbic systems drenched in male-bonded violence with scriptural malware on compromised hard drives. What’s left of the rational world needs to swiftly put a definitive end to this barbaric shitstorm.
They surely are out on a “limb.”
Limb infarction would be a blessing compared to what they have to offer.
I don’t know what the “solution” to this problem is, but how about starting with the U.S. putting more pressure on governments that support these barbaric ideas and practices. Saudi Arabia comes to mind for their barbaric criminal justice system.
Yeah, but Saudi Arabia has oil….
b&
The big wars always seem to be about energy or financed by energy. We have the means to end our dependence on oil within ten or 15 years if we develop small and safe thorium reactors.
No reason why we can’t do wind and solar at the same time, but the grid needs a 24/7 backbone.
Ya, but at $50 a barrel, you’d think that humanity would become an important factor.
Good lord — is that how low it’s fallen?
This is bad…very, very bad. At $50/bbl, I’m sure Aidan’s employer can’t afford to pay his wages — at least, not indefinitely. And if they don’t pay him, there’s no oil for them to pump in very short order.
The only way this makes sense is if, for example, Saudi Arabia’s oil fields are near collapse and they’re trying to get every last bit of cash they can before the crash and their capital investment becomes worthless.
Fasten your seatbelts, people…the shit’s about to hit the fan….
b&
It will not end until the poison flowing from Saudi Arabia stops. And even then it will take a long time for the horror of Islamism to fade. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.
Perhaps so. Reminds me of the position of the Israelis. They have apparently accepted that they will be continually at risk of attack. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
It’s good ISIS have a Supreme Moral Lawgiver who can help them objectively distinguish right from wrong; otherwise their society might be run by non-objective atheists who make up morality based on human consequences. /sarc
Alas, psychopaths driven by totalising ideology often rise to the top in violent revolutions.
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Sorry, but I disagree that these acts “are due not to colonialism, or oppression by the West, but simple delusion caused by faith.” Yes, their faith is the immediate (I think biologists say proximate) cause. But you cannot stop there. Why do they have this faith in the first place? A real answer would take more time than is available in this reply, but if they are not already feeling down and out and poor and neglected by the rest of the world, they would not be drawn to such a faith. It’s just like the appeal of Jim Jones or scientology (which deserves no capital “s”) to neglected kids. I am opening myself up to charges of simplicistic thinking here, but you did too with your remark. And it is not the first time you have made it. I very much liked your book, wherein you point out that evolutionary thinking is not always simple. Well, neither are peoples’ motivations. During my 35-year career in France, I have known many Muslims and they were all very nice people. I can still taste the pastries they brought in at the end of Ramadan. The fact is, one can be Muslim and be a good person. Don’t get me wrong, tho: I would prefer getting rid of all three desert religions (adn Hinduism too) as a “good start”.
That’s not quite a complete formulation.
One can be a Muslim and a good person, yes. But one cannot be a good Muslim and a good person. And it should go without saying, but alas rarely does, that, if you are a good Muslim, you are not a good person.
Islam — and, especially Sharia — is just simply not at all compatible with civilization, period, full stop, end of story. You can have the one or the other, but the two are not merely immiscible but mutually corrosive.
b&
Crashing through an open door, as my dad used to say.
Please point to examples of people arguing the contrary.
There are many places in the world that have been subject to colonialism. Those where Islam has hold seem to be responding differently, wouldn’t you agree?
Sure. And I didn’t mean to point out particularly colonialism. It’s just that since not all Muslims are “bad” Muslims, there must be more behind bad Muslims than just being Muslim. Unfortunately, when Muslims go bad, they have all the BS in the Quran (and hadiths and so on) to support them. Remember, some fundamentalist American Xians have resorted to violence too. I mean lately, historical examples being countless.
I agree about the non-compatability of Sharia with western ideas of justice, in spite of Scott Atran’s arguments (somewhat) to the contrary.
As for a good Muslim not being able to be a good person, well, that depends on what makes a “good” Muslim, I suppose.
What I meant was, “Good” Muslims are similar to good Jews or Xians in that they can put aside all the dreadful writings in their sacred books (and Muslims accept the Bible too, with a few changes) about stonings, maiming, etc, and get on with living kind, thoughful and fruitful lives.
I’m reasonably certain the Muslim faithful were there before their countries were colonized.
Depends on what you mean by colonized.
What percentage of Muslims are so because they were converted by reason? Which Islamic countries are Islamic because the population studied the intellectual merits and chose it freely?
Of course, the presence of Islam in the Middle East beyond the Arabian peninsula is indeed a consequence of colonialism and imperialism – the imperialism in question being that of the Arab armies who expanded out of their original homeland in the century or so following the death of Mohammed, conquering all the lands from Spain in the west to Persia in the east.
The inhuman brutality and sheer frothing madness of ISIS, Boko Haram and their ideological soulmates are almost too grotesque for words, but in a perverse way I think these groups provide us a service in demonstrating the end-point of Islamic fundamentalism when it has the freedom to reach its logical conclusion. Whenever some muslim cleric or apologist in the west advocates the adoption of Sharia and the formation of a “pure” Islamic state, we now know exactly the kind of society they propose to create. There should be no illusions about what they have in mind. In the 1930s, the full horrors of Nazi Germany hadn’t yet manifested themselves, and it was still possible for outside observers to see the regime as unpleasant and repressive, but something we could live alongside and do business with. Yes, Herr Hitler had written all sorts of scary things in Mein Kampf about getting rid of the Jews and creating a German empire in the east, but that was all just pie-in-the-sky stuff. He couldn’t really be serious, could he? A few territorial concessions and everything would be fine. Well, we have no such excuses now. We didn’t really appreciate the true nature of the Nazi state until the end of the war, but the “pure” Islamic state is there for all to see right now, and anyone who claims to support it identifies him/herself as an enemy of civilisation.
The scary part is that colonialism and imperialism were the norm rather than the exception in human history. Boko Harem and ISIS are horrible simply because changing standards elsewhere (to varying degrees) are largely leaving them behind; their ideological foundations are basically leftovers of history, when purging internal and external enemies was considered standard procedure.
Such a well stated post about the truth we face today. (And that most of us–meaning people in general–refuse to face.)
Many have compared the totalitarian power of expansionist Islamic groups to Nazi Germany, but I do not see their clear grotesqueries as a ‘service’ that has revealed its true nature so that people can reject it or fight it into surrendering.
We cannot easily conquer this with military power or reasoning. This problem has no centralized government with uniformed soldiers and front lines and means to surrender. There are no front lines. There is no government to defeat, and these bastards do not know how to surrender.
“Why do they have this faith in the first place?”
Because Mohammed’s armies were stronger than those of his adversaries. They then went on to spread the faith by the sword in the Maghreb of northern Africa. And so on. Just like Xians did in South America, the Phillipines and elsewhere. That’s not the point. Nor is why some countries are in such deep doodoo these days, the reasons being multiple — results of too rapid liberation after centuries of colonializaion (yes!), maintenance of the ignorance of the masses, slower development, bad natural resources, instrumentalization of religion by those using it to affirm their power, foreign policy of the developed countries who are after their resources (petroleum, coltan or whatever)… The list is long. The point is that many folks there (but not all) are ignoran and poor and often just plain stupid and subject to the call of whatever revolt may get them going. How else do you explain how such a dreadful (at least, to us) faith as Islam ever took root?
Yeah, those two lads where thrown off the building because the judge came from a country that was colonialised.
To be fair, though, one risk factor behind high religiosity is societal dysfunction, and barring the oil sheikhs and their ilk, most people in said regions live in war-torn, impoverished, and largely stunted societies with frustration and resentment. Combine that with a violent religious tradition, lack of tolerant secularist education, and the US foreign policy basically turning the areas into warzones (not to mention the secret agenda of some US nutcases to use Israel as a way to hasten the so-called second coming), and it’s easier to figure out why homophobic scapegoating and killing of infidels becomes such serious business.
Of course, the US policies of the past can’t be blamed for Islamic tradition itself, but it sure as heck hasn’t done much to endear “the West” to, say, the victims of drone attacks.
Steven Weinberg: Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
” . . . and neglected by the rest of the world . . . .”
This somehow reminds me of the resident adolescent of the planet, North Korea, “acting out” to get the attention of the rest of the world.
Pray tell, is there any vile action of ISIS that someone cannot presume to rationally attribute to Westerners?
Scientology?? Tom Cruise and John Travolta were hardly neglected kids…Scientology is loony, but it doesn’t blow people up. One of my very bright (and not neglected) Stanford roommates became a Moonie for 20 years. Thanks CC she’s out and normal now, and she realizes it was loony. Moonies don’t blow people up. It takes that added (current) Islamic touch to bring on the violence.
“if they are not already feeling down and out and poor and neglected by the rest of the world, they would not be drawn to such a faith.”
I doubt this has very much to do with being down and out. The 9/11 hijackers were well educated and bound for rewarding careers as professionals. Boko Haram attacks education. You’d think if economic and cultural advancement was their main goal, they would embrace education.
Meanwhile, a few minutes ago Stephen Fry married Elliott Spencer. …
I have a problem with myself over this. Two days ago PCC posted a story about how the US authorities were going to execute two people who had committed heinous crimes and, although I didn’t comment directly on that at the time, I mentally condemned the US for barbarism. Today I caught myself feeling that I would cheer if these IS bastards were on the wrong end of a laser guided bomb. Can someone explain?
You’re letting your emotions get ahead of you.
It may yet turn out to be the case that doing unto them is the least evil path we have, but that represents our own limitations and failures as much as anything else.
If it turned out that Islamism is the result of a bacterial infection, would you still cheer the military conquest of Islamists? Or would you consider that a great tragedy and mourn the opportunity to develop and administer a suitable antibiotic?
b&
You are part of a rather rare subspecies that recognizes that some people are simply too dangerous to be allowed to remain alive.
In fact, in my opinion, the only moral course of action that can be taken with ISIS, is to exterminate it down to the last man, since they cannot be negotiated with and any person who joins the group, is a future beheader, sex slaver and ethnic cleanser.
You would condemn ISIS for their indiscriminate violence and, as a solution, use indiscriminate violence against them?
It may well come to violence for the solution, but only as a last resort, and never indiscriminately, and most especially never eagerly nor joyfully nor even with satisfaction.
b&
The poster did not endorse indiscriminate violence, nor did he suggest it be done joyfully.
What is indiscriminate about annihilating a group that makes the Waffen SS look like tie-dyed, free love practicing hippies?
If it is decided that annihilation is the only option left to deal with ISIS, no member of can be allowed to live, since they will then simply blend back into society and at a later time infect a new generation of young men with their cancerous world view and eventually they will try to succeed where ISIS failed.
Like the Waffen SS, ISIS is an all volunteer force, meaning any man who joins the group, knows and approves of of all the atrocities they commit. Would you in all honesty be able to sleep soundly knowing that such people are out in the world?
We all regularly sleep soundly despite the knowledge that there are, regrettably, such people in the world.
“Indiscriminate.”
Your language is the same as Hitler used to justify his Final Solution, and I condemn both in the strongest possible way.
b&
So the European Jews of the Nazi era were brutal savages who roamed the German countryside, enslaving & raping German women and girls, beheading journalists & charity workers and slaughtering entire villages for not being in perfect compliance with their religion?
Oh wait!…they weren’t. Hooray for bullcrap comparisons!
Get this through your skull:
ISIS is an organization composed entirely of the most vile, savage & psychopathic fanatics that Islam has ever produced.
I say again what I said in my previous post, namely that the members of ISIS choose of their own free will to join the group. This means that they approve of all the disgusting things ISIS has done, is doing and will do.
You seems to think I want do destroy all Muslims, when I have clearly stated that it is ISIS that must be destroyed.
And, yet, despite the fact that your rhetoric has more support from objective facts, it remains that your language is the same as Hitler’s, and your Final Solution every bit as atrocious as his.
We are civilized not because we have good excuses for the terrible deeds we indulge in; we are civilized because we refrain from terrible deeds even when we’re convinced we have the moral justification to excuse them.
b&
“And, yet, despite the fact that your rhetoric has more support from objective facts…”
So you admit that my analysis of the situation and how to resolve it, is correct and supported by evidence?
“…it remains that your language is the same as Hitler’s, and your Final Solution every bit as atrocious as his.”
Hitler wanted the Jews, an entire ethnic group, of Europe exterminated on the basis of delusional racial theories and ludicrous, trumped up crimes.
