ISIS

[Actaeon]

I'm sure most of you follow the news. I usually try to ignore the media's terrorism fear mongering, but the so called Islamic State is making it difficult. If they'd been hired specifically to horrify people and unite the world against them, I'm not sure they could have done a better job.

 

What do people think? Did the West bring this on themselves by drawing arbitrary nation states and then meddling for decades? Are these atrocities par for the course and ISIS is just better at getting the word out? Is there any place for a bloody caliphate in the modern world? Will their enhanced funding or luck indoctrinating westerners make them dangerous outside of the Middle East?

[keira]

I'm hardly an expert on middle eastern politics, but ISIS seems to be the result of a lot of different regional issues, ranging from strife between religious sects going back ages, and the obligatory US meddling. If I'm honest, though, I'm more worried about what's going on in Eastern Europe than an overgrown band of thugs that, at this point, the entire rest of the world has united against.

[Edgwyn]

I do not think that the West brought this on them selves (I find it interesting how that argument is acceptable in foreign affairs but unacceptable in areas like sexual assault and domestic violence. Certainly, the British and French were involved in that part of the world pretty extensively from the late 1700s until WWII and at the end of WWI redrew the borders with the intentions of making weak and conflicted states. The US funded and supported various governments and factions of governments after WWII. None of that has prevented the exercise of religion in those areas, and none of that justifies the rapping, killing, destruction of cultural artifacts, etc that is going on in that area. What the West's history in that area may justify is the inability of the governments in those areas from doing effective things about the situation.

These type of atrocities have come into and out of favor in that part of the world many times over the centuries. Of course, these types of atrocities were common in almost the entire world, the difference being that almost all of the western and a good chunk of the Eastern world has refrained from these types of atrocities since WWII ended. With media coverage, the muslim incursion into Spain, the Spanish reconquista, the European settlement in the Americas, Mao's cultural revolution, Stalin's entire reign, etc would look ver different. Even relatively modern atrocities like the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans or in Africa did not have the media/electronics/internet/social media presence that ISIS has due to lack of funding.

Personally, I do not believe that there is any place for a bloody Caliphate (or really any Caliphate) in the modern world, but then I do not think that there is any place for bloody Protestantism, bloody Catholicism, bloody Agnosticism, bloody Hinduism, etc.

Their enhanced funding does make them very dangerous outside of the area. As the various Protestant and Catholic terrorists demonstrated a few decades ago in Northern Ireland, it does not take a huge amount of money to carry out a terrorist campaign. If your funding is coming from other countries and their governments are making no effort (currently the case with most governments and ISIS) or only half efforts (US government with the Northern Ireland terrorists) than they are going to be well funded, especially when you add modern crowd sourcing onto ancient religious obligations. There needs to be a concerted effort to shut down the money pipe, which is hard to do (due to freedoms) and especially hard to do when every government wants to be extra hands off with its Islamic population in order to show how enlightened the government is.

While I would like to see Putin stopped from rebuilding the USSR, and think that it would be much cheaper in the long run to stop him now, I find it more likely by several orders of magnitude that Americans in the US will be killed by ISIS/sympathizers in the next five years than by Russian supporters of Putin. In terms of the rest of world being united against ISIS, most of the World has indeed said ISIS is bad, then rolled over and fell back to sleep. The number of countries willing to stop the cash flow, equipment/weapons/supply flow, people flow and then actually take action on the ground to stop them seems to be hovering around zero.

[Slawbug]

I do not think that the West brought this on them selves (I find it interesting how that argument is acceptable in foreign affairs but unacceptable in areas like sexual assault and domestic violence.

The difference has little to do with whether we're talking about foreign affairs or personal violence; the difference has to do with the actions that brought on the violent response. The "unacceptable" arguments, with regard to personal assaults, are things like "she was asking for it given how she was dressing." That is a FAR CRY from "she was part of the in-crowd that was always insulting us from across the room, then she came over and punched a few of my friends, and stole precious goods from their bags -- did you expect us to just sit there and take it?" The finer points of that analogy can no doubt be tweaked, but the point is, these are very, very, very different things that were done "to bring it on oneself".

[adc.]

I'm sure most of you follow the news.

 

No.

 

For some reason, I don't believe in the news.

[nikki.]

For some reason, I don't believe in the news.

 

Well, allow me to reassure that it does, in fact, exist.

 

Also allow me to point out that derailing a thread to point out that you have nothing to contribute is spammy. Please don't be spammy. Thanks.

[Alex]

Meet the new caliphate, same as all the previous ones. IS is what is says on the tin - a traditional Islamic state. Fortunately, most of the rest of the world has moved on in the past centuries.

What do people think? Did the West bring this on themselves by drawing arbitrary nation states and then meddling for decades? Are these atrocities par for the course and ISIS is just better at getting the word out? Is there any place for a bloody caliphate in the modern world? Will their enhanced funding or luck indoctrinating westerners make them dangerous outside of the Middle East?

They seem to be popular in France. Presumably, not among those who are French in a more traditional sense.

 

Oh, and the vile Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia should be toppled, too, they're not much better than IS. With friends like them, who needs enemies?

[Actaeon]

I suppose I added "bloody" to Caliphate because they don't strike me as interchangeable. Sure, they all took some bloodshed to establish, but art and science flourished in some (say, the Abbasid), and not so much in others.

 

I tend to agree with Slarty that the West's behavior was "asking for it" in a very different sense than sexual assault and domestic violence, but I'm not sure about the analogy, tweaked or otherwise.

 

Most of the folks who drew the national boundaries after World War II are probably dead by now. The people who pushed for war in Iraq and Afghanistan are, by and large, not still in office and not obliged to help clean up the mess. And the humanitarian workers and journalists who are being executed have very little to do with their respective country's foreign policy.

 

Morality and responsibility is a sticky mess even when you're only dealing with individuals. Scaling it up is darn near impossible, so my question was flawed from the start.

[Slawbug]

Meet the new caliphate, same as all the previous ones. IS is what is says on the tin - a traditional Islamic state. Fortunately, most of the rest of the world has moved on in the past centuries.

What do you mean when you say "traditional Islamic state"? Serious question: even the phrase "Islamic state" wasn't really a thing centuries ago, and while there are some historical analogues for ISIS, there are and were (at almost any point in history) far more examples of Muslim states that are nothing like it.

[Alorael at Large]

Nor is radical, militant Islam clearly "traditional" in any meaningful sense. Islam certainly has an aggressively expansionist history—but then, so does Christianity. There have been places and periods with harsh policies of aggressive orthodoxy—again, not unlike other religions in other places. And from its beginning, Islam has also been the religion of states that have been pluralistic, and fairly relaxed about orthodoxies.

 

 

—Alorael, who would consider Al-Andalus to be a very good example of Islamic states ranging from repressively conservative to wildly decadent. And it's worth noting that Al-Andalus itself was periodically threatened more by other Muslim powers than by the Christian Reconquista.

[Goldengirl]

ISIS is far more interesting to me as a cause than it is as an effect. Turkey has authorized sending ground troops into Syria, ironically enough to protect the Kurds. The United States is building a new coalition of the willing to save the Iraqi people. All of this is going on seemingly without dissent, sometimes with fanfare and sometimes with the tacit consent of silence.

 

Is there a reasonable justification for the United States and other Western powers to fight ISIS? If thwarting a genocide isn't a good enough reason, I'm not sure what is. That said, I'm still suspicious.

[Alorael at Large]

Fighting ISIS in Iraq, yes. It is somewhere between a rebellion and a foreign invader and Iraq has requested help. That's a far cry from the previous ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were about toppling regimes, not supporting them. That's actually a big deal and unusual in foreign interventions.

 

In Syria it's much more complicated. Fighting ISIS isn't about supporting the Syrian government; although we're in an oddly ambivalent place officially, no one likes Assad at all. America supports the rebels, but not the ISIS brand of rebels. Syria's such a mess that it's hard to sort out a best course of action, but I think ISIS's actions in Iraq can be used as justification for fighting them in Syria; if they're not rooted out there, they'll never leave Iraq alone.

 

—Alorael, who thinks Iraq wouldn't be getting nearly as much attention if it were just some non-Western state. The fact that it is a recent product of American intervention means America has pride and reputation on the line in making it succeed, which it showed some tentative signs of doing before it collapsed before ISIS. That's a big unspoken part of why America is embroiling itself in another war there. Not that that's a bad reason, per se, but it's not a high moral calling.

[Edgwyn]

Going back to the "do the Western nations have it coming", very few of ISIS's killings have anything to do with the Western nations at this point. Most of their killings have been of people whose families have been in Iraq and Syria for hundreds to thousands of years without interruption.

 

There have been plenty of foreign interventions to support regimes, sometimes though the question is if they are worthy of support. We supported Noriega for years before toppling him. We intervened in 1950 in Korea and 1990 in Iraq to support regimes, 1994 in Haiti, the Vietnam war started as supporting a regime (which we then toppled), Lebanon a couple of times in the 20th century, etc. There is not a shortage of examples of stability operations, the question is always is it a regime worth stabilizing. After WWII, the simple answer was that if the regime said that they were anti-communist we would support it no matter what else its problems were.

