Exactly.

Soren wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2014 at 10:06am:


It’s true, but it’s hardly evidence of a toxic prophet and his book when, as we’ve discussed, the Jewish prophets and their book were far worse.

But forget the prophets. The problem with Islam today is the rise of the literalist, fundamentalist knuckleheads, people who don’t want to think, but instead judge and act. It’s a problem not confined to Islam, but quarters of Islam have been receptive to it, due in large part to the Arab nationalist independence movements of the 1950s and 60s.Their jihadist message was then taken up in Central Asia as a response to Soviet imperialism there. The US leaned on these groups in the 1980s, until they eventually realised what they had gotten themselves into.

Alas, by then it was far too late. The Mujahadin, and eventually, the Taliban were the children of US policy in Central Asia, just as groups like ISIL were the bastard sons of US policy in Iraq.

The brutal dogma of groups like ISIL is not confined to Islam. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Japan waged an aggressive war throughout China and Asia. They performed atrocities far worse, in fact, than ISIL. They followed a fundamentalist Bushido doctrine that encouraged death, and especially suicide.

Today, there is no element of these ideas left in Japan. Same in.Germany, which had a "thousand year" Reich. These countries were militarily conquered. Their toxic ideologies were taken.out with their leaders.

Fundamentalist Islam sits in a different time and place, with fundamentally different communication technologies to the wars of the 20th century. Mobile phones and social media have changed the social landscape.There is no Emperor or Fuhrer in militant Islam, but a range of localised cells and militias. There is no central leadership, and no nation state. Much of the phenomenon seems to be driven by the desire of young men to fight and even die in honour. Many of these boys are Islamic converts - they embrace jihad for the fighting and the dogmatic creed, not for the spiritual struggle which is the emphasis of the religion of Islam.

Global conflicts have always attracted such people. The Russian and Spanish civil wars attracted hundreds of thousands of leftists and royalists from around the world. They too engaged in rape and torture and summary executions. This is what war is all about. If the Bolsheviks had had Facebook, they too would have published footage of the mass graves and the bullets in the back of the head. There are many photos of Japanese soldiers posing with severed heads in Nanjing. Soldiers take pride in their work, and war relies on such propaganda. As many military theorists have argued, winning the propaganda war is crucial to winning the war.

This is why it’s so important for ISIS to be defeated by Muslim armies, and not the West. ISIL are a far bigger threat to the Middle East than they are to Europe and the US. They say they want death - their stated purpose is martyrdom. This can’t be achieved in a war against Sunni Muslims, although they can spin it as a battle for the "true" Islam.

All this, however, is the propaganda war. The real war in the Middle East is the same as it ever was - the struggle for ethnic and tribal dominance.The leadership of ISIL is comprised of Saddam’s old Republican Guard, those who were sacked and denied jobs after the US occupation of Iraq. While ISIL’s stated purpose is a Sunni caliphate, it’s real agenda is the restoration of the old Iraqi Ba’athists. The enemy of ISIL is not the West, it’s the Shi’ite leadership of Iraq, Syria, and ultimately Iran.

While jihad is an important recruitment and propaganda tool for ISIL, it’s not the end-game. The goal of ISIL is Sunni (and specific Sunni tribal) domination of the Middle East. Fundamentalist Islam is a crucial element to this struggle, but it’s a struggle for the restoration of a Sunni political elite who, under Saddam, saw themselves as the successors to the Babylonian dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar II.

While Saddam kept the knucklehead jihadis at bay in Iraq, his Ba’athist successors in ISIL have fully embraced them. Arab and Central Asian politics can shift this way - all politics can shift this way. Just as disgruntled Egyptian generals switched sides to join the Muslim Brotherhood, or Mujahadin jihadists in Afghanistan switched to  join a US-backed Northern Alliance, or Northern Alliance fighters switched to join the Taliban, Saddam’s old Republican Guard has formed a ragtag, but disciplined, group of Sunni Muslims to take back power in Iraq, Syria, and wherever fortune leads them.

While the prophets have some influence, they are not the cause. Militant, fundamentalist Islam is there for a reason. It is propped up, paid for and propagated by those with a purpose that is not, at first glance, what it seems.

Brian Ross wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2014 at 2:59pm:


The Ahmadi muslims dropped the obligation for jihad and are ok with separation of mosque and state.

The Ahmadis are persecuted by mainstream Islam for heretical reforms, they cannot even call themselves muslims in Pakistan where they originated from.

Obviously mainstream Islam believes the Ahmadi are the wrong type of muslim.

www.persecutionofahmadis.org

Baronvonrort wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2014 at 3:08pm:


I don't understand Baron - would you mind rephrasing this as a set of inane rhetorical questions?

Mattyfisk wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2014 at 12:18am:

You confuse (because you are an idiot? because you are a devious bastard?)  notions of being offended and RIGHT to be not offended.



If you do not grasp the difference then you are either lying or you are too thick.


I think you are unique and do both - you are too thick but are lying anyway.

Soren wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2014 at 7:40pm:


Condell?  'nuff said.  An entertainer.   

polite_gandalf wrote on Nov 24^th, 2014 at 9:20am:



One obnoxious self-righteous twit is much like any other obnoxious self-righteous twit.  Just as Soren is much like Sprint and Yada and Freediver and Baronvert.  All peddle the same messages of hatred and intolerance.