Fux Freakout

[Off_White]

In virtually every conflict, the warring parties have recourse to the same weapons and make use of very similar tactics

 

That's absolutely untrue in recent history, say the last 30 years or so. The thing that shocks everyone about terrorism is that a small number of people with unsophisticated weaponry can have a big impact that our billions and billions of dollars worth of high tech military widgetry cannot stop.

[Lucky Larry]

In virtually every conflict, the warring parties have recourse to the same weapons and make use of very similar tactics

 

That's absolutely untrue in recent history, say the last 30 years or so. The thing that shocks everyone about terrorism is that a small number of people with unsophisticated weaponry can have a big impact that our billions and billions of dollars worth of high tech military widgetry cannot stop.

 

It's called gasoline.

[Lucky Larry]

Mustafa Kemal Attaturk wasn't authoritarian?

even if you're living in an autonomous collective, if your name is "mustafa" there's a good chance you'll ending up calling the shots by weeks end

 

MUST'AFA DONE IT NOW!

[Lucky Larry]

The fact that second generation Muslims who have spent the entirety of their lives in liberal Western democracies have been conspicuous participants in terror plots all over the world also negates this thesis. Ditto for western converts with no ancestral or cultural connection to the middle east whatsoever.

Terror including bombing of peaceful crowds is a tactic that has been used throughout time, including today by judeo-christians. You should consider reading some history.

 

There were multiple parties using explosives in, say, France that killed civilians from '40-45. Clearly there's no means by which one can differentiate the various actors based on the ends they were pursuing if they all used explosive weaponry to achieve them.

 

I fail to see how your answer addresses the fact that all culture/religions have used terror in the recent past, which points to your singling out Muslims as thinly veiled islamophobia.

 

I clearly see how your "Hey - other people use explosives in ways that have killed people" demonstrates a massive incapacity to make elementary distinctions between physically equivalent acts.

 

Let's suppose that there had been a plot by a cell of Ted Kacynski's disciples to fly airplanes into the WTC, the Pentagon, and Congress and in each and every case radical Islamists had fought their way into the cockpits and managed to get their hands on the flight controls at the last moment with the intention of steering the planes away from buildings holding thousands of civilians that they inadvertently flew the planes into.

 

There would be no physical difference between this scenario and what actually happened on 9/11. But anyone - other than a relativist progressive - could clearly ascertain a massive moral difference between the actions of the radical Islamists that flew the planes into the buildings with the intention of slaughering as many civilians as possible, and the fictional Islamists who tried to steer the planes away from the buildings in an effort to spare as many civilians as possible.

 

In virtually every conflict, the warring parties have recourse to the same weapons and make use of very similar tactics, but if one group is employing the said weapons and tactics with the intention of constructing a totalitarian slave-state that they can use as a launching pad for a global genocide campaign, and the other is using the same tactics to secure a liberal democratic order then it's quite possible to make moral distinctions between them. Do you find it impossible to pick sides in the US civil war?

 

Even if your claim were true that all cultures and religions had employed violence and terror to further their aims in the recent past, it would still be possible to make moral distinctions between them based on the frequency, depravity, and magnitude of such actions and the ends which they were attempting to secure with them.

 

Your other claims about "Judeo Christian" armies employing various tactics is another example of an incapacity to make elementary distinctions. An army fielded by a secular, democratic republic in which the majority of the citizens happen to be Christian and which hasn't been fielded to advance any particular religious enterprise is something entirely different from a group composed exclusively of of religious zealots that uses violent tactics in accordance with or in an effort to advance a particular religious end.

 

God Bless Amirical.

[Kimmo]

Do you find it impossible to pick sides in the US civil war?

 

It does trouble me that the above displays your level of commitment to any semblance of true understanding regarding suicide bombings.

 

you truly give the impression that you have completely and unequivocally decided that islam is the absolute source of the problem, and this myopia allows you not even to entertain other notions. am i correct with this assertion?

 

Michael Scheuer was a CIA analyst who led the hunt for bin laden; he might be interesting reading for you.