 

ISIS has gotten as much attention for killing half a dozen Westerners as it has for killing a few thousand Iraqi and Syrian civilians. And yes, if ISIS were just in Syria or in Syria and Libya, it would not get as much attention as it does for being in Iraq.

[Randomizer]

ISIS is looking to take over a state like the Taliban had in Afghanistan. It's got an economic base from extorting money from citizens and ransoming back prisoners and until the recent airstrikes in controlled a Syrian oil field. If it can crush Assad and its rival rebels, then it can try to get recognition from other states to legitimize itself. Then it can begin expansion into other areas like Iraq where it exists.

 

Until Obama started the airstrikes and coalition building, ISIS was growing without strong opposition. The Iraqi Army was running away, Syria under Assad was letting it crush the other rebel groups, the Kurds were getting little support since Iraq and Turkey didn't want the Kurds to gain power, and Iran wanted the region destabilized. A few more months and ISIS could have controlled two countries with the West reluctant to engage in another ground war.

[nuti-naguti]

Until Obama started the airstrikes and coalition building, ISIS was growing without strong opposition.

 

Until Obama and his autocratic islamic allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar begin sponsored islamic fanatics in the region, everything was alright. ISIS was growing by USA:

 

 

.

 

Here for example mr. McCain on the meeting with ISIS leader Ibrahim al-Badri one year ago. USA helps to different terrorists organisation's on the East with weapons, money, and communication utilities. Just using terrorists like a tool to protect own interests.

 

supports the rebels, but not the ISIS brand of rebels.

 

Lol, there is no "rebels", there is only radical Islamic bands who migrate from one to another brand. "Rebels" - just some kind of propaganda for western society. Today mass media call them good and honored fighters against tyranny and tomorrow same men will be known as "bloody fanatics". Just look at the Libya.

[Alex]

Nor is radical, militant Islam clearly "traditional" in any meaningful sense. Islam certainly has an aggressively expansionist history—but then, so does Christianity. There have been places and periods with harsh policies of aggressive orthodoxy—again, not unlike other religions in other places. And from its beginning, Islam has also been the religion of states that have been pluralistic, and fairly relaxed about orthodoxies.

Um, that was the way Islam started, actually. It took centuries for Christianity to become more than a hippie cult. Look, I understand that from a Jewish perspective, Islam might seem like the lesser evil compared to Christianity, but for those nations who have been at the receiving end of Muslim peace and tolerance for centuries, things appear in a different light. It took over a thousand years of armed resistance before Islam was pushed back in earnest. Unfortunately, that resistance might be futile now.

[Kelandon]

Congratulations! You have written a post so ridiculous that I have taken it upon myself to deal with the inaccuracies!

 

Until Obama and his autocratic islamic allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar begin sponsored islamic fanatics in the region, everything was alright.

This is enough nonsense mixed with fact that it deserves being called out. First of all, everything was not "alright" prior to U.S. involvement. Clearly, things have been bad post-ISIS. But it'd be hard to say that everything was "alright" prior to the rise of ISIS; Assad was doing fairly horrible things in the Syrian Civil War. I'm not sure that there is any remotely plausible argument that the breaking out of the Syrian Civil War is the U.S.'s fault. The Arab Spring was its most direct cause.

 

As for the first part of the sentence, Obama and the U.S. government did not sponsor Islamic extremists in the Middle East prior to the rise of ISIS. (Since there, there have been some strange bedfellows.) There is some plausibility to the claim that the U.S. very, very indirectly caused this by backing al Qaeda against the Soviets back in the 1980's, and ISIS is a group that broke off from al Qaeda a few years ago, but your phrasing is so grossly misleading that I don't think you could possibly be referring to this.

 

Saudi and Qatari nationals are probably funneling money to ISIS in various ways, and the U.S. is allied with those countries, but at this point, I think the governments of those countries formally are opposed to ISIS. Yes, they speak out of both sides of their mouths a lot, but that's a more complicated issue.

 

ISIS was growing by USA

This is just wrong. See above.

 

Here for example mr. McCain on the meeting with ISIS leader Ibrahim al-Badri one year ago.

Four Pinocchios to you! Outright lie.

 

Lol, there is no "rebels", there is only radical Islamic bands who migrate from one to another brand. "Rebels" - just some kind of propaganda for western society. Today mass media call them good and honored fighters against tyranny and tomorrow same men will be known as "bloody fanatics". Just look at the Libya.

This is an incoherent thought. There are rebels, in the sense that there are people who oppose Assad. Not all of the rebels are extremists; parts of the Free Syrian Army are moderate. Yes, there are plenty of extremists among the rebels, too, which is part of why the U.S. didn't jump straight into the fight as it did in Libya. But to tarnish the entire Syrian rebellion as extremists interchangeable with ISIS is to do gross injustice to the actual facts.

[Kelandon]

Um, that was the way Islam started, actually. It took centuries for Christianity to become more than a hippie cult. Look, I understand that from a Jewish perspective, Islam might seem like the lesser evil compared to Christianity, but for those nations who have been at the receiving end of Muslim peace and tolerance for centuries, things appear in a different light. It took over a thousand years of armed resistance before Islam was pushed back in earnest. Unfortunately, that resistance might be futile now.

You're pointing to a true historical fact: Muhammad had, by 632 at the end of his life, established an Islamic kingdom of sorts in Arabia, and within a few decades of his life (say, by 661 at the end of the first caliphate, or 678 at the end of the life of his youngest wife), Muslims had conquered the entire Middle East (save the Byzantine Empire) and much of North Africa. Islam began with an empire. In contrast, Christianity didn't have an empire until the 4th century, some 300-plus years after its founding.*

 

But I think you're drawing a wrong inference on the basis of that fact. The nonsense fundamentalism that ISIS spouts has much more to do with recent developments in Islam than with Islam's history, as you can read in the NYT and elsewhere.

 

Living as a minority under Muslim rule has not, historically, always been great, but it has been a hell of a lot better than living — well, being executed — under ISIS the past few months. Consider, for example, Muhammad's famous letter of tolerance to local Christians.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Kelandon
* Technically, Armenia was first in ~301. The Roman Empire followed soon after.

[Luca]

Until Obama and his autocratic islamic allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar begin sponsored islamic fanatics in the region, everything was alright.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software; please leave your sanity at the door.

 

Although from the looks of it, you may not have any.

[Edgwyn]

Piling on here, Qatar is not particularly fanatic friendly though most of their foreign policy is based on stopping the fanatics on the East side of the Arabian/Persian Gulf, not the West side. The Saudi Arabian royal family was put in power by the Wahabis and so, yes they have as the basis of their government a degree of fanaticism. That said, the King and the Princes that matter have spent 60 plus years trying to make sure that their fanaticism does not kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Private citizens in both of those countries do send money to ISIS, but then so do private citizens in almost off the countries represented on these forums. Could the Saudis and Qataris do more to stop the flow of money, certainly, but that is different than actually sponsoring them. Finally, I have no idea which fanatics you think Obama started sponsoring.

The Saudi fanatics have been sponsored by every president since FDR. Our sponsorship of the UAE (who Biden just pissed off) increased dramatically in 1990 under Bush 39 and our sponsorship of Qatar increased dramatically in 2001 under Bush 41.

Most of the countries between Saudi Arabia and Iran tend to be far more concerned about Iran than anything else and so tend to support the US based on a counterbalance to Iran. They all have more tolerant laws and policies (at least for Westerners) than either Iran or Saudi Arabia do. I suspect that the Persian versus Arab thing outweighs the Sunni versus Shia thing which outweighs the some freedom versus no freedom thing amongst them however.

[nuti-naguti]

Four Pinocchios to you! Outright lie.

 

Yes, yes. Everybody exept Washingon lies. But fact is that we see McCain, Abu-Ibrahim and Mohamad Nour on the photos. And the only one thing that U.S can said " A number of Syrian commanders joined the meeting, but none of them identified himself as Mohamad Nour or Abu Ibrahim".

 

parts of the Free Syrian Army are moderate

 

Do you know that many of ISIS leaders and members were in FSA?

 

Piling on here, Qatar is not particularly fanatic friendly though most of their foreign policy is based on stopping the fanatics on the East side of the Arabian/Persian Gulf, not the West side

 

Sure they are not. Qatar just use fanatics ("Society of Muslim Brothers" and other's) for their own goals.

 

Finally, I have no idea which fanatics you think Obama started sponsoring

 

All rebel groups in Syria are islamis fanatics. For example there some people who was in FSA from my town. Most of them in Jaish al-Muhajireen brigade.

[Slawbug]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state#The_modern_Islamic_state

[Alex]

http://en.wikipedia....n_Islamic_state

Not even IS has claimed that Modern English "Islamic State" (or its Arabic equivalent) is ancient. What an odd strawman argument!

[Alex]

You're pointing to a true historical fact: Muhammad had, by 632 at the end of his life, established an Islamic kingdom of sorts in Arabia, and within a few decades of his life (say, by 661 at the end of the first caliphate, or 678 at the end of the life of his youngest wife), Muslims had conquered the entire Middle East (save the Byzantine Empire) and much of North Africa. Islam began with an empire. In contrast, Christianity didn't have an empire until the 4th century, some 300-plus years after its founding.*

 

But I think you're drawing a wrong inference on the basis of that fact. The nonsense fundamentalism that ISIS spouts has much more to do with recent developments in Islam than with Islam's history, as you can read in the NYT and elsewhere.