ISIS is a barbaric group of psychotic, genocidal theocrats and is guilty of the worst possible crimes against humanity imaginable and they make every effort to publicize the atrocities.
Also unlike the Jews, who are born into their ethnic group, ISIS members willingly join the vile organization, while fully aware of its nature and activities.
I don’t see how you can think that there is any equivalency between Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, an entirely innocent group, and my desire to see ISIS, a group guilty of the worst crimes imaginable, wiped out. I can’t fathom how any person can possibly be this obtuse and/or lacking in moral judgement.
I’m beginning to think that you are simply a troll getting his jollies by trying to piss off and/or frustrate people commenting here.
I admit no such thing.
There can be no justification for the atrocities you advocate. Your complaint can be perfectly based in reality or pure fabrication; genocide is still inexcusable.
You must be new here.
Oh, wait — you are.
I’m not.
Those who’ve been here for a while are fully aware of my pacifism. And, yes, there are those who find it frustrating. But small children are also frustrated when they get sent to time out for throwing a tantrum.
b&
Ben, as a long-time regular I’m wondering which of us are you saying are like small children throwing tantrums?
Isn’t it obvious that Negasta is the one clamoring to smash everything in sight?
b&
The complete comment reads as if referring to some of “those who’ve been here for a while”.
What is more evil? Letting ISIS run rampant through the Middle-East or acting to stop them?
I think we all know what the answer of the people suffering under ISIS would be. Pacifism is great when you and those you hold dear don’t have your neck on the chopping block, but try telling the Yazidis and other Iraqi minorities that resistance is immoral.
One the topic of tantrums, I’ll just point out that I’m not the one who started flinging Hitler comparisons around. Please tell me where my tantrum was thrown.
Lastly, you don’t seem to know what the word genocide actually means. Under all the definitions I have been able to find, the destruction of ISIS would not be classified as genocide.
You seem to think that the destruction of ISIS is something that lies within the capability of Western military forces in a manner that does not include weapons of mass destruction or similar piecemeal devastation with vast quantities of lesser munitions. Destruction of ISIS, in the real world, can only mean the destruction of Iraq and Syria.
The only place where non-genocidal destruction of ISIS exists is in children’s superhero comic book fantasies and Tea Party talking points memos…not that there’s any discernible difference between the two….
b&
“Like the Waffen SS, ISIS is an all volunteer force,”
You sure of that? I’m sure I’ve seen news reports of young ISIS fighters who have deserted/been captured and have told of being ‘conscripted’ and forced into fighting.
If that were not the case, i.e. if all of ISIS were voluntary, and IF it were possible to kill every single one of them at a stroke and without massive ‘collateral damage’ (which it regrettably isn’t), then I’d say ‘go to it’. It’s no more than ISIS would do to anyone else.
I suspect they are lying to save their skins.
The deserters, too?
“The deserters, too?”
They realized the life of Jihadi wasn’t as glorious as the ISIS recruiters made it out to be and decided to sneak away and pretend nothing happened.
“They realized the life of Jihadi wasn’t as glorious as the ISIS recruiters made it out to be and decided to sneak away and pretend nothing happened.”
This could well be the case. No large organisation is ever truly homogeneous and monolithic. Some of the volunteers may have been motivated by idealism – at one time, remember, fighting Assad seemed to be the truly right thing to do – and they may well have been appalled by the extremism of some elements of ISIS. In fact I kinda regret suggesting that it would be okay to magically zap all of ISIS if they were all volunteers – I’d amend that comment to “It’s no more than *some of* ISIS would do to anyone else”.
Here is an x-jihadist telling about his motives and the process of recruitment.
Maajid Nawaz is now a strong voice for moderate Muslims.
/www.npr.org/2015/01/15/377442344/how-orwells-animal-farm-led-a-radical-muslim-to-moderation
I think your idea of extermination of ISIS is the policy in place now except that it is limited to air attack which makes it a bit feeble. Perhaps you are suggesting a ground war with U.S. troops (newsspeak: troops on the ground ). That leads us to a different set of possibilities, some of which are not too desirable.
Agreed. Right now this country has no desire to get involved in another land war in the mid-east. If this was 15 years ago it would be very different, and very much f***ed up.
