Besides, the hits were driven by politics, religion is just a facade.
Another example is the Heaven's Gate suicide cult. Instead of being based on Islam they were based on Christianity. They though that Jesus was an alien and you can reach their UFO (= heaven) by committing suicide. And they did.
The way I see it is that using the "Islam" brand is great way to have funds and international support/appeal.
In the same way, in the sixties, you had plenty of nationalist movements all over the world that were claiming to be Communist. Sure it was also the hand of Moscow at work, but for local people, that was also a great way to secure some funding/weapons/etc from USSR.
Also some of the bomber have allegedly married in Syria, possibly with children, I am not sure what would happen to their family if they defected.
1. Religion
2. Politics
3. Personal gain
For instance the politics around hating the west and hating Israel, and personal gain in sex deprived young men getting to rape women in Syria and getting a salary that's 5x as much as the average Syrian. These three parts are intertwined and can't be separated from each other. Most media focuses solely on #2, but a theory built solely around #2 does not explain the behaviour of ISIS very well, whereas a theory built around all 3 aspects fits the data very well.
As for the idea that high ranking members of ISIS do not truly believe in the ideology, and they are just manipulating everyone for personal gain, it is possible but I consider it unlikely. The leader of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult also committed suicide himself along with the others. And George Bush is himself a true Christian believer. I consider it unlikely that ISIS is an exception.
It is interesting that the only people equipped to intuitively understand the sincerity of the metaphysical beliefs of a suicide bomber are those who are or were in a cult or fundamentalist religion. For instance Megan Phelps-Roper who left the Westboro Baptist Church does understand this.
Do not give them death them. Give them suffering for years and years without the release of death. Let's see how they enjoy that.
Just a nitpick, but Catholic church did apologize to muslims killed by the crusaders[0].
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apologies_made_by_Pope...
It's a shame that your argument fails in the first sentence.
As long as you see the world in terms of 'your kind of people' and 'my kind of people' you are to some degree part of the problem. This is not a war of 'civilizations', though it could very well turn into one if we lose our calm.
Unfortunately, given the technological edge and the willingness to defend 'my kind of people' will eventually - reluctantly, hopefully - switch to a different mode which will make the crusades look like a picnic outing. The problem is that IS and company are waking something up that they have absolutely no way to deal with and it would be far better for everybody involved if this did not come to pass.
But with the number of people clamoring to have this out by the bikeshed it may already be too late. Until then 'our kind of people' should do their best to derail this conflict before it becomes mass-murder/civil war on an unprecedented scale and to find another solution.
the goal is simple - create chaos, increase tension between europeans and immigrants, create a spirale of violence producing more violence, till every side has good reasons to not step back. this is goal of jihad in europe, footsoldiers will be people already living here, that initially were living peaceful life, but eventually some violence will drag them in. at the end, civil war.
France for example could actually avoid that, if it retreated from all its military interventions, but that's not going to happen, and again, jihadists realize that too. I must agree with parent poster, nice approach ain't going to solve this, and victor at the end will be probably the more ruthless one. But fear not, as they say we're 7 days to the wolves, and we europeans can still kick a butt or two if pressed hard.
I hope I am wrong, that's for sure :)
Escalation is exactly the goal since it will allow them to drive an even bigger wedge into our societies and between people that have been living here peacefully for decades.
I'm not insinuating he's racist, do not put words in my mouth.
Perhaps, but probably not the kind of barbarism that you're thinking about. The barbarians that win over democracy will use economic forces to enslave its own citizens, and will use the productivity of the citizens to produce resources and weapons, and use those to take what they want. Some would argue that this has already happened.
>just look at BLM in usa
What about them? They're not barbarians, just noisy protesters.
>This is a war of civilisations and way of life.
No one from the US will keep you from living even what they consider a barbaric way of life as long as you sell your oil cheap.
>and trust me. the peaceful one, the one that always say sorry for everything is not going to win.
Maybe you're not referring to the US. I haven't noticed us to be very peaceful over the last thirty years.
Does this mean that there's no good Muslims out there?