 

Living as a minority under Muslim rule has not, historically, always been great, but it has been a hell of a lot better than living — well, being executed — under ISIS the past few months. Consider, for example, Muhammad's famous letter of tolerance to local Christians.

Well, the theological foundations of IS may well be very different from mainstream Sunni Islam. However, I read a statement where they claimed to have offered Christians a choice between conversion, jizya and death. It didn't seem completely un-Islamic to me, just medieval.

 

I see people jump to the defense of Islam here. I should clarify that I think IS is more medieval/barbaric than Islamic. As other people have stated in the thread, brutal warfare is obviously not unique to jihadists, nor do most Muslims act like jihadists - this is common knowledge.

 

When it comes to historical states, you can cherry-pick examples to make them appear more or less villainous. It's largely futile. However, there's still a difference between victims and perpetrators. The Muslims attacked the Christians, not the other way around; the first Arab siege of Constantinople started in 674, the First Crusade in 1096 and the second Battle of Vienna in 1683.

[Slawbug]

Meet the new caliphate, same as all the previous ones. IS is what is says on the tin - a traditional Islamic state. Fortunately, most of the rest of the world has moved on in the past centuries.

What do you mean when you say "traditional Islamic state"? Serious question: even the phrase "Islamic state" wasn't really a thing centuries ago, and while there are some historical analogues for ISIS, there are and were (at almost any point in history) far more examples of Muslim states that are nothing like it.

Not even IS has claimed that Modern English "Islamic State" (or its Arabic equivalent) is ancient. What an odd strawman argument!

[Alorael at Large]

As I said, the states that grew up in the cradle of Islam, which themselves had Islam as the state religion, were largely aggressively expansionist. This is true. This was the great threat on Christendom's borders for a long time. But jihad/crusade rhetoric aside, most of this was imperialism, plain and simple. States, whether Christian states of Europe or Muslim states of the Levant and Middle East or warring Chinese kingdoms, have been trying to grab each other's land forever. There have been plenty of atrocities to go around. There have been shining examples, too. But none of it, to my mind, paints any side with a particularly harsh brush. Everyone seemed to be progressing out of brutality of the Middle Ages nicely until a series of setbacks and a modern brand of extremist Islam, or rather several sects of it, came to prominence, and that was really in the last century.

 

It's also still not the only brand of Islam, or even the mainstream brand. It's just currently the loudest.

 

—Alorael, who thinks the same could be said about Christianity in the USA, except those extremists are less violent and have less actual power. Or Jews, maybe, if you look at Israel and see the outsized presence of the ultra-Orthodox instead of the largely secular majority. The fringe causes problems, which is why they're who the outsiders see.

[Kelandon]

When it comes to historical states, you can cherry-pick examples to make them appear more or less villainous. It's largely futile. However, there's still a difference between victims and perpetrators. The Muslims attacked the Christians, not the other way around; the first Arab siege of Constantinople started in 674, the First Crusade in 1096 and the second Battle of Vienna in 1683.

You appear to be saying that Muslims have been perpetrators of violence, and Christians innocent victims of that violence, throughout history. Is that really the point that you're trying to make?

[Alex]

You appear to be saying that Muslims have been perpetrators of violence, and Christians innocent victims of that violence, throughout history. Is that really the point that you're trying to make?

No. One side started it, and had the upper hand for a very long time, that's a fact. I'm very glad that they lost in the end. Anyway, I just wanted to give some historical context to the usual complaints about Western colonialism in the Middle East.

[Edgwyn]

 

All rebel groups in Syria are islamis fanatics. For example there some people who was in FSA from my town. Most of them in Jaish al-Muhajireen brigade.

 

Okay, I didn't realize that anyone outside the White House equated our Syria policy of the last couple of years to actually providing useful assistance to anyone (kind of like our policy for the Ukraine).

 

Alorael, while the leaders of the various Islamic expansions probably were more imperialistic than religious, the theme of violent expansion of the religion seems to resonate stronger with followers of Islam than it does with the other Abrahamic faiths.

 

Slarty, nicely done, another post without actually having to produce content.

[Slawbug]

Thanks, Edge. I try!

 

No. One side started it, and had the upper hand for a very long time, that's a fact. I'm very glad that they lost in the end. Anyway, I just wanted to give some historical context to the usual complaints about Western colonialism in the Middle East.

Without nitpicking that summary, I see how the topic is useful context for complaints about the Crusades. I'm not sure what it has to do with complaints about colonialism, especially in the last century. There was no aggressive empire to defend against, whereas said criticism tends to be about either (1) exploitative motives and actions, or (2) plainly negative outcomes.