The key here is that human nature should engender revenge as an instinctive emotion if it leads to better chances of survival. I suspect that this is the case, as it would help to ward off breeding rivals. Pair this with our more modern socialization which encourages a larger context and you end up with a personal conflict. I think all of us feel this. Except Clint Eastwood types.
I have never been able to bring myself to watch one of those beheadings, but I didn’t find these images disturbing. A video could probably have been pretty disturbing though.
I think it is stretching to say that one cannot be a good Muslim and also a good person, but I think there is something about the personalities of fundamentalists (of all religions) that precludes compatibility with civilization.
Rather than the aftermath of colonization, I blame the existence of Western civilization itself for the rise of extremism. It seems obvious to me that the internet and the free access to information and entertainment is poison to religion. Jews are largely secular, and non-fundamentalist Christians have already abandoned vast swaths of scripture as obsolete and inoperative.
It is my opinion that fear of enlightenment is the driving force behind both Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism.
That’s an interesting take on the situation.
The problem with the enlightenment is that it’s not very clear what it stood for. For instance communism is sometimes defined as part of the enlightenment and sometimes as an anti-enlightenment movement.
If we look at the slogan Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, I would say that Islam is only low on Liberté.
I saw once a Chechen Islamic leader say that it was a clash between open and closed societies. He said literally “We don’t want an open society”.
At least it’s somewhat better defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society
There’s an interesting article in The Australian along these lines; that Islam found itself unable to change in the face of Enlightenment &c., as other religions have, so has re asserted itself along its original statist lines.
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Link: Islam cannot disown jihadists driven by rage against history
A good read, thanks.
The NYT just sent a special report with info on the Charlie Hebdo killers. The 2 men were radicalized by the images of Abu Ghraib when the US tortured people there. We have a lot to answer for…
Well I’m radicalised by seeing two men killing the staff of a newspaper whose only crime was publishing pics of Mohommad. But, don’t worry, I’m not about to go on a shooting spree, because I don’t have a book telling me that is what I should do.
Not to excuse US atrocities, but were there no Abu Graib, I’m confident jihadi recruiters have plenty of material to work with – if our hands were clean and had never gone to war with Muslims, there is plenty in our culture to propagandize. But there is no excuse for handing them big fat awfulness to rally around.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but how about you finish that thought?
The torture of Muslims by the US has set a match to the tinder of Islamic fundamentalism.
In other words, “Kill us, we deserve it”.
Yes, of course, it’s all the fault of the US. It’s not as if Islamic fundamentalism has any internal dynamic of its own, like, for example, a divine imperative to conquer and convert the entire world. If it wasn’t for George W. Bush the whole Islamic world would be an idyllic paradise of pluralism, democracy and kitten-cuddling.
Yes, of course, it’s all the fault of the US.
Where did he say it was ALL the fault of the US? And where did he say the whole Islamic world would be an idyllic paradise of pluralism, democracy and kitten-cuddling if it wasn’t for Bush?
Can’t he make the point that US foreign policy has likely exacerbated the situation unduly, without being strawmanned into making ALL or NOTHING claims?
Exactly what I meant. Thank you. (btw, I’m a female)
So 9/11 happened after Abu Ghraib? Who knew? Certainly no Islamic Fundamentalism before then. Nope. Hmmm, you might want to rethink that.
Yes, I think it is a convenient excuse to kill for one reason like seeing th US torture people but how does that justify killing people who had nothing to do with the torture unless your belief system helps you dehumanize all those who are the other.
It would be strange to imagine a group of women slaughtering men because they saw a U.S. politician speak about “legitimate rape” and have other men proclaim that it is understandable that the women reacted in such a manner given how women have been marginalized for generations.
And, what did the pigeons do to deserve being burned to death? L
I know I thought that was just as violent and horrendous. Perhaps I am a sheltered Westerner, in fact, I know I must be because I’ve tried to keep I that way, but I can’t abide cruelty to any animal (including humans).
If we’re going with the flame analogy, let’s be a little more accurate…
Bush/Cheney and Company threw a can of gasoline into a burning building. The flames got worse, but the building was already on fire.
And *one* of the reasons for which the building was burning, but not the only one, was previous “adventures” on the part of the US government …
What two men, the dead ones? I wonder how they came to that determination. Can you link the article, I’d like to read it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdohtml?emc=edit
(hope the link works!)