[Kimmo]

i also recall that one point your proposed solution to this problem was to build a wall around the region.

 

 

[JayB]

In virtually every conflict, the warring parties have recourse to the same weapons and make use of very similar tactics

 

That's absolutely untrue in recent history, say the last 30 years or so. The thing that shocks everyone about terrorism is that a small number of people with unsophisticated weaponry can have a big impact that our billions and billions of dollars worth of high tech military widgetry cannot stop.

 

Not sure how this renders making moral distinctions between the parties impossible for rational people.

 

The key criterion is whether the check on your capacity to deliberately slaughter as many civilians as possible is technical or moral.

 

If you have the technical capacity to inflict unlimited casualties on civilian populations but moral constraints prevent you from doing so, this is quite different than operating in a moral framework in which your intention is to kill as many civilians as possible to achieve your ends but technical constraints prevent you from doing so.

 

 

[Hugh Conway]

Not sure how this renders making moral distinctions between the parties impossible for rational people.

 

The key criterion is whether the check on your capacity to deliberately slaughter as many civilians as possible is technical or moral.

 

If you have the technical capacity to inflict unlimited casualties on civilian populations but moral constraints prevent you from doing so, this is quite different than operating in a moral framework in which your intention is to kill as many civilians as possible to achieve your ends but technical constraints prevent you from doing so.

 

:lmao:

 

reducto ad absurdum

 

[tvashtarkatena]

You invade Iraq.

 

Suicide bombing, which never occurred there before, is now rampant.

 

Who to blame?

 

Complicated world.

[tvashtarkatena]

Stand by for some real fun and games....

 

Ouch....

 

A true psychopath in action.

[Hugh Conway]

Yeah, but he's a rich psychopath. Like billions rich. So he's better than us n' stuff.

[JayB]

i also recall that one point your proposed solution to this problem was to build a wall around the region.

 

 

Really? Don't remember that - but I'd be interested in reading that. I do remember thinking that at the end of the day they'll have to hash out whatever endogenous conflicts persist within their own societies and there's not a whole lot that exogenous actors will be able to do to exert a decisive influence on how they get settled.

 

With regards to Islam and suicide bombing, it's quite impossible to look at the prevalence and distribution of the tactic and conclude that there's no connection between the two. I find it quite amusing when people who get upset with right wingers who are unwilling to accept the statistical association between C02 concentration and temperature in the historical record become apoplectic when anyone looks at the association between the deliberate, targeted slaughter of civilians and the motives of those who engage in them and find a consistent empirical connection between these acts and a commitment to Islamist ideology.

 

The word Islamist is key. Clearly this doesn't encompass the entirety of Islam, but it neatly encompasses the strain responsible for virtually all transnational terrorism for the past 30 years, and seems to be at work in just about all of the factional violence within predominately Muslim countries. Whatever Islamism is, it's impossible to claim that Islamists draw on none of the central tenets of Islam to guide and justify their actions.

 

It's more than a bit dismaying to hear the same folks who go on and on about the importance of nuance, touting their own sophisticated grasp of all of the permutations of the faith, etc responding to every criticism of Islamism in a manner that suggests that criticizing Islamists is an indictment of Sufism, etc.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading through the Pew survey.

[prole]

i also recall that one point your proposed solution to this problem was to build a wall around the region.

 

Really? Don't remember that - but I'd be interested in reading that. I do remember thinking that at the end of the day they'll have to hash out whatever endogenous conflicts persist within their own societies and there's not a whole lot that exogenous actors will be able to do to exert a decisive influence on how they get settled.

 

Just theoretical walls, apparently...

[billcoe]

Just theoretical walls, apparently...

Will they keep the theoretical bombs out?

[j_b]

The key criterion is whether the check on your capacity to deliberately slaughter as many civilians as possible is technical or moral.

 

You don't understand what is terrorism. Terror is rarely practiced to kill and maim as many civilians as possible, it's done to murder and maim some civilians in the most public and gruesome fashion possible to incite a) fear and/or b) a totalitarian reaction from the attacked entities thereby exposing internal contradictions. Civilians slaughters and destruction of civilian infrastructure have become a sine qua none part of all modern warfare, whether or not one issues official incantation of restraint in the use of violence toward civilians.

[prole]

The word Islamist is key. Clearly this doesn't encompass the entirety of Islam, but it neatly encompasses the strain responsible for virtually all transnational terrorism for the past 30 years, and seems to be at work in just about all of the factional violence within predominately Muslim countries. Whatever Islamism is, it's impossible to claim that Islamists draw on none of the central tenets of Islam to guide and justify their actions.

 

Have you considered the possibility that, for all intents and purposes, the connection between the existence of ancient texts and contemporary violence might be entirely irrelevant with regards to actually dealing with any of the issues? Or are you starting a "Burn Every Koran On Earth And Invent One Of Those Memory Wiper Thingies From Men In Black To Use On Every Muslim" Facebook page?

[tvashtarkatena]

Strawman alert! No one has claimed that there is no connection between Islam and suicide bombing. No shit, Sherlock.

 

The primary human motivations for suicide bombing are the need to do something heroic, like repel a foreign occupier, and/or revenge for perceived or real humiliation and violence. Islam may provide the stoke, in some cases, but not the basic motivation.

 

Your focus on the religion itself reveals a basic lack of understanding of the fundamental problem stemming from a basically ignorant American viewpoint, and thus provides no path towards a solution. This bright idea of 'fighting Islam' has done nothing more than to increase the insult...and thus the desire for revenge.

 

The results of such ignorance? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

We shouldn't be there. Not then, not now.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2011 by tvashtarkatena

[Kimmo]

Really? Don't remember that - but I'd be interested in reading that.

 

a new wall of hadrian, i believe your prescription was. your comment was probably a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it was the only answer you came up with when asked what you thought the "solution" to the problem was (forgive me, i have a photographic memory!).

 

 

With regards to Islam and suicide bombing, it's quite impossible to look at the prevalence and distribution of the tactic and conclude that there's no connection between the two. I find it quite amusing when people who get upset with right wingers who are unwilling to accept the statistical association between C02 concentration and temperature in the historical record become apoplectic when anyone looks at the association between the deliberate, targeted slaughter of civilians and the motives of those who engage in them and find a consistent empirical connection between these acts and a commitment to Islamist ideology.

 

have i ever said there is "no connection" between islamist thought and "suicide" bombers? certainly there seems to be; i simply cannot fathom how one could develop a rational viewpoint that emphasizes this aspect over what i believe to be the much stronger role of economic inequality, lack of political participation, foreign bombs killing your family etc etc. if you had a foreign occupier's tanks sitting outside your house year after year, propping up a political system that protects a select few who have no accountability to you or your countrymen, all the while keeping your country's resources for their benefit only, you might consider any methods available as a way to fight back. maybe?

 

It's more than a bit dismaying to hear the same folks who go on and on about the importance of nuance, touting their own sophisticated grasp of all of the permutations of the faith, etc responding to every criticism of Islamism in a manner that suggests that criticizing Islamists is an indictment of Sufism, etc.

 

agreed. although i suppose this might be more a reflection of the polarization of the argument.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading through the Pew survey.

 

yes i did.

 

hope you enjoyed reading scheurer.

[JayB]

Really? Don't remember that - but I'd be interested in reading that.

 

a new wall of hadrian, i believe your prescription was. your comment was probably a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it was the only answer you came up with when asked what you thought the "solution" to the problem was (forgive me, i have a photographic memory!).

 

 

With regards to Islam and suicide bombing, it's quite impossible to look at the prevalence and distribution of the tactic and conclude that there's no connection between the two. I find it quite amusing when people who get upset with right wingers who are unwilling to accept the statistical association between C02 concentration and temperature in the historical record become apoplectic when anyone looks at the association between the deliberate, targeted slaughter of civilians and the motives of those who engage in them and find a consistent empirical connection between these acts and a commitment to Islamist ideology.