[Alorael at Large]

No. One side started it, and had the upper hand for a very long time, that's a fact. I'm very glad that they lost in the end. Anyway, I just wanted to give some historical context to the usual complaints about Western colonialism in the Middle East.

Contrast the Crusades. Compare the conquest of Hispania and the next seven centuries of the Reconquista. It's inarguable that Muslims invaded the Iberian peninsula and conquered Hispania. What is absolutely arguable is whether seven hundred years later the Christian kingdoms could make any real claim to be anything but conquerors themselves when they took back Granada.

 

As for one side starting it, I think that's an accident of chronology. Christianity got there first, and it did so at least in part by sword. Islam came into a world already full of faiths, and it had to make room for itself somehow.

 

 

Alorael, while the leaders of the various Islamic expansions probably were more imperialistic than religious, the theme of violent expansion of the religion seems to resonate stronger with followers of Islam than it does with the other Abrahamic faiths.

Again, I'm dubious. It resonates, to be sure, and it has more resonance with a portion of the population than anything Christianity can muster now; Judaism hasn't had a state to call its own before Israel for a very, very long time. But the Crusades certainly found purchase in Christian imagination. So did the Spanish Reconquista, followed immediately by the conquest of the New World. The Thirty Years War, one of the darkest periods of European history, at least began over intra-Christian conflict and probably provides something of a model for current sectarianism in the Middle East.

 

What's unusual is the violent faith persisting so far into the modern era, but it's easy to attribute that to post-colonialism and grinding poverty rather than any inherent property of the religion itself.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think any of this would be a concern if so many states holding large Muslim populations weren't such disasters that they effectively cannot act as states and monopolize the use of force. He could see much the same outcome from fundamentalism in the USA if the USA were not a highly successful state with a strong security apparatus and popular support.

[Edgwyn]

While the conquest of the new world was certainly disastrous for the indigenous people and while it included the forceful spreading of Christianity, I do not see it's purpose being the spreading of Christianity. I believe that it was exclusively for economic reasons with the spreading of Christianity being an almost accidental by-product. I realize that especially on the Spanish side, the establishment of missions went hand in hand with the establishment of government outposts (presidios), but I do not think that the Spanish were in the new world to spread religion, they were there to find gold/resources. With the French and English, the spreading of religion was even less well organized and in many ways they were more about dumping some of their troublesome religious minorities (who proceeded to convert the natives) than about converting the natives.

 

The crusades of course was a religious war and it did inspire a degree of fanaticism among the population (e.g. Children's Crusade), but even there, for many the crusades were an excuse for pursing wealth and power, not anything else. And of course the Crusades weakened the Byzantine empire either hastening or causing its fall to Islam, since sacking Constantinople was more enjoyable than actually fighting in the holy land.

 

What's unusual is the violent faith persisting so far into the modern era, but it's easy to attribute that to post-colonialism and grinding poverty rather than any inherent property of the religion itself.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think any of this would be a concern if so many states holding large Muslim populations weren't such disasters that they effectively cannot act as states and monopolize the use of force. He could see much the same outcome from fundamentalism in the USA if the USA were not a highly successful state with a strong security apparatus and popular support.

 

Alorael, the problem with attributing Islamic violence to post-colonialism and poverty is that there are hundreds of Millions of Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists in countries struggling with post-colonialism and poverty with a lot less religious based violence. Central and South America and the Indian Subcontinent have plenty of post-colonialism and poverty, but lack the religious based violence. Of course unlike India and the Philippines, the Central and South American countries have very little religious diversity. I think that your second point quoted above is excellent, that failed states enable religious extremism (and cultural if you look at failed states in Africa).

[Level 1 Hermit]

ISIS is most definitely caused by, but not limited to, western influence/intervention. Obviously there are various other factors that make up the whole of the "reason" behind their actions. But humans influencing, invading, and interconnecting activities are and always have been there. There's no one to blame but ourselves for all this occurring.

Yoda once said and I quote, "... fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." And with this the vicious cycle of revenge continues. What have the people of the Middle East seen these past few decades? Military men both friendly and hostile (But who can tell really?) patrolling the streets. Gunfire heard year round. Mounds of corpses of family members fill the barren wastelands in the place they call home. Can they feel safe or feel peaceful after what has happened? No, then only feel anger. Anger at the West. Anger at their current government regime. And so they take action in the course they only can, fighting back. This is no surprise, it shouldn't be. It has happened throughout history. But we have yet to learn from it.