Nope.
Arrgh! http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdo.html?emc=edit
The link didn’t work, but the article doesn’t say the Paris attacks are a result of Abu Ghraib, only that one of them used that as excuse in a failed attack ten years ago.
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Sub
It is fairly correct to say that many of the problems in the U.S. are due to religion and it goes beyond the rights of gay people to marry or a woman to have some control over her own body and other pretty normal events. If we ignore all the major factors such as climate change, etc. and lose everything it will also be because of religion.
It therefore should take no great leap to figure out that Islam is the primary and secondary problem in many of the Islamic states. Do they live in stone age conditions because some western country may have once intruded? Only the stupid could believe such a tail. The religion and all it’s ugly conditions is the cause now and for what becomes of them. The fact that you might come across some very nice Muslims has nothing to do with this.
I recommend reading the excellent ‘The Pigeon Wars of Damascus’ by the Canadian-Polish poet and essayist (now resident in London) Marius Kociejowski. It is a beautifully written travel book that gives a good account of the importanced of pigeon-keeping in certain Arab countries, and how over the centuries it has been the subject of governmental as well as religiously-inspired suppression.
” . . . the importanced of pigeon-keeping in certain Arab countries….”
I gather that no one has been executed for falcon-keeping.
Oh, grow up. No, nobody has been executed, so far as I know, for keeping falcons, since that was was and is confined to the ruling class, but pigeon-keeping, has for reasons I’m not going to go into (read the book if you have the sort of open mind that wants to learn something about other cultures as opposed to being the kind of mind that wants to remain stuck in its simple prejudices) has been subject to sanctions for centuries (as has been, for not quite the same reasons, the keeping of crickets in China).
Why did Filippo deserve the “Oh, grow up” comment? I think the point you made was what he had in mind; that there is a double standard.
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Exactly! I thought that was pretty clear.
All right! Mea culpa once again! Apologies to Filippo. I’m a little too often too quick off the mark.
Easy to do, here; so much to keep up with!
Fundamental problem is the fundament of the faith: Islam = submission. It is this submission that defeats reason, humanity, kindness, decency, love, truth. The more Muslim you are the more you are in submission to the authority of scripture, along with various levels and schools of hadith, sharia, blah blah blah. Tragic. There is little, if any, hope that a religion so profoundly based on the principle of submission can ever reform itself, and no one else can.
And what are the first 3 letters of “pigeon”?
No matter how often these stories of atrocities appear in the news, I can never get used to them.
One thing is clear — the one things these extremists are driven by and truly worship are bloodlust and power. There is no respect for any form of life, nor any form of common decency. It is something most vile and sickening.
…*two things*
Op-Ed in Tennessee student paper entitled “Charlie Hebdo Attack Proves Critics Are Right About Islam” sparks protest against “hate speech” by a faculty member …
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/01/17/vanderbilt-students-rally-against-hate-speech/21923135/
… In which a student is quoted as saying the protest is not about the person who wrote the article. I haven’t read the offending piece, but there is every chance what the professor wrote is not hateful; the article does not seem to provide a link or representative excepts. I love that the rally is not “about” the person who prompted it: nothing is ever what it is about these days, especially Islamic violence which is not Islamic of course, so I guess it makes perfect sense that protests are prompted by things people didn’t actually say.
Ah, I’d seen those images going past in passing, but hadn’t seen associated context.
I’d say they’ve reached a new low, except that it’s not particularly new (the Defenestrations of Prague, anyone) or particularly low (it’s quicker than some countries that apply paralytics to the people they’re murdering, to stop their thrashing from upsetting the witnesses).
For once, I have to disagree with you. I agree that US executions are moderately barbaric, but at least they were punishment for real, major crimes and the victims did go through due process of law (even if the law, as we know, got it wrong in a small but still much too high percentage of cases).
ISIS’ victims were executed – murdered – in an equally barbaric way, I would say – far more so in the case of the reported stoning – and for _no frickin’ crime whatsoever_.
No, Aidan’s got it spot on. The so-called justice system pretty clearly is more interested in human sacrifice to placate public appetites for vengeance, and impoverished black men are the preferred meat for the grinder.
Yes, it’s quite likely that at least some of the victims of the state committed the crimes the state has accused them of committing, but that’s clearly at the bottom of the list of criteria by which they’re selected.
