Y’know, it really must be terribly frustrating for these terrorists to keep having their motives ignored by the victims of their attacks. These people go to tremendous pains to make their motives clear, and we just keep throwing everything they say back in their faces. Monty Python never came up with anything as absurd as this:
*Terrorist: We did this because we are soldiers in God’s war against the infidels and apostates.
Salon: No you didn’t.
Terrorist: Oh yes we fucking did! Don’t be telling us our business, you masochistic pricks. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.
Salon: No. You’re wrong. Your religious beliefs have nothing to do with this. You’re just using them as a front to disguise your true geopolitical and economic motives.
Terrorist: Why the fuck would we do that? We want you to know why we’re doing this. Otherwise what’s the fucking point? Look: list of Koranic justifications.
Salon: Nuh-uh.
Terrorist: Did you even read the statement we put out? This is Jihad. This is holy war. We literally said “We divorced ourselves from the worldly life and advanced upon the enemy hoping to be killed for Allah’s sake in service to our religion.” That’s a direct quote from our statement!
Salon: We don’t believe you.
Terrorist: Well could you start believing us? Please? We really do put a lot of work into this stuff.
Salon: Nope. Your actions are motivated by U.S. Foreign policy. You’re not Islamic. You have nothing to do with Islam.
Terrorist: Do you have any idea how offensive that is? How dare you! Islam is literally the only thing we’re about! Stop taking all the credit!
Salon: Nope. We created you. We’re very sorry.
Terrorist: Well, gee, thanks so much for telling us what we think, white Western journalist on the other side of the world.
Salon: Please forgive us.*
If I was in ISIS, articles like this would drive me up the fucking wall!
Let’s not forget all the idiots on Twitter, complaining about how everyone is so concerned for Paris, but not for anyone at Missouri University. Yes, I’m serious. Just do a search for the hashtag #mizzou. Most of them are probably just spoiled college students or teenagers, but c’mon. Get some perspective.
Worst response: “OMG how can we even THINK about taking in 10,000 of THEM?” Holy fuck, there are hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their country because they’re caught in the crossfire of a war that only started because of Bush’s meddling in Iraq and we can’t help any of them because some of our people are fucking scared of a religion? You poor stupid cowardly racist xenophobic asshole bastards.
Second worst response: “If only more people had guns in that concert…” Oh yeah, this is the PERFECT time to engage in your NRA masturbatory fantasies.
Honorable mention: “We have to declare war on ISIS”. ISIS isn’t a country, has no capital, and can never surrender. You treat it like organized crime, disrupt their financial networks, cripple their facilities, kill their agents when you can, but it isn’t like your grandfathers’ wars so get your head out of the 19th century.
Well, yes and no on that last point. For ISIS to be a fully realized caliphate in the strictest sense of the word, they must function as a government (of sorts). That is why they are so eager to be seen as providing the functions of government, pick up the garbage, etc. That sort of mundane priority is not the usual stance of a revolutionary movement, but their cramped theology doesn’t permit anything else.
So, then, they must form a “government” but are forbidden to undertake many of the practical efforts of a government. For instance, they cannot have “borders” as we understand them, because the caliphate is already the world government, its just that the world has yet to realize it. And the kicker is that they fully realize that their goals are impractical and wildly unrealistic. They fully expect to sacrifice thousands, if not millions of innocent Muslim lives. And to lose, and lose, until in their darkest hour, Allah rides to the rescue!
If that isn’t nuts, it will do until real nuts gets here.
Historically, the Islamic world has always known sectarian violence, but it wasn’t nearly this bad before Western powers started colonizing it and otherwise meddling in it.
I’m not terribly bothered about any “frustration” experienced by terrorist murderers, tbh.
Also, when it comes to understanding why terrorist murderers do what they do, I’m not sufficiently impressed with their trustworthiness and the clarity of their thought processes to just swallow whatever line they choose to hand out concerning their motives.
As I’ve said before, Islamophobes are frequently so assiduous in agreeing with and disseminating what violent radical Islamist extremists say about Islam that they might as well be on the extremists’ payroll. I don’t understand why you think that violent radical Islamist extremists are such a credible body of witnesses.
Why is this in here in a thread about “worst” responses? This is a perfect thing to say, the proper thing, and in fact one of the only things we can say given we still know so little at the time of the post. Sometimes cliches are there for a good reason
Does Chauncey DeVaga give an example of the violent language Christie used against BLM, or is not meeting with BLM in the White House the equivalent of calling for their summary execution?
And left-wingers call into a radio station and call for lynching white people and cops.