 

Also it's not simply a Christian vs Muslim thing, though it may seem so on the surface. Religion is only evil by those who use it for evil. I am not religious, but I see that fighting in the name of their religion is hardly legitimate. The outcries of God and Allah are merely masks for our own agendas. That being land and resources in the time of the Romans. That being land and resources in the time of the Crusades. That being land and resources in our modern age.

 

Go ahead, blame yourself. >.<

[Kelandon]

While the conquest of the new world was certainly disastrous for the indigenous people and while it included the forceful spreading of Christianity, I do not see it's purpose being the spreading of Christianity. I believe that it was exclusively for economic reasons with the spreading of Christianity being an almost accidental by-product.

You may believe this, but you're wrong: one scholar writes, "If we had to choose a single, irreducible idea underlying Spanish colonialism in the New World, it would undoubtedly be the propagation of the Catholic faith."

[Slawbug]

there are hundreds of Millions of Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists in countries struggling with post-colonialism and poverty with a lot less religious based violence... and the Indian Subcontinent have plenty of post-colonialism and poverty, but lack the religious based violence.

Minor nitpick: there's been nearly constant, religiously (and ethnically) motivated violence on the Indian Subcontinent since its colonialism went post-.

[Alex]

Without nitpicking that summary, I see how the topic is useful context for complaints about the Crusades. I'm not sure what it has to do with complaints about colonialism, especially in the last century. There was no aggressive empire to defend against, whereas said criticism tends to be about either (1) exploitative motives and actions, or (2) plainly negative outcomes.

Minor nitpick: There was the Ottoman Empire, and it also claimed to be a Caliphate. A century ago, this Caliphate had declared jihad against the Entente infidels and was busy with the Armenian Genocide. Thanks to French colonialism, the Barbary slave trade was stopped. Thanks to pressure from the colonial powers, the rest of the Ottoman slave trade was also slowly eradicated. Well, at least the Ottoman Caliphate had already stopped taking its "blood tax", which was abducting Christian children to be forcibly converted to Islam and used as soldiers, among other things.

 

As for one side starting it, I think that's an accident of chronology. Christianity got there first, and it did so at least in part by sword. Islam came into a world already full of faiths, and it had to make room for itself somehow.

First I'll say I appreciate your balanced view of history, but do you apply the same standards to, say, the conquest of the "New World"? By an accident of chronology, some natives happened to be there, and the Conquistadors had to make room for themselves somehow. Why do people still whine about that?

Again, I'm dubious. It resonates, to be sure, and it has more resonance with a portion of the population than anything Christianity can muster now; Judaism hasn't had a state to call its own before Israel for a very, very long time. But the Crusades certainly found purchase in Christian imagination. So did the Spanish Reconquista, followed immediately by the conquest of the New World. The Thirty Years War, one of the darkest periods of European history, at least began over intra-Christian conflict and probably provides something of a model for current sectarianism in the Middle East.

 

What's unusual is the violent faith persisting so far into the modern era, but it's easy to attribute that to post-colonialism and grinding poverty rather than any inherent property of the religion itself.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think any of this would be a concern if so many states holding large Muslim populations weren't such disasters that they effectively cannot act as states and monopolize the use of force. He could see much the same outcome from fundamentalism in the USA if the USA were not a highly successful state with a strong security apparatus and popular support.

Nobody has commented on the 16% approval rating of IS in France. How do we keep beliefs similar to theirs from becoming mainstream Islam in the Western world?

[Edgwyn]

Nobody has commented on the 16% approval rating of IS in France. How do we keep beliefs similar to theirs from becoming mainstream Islam in the Western world?

 

In part by not accepting them. Many of the Western democracies have refused to enforce their existing laws and standards of behavior on their Muslim populations. In the interests of "Multi-Culturalism" certain populations have been allowed to govern themselves (In NY this includes not just Muslim, but ultra-orthodox Jews as well) ignoring Federal, state and local laws. Some countries have gone so far as to recognize Sharia as a alternate judicial system. Essentially, many of the Western countries while greatly discouraging their majority populations from radicalizing themselves encourage their minority populations to radicalize.

 

Until both sides of the various political spectrums agree that this has to stop and that there needs to be one standard, then it will continue.

[Alorael at Large]

I wouldn't say Muslim expansionism was right, but it was really no different from a long, long history of empire-building in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Egypt, Persia, Alexander the Great, Rome and its successor Byzantium, just to name a few. States have risen and seized territory since the earliest records we have of states. Was it different with religion as a motivation? Maybe. It certainly worked to motivate the masses, but I'm not sure how much difference it made to the leaders. The conquest of the New World was different, I think, in that it wasn't local expansion and there was a distinctly different approach to conquered territory and people. The reason it's still complained about is because colonialism was a different model of conquest and left different lasting problems.