 

have i ever said there is "no connection" between islamist thought and "suicide" bombers? certainly there seems to be; i simply cannot fathom how one could develop a rational viewpoint that emphasizes this aspect over what i believe to be the much stronger role of economic inequality, lack of political participation, foreign bombs killing your family etc etc. if you had a foreign occupier's tanks sitting outside your house year after year, propping up a political system that protects a select few who have no accountability to you or your countrymen, all the while keeping your country's resources for their benefit only, you might consider any methods available as a way to fight back. maybe?

 

It's more than a bit dismaying to hear the same folks who go on and on about the importance of nuance, touting their own sophisticated grasp of all of the permutations of the faith, etc responding to every criticism of Islamism in a manner that suggests that criticizing Islamists is an indictment of Sufism, etc.

 

agreed. although i suppose this might be more a reflection of the polarization of the argument.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading through the Pew survey.

 

yes i did.

 

hope you enjoyed reading scheurer.

 

What evidence do you have that suggests that the strongest determinant of engaging in politically motivated violence that deliberately focuses on vulnerable civilian targets is primarily inspired by either material privation or political repression?

There's lots of both in the world - but I don't think the simple connection between the two that you are positing actually exists.

Ditto for the other factors.

 

I've addressed this before by noting the absence of Arab/Persian/Pakistani, christians, jews, secularist, etc participation in these tactics, participation by people who either no longer live under these conditions or have never experienced either as a result of living all of their lives in prosperous western democracies, etc but have never heard you address any of those objections your own thoughts on how to account for them.

 

What part of the repression/poverty framework explains the desire to murder people who are completely outside of the religion, both geographically and ideologically, who violate Muslim religious taboos? I think Seattle's own Molly Norris would be interested in learning more about that one? How do you explain the likes of Adam Gahan and John Walker Lindh in that framework?

 

It may be that you can't understand the phenomenon of Islamist violence taking poverty and repression into account, but it's far from clear that these two variables represent a complete picture of the phenomenon. You certainly can't understand it at all by removing the set of doctrines, convictions, etc that constitute Islam from the picture entirely, much less pretending that you'd have the same outcome if Jainism had been the predominant religion in the region for the past ~1400 years.

 

 

 

 

[j_b]

JayB still dodges the question of what makes "suicide bombing" more abhorrent than "bombing and getting away with it".

 

Isn't laughing it up at the pool after the deed more disgusting in some twisted relative way?

[Hugh Conway]

duh, suicide bombers are poor

[prole]

It may be that you can't understand the phenomenon of Islamist violence taking poverty and repression into account, but it's far from clear that these two variables represent a complete picture of the phenomenon. You certainly can't understand it at all by removing the set of doctrines, convictions, etc that constitute Islam from the picture entirely, much less pretending that you'd have the same outcome if Jainism had been the predominant religion in the region for the past ~1400 years.

 

And it seems that you can't explain why there aren't, right now, whores being stoned in the streets of Paris or witches being burned at the stake in Boston or Jews being tortured by the Grand Inquisitor in Madrid simply by appealing to Christian texts. What you are at pains to ignore, as is Sam Harris in the video you posted, is that the waxing and waning of religious violence is largely a matter of historical forces operating independently of what people read in 1200 year old books.

[prole]

There are whores getting stoned in the streets of Paris right now however...

[tvashtarkatena]

I would kind of have a problem with a bunch of foreigners rolling into to town, setting up check points, kicking doors down, dragging people away, and throwing them into rivers to drown.

 

Yeah...maybe just a little problem with that.

 

But hey...ALLAH AKBAR! or whatev...

[tvashtarkatena]

If one steps back and counts 'insults, injuries and deaths' inflicted by all parties in, say, Iraq, rather than just 'suicide bombings', one gets a more accurate picture of how we got here and where we might be headed.

 

This is not the kind of analysis you'll from in the Islamophobic set, of course, they have no suggested solutions other than the uber successful 'buy love/whack a mole' strategy that has produced such stellar results after 8 years of really, really expensive war. Such an analysis would involve a cultural and political inquisitiveness regarding all players...not exactly a trait the Right's exhibited so far.