The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[omariqy]

They are animals from the 12th century.

Speak out, Islam. This is disgusting.

Sadly they more interested in how KFC kill there chickens.

Can we get an unlike button on here?

[donnie]

So it turns out there are Muslims who condemn these acts and are against ISIS, who know.......

It is hardly mass protests like we saw against Isreal is it.

They did a piece on the One Show a few weeks back asking Muslim residents of Sparkbrook their opinion on what IS were doing. You know what?? Not one of them spoke out against IS or condemned them. Same old BS 'it's America's fault aint't it'.

[snowychap]

It is hardly mass protests like we saw against Isreal is it.

You've given up on the 'mass celebrations' after September 11th claim, then? Edited October 4, 2014 by snowychap

[donnie]

It is hardly mass protests like we saw against Isreal is it.

You've given up on the 'mass celebrations' after September 11th line, then?

No. But it is not relevant to this is it so what's your point?.

Why do you have a comma between line and then?. Bet it got you all excited typing that so you needed a pause to finish the sentence.

[snowychap]

No. But it is not relevant to this is it so what's your point?.

My point was to highlight the similarity of the claims (and the tone of the claims and the way in which the claims are used to dismiss another's argument).

Why do you have a comma between line and then?.

Because I like commas as much as you despise parentheses. Okay?

[chrisp65]

 

I demand that people that look a bit like the baddies protest against the baddies in a way that attracts media attention

 

that way I can sit on my half informed arse, watch the news and feel safe that the ones around here that look like baddies aren't going to hurt me

 

this media coverage needs to be on BBC1 because the remote control is over there so my in depth research on the subject is limited

 

however, I must just point out that at no point will I personally be out street protesting for the infotainment of others, against the shit that people perceived to be a bit like me do

[islingtonclaret]

I demand that people that look a bit like the baddies protest against the baddies in a way that attracts media attention

that way I can sit on my half informed arse, watch the news and feel safe that the ones around here that look like baddies aren't going to hurt me

this media coverage needs to be on BBC1 because the remote control is over there so my in depth research on the subject is limited

however, I must just point out that at no point will I personally be out street protesting for the infotainment of others, against the shit that people perceived to be a bit like me do

My comment that Islamic leaders should speak out again (I was aware of the responses from British Muslims so far, and they're not being covered as widely as they should)(sd) was less for my own armchair warrior gratification and more to prevent totally cretinous comments like "they more interested in how KFC kill there chickens mate".

[Ads]

Expect some serious blood letting in Aleppo shortly with the Syrian Army looking to cut off the final supply route out of the city, essentially encircling it.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Ads

[AVFCforever1991]

French Muslims protest against ISIS in Paris.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/world/europe/islamic-state-isis-muslims-term.html

 

Muslims attended a gathering outside the Great Mosque of Paris last month to protest against the group known as the Islamic State. CreditJacky Naegelen/Reuters

 

PARIS — After the French mountaineering guide Hervé Gourdel was beheaded by an Algerian jihadist group aligned with the Islamic State last month, hundreds of Muslims gathered outside the Great Mosque of Paris to express their revulsion over the brutality of a group whose name and ideology, they said, was an insult to Muslims everywhere.

 

Some carried placards with the hashtag #NotInMyName, which has become a rallying cry on Twitter against the Islamic State.

 

Ahmet Ogras, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, which called for the protest on Sept. 26, said that the now-common use of the name Islamic State threatened to stigmatize France’s Muslims, Europe’s largest Muslim community. He also said that the name conferred unwarranted legitimacy on a group carrying out killings in the name of Islam. 

 

“This is not a state; this is a terrorist organization,” he added. “I call them terrorists because that’s what they are. One has to call a dog a dog. One can’t play with words.”

 

As the United States-led battle against radical forces rages in Iraq and Syria, a new linguistic front is emerging. Muslim groups in Europe and beyond are lashing out at the Islamic State in protests and on social media, advocating alternative ways to refer to the militants, now known by an alphabet soup of labels including ISIS, ISIL, IS and SIC.

 

In a sign of the semantic war underway, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, last week railed against the Islamic State by calling it the “Un-Islamic Nonstate,” though few expect that the acronym UINS will have much staying power.

 

Those kinds of protests against the Islamic State were echoed in Britain, where members of the Islamic Society of Britain and the Association of British Muslims last month wrote an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron suggesting that the group should be referred to instead as the “Un-Islamic State” or UIS. Continued use of the name Islamic State would only further radicalize young Muslims, they said.