 

—Alorael, who would like to know where any communities are allowed to be self-governing with their internal laws superseding those of the country. There are certainly insular communities that enforce their own laws and try to keep official law enforcement out, but that is not encouraged by authorities.

[Edgwyn]

Here are some examples of the conflicts between the Hasidic communities and their neighbors. I never stated that the authorities encourage it, my point was that not enough is done to stop it.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/nyregion/shadowy-squads-enforce-modesty-in-hasidic-brooklyn.html?_r=0

http://nymag.com/news/features/east-ramapo-hasidim-2013-4/

[Alorael at Large]

This is timely!

 

—Alorael, who actually isn't so sure that article makes the point it's trying to make by the end. Individuals are not data.

[Edgwyn]

The author of the article pointed out that Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, has a relatively small portion of its population (16% of total population = 20% of the Muslim population) that favors the death penalty for apostay. The author fails to mention the steady erosion of female and minority rights that have occurred in Indonesia over the past five or so years.

 

Culture does play a huge rule in the situation with Islamic countries as well. The definition of modest dress for women varies in part based on culture, though there seems to be a trend towards movement towards more restriction.

 

The modesty police mentioned in one of the articles that I linked to reminded me of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia. There have been a lot of abuses there with members exceeding their authority to enforce their own rules without being disciplined. Westerners used to be specifically warned to avoid them and told that you can expect to be hit by them in certain circumstances. Somehow I don't think sending a young Kevin Bacon there to organize a high school dance will solve the problem.

[Slawbug]

(16% of total population = 20% of the Muslim population)

It doesn't affect your main argument, but the author said "16 percent of Muslims" and not 16% of the total population.

[Edgwyn]

You are right, I missed that.

[Travisbmoore]

Banned speech.

[Luca]

Yes, Obama probably brought this about by not establishing a Kurdish state...or Bush, for that matter. It would have acted like a buffer zone of a free society other than Israel. It is sad that Turkey hates the Kurds who are the only ones fighting for land and their right to make money. (a) I think most religions are bad. Christianity has forgotten its roots and turned from the way the truth and the life. Islam has become the war religion of terror since World War One as the West divided the land in a way that fostered the war. (consider relocating to point (a)) It is also sad that people in the Middle East cannot seem to get along; however, I do believe Jihad is a part of the Islamic faith and only needs fuel for the fire burning in the Middle East. Without moderators and voices of reason and good people who could bring knowledge and peace to Muslim nations and others just out right hating the west there is outright war just because one Sunni or Shia group hates the other and both groups have killed many Christians. There is a focus on destroying Israel from all Islamic groups blaming them from the point of their religion or past divisions from world war one that divided the Ottoman Empire to gain control over oil. Oil is the other catalyst that has fostered and fueled wars in the Middle East other than Islam and Christianity being opposite religions of each other. Some of the smaller nations in addition to Iran have funded terrorist groups vying for control or defense against larger nations. If Iran gets nukes it could start an arms race that could lead to serious loss of life. This is my opinion though so please feel free to disagree or agree with it of your own free will.

 

It's too early in the morning for me to work on your political/social/historical/religious education. So, foregoing the response to the racism, I thought the best thing for me to do was to start with grammar. Alas, my coffee is depleted. But hey, welcome to Spiderweb. I...don't think this site is about...what you think it's about.

[Travisbmoore]

banned hate speech against Islam. Personal beliefs banned.

[Kelandon]

Yes it seems racist... I find it hard to believe that any clerics in Islam are good

This is dangerously close to hate speech, which is banned by the Code of Conduct of these boards. You're also (not badly, but distinctly) violating our request to use readable spelling and grammar. It just makes it easier for those of us who have to monitor the boards to read what you're saying.

 

Let's all take a moment to read the Code of Conduct and remind ourselves how to be friendly and keep the boards clean!

[Harehunter]

If I may interject my two pennies. On Linked In where I have been residing for the past year and and half or so, I have ben gaining a bit of a following among the Muslim coimmunity. The history of this is quite long, Suffice it to say that since I began mentoring Leadership I have been in close communication with India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and more.

 

Follks, I don't know if all of you remember me when was active here, but I was known to be quite argumentative at that time. That was nothing compared to some of the verbal knock down drag outs I've had to moderate. ( I owe you one Slarty ) By taking a stance in the middle between Muslims and Jews and Christians, and taking charge of them to eliminate the ad hominum attacks, regardless of he source, even the gurus of the site consider me with a smidgian of respect.

[Harehunter]

Kelandon, I know your standards for hate speach are more strict than on LI. so let me know where the line is so I do not cross it;

[Harehunter]

Aloreal. Good article, very close to my personal experience.