Saudi clerics declare Isis terrorism a 'heinous crime' under sharia law (2014)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
1. people suffering from PTSD who have lost much of their capacities to think clearly; specifically, part of butchered Sunni community in Iraq following the sectarian war fuelled by US invaders after years of deadly sanctions (they also include former members of Saddam's secular stasi-equivalent http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-file...), and some of the Syrians going through Assad's butchery. This is no different from how a bunch of peaceful villagers turned into brutal group that was Khemer Rouge (http://johnpilger.com/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-anything...).
2.A tiny western group who are largely clueless about the world (almost entirely about religion), seeking certain warped sense of glory: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/04/jihad-f...
On a different note related to welfare, Saudis are probably not that worse off in certain ways: any (poor) Saudi is eligible to receive funding/stipend from his/her government for studying in world's top universities, unlike many rich capitalistic states that are effectively no less of an oligarchy.
Given the turmoil that has lately (and long been) transpired in the form of militant experiments and perceived revolutions around the region (and the globe), the tradition that promotes mass-education, deeply-rooted revival and collective rectification doesn't seem to be a bad idea as the feasible choice for societal betterment.
This is not how it works out. Please don't make assumptions about issues which you don't know about.
The Saudi government is a legitimate government, regardless of their current shortcomings, or things that they can do better. They govern a stable country, and are keeping peace and stability within the country. It is prohibited to overthrow them.
Here is just one example of how ISIS is being denounced in the Middle East (unfortunately, there are spelling and grammar mistakes in the captions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2HlIYRvCM
They just don't want ISIS targeting the House of Saud as their next victim.
There are much better Muslim role models than this.
Hundreds of Moslem clerics signed an open letter condemning ISIS in 2014: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-is-...
Notice the article is over a year old. It's hard to see if it has had any impact whatsoever on the situation.
They just don't like groups with territorial ambitions that include their own lands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_attitudes_towards_terro... might be a better source to cite.
* In France, 19% of muslims think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets can sometimes be justified, and 6% thought it could be justified often.
* In the UK: 12% sometimes, and 3% often
* In Egypt: 20% sometimes, and 8% often
* In Nigeria: 38% sometimes, and 8% often
So you're right that it's not the silent majority. It's the silent 25-46%.
I run across a lot of Americans who think civilian casualties are justifiable in some situations, like hitting a terrorist with a drone when there are civilians nearby. From the link you cite:
> John Esposito, using poll data from Gallup, wrote in 2008 that Muslims and Americans were equally likely to reject violence against civilians. He also found that those Muslims who support violence against civilians are no more religious than Muslims who do not.
To grab a specific example from that page:
> almost one in four British Muslims believe that the 7/7 attacks on London were justified
Which you can read about here if you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
> On the morning of Thursday, 7 July 2005, four Islamist extremists separately detonated three bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty-two civilians were killed and over 700 more were injured in the attacks, the United Kingdom's worst terrorist incident since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing as well as the country's first ever Islamist suicide attack.
Your counterargument that American's feel similarly to unintended casualties in war when targeting enemy combatants is very very weak. Who were the enemy combatants on the three subway trains? Who were the enemy combatants on the double-decker bus?
To put that another way: a large portion of muslims seeing terrorists in the same light that Americans see the US Armed forces means they approve of terrorists.
The same line states "although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity", which is a pretty important thing to omit.
> Your counterargument that American's feel similarly to unintended casualties in war when targeting enemy combatants is very very weak. Who were the enemy combatants on the London subway system? Who were the enemy combatants on the double-decker bus?
I'm simply arguing that the wording "can violence against civilians sometimes be justified" is vague enough it could encompass precisely those sorts of unintended casualties.
I'd be more interested in a poll asking "can violence specifically targeted against civilians be justified". I'd also be interested in the reasons cited by those answering yes. Plenty of Americans feel today that the bombing of Hiroshima was appropriate, despite it falling well within that category.
The survey we're discussing asked "can suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam be justified". Note "against civilian targets".
> The same line states "although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity", which is a pretty important thing to omit.
That was from a different survey, done a year prior to the one I quoted. I don't debate that moods shift in the muslim population, hence the link to all the surveys I'm aware of.
I'd reiterate that Americans believe that themselves.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/04/70-years-aft...
> [T]he share of Americans who believe the use of nuclear weapons was justified is now 56%, with 34% saying it was not.
You really don't see the difference?
Americans justify the use of nukes on the basis of the war being just. For example, if we'd nuked Japan because we thought sushi was an abomination, approval of our use of nukes would plummet. If we'd nuked Japan after the war, approval would plummet. If we killed Japaneese Americans rather than Japaneese, approval would plummet. This is why it's dishonest to equate approval of the wartime use of nukes to the approval of the suicide bombing of civilians on a subway. The foundational beliefs have no similarity.
Also, saying that a large percentage of muslims feel like they are in combat with their countrymen doesn't make it any better... if anything it just makes the survey data scarier.
From http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armag...
> More British Muslims have joined the ranks of ISIS than have volunteered to serve in the British armed forces.
In my brief explorations, I found that Jews found shelter in the Muslim Spain in an era when Europe was in full force to get rid of the 'Jewish problem'. Fair share of the likes of Andrei Breivik and Dylann Roof are also in the present Muslim world, especially in this neo-colonial era.
So would ISIS. You really think they're all sitting around going "gee, we're assholes and this what we're doing is wrong and unjust, but let's keep going!"? They think they're fighting a just war of survival against a new wave of Christian crusaders.
Sure, it's wrong, but it's a belief genuinely held.
First, the original posting is dated 2014 - almost 2 years ago.
Second, you offer really nothing to defend the ideologues of the violent aspect of Islam that seem to be so rampant these days.
Trash can come from all religions. Often does. Should you really be a true believer of Islam, your focus should not be converting us non believers of your virtues, but instead convincing your fellow believers that violence is more likely to sway non believers in the opposite direction than is intended.
Edit: to the downvoters; I'd love to discuss how and why I am wrong. I'm likely wrong, admittedly, but would appreciate the opportunity to learn why.
Generalization based upon the adoption of sets of ideas would seem to be a great deal more logical than generalization based upon race.
[edited to clarify first paragraph]
It's the [black] families they have and the [black] communities they live in and the [black] friends that they have who also suffer ... there's a community net that gets pulled whenever a member has a tragic event --- in that sense the community suffers as a whole - regardless of their underlying diversities --- it's like tugging at a fabric ... the parts that are nearest go the furthest, but the entirety of the fabric reacts - not always in perceptible ways.
I as a relatively wealthy person, for instance, am affected by homelessness because those people are potential teachers to my children, coworkers, mentors, or customers for my business ... their plight is also my own. Their immense suffering inescapably trips the community as a whole.
Also in that way, an assault on judaism is an assault on israel, an assault on hinduism is an assault on india, and so on ... you can't isolate the victim in a systemic narrative - there's an integral effect.
Nothing really groundbreaking other than for the specific insight that the targeted group is impossible to isolate.
Bystanders are integral to conflict.
But the key word there is "indiscriminate", since by definition you can't target criticism properly ever if you're indiscriminate.
the targeted group is impossible to isolate
Not when you're talking about people who self-select by claiming belief in certain ideas. It's not at all like generalizing based upon race.
The Saudi clerics quoted in the article may well be hypocritical. I have no idea, and am not familiar with them. If you are, please just link to the evidence rather than resorting to name calling.