France: Charlie Hebdo shootings

[buctootim]

He's being intellectually disingenuous by focusing on Muslims alone. It's like the last few hundred years of interaction with the West never happened.

 

Fúck his detail. It's what he doesn't say that is most interesting.

 

You're being intellectually incapable, again. The vast majority of the people the ideologues kill are fellow Muslims from the 'wrong' branch. The west is a small side show. The problem is within Islam, but not with Islam as a whole.

[pap]

You're being intellectually incapable, again. The vast majority of the people the ideologues kill are fellow Muslims from the 'wrong' branch. The west is a small side show. The problem is within Islam, but not with Islam as a whole.

 

That's not what this thread is about though, is it? It's all about the interaction of the Islamic and Western parts of the world, in this case, manifested in the violence we've seen in France.

 

Maybe Verbal was being intellectually incapable when he forgot about all those interactions I was referring to, but I doubt that. Having the usual suspects validate his content doesn't make it any less insidious.

[View From The Top]

^^

 

Brought to you by the Israeli government.

 

Does hasbara pay as well as your propaganda for the British government?

 

Verbal is actually bang on the money.

[pap]

Verbal is actually bang on the money.

 

I'm not going to dispute many of the points he has made, but his contribution is entirely one-sided and doesn't acknowledge other factors. This'll be one of those reasons that in court, people have to promise to tell the whole truth, and not just the bits that make them look good. It is a selective appraisal of the situation which wilfully ignores huge contributing factors in order to internalise the problem to Islam. As I said, insidious.

[shurlock]

I'm not going to dispute many of the points he has made, but his contribution is entirely one-sided and doesn't acknowledge other factors. This'll be one of those reasons that in court, people have to promise to tell the whole truth, and not just the bits that make them look good. It is a selective appraisal of the situation which wilfully ignores huge contributing factors in order to internalise the problem to Islam. As I said, insidious.

 

It's also grossly simplistic on its own terms as if the history of Saudi foreign policy, for instance, can be reduced to the state-sponsored export of ultra-aggressive Wahhabism or its relationship with Osama Bin Laden, at least in his Al Qaeda phase, was an ideological match made in heaven.

Edited 18 January, 2015 by shurlock

[pap]

It's also grossly simplistic on its own terms as if the history of Saudi foreign policy, for instance, can be reduced to the state-sponsored export of Wahhabism or its relationship with Osama Bin Laden, at least in his Al Qaeda phase, was an ideological match made in heaven.

 

Oh aye. The cosy relationship with the West, a key component of Saudi foreign policy, and an enabler for much of the things he is complaining about is completely ignored. He also neglects to mention why the Saudis feel the need to sponsor extremist groups, which is imo, more about the external threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in its nascent revolutionary phase when its leaders were decrying the keepers of the holy sites as un-Islamic, than it is about tribal differences in the interior. Of course, all that might never have happened if the British and the US hadn't ousted Mossadegh in 1953.

 

So yeah, nice long post from Verbs there; impressed a few. Unlike the situation in the Middle East, it can be distilled into something more manageable and immediate.

 

I call if Wafalism.

Edited 17 January, 2015 by pap

[SarniaSaint]

Yeah, because that's how we solved the problems in Northern Ireland. Killing terrorists to death. Oh wait, that's a load of shít. Negotiation, truth, reconciliation and political bravery did all that. I suppose it didn't hurt that other countries were putting pressure on us to resolve the situation.

 

The frequency of your posts and their tone both suggest that you're both scared and ignorant. As a scion of a Muslim family, I find your wholesale labelling of the faith personally offensive. Yet as someone that has actually lost a good friend to Islamic extremists in Kabul, I still refuse to be as angry as you about it, and neither would he have been.

 

You're just spreading hate, possibly because you're scared, possibly because you're yet another racist crawling out of your foetid fúcking hole after being validated by all the twáttery on the news. Possibly both.

 

Whatever, I have no hesitation in placing you in moronic section of the British public. Read some history. I hope you get better.

 

Hey.....don't hold back .........at least we know where your allegiance lies.

[SarniaSaint]

He's being intellectually disingenuous by focusing on Muslims alone. It's like the last few hundred years of interaction with the West never happened.

 

Fúck his detail. It's what he doesn't say that is most interesting.

 

So tell us wise one what isn't he saying

[pap]

Hey.....don't hold back .........at least we know where your allegiance lies.

 

So tell us wise one what isn't he saying

Heh.

[SarniaSaint]

That a question?? or just saying Hi

[aintforever]

Oh aye. The cosy relationship with the West, a key component of Saudi foreign policy, and an enabler for much of the things he is complaining about is completely ignored. He also neglects to mention why the Saudis feel the need to sponsor extremist groups, which is imo, more about the external threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in its nascent revolutionary phase when its leaders were decrying the keepers of the holy sites as un-Islamic, than it is about tribal differences in the interior. Of course, all that might never have happened if the British and the US hadn't ousted Mossadegh in 1953.

 

So yeah, nice long post from Verbs there; impressed a few. Unlike the situation in the Middle East, it can be distilled into something more manageable and immediate.

 

I call if Wafalism.

 

Whatever effect western involvement has had throughout history doesn't make what he said incorrect.

[pap]

Whatever effect western involvement has had throughout history doesn't make what he said incorrect.

 

Ah, the pro bono defence finally turns up.

 

One question. How the fúck would you know?

[Orange]

I feel sorry for France, they have it even worse than us. Every year I go to Provenece and the segregation is huge there. When lefties say its a myth that ghettos and no go zones exist, they clearly haven't looked around the suburbs of places like Marseille. Muslims are having kids at a much higher average so France is slowly becoming more and more Islamic, and rightly so IMO the white French feel threatened.

 

The more I think of the thousands of European muslims fighting abroad the more terrifying it feels. Europe is now in an absurd position where we have a network of our own citezens across the continent who want to destroy us from within. For decades we've been told multiculturalism is the promised land and that we don't need strong cohesion and it doesn't matter if communities live completely separately and hold no notion of nationhood. One man tried to warn us but the elites didn't listen.

[View From The Top]

Oh aye. The cosy relationship with the West, a key component of Saudi foreign policy, and an enabler for much of the things he is complaining about is completely ignored. He also neglects to mention why the Saudis feel the need to sponsor extremist groups, which is imo, more about the external threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in its nascent revolutionary phase when its leaders were decrying the keepers of the holy sites as un-Islamic, than it is about tribal differences in the interior. Of course, all that might never have happened if the British and the US hadn't ousted Mossadegh in 1953.

 

So yeah, nice long post from Verbs there; impressed a few. Unlike the situation in the Middle East, it can be distilled into something more manageable and immediate.

 

I call if Wafalism.

 

You may not like it but Verbal is right. Yes the West has allowed Saudi to export it's ideals to other Muslim countries that have lead us to where we are today in return for the oil but the basic thrust of Verbals point is bang on.

[pap]

You may not like it but Verbal is right. Yes the West has allowed Saudi to export it's ideals to other Muslim countries that have lead us to where we are today in return for the oil but the basic thrust of Verbals point is bang on.

Mate, you've said the same thing twice, and I see no reason to duplicate my effort.

[shurlock]

You may not like it but Verbal is right. Yes the West has allowed Saudi to export it's ideals to other Muslim countries that have lead us to where we are today in return for the oil but the basic thrust of Verbals point is bang on.

 

What ideals are those? I agree aspects of the country are pretty unpleasant; but in foreign affairs, it is largely inward-focussing, keen on maintaining the status quo, sensitive to the benefits of industrialisation and Western technology while keen aware of its own vulnerability -whether to pan-Arab Nasserism, Communism or the designs of regional neighbours.

 

All this has had the effect constraining the extent to which it has sought to revise the international system in the way some on here believe. It also goes some way to explaining why the House of Saud has had to worry more about internal challenges (e.g. the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979). At times, it has diffused these threats by giving religious leaders more power which has pushed the regime in a more conservative direction. It is also true that it has played the Islamic values card in response to external ideological challenges, though ultimately not at the expense of its pragmatism.

 

As such, calls for an aggressive Islamist foreign policy have always rested on slender foundations. Afghanistan was a marriage of convenience between the anticommunism of the Saudis and Islamists who, at the time still saw themselves as supporting local, oppressed Muslims rather than spreading religious fundamentalism through violent jihad. Unsurprisingly, cracks in the relationship widened immediately and arguably irrevocably after the Cold War - see the Saudis refusal first to intervene in South Yemen, instead supporting the Saleh regime and then its preference for US military help during the invasion of Kuwait. If anything, it's been the official unwillingness to play ball that has fuelled extremism, not the other way round.

Edited 18 January, 2015 by shurlock

[View From The Top]

What ideals are those? I agree aspects of the country are pretty unpleasant; but in foreign affairs, it is largely inward-focussing, keen on maintaining the status quo, sensitive to the benefits of industrialisation and Western technology while keen aware of its own vulnerability -whether to pan-Arab Nasserism, Communism or the designs of regional neighbours.

 

All this has had the effect constraining the extent to which it has sought to revise the international system in the way some on here believe. It also goes some way to explaining why the House of Saud has had to worry more about internal challenges (e.g. the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979). At times, it has diffused these threats by giving religious leaders more power which has pushed the regime in a more conservative direction. It is also true that it has played the Islamic values card in response to external ideological challenges, though ultimately not at the expense of its pragmatism.

 

As such, calls for an aggressive Islamist foreign policy have always rested on slender foundations. Afghanistan was a marriage of convenience between the anticommunism of the Saudis and Islamists who, at the time still saw themselves as supporting local, oppressed Muslims rather than spreading religious fundamentalism through violent jihad. Unsurprisingly, cracks in the relationship widened immediately and arguably irrevocably after the Cold War - see the Saudis refusal first to intervene in South Yemen, instead supporting the Saleh regime and then its preference for US military help during the invasion of Kuwait. If anything, it's been the official unwillingness to play ball that has fuelled extremism, not the other way round.

 

Interesting viewpoint, elements of which I agree with. I'll attempt to give a measured response tomorrow, too knackered tonight to do so properly.

[SarniaSaint]

Pap on the no fly list ........LO:L

[pap]

Pap on the no fly list ........LO:L

 

 

 

[OldNick]

 

 

 

is that the Palm, Monaco, or Miami? Or from a photo album of a East European party member of the 1970's

[pap]

is that the Palm, Monaco, or Miami? Or from a photo album of a East European party member of the 1970's

North Carolina. Top image is about 10 minutes old. Honestly couldn't tell you how many times I've been on a plane without doing some serious reconciliation with my expenses.

[Big Bad Bob]

What ideals are those? I agree aspects of the country are pretty unpleasant; but in foreign affairs, it is largely inward-focussing, keen on maintaining the status quo, sensitive to the benefits of industrialisation and Western technology while keen aware of its own vulnerability -whether to pan-Arab Nasserism, Communism or the designs of regional neighbours.

 

All this has had the effect constraining the extent to which it has sought to revise the international system in the way some on here believe. It also goes some way to explaining why the House of Saud has had to worry more about internal challenges (e.g. the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979). At times, it has diffused these threats by giving religious leaders more power which has pushed the regime in a more conservative direction. It is also true that it has played the Islamic values card in response to external ideological challenges, though ultimately not at the expense of its pragmatism.

 

As such, calls for an aggressive Islamist foreign policy have always rested on slender foundations. Afghanistan was a marriage of convenience between the anticommunism of the Saudis and Islamists who, at the time still saw themselves as supporting local, oppressed Muslims rather than spreading religious fundamentalism through violent jihad. Unsurprisingly, cracks in the relationship widened immediately and arguably irrevocably after the Cold War - see the Saudis refusal first to intervene in South Yemen, instead supporting the Saleh regime and then its preference for US military help during the invasion of Kuwait. If anything, it's been the official unwillingness to play ball that has fuelled extremism, not the other way round.

Maybe you could put a citation on this so we can read the rest of it ?

[Verbal]

What ideals are those? I agree aspects of the country are pretty unpleasant; but in foreign affairs, it is largely inward-focussing, keen on maintaining the status quo, sensitive to the benefits of industrialisation and Western technology while keen aware of its own vulnerability -whether to pan-Arab Nasserism, Communism or the designs of regional neighbours.

 

All this has had the effect constraining the extent to which it has sought to revise the international system in the way some on here believe. It also goes some way to explaining why the House of Saud has had to worry more about internal challenges (e.g. the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979). At times, it has diffused these threats by giving religious leaders more power which has pushed the regime in a more conservative direction. It is also true that it has played the Islamic values card in response to external ideological challenges, though ultimately not at the expense of its pragmatism.

 

As such, calls for an aggressive Islamist foreign policy have always rested on slender foundations. Afghanistan was a marriage of convenience between the anticommunism of the Saudis and Islamists who, at the time still saw themselves as supporting local, oppressed Muslims rather than spreading religious fundamentalism through violent jihad. Unsurprisingly, cracks in the relationship widened immediately and arguably irrevocably after the Cold War - see the Saudis refusal first to intervene in South Yemen, instead supporting the Saleh regime and then its preference for US military help during the invasion of Kuwait. If anything, it's been the official unwillingness to play ball that has fuelled extremism, not the other way round.

 

While some of this is undoubtedly true, it’s an unnecessarily narrow and partial view of the broader consequences of Saudi actions over the years. Focusing on Saudi ‘foreign policy’ gives you a neutered view of wider Saudi (state and private) influence, and one that’s demonstrably misleading. And I don’t know your source, but it’s plainly out of date. Pan-Arab ‘Nasserism’ has ceased to exist, and Communism was only ever an indirect threat – and never a regional one – before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The ‘designs of regional neighbours’ comes down to two countries: Iran and Israel – and of the two, Iran is far more significant, for the familiar reason: it’s the Shia powerhouse.

 

Saudi Arabia has sought, where it can, to buttress Sunni influence, notably in countries with already strong Sunni populations. Across the Arabian Gulf, the obvious example is Pakistan. Saudi Arabia is also not a nuclear power; Pakistan is – and the closeness of their ‘special relationship’ has given the Saudis a nuclear shield to balance (if that’s the word) the other two regional nuclear powers, Israel and Iran. (Stories have circulated for years that the Saudis were heavy investors in the Pakistani nuclear programme – all officially denied.)

 

But Saudi Arabia’s biggest influence in Pakistan has been in funding a process begun by the cartoonish dictator Zia ul-Haq called ‘Islamisation’. A more accurate description of this would be Wahhabification. I watched a lot of this happening when I first started travelling to Pakistan in the mid-1980s.

 

Aside from funding the King Faisal mosque in the heart of the capital Islamabad, the Saudis poured vast amounts of money into the construction of mosques and madrassas. Before the Saudis got their chequebook out, there were fewer than eight hundred madrassas in Pakistan, and these were confined mostly to the hinterland regions of the Tribal Areas and Kashmir. By 1997 there were twenty-seven thousand madrassas – all of them funded directly by the Saudis. Remember, all this has happened in a country that was – like Afghanistan before it –overwhelmingly influenced by Sufism, especially in the most populous region of Pakistan, the Indus Valley.

 

And the teachings in these madrassas - I’ve seen it myself – consist of two things and two things only: a rote learning of the Koran (in a language none of the children understand) and jihad. Children get this education free of charge, and so the madrassas have proved a magnet for a huge proportion of Pakistan’s population.

 

To judge the local effect of this Saudi financed transformation of the hearts and minds of Pakistan, you get some pretty damning and alarming insights from the Wikileaks documents. A cable, written in 2008 by Bryan Hunt, a US Consular official in Lahore, describes how it all works in the southern Punjab – where many jihadis, including the Mumbai attackers, were recruited.

 

Hunt describes a ‘jihadi recruitment network’ that had developed around the predominantly Sufi city of Multan. A note on word meanings: ‘Deobandi’ and ‘Ahl-e Hadith’ are Salafist extremist groups with a long but *****il recently) marginal history in Pakistan. He says:

 

The network reportedly exploited worsening poverty in …the province to recruit children into the…growing Deobandi and Ahl-eHadith madrassa network from which they were indoctrinated into jihadi philosophy, deployed to regional training/indoctrination centers, and ultimately sent to terrorist training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)…Locals believed…activities carried out by [these] organisations…were further strengthening reliance on extremist groups and minimizing the importance of traditionally moderate Sufi religious leaders in these communities.

 

As for the funding of this Salafist terrorist network, Hunt reports:

 

The initial success of establishing madrassas and mosques in these areas led to subsequent “donations” to these same [Deobandi and Ahl-e Hadith] clerics, originating in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

 

The “schooling” of children entrapped in these networks is characterised as follows:

 

“Children are denied contact with the outside world and taught sectarian extremism, hatred for non-Muslims, anti-Western/anti-Pakistan government philosophy.”

 

http://fpif.org/wikileaks_saudi-financed_madrassas_more_widespread_in_pakistan_than_thought/

 

With a focus only on Saudi “foreign policy” you’ll miss all this. There are other forces at irk outside the Saudi foreign ministry. And the impact has been huge. Given the size of the problem of Pakistan we tend to think it has deep roots in history. It doesn’t. The transformation of Pakistan into Jihadi Central has happened only in the last thirty years. Reversing it is equally possible – but only if the supply line of unlimited Saudi and UAE cash is cut off from Pakistan’s madrassas and someone invests in some good old fashioned schools – like the one Malala Yusufsai got shot for defending.

