What options do you think are open to France? It’s full of resentful, unemployed, young Muslims just a couple of clicks from being radicalized. Any really effective action taken against the perpetrators would likely result in a major insurrection. The baguette is already burnt.
I have a bunch of colleagues over there. I hope everyone’s all right.
If that was true, then it’s not just a few bad apples, which would also be informative for France.
Ditto this.
Courage and comfort to all Franco-Dopers.
I’m hearing all the band members are safe, although they haven’t completely accounted for everyone who was traveling with the band.
For that reason among others, the House of Saud might have some rough times in the near future.
That doesn’t make sense on face value. If they keep the same level of output they’re losing money. right now it’s at 1970 prices. When you factor in inflation it has to be hurting them.
And if we’re pumping more oil then the only way they can maintain market share is to increase production.
And if they’re not selling oil where is their money coming from? They need us far more than we need them.
Yes, Machiavelli warned about being so gratuituously cruel that you went past being feared into being* hated* and making it so those you oppress could not do worse by fighting you than by submitting.
Their death metal cred may have gone through the roof, though. Or conversely they’ll be in conversations with Anthrax to take over the “Basketfull of Puppies” alternate name.
…oh, please like I’m the only one in the Hellbound elevsator…
Those evil bastards already figured out how to attack the US. The evil bastards–singly, together–have attacked before now. Some of the evil bastards were home-grown. Some of them were Christians. What’s your solution for keeping out people who are born there?
What decisive military action would you suggest? Not everyone in the countries where the evil bastards are from (like, say, the USA) is one of the evil bastards. There’s also the issue that the actual governments of the evil bastards’ home countries are against the evil bastards. So, I ask again: What decisive military action do you suggest? Perhaps you could mention one that does not attack innocents. After all, you don’t want to be the same kind of evil bastards as those who intentionally kill innocents, do you?
A few questions:
[ol][li]Is part of the reason those young Muslims are resentful because they find it very difficult to get employed?[/li][li]Is part of the reason those young Muslims find it very difficult to get employed ant-Muslim prejudice?[/li][*]Does anyone think that if those young Muslims were to, say, change religion to, say, Catholicism society would all of a sudden treat them differently?[/ol]
We don’t need to keep the people out. We just need to keep the ideas which motivate them out. The only way to do that is through aggressive debunking, and strong promotion of secular values as being simply better than religious ones.
Well, I’m seeing, as a response to this latest outrage, “nice Christian” people advocating essentially the same kind of extremist stupidity as that of those who killed innocents in Paris. In case you’re wondering, that response is: “Let’s kill them all” or “Confine them all” or “Keep them all out”…Well, you get the idea, one would hope.
By the way, what do you think the ideas are that are motivating them (and by them, I mean either the “nice Christians” or the extremist Muslims)? If you will say that Islam is their motivation, then you will be talking from extreme ignorance.
Carrying out attacks on other countries gives us a satisfying feeling of retribution, but doesn’t do anything about the problem in the long run. It’s a virus of extremism that will just have to run its course. And most of the slaughter occurs in Islamic countries, so from a Western point of view, it’s just a question of how to limit the spillover.
Saudi came close to the economic brink earlier this year due to this maintenance of low prices for oil.
They won’t face internal revolution since they spread the wealth about quite generously in national welfare; but they may have to cut back on their adventurism against Iran. And to another extent against Russia… And even against America.
I’m not excusing that. I can only note that promoting secular values of tolerance and pluralism likely won’t go down well with some Christians either.
I’m not sure this thread is really the place for talking about these ideas, but since I brought them up I owe you an answer. The ideas I’m referring to are the ideas of jihad as offensive war, martyrdom, and sectarianism.
Now, I’m aware that Jihad as offensive war is but one kind of Jihad among many. I’m also aware that Islamic scripture lists numerous ways in which one can become a martyr, including drowning, dying in a fire or dying of plague. But that doesn’t change the fact that one of those ways is still dying “In defence of Islam”, a phrase which, depending on one’s personal level of sectarian feeling, can mean almost anything. An honest reading of Islamic scripture also reveals a strong strain of antipathy towards unbelievers. In fact, this antipathy permeates nearly every surah in the Koran and is amply substantiated in the hadith.
To believe one of these ideas is bad enough. To believe all three of them is to believe pretty much everything necessary to commit murder with impunity and think it glorious.
As I said, I’m not sure this thread is the best place to go into these ideas in depth and, in hindsight, I regret bringing them up. I was posting in the heat of the moment, so to speak. If you want to talk about it further I’ll happily join you in GD but until then I think I ought to recuse myself from this thread to save derailing it further.
I’m seeing all the known attackers are dead now. None captured alive.
Good! I hope their 72 virgins are all homely and nag them about mundane complaints for all eternity.
It is the small details that make it the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Good in a way. But I would prefer one or two captured alive to extract information from. This is one case where I would definitely look the other way for the extraction methods.