And of course, booing people who say “all lives matter” isn’t “eliminationist” at all. Of course not.
I’m not terribly bothered about it either. If you think that was the point of my post, then you comprehensively missed it.
This is downright ridiculous. Here is ISIS’s statement on the Paris attacks in full:
*In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent,
Allah (ta’ala) said, They thought that their fortresses would protect them from Allah but Allah came upon them from where they had not expected, and He cast terror into their hearts so they destroyed their houses by their own hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O people of vision [Al-Hashr:2].
In a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah, a group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate (may Allah strengthen and support it) set out targeting the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe — Paris. This group of believers were youth **who divorced the worldly life and advanced towards their enemy hoping to be killed for Allah’s sake, doing so in support of His religion, His Prophet (blessing and peace be upon him), and His allies.**They did so in spite of His enemies. Thus, they were truthful with Allah — we consider them so — and Allah granted victory upon their hands and cast terror into the hearts of the crusaders in their very own homeland.
And so eight brothers equipped with explosive belts and assault rifles attacked precisely chosen targets in the center of the capital of France. These targets included the Stade de France stadium during a soccer match — between the teams of Germany and France, both of which are crusader nations — attended by the imbecile of France (Francois Hollande). The targets included the Bataclan theatre for exhibitions, where hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of **prostitution and vice. ** There were also simultaneous attacks on other targets in the tenth, eleventh, and eighteenth districts, and elsewhere. Paris was thereby shaken beneath the crusaders’ feet, who were constricted by its streets. The result of the attacks was the deaths of no less than two hundred crusaders and the wounding of even more. All praise, grace, and favor belong to Allah.
Allah blessed our brothers and granted them what they desired. They detonated their explosive belts in the masses of the disbelievers after finishing all their ammunition. We ask Allah to accept them amongst the martyrs and to allow us to follow them.
Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake in the crusader campaign, as long as they dare to curse our Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him), and as long as they boast about their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets, which were of no avail to them in the filthy streets and alleys of Paris. Indeed, this is just the beginning. It is also a warning for any who wish to take heed.
Allah is the greatest.
(And to Allah belongs all honor, and to His Messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know) [Al-Munafiqun: 8].*
If you can read all that and still conclude that these people weren’t motivated by their religious beliefs then you really ought to consult a neurologist. At this point, saying these people weren’t motivated by faith is as ridiculous as saying they were actually atheists.
Let me ask you, if statements like this don’t suffice as evidence that ISIS are motivated by their faith, what would suffice? Give me an example. What would a terrorist genuinely spurred by religious grievances actually have to say or do to convince you that he was sincere about his motivations?
Whether you like it or not, what these people actually believe is important. If the first rule of war is know your enemy, then the lunatic denialism of people like you who obstinately refuse to believe - despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary - that these people are motivated by their religious beliefs is one of the biggest parts of the problem. From where I’m sitting, it looks much more as though people like you are on their payroll.
You can argue that these people are wrong about their religion, but the one thing you can’t do, is say that their religious beliefs are unconnected to their actions. At this stage, it’s as crazy as flat-eartherism or holocaust denial.
You’re confusing a whole bunch of related but different issues here.
They are using their faith to articulate a justification for their crimes: Yes, obviously.
They sincerely believe that their faith justifies their crimes: Yes, probably, although we’d need that neurologist you speak of to know for certain.
Their faith is the sole and independent motivation of their crimes and we don’t need anything more than their statement of their faith to fully understand their crimes:HAHAHAHHHAAHAHA BULLLLLLLLLSHIIIIT.
[QUOTE=Tithonus]
Whether you like it or not, what these people actually believe is important.
[/quote]
Nobody’s saying that what they believe isn’t important. But you’re trying to assess and analyze their religious faith in a vacuum, as though it could be functionally separated from all other context. Nothing could be more naive.
[QUOTE=Tithonus]
You can argue that these people are wrong about their religion, but the one thing you can’t do, is say that their religious beliefs are unconnected to their actions.
[/QUOTE]
Show me where anybody actually claimed that their religious beliefs are unconnected to their actions. Again, you’re completely confused about the different issues here involving religious belief.
The CP china uses extensive reference to the Marxist works and has a Red songs campaign, this must mean they believe deeply and purely in the marxism, and this is the sole motivation. It says so in their propaganda.
Indeed it is not. No one is trying to eliminate those idiots, the booing is for their intellectually dishonest muddying of the topic. All lives matter, but black lives in America are the ones having a special problem with police brutality, and that is what BLM is about. All of which you know very well.