 

France, which has joined the United States-led airstrikes against the group in Iraq and is fighting a propaganda battle against the group at home, has been leading the rebranding. The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that the number of those who traveled or planned to travel to Syria or Iraq to fight in the region had risen to about 1,000, making it all the more urgent for the government to discredit the militants.

 

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced last month that the government would avoid the term Islamic State or its alternatives, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and instead refer to the militant group as Daesh, the acronym many Arabic speakers use, which sounds like a word meaning to crush.

 

Addressing the National Assembly, Mr. Fabius declared that the Islamic State’s claim to represent a caliphate — a state governed by Islamic principles — in Syria and Iraq was geopolitically and linguistically false.

 

“This is a terrorist group and not a state,” he said. "I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists.” Calling on news organizations to follow his lead, he added, “The Arabs call it Daesh, and I will be calling them the Daesh Cutthroats.”

 

The term Daesh — also sometimes referred to as Da’ish — is an acronym of the group’s Arabic name, Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham, according to Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, who studies the Islamic State and is now a researcher with the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. It is also used without being meant as an insult.

 

But, Mr. Tamimi said, the acronym has also been embraced by critics of the group, as the word could have negative connotations in the Arab world, since it is close to the word daes, meaning to tread underfoot, trample or crush. (Several residents of Mosul, Iraq, which fell to the Islamic State in June, told The Associated Press that the Sunni militant group was so incensed about the use of the term Daesh that members threatened to cut off the tongues of anyone who uttered it.)

 

In the United States, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, said his group had settled on ISIS, though he personally referred to the group as “Daesh — though sometimes I say ‘the Evil State.’  ” Because of its similarity to daes, he explained, “it doesn’t sound good.”

 

Several representatives of American Islamic associations said that any of the names used for the group were acceptable so long as they did not include the term Islamic. Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, based in Los Angeles, said his group had stuck with the acronym ISIS “because we believe by using Islam in any description of these groups, it’s exactly what they want — a religious validation of what they’re doing.”

 

President Obama has made it clear why he shuns the formulation Islamic State. “ISIL is not Islamic,” he told a national television audience in early September, later adding, “ISIL is certainly not a state.” The White House and State Department have been slightly less clear about why they embraced the acronym ISIL, rather than ISIS.

 

Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London, noted that the term Daesh was unlikely to resonate internationally since the acronym ISIS more easily rolled off the tongue. Nor, he argued, is it likely to have much effect on the thousands of Westerners keen to join the group in Syria and Iraq, who are contemptuous of Western governments and news media.

 

“While it is important to make clear that ISIS does not represent mainstream Islam, I don’t think Daesh is really going to catch on in the West, and the French have already lost the battle of the acronyms,” he said. “Merely uttering the words Islamic State doesn’t mean you recognize it as a state. People understand that they are impostors and that a name is just a name.”

Edited October 4, 2014 by AVFCforever1991

[stewiek2]

I see the UN Peace Envoy is desperately trying to get "boots on the ground" in Iraq, whilst at the same time reminding us that the current situation is nothing to do with him and his illegal war. At all.

If he can get a major conflict going for a few months, lots of rocket flashes a bit of shock and a pinch of awe, then be seen glad handing the winners, well, who knows there might be another peace prize in it for him. Or another million dollar cheque from Israel.

Teflon gets consultancy fees from the Saudis and Kuwaitis as well through his company.

[chrisp65]

 

I demand that people that look a bit like the baddies protest against the baddies in a way that attracts media attention

that way I can sit on my half informed arse, watch the news and feel safe that the ones around here that look like baddies aren't going to hurt me

this media coverage needs to be on BBC1 because the remote control is over there so my in depth research on the subject is limited

however, I must just point out that at no point will I personally be out street protesting for the infotainment of others, against the shit that people perceived to be a bit like me do

My comment that Islamic leaders should speak out again (I was aware of the responses from British Muslims so far, and they're not being covered as widely as they should)(sd) was less for my own armchair warrior gratification and more to prevent totally cretinous comments like "they more interested in how KFC kill there chickens mate".

 

 

My comment wasn't aimed at any one post, hence the lack of quotes, it was more a general comment on people demanding proof of others allegiances. 

