Re: The Obama Caliphate
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 12:13 am
So what should the West do?
Another day in the Universe
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https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2962
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/m ... -build-it/Washington’s strategy in Iraq is in shambles, but not just because America’s spanker-in-chief is really a wimp at heart. The problem is far more generic. To wit, the geographic territory of Iraq is not a nation; it is an arbitrary series of lines on a map drawn 100 years ago by dandies in the foreign offices of two fading empires (the British and the French)—–which lines encircled numerous tribes, ethnicities and religious confessions that had no interest in sharing a common statehood.
In the subsequent century, the warring peoples corralled within the Sykes-Picot boundaries were ram-rodded into a tenuous co-existence by a series of brutal monarchs, generals and dictators, backed up by British and American occupiers. But then the neo-con geniuses in the George W. Bush Administration hung the last dictator and the poll readers in the Obama White House had the good sense to adhere to their campaign pledge and bug out.
They left behind $25 billion in military training and state-of-the-art warfare equipment, but neither a dictator nor a nation. Indeed, under the latter heading they had endeavored to build a nation where there had been none, but ended up liquidating the machinery—–the Republican Guards and the Baathist political party—that in the most recent era had enforced co-existence with machine guns and poison gas canisters.
Foolishly claiming America’s job was done at the end of 2011 when the last GIs boarded transports out of Baghdad, Barack Obama was actually opening the gates of hell without a clue as to the furies that would soon come swarming through. Well, they are all here now with blood soaked hands grasping their weapons and agitated tongues issuing the spittle of revenge and historic enmities.
Yet the foolish man in the White House and his historically illiterate advisors keep banging the same old failed lever. Namely, they are once again attempting to deploy bombs, dollars and hortatory commands to cajole and herd Sunni, Shiite, Kurds and numerous other sectarian and tribal fragments from the time warp of history into a common polity—-a purported nation that would do Washington’s bidding in the ancient lands of Mesopotamia.
So doing, they are attempting to mobilize the alleged Iraqi nation against the freshly minted threat of the Islamic State. But yesterday’s news about the relief of the ISIS siege on the northern town of Amirli underscores how truly senile and clueless the Washington War party has actually become.
Yes, it was American bombers who spared the 17,000 Shiite Turkmen besieged there of the horrible prospect of a Sunni conversion at the sword. Consider, however, the associated and allied forces on the ground which essentially observed and reported the flight of the ISIS fighters from Washington’s aerial onslaught.
There was the Kurdish Peshmerga army that for years occupied a high rank on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. And also on hand were various and sundry Shiite militias—–many of which have been aligned, funded or even directed from the headquarters of the Axis of Evil, the allegedly terrorist nation of Iran. Indeed, as one Sunni politician confessed to a Wall Street Journal reporter:
“We don’t really have an army. Maliki just created a sectarian army, working with militias,” said Hamid Al Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician. “A lot of criminals, killers and bad people were included.”
Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps, the Hizbullah Brigades, Asaib Ahl Al Haq and the Mehdi Army, have all been accused of abuses against Sunnis.
But the frosting on the cake came from Washington’s former man in charge—outgoing prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. Making his last hurrah, he showed up at Amirli praising the Shiite militia men for their heroics—-perhaps including those who only weeks earlier wiped out 70 Sunni worshippers in a nearby town—while failing to even mention the American warplanes which had actually done the job or the Peshmerga that have actually carried the fight against ISIS in the north.
He then went on to remind the world that there is actually no such thing as an “Iraqi army” but only the armed Shiite in Iraqi uniforms or their own militia. Accordingly, Maliki called this wholly transient and irrelevant relief of one tiny town among the checkerboard of vestigial religious sects which occupy the upper Tigress-Euphrates Valley “a second Karbala”.
Well, no wonder the Sunni are alienated! That’s the battle of Gettysburg on steroids. Its where the 13-century long schism between the Sunni and Shiite all started.
As for the retreating ISIS warriors, never mind that their ranks were formed during the US engineered “surge” in Anbar province in 2007-2008 and the CIA training camps for Syrian rebels in Jordan during more recent months. At least the American bombers did destroy a few more American Humvees.
And that’s actually the point. American bombers can destroy the equipment left behind from the Bush occupation, but that’s about all. The second battle of Karbala! Please, can Washington possibly get a more poignant reminder that it cannot bomb or bribe an Iraqi nation into existence?
Indeed, it is time for Washington to learn to celebrate the letter “P”. It stands for partition. Let the Kurds have their nation in the northeast and make their political and economic arrangements—already well advanced–with Turkey. Let the south of Iraq congeal into a Shiite province—-loosely or otherwise affiliated with Iran, which together might form an effective barrier to the expansionary ambitions of the Islamic State.
And finally, let ISIS try to govern 8 million people in the dusty villages and impoverished desert expanse of the Euphrates Valley by means of the sword and medieval precepts of Sharia law. The resulting “blowback” from the bestirred people of the ISIS occupied lands will do more for the safety and security of the American people than all the drones and bombers that Washington could send to forge a puppet nation within borders that have already been deposited in the dustbin of history.
Thank YOU VERY MUCH for Your Post and For Maintaining the Forum, Typhoon.Typhoon wrote:So what should the West do?
James baker said the same thing. It was up to the Iraqi people. We could pave the way, and did until Obama came along, by adding stability but they have to start acting democratic. IE we got the bear in the cabin for them for them to kill it. They were doing much better when Bush left office. It was the pull out of troops that left the power vacuum. That facts say that is true. The amount of violence had gone way done from its peak. Down to where it was before the invasion. Malaki knew Obama was going to pull out. That pushed him even closer to the militