ISIS

[Archivist]

Melbourne has a fair Muslim population, and everyone I know is shocked and disturbed by what ISIS is doing at the moment. 

ISIS is doing just what extremist groups do, only they have a lot more people and resources than the Christian fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics.  Frankly, it's frightening that this sort of thing is happening in today's society, but similar things have occurred under different names and regimes.  Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia springs to mind, and much further back, the Crusades.

The philosophical cause is one of not fundamentalism, it's not religion, it's about power.  The literalist interpretations of the Koran are just vehicles for their attempts to exercise power over others.  The religious beliefs give them a feeling of belonging to something greater than themselves, which is a common human desire, and a way to absolve themselves from personal responsibility.  "I did not do that, it was that hand of Allah that guided me."

These people cannot be reasoned with, because their motivations are not of logic or necessity.  And they are not motivated by a contemporary central command, like Hitler, but by people working with a religion that is thousands of years old.  It's not a government that can be negotiated with, nor called to surrender.  it's a sprawling parasitic mass that must be excised and rendered impotent.

The war to stamp this out must be fought not only with the gun, but with the mind and the media.  The Muslim population who might be swayed to join that fight must see what horrors are being committed so they will know the true face of those who claim to be heroes.

[RCMerchant]

Indiana- Have you ever read The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane? Islam had a very libertarian era without even much civil law and prospered greatly. They turned away from it kind of like western civilization did as it entered the dark ages.

That was during the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, was it not?  You are right - at one time Jews were better treated in Muslim
Turkey than they were in Christian Spain. But that pattern of enlightened rule is largely gone from the Muslim world, with a few
exceptions, like the King of Jordan and the ruler of Morocco.

This is amazing. The ISIS terrorists are very much like Nazi Germany-they think they are right-and f**k us.
NO. f**k YOU.
ISIS is EVIL-and I cant believe I am siding with a hard core Republican-but Indy is RIGHT!
These people are EVIL.-We should do EVERYTHING in our power to stop them. I really do believe these scumbags are comparable to Nazi Germany-OR WORSE!
We need to be Captain America.

[RCMerchant]

Isis got nothing to do with religion-it has everything to do with carzy young maniacs trying to be important. Its insane s**t by young revolutionary PUNKS. Who wanna be important.
Its MURDER.

[RCMerchant]

If ISIS wants to walk in and think they can take over the world-we should drop a f**king A bomb on there main home-it would work. It would f**k them.They will be punked.f**kED!

f**k em-punk em..they will stop.
I actually dont think punking them is enough-I think we should KILL THEM ALL.
Yeah-Im crazy-oh well-I never said I was Democrat-I was always Anarchist....which means KILL THEM ALL.

[lester1/2jr]

Assad is doing that. Any one of the dictators that just got taken out by the Arab Spring, etc would have too. Saddam Hussein would have butchered them.

[RCMerchant]

Assad is doing that. Any one of the dictators that just got taken out by the Arab Spring, etc would have too. Saddam Hussein would have butchered them.

Thats f**king scary-are you comparing us to Saddam?
Im sure Saddam would-but thats like Freddy vs Jason.

[RCMerchant]

WHY we are in the Iraq-too late to worry about that now-WE ARE THERE!
ISIS is a real evil-that needs to go.
I know-why we are there-dam-is wrong.
BUT we are-AND we promised the Iraqi people we would help.
SO Lets HELP.

[lester1/2jr]

No I wasn't comparing us to Saddam Hussein! I'm saying these old dictators were paranoid about holding on to their power so they kept these sorts of groups in check. Assad is literally fighting ISIS every day. If the Arab Spring had taken him out who knows where we'd be. power vaccum city starring ISIS

[RCMerchant]

IF this or that is -dont matter. NOW is HERE!
NOW we should fight them as an evil threat.
NOW women and children die.NOW MURDER IS COMMITED IN THE NAME OF A GOD.

[alandhopewell]

I wish more people in the west would read the Koran and be better informed about what motivates faithful Moslems to act as they do. Then maybe the "religion of peace" myth might be a little harder to swallow. Because of its central message of world domination by any means necessary, Islam can't be compared to other religions. Neither Sikhs nor Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, Baha'i, Wiccans, Christians, or any animists I know of are directed to violent conquest as Moslems are. Groups like ISIS, while extreme, are faithful to Islam. Read the Koran. There are plenty of free apps if you can't find a physical copy. If you value tolerance, peace, human equality, free expression, democracy, universal education, the protection of children from sexual predation, as well as freedom of and from religion, you just may be shocked at what Mohammad directed his followers to do.

     HEAR, HEAR!

[ER]

No I wasn't comparing us to Saddam Hussein! I'm saying these old dictators were paranoid about holding on to their power so they kept these sorts of groups in check. Assad is literally fighting ISIS every day. If the Arab Spring had taken him out who knows where we'd be. power vaccum city starring ISIS

lester, this is one of those rare occasions I 100% agree with you, buddy! 

[Jack]

I think the only solution is to figure out which group has historically been the most pro-western, anti-terrorist and anti-fundamentalist and give them all the arms and air support they want and tell them to take the damned place over and run it however they want. 

[lester1/2jr]

Apparently, some people who wanted us to support the rebels fighting Assad now want us to support Assad in fighting ISIS who are the rebels to a large extent. It would be our own weapons and $ against our own weapons and $.

RC- well, the main reason ISIS was able to cut through Iraq so fast was the political problems between the Sunnis and Shias that existed because of Maliki's policies. Now that they have a new guy in there hopefully there will be reconciliation and ISIS will get the boot. That's what happened during The Surge. We facilitated the Sunni Awakening and they drove Al Queda out out of self interest.

[indianasmith]

One of my friends, a PhD in history, says that the best solution to the whole Middle Eastern mess is to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire and let them run the place again.  The Turks were the only ones who had much success keeping the  Arabs in line, and they were pretty good about letting Jews and Christians worship as they pleased (in exchange for an annual tax, but hey! that's better than having your head cut off!).

[lester1/2jr]

Now Libya is falling apart, too.