Of course not, there's plenty of them but the underlying problem is that the contemporary mainstream Sunni Islam has shifted from left to right by the early 70s thanks to the increasing influence of the Saudi petrodollar and the relentless exporting of the wahabist cultural product to predominantly Sunni Muslim countries and thus hard-line teachings of Sunni Islam became the norm and dominated the public sphere and one of its poisonous fruits sadly infected Paris over the weekend.
I don't see anti-immigration people and Christians being asked to apologize for Breivik, nor all catholic priests being asked to distance themselves from the catholic scandal of the last decade.
Catholics absolutely take heat for the various scandals over the years. It's just easier for most of them to distance themselves since few actually practice the faith...
Seriously, you don't? I've seen lots of comments where this and that politician or Christian leader is required to apologize "for their involvement" in the Breivik mass murder, which is nuts. All they've done is doubt whether the removal of border controls in Europe is a good idea. That's supposed to be enough for a guilt-by-association to Breivik's crimes as "incitement".
Or like Americans having to apologise for drone stikes, for Iraq and Afghanistan, and specific attacks like the MSF hospital in Kunduz.
At least for Kunduz hospital, it has happened too[0]. Not downplaying other mentioned cases, just straightening some facts up.
0. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-afghanistan-att...
I wonder how can you call the main motivation of these jihadists 'just a facade'?
Never mind.
Terrorist attacks aren't about defeating the enemy, they're about terrorizing the enemy and inciting them to make the wrong decisions -- like mistreating peaceful Muslims and thereby supporting the Islamists' propaganda that this is a jihad in defence of Islam.
The easiest way to gain sympathy is to portray yourself as the victim and your attacks as righteous self-defence.
Politics, markets and religion are greatly overlapping concepts!
For example, an anthropologist points out that markets and major religions formed at the same time, and are frenemies. "Nowadays, the work of destroying such ways of life is still often done by missionaries–representatives of those very world religions that originally sprang up in reaction to the market long ago. Missionaries, of course, are out to save souls; but they rarely interpret this to mean their role is simply to teach people to accept God and be more altruistic. Almost invariably, they end up trying to convince people to be more selfish and more altruistic at the same time. On the one hand, they set out to teach the “natives” proper work discipline, and try to get them involved with buying and rolling products on the market, so as to better their material lot. At the same time, they explain to them that ultimately, material things are unimportant, and lecture on the value of the higher things, such as selfless devotion to others." (Originally from Harper’s Magazine, reprinted here: https://libcom.org/library/army-altruists-alienated-right-do...)
Note these inversions:
- ISIS is Muslim. Sharia law economics is free market. (Adam Smith apparently cribbed many of his most famous arguments from medieval Persan free market theorists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_economics#Markets)
- The US is capitalist. It's among the most fundamentalist religious. (About 40% believe Earth was created less than 10k years ago.)
So-called "economics" and religion are duals. Very hard for those enmeshed in them to see.
The way our mind works, associations need to be strengthened for permanence (which is an extra-weird process because it can apparently modify memories).
More importantly, he needs to get this off his chest. You find people to talk to in the msot unlikely places.
Both language as encoding of thought and transmission are lossy. Rule of thumb: A sentence contains four different things: what I mean, what I say, what you hear and what you understand.
Putting things into words already is an important part of how we for ourselves deal with the incomprehensible, the disturbing and revolting.
Finding agreement, or at least getting feedback form others that our words form a comprehensible sentiment, heck - just knowing that we ended up with a gramatically well-formed sentence comforts us that the abyss between you and me, between you and everyone else can be bridged.
tl;dr: it's great that it can be said.
The fact that this was said by someone who has faced such horrors on a daily basis before is extremely respectful.
Though It's probably something Western Christians should still bear in mind when talking to or about muslims.
That is, currently - historically, Caliphs have been religious and political leaders. ISIS claims to take up that throne now, but...
of course, the point is moot, because these terrorist attacks were not taken out by mainstream Muslims. the Crusades were officially backed by the Church and its leaders.