And the method of execution is particularly excruciating and gruesome, on top of it all. Making it a fake medical procedure adds all sorts of layers of perversion, to boot.
This is one case where the US is down there in the gutter with ISIS and Saudi Arabia, to our horrific shame.
…and that’s before we go anywhere near the “special detention facilities” where we torture people not even for our stated reasons of “extracting” “intelligence,” but for all the reasons in 1984.
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I see another of those, love to read it, articles in the Time magazine by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and what else could he call it but — Paris was not about Religion.
Oh no….religion had nothing to do with it and it is just a shame that most westerners seem to attach the terror and killing to this religion. It’s just a bunch of thugs, kind of like a bad gang that do crime.
And being a Muslim, he would know this. Only the misinformed non Muslims would not.
Not sure how delusional you can get from this religion but Kareem is absolutely there.
There’s times when I think the only solution is to rev up that World War II spirit, get Russia in on this, and annihilate them. But, it would be a temporary solution and who knows what could fill the void. Then the other side says we’re gonna have to just let this play out, let the slow, agonizing process of social change occur, and roll with the punches. But unlike the several hundred years of Christian change, I’m not sure we can afford to wait for the Islam Enlightenment with nuclear weapons around. So if I had to make a decision tonight, I’d take my chances and put those boots on the ground in the Islamic State.
Trouble with that boots on the Ground stuff is we have been there and done that, several times. It most certainly has not worked.
When the hole keeps getting deeper we must look in a different direction and that probably includes helping Islam help itself.
I know. That’s the problem. Can’t predict the size of the Hydra’s new head, but I’m willing to take the chance. Even if it means a 51st state.
You’re right about having been there and done that with no results to show for it. But maybe the problem is that the West is compelled to use asymmetrical warfare in order to fight a “moral” war. In world war 2 the gloves were off. Nazi Germany was viewed as an existential threat and morals went out the window in the effort to defeat them. The West used every conceivable option it had to win the war with no concern for how it might be judged. A war against Islamic radicals could be won, but only if these terrorists posed an existential threat to the West. Right now, I don’t think most people see it as an existential threat, except for Israel maybe. The irony is that that if ISIS and its like became too successful, and actually posed an existential threat to western civilization, it would probably lead to its own doom.
I was just thinking about how France and England lost about a million men in just the first few months of world war 1. Such losses are unthinkable today but they actually ended up winning that war. These nations felt like they were fighting a war they could not afford to lose. Modern nation states can endure tremendous losses and still win wars but the public, as it is today, would not accept those losses unless the war effort was viewed as being an existential fight. I think these Muslim states have been emboldened by what they perceive as western weakness, but they’ve never seen a West that feels truly threatened, they’ve only seen the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to western military might. They’re really playing with fire. But maybe we are too. I don’t know.
The Pope should be happy. Pigeon breeding, if it insults religious sensitivities, and obviously it does, then bring on the righteous retribution.
This, to my mind, and I’ve been saying it for years is due to endless cow-towing to religion and religious beliefs. Support for so called moderate belief gives deep grounded support and rationale for belief in the fantasy being that allows this mode of thinking.
It is mostly Islam now, but they are all rotten in the core, from the the mildest to to worst.
The tacit approval of the moderate is a tacit approval of this extreme kind of ‘gods will’. It must all be stopped.
Doesn’t islam clearly say that you may only kill an animal in self defence, or for food/clothing? So killing the pidgeos is against islam and the prophets teaching! But off course, these people only care about islam when it can be used to oppress people and for own gain.
Obviously I think its worse that they kill the breeders, but I guess it might be okay to kill them if they rather breed their pidgeon than “fight for allah and the calliphate”.
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Oh Religious just go away.. havent you done enough harm already??
*Religion … (doh)
And the slaughter continues.
From memory the Iranian authorities also throw gay men from tall buildings? And/or hang them.
Pigeons, really?! Just when I thought ISIS and islam cannot possibly get any more crazy and cannot possibly invent more reasons to kill people. And then it happens. Sharia law is wonderful isn’t it.
If current trends continue, the muslim population in the UK will reach 50% by 2060 and then sharia will be the law for everybody, not just muslims. It is time to wake up.