 

Just one example, just one country.

[View From The Top]

Cheers Verbal, saves me writing anything.

[buctootim]

North Carolina.

 

You should take a drive through the outer banks one weekend. Get the ferry from Cedar Island.

[pap]

Cheers Verbal, saves me writing anything.

Or getting shown up I look forward to your impending essay on the subject. Top work, teach! Maybe you should switch over to home economics. You might learn to save your own bacon then.

You should take a drive through the outer banks one weekend. Get the ferry from Cedar Island.

I keep meaning to get out of town more, but yeah, nice part of the world. I think Asheville is first on my list.

[buctootim]

Or getting shown up I look forward to your impending essay on the subject. Top work, teach! Maybe you should switch over to home economics. You might learn to save your own bacon then.

 

I keep meaning to get out of town more, but yeah, nice part of the world. I think Asheville is first on my list.

 

 

Asheville is good. Slightly alternative and arty. Try and drive some of the Blue Ridge Parkway if you can.

[pap]

Asheville is good. Slightly alternative and arty. Try and drive some of the Blue Ridge Parkway if you can.

My colleagues did that this weekend. However, they are clean living so didn't fancy it. Will probably do it in the summer if I come over.

 

In Winston-Salem at the moment which is arty, but still caters for rednecks.

[View From The Top]

Or getting shown up I look forward to your impending essay on the subject. Top work, teach! Maybe you should switch over to home economics. You might learn to save your own bacon then.

 

I keep meaning to get out of town more, but yeah, nice part of the world. I think Asheville is first on my list.

 

He put it more eloquently than me. I'm always happy to cede to superior knowledge on any topic.

 

I'm currently searching for an essay I wrote for my International Relations degree, way back when, about the Saudi decision to accept US support and troops in 1991*, something I was very interested in having served out there at the time and spent some time there in 91/92. Nothing ground breaking but had some great source info in it.

 

 

*Just found the one about the Politicisation and Ownership of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. God I read and wrote some guff.

Edited 19 January, 2015 by View From The Top

[Verbal]

Cheers Verbal, saves me writing anything.

 

De nada. I imagine you occasionally get to see some of the backwash of this - not such a long way from Mirpur to the Midlands.

[pap]

De nada. I imagine you occasionally get to see some of the backwash of this - not such a long way from Mirpur to the Midlands.

Such an utter fear monger.

 

Behave yourself.

[Verbal]

Such an utter fear monger.

 

Behave yourself.

 

Sitting self-satisfied behind your bank of computer screens I’m sure you imagine all kinds of people should ‘behave’.

 

But how about getting your own house in order?

 

Instead of declaring your love and affection for Left Unity, a body which two months ago seriously debated a motion that ISIS is – I quote, because I can barely believe it – a “progressive force”, why not find something worthwhile to support?

 

Given your self-declared ethnicity, how about “Pakistanis Protest Against Terrorism”, a campaign featuring demonstrations in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, London, Boston New York, Berlin, Perth and Nairobi from Pakistanis against the TTP, (Pakistani Taliban) mass murder of schoolchildren in Peshawar. “These terrorists have hijacked our religion,” they say, quite rightly.

 

But of course you won’t, because you can’t bear anything that doesn’t come with the rote incantation of “The West is to blame.” You say it like religious people say Amen at the end of prayers, and you happily accuse anyone who doesn’t as being in some sense an apologist for Bush or Blair or – a favourite theme – Israel. You say it because you can’t admit of complexity – that the world just isn’t as “simple” (your word) as you say it is.

 

And so you will remain effectively silent in the face of the most appalling outrages – all so you can satisfy yourself that your “analysis” is always right. The bombing and killing in Mumbai? It’s the West’s fault. The mass abduction of children and women in West Africa? The West’s fault. The shooting of Muslim and black French police officers in Paris? The West’s fault. The shooting of cartoonists? The West’s fault. The shooting of Jewish shoppers? Probably their own fault. The ritual beheading of Syrian prisoners, including children, of American and British journalists, of a British aid worker, and – unless something drastic happens – of two Japanese men? The West’s fault.

 

The problem for you is that there’s this guy out there, presently getting a lot of attention, who completely agrees with your “let’s blame the West” rote response. His “name” is Jihadi John.