It's a nonsense unsustainable approach to life. I wouldn't demand our school kids protest against american school shootings, I wouldn't demand anybody looking  bit black african  protests against anti arab ethnic cleansing in Darfur. I wouldn't demand all orthodox christians from Poland living here protest against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

[islingtonclaret]

I demand that people that look a bit like the baddies protest against the baddies in a way that attracts media attention

that way I can sit on my half informed arse, watch the news and feel safe that the ones around here that look like baddies aren't going to hurt me

this media coverage needs to be on BBC1 because the remote control is over there so my in depth research on the subject is limited

however, I must just point out that at no point will I personally be out street protesting for the infotainment of others, against the shit that people perceived to be a bit like me do

My comment that Islamic leaders should speak out again (I was aware of the responses from British Muslims so far, and they're not being covered as widely as they should)(sd) was less for my own armchair warrior gratification and more to prevent totally cretinous comments like "they more interested in how KFC kill there chickens mate".

My comment wasn't aimed at any one post, hence the lack of quotes, it was more a general comment on people demanding proof of others allegiances.

It's a nonsense unsustainable approach to life. I wouldn't demand our school kids protest against american school shootings, I wouldn't demand anybody looking bit black african protests against anti arab ethnic cleansing in Darfur. I wouldn't demand all orthodox christians from Poland living here protest against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

I see your point, but none of those groups are insinuating that it would be a cracking idea to adopt our doctrine and behead a random citizen in the street in my country.

[HanoiVillan]

 

 

I demand that people that look a bit like the baddies protest against the baddies in a way that attracts media attention

 

that way I can sit on my half informed arse, watch the news and feel safe that the ones around here that look like baddies aren't going to hurt me

 

this media coverage needs to be on BBC1 because the remote control is over there so my in depth research on the subject is limited

 

however, I must just point out that at no point will I personally be out street protesting for the infotainment of others, against the shit that people perceived to be a bit like me do

 

 

Possibly the single best - certainly the most accurate - comment on the entire website. 

[chrisp65]

thanks mum

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

So those bombs worked a treat...

[Awol]

So those bombs worked a treat...

In reference to Iraq or Syria? The only reason IS aren't already in Baghdad is because of recent air strikes on IS attack forces forming up around Fallujah.

In Kobane (Syria) the Turks could save the city any time they choose - but they are choosing not to. The US has finite air assets currently committed and the UK can do nothing because Miliband (now joined by Clegg) is blocking our involvement.

We've seen all this before elsewhere:

1) western politicians are given a window to act to prevent genocide;

2) much handwringing ensues as said politicians indulge in technocratic arguments about whether or not it would be right to intervene;

3) Massacre takes place removing the need to make a decision;

4) western politicians make eloquent speeches about how it can never be allowed to happen again;

5) survivors, relatives, friends and entire ethnic group realise the west talks the talk but little else. Bitterness and hatred takes root.

6) rinse and repeat.

[TrentVilla]

I'm ashamed of what the West has allowed to happen in Kobane and I'm particularly disgusted with Turkey I can't even post my thoughts on them.

 

Much like Srebrenica, Kobane is a stain on the reputation and collective consciousness of the West, its governments and the UN.

 

To allow this happen and not do what is within our powers is nothing short of disgusting.

[Ads]

With the political settlement on the issue in Westminster as it is, the only way we'd get involved in Syria now is if IS attacked Turkey, as article 5 of NATO would be invoked. It makes no sense to try and tackle IS, but not focus on the areas where they're strongest.

 

There is a delicate balance from the west not wanting to up set the Turks regarding the Kurds, but its clear from Biden's comments at Harvard the other day what Obama et all think of our friends. The Turks in turn are playing they're own form of brinkmanship; they don't want IS to take such a strategic town, as the flow of men and material can come into Turkey, as well as out, but equally, somebody new getting stuck into the Kurds won't displease them and all of this is framed under getting rid of Assad.

[lapal_fan]

silly question alert.

 

But Turkey is a predominately Muslim country right?  Why would IS have beef with them?   They wouldn't be classed as infidels would they?

[Awol]

silly question alert.

But Turkey is a predominately Muslim country right? Why would IS have beef with them? They wouldn't be classed as infidels would they?

Not a silly question at all. IS and their "Caliph" Al Baghdahi claim leadership of all Muslims everywhere and don't recognize Muslim nation states as legitimate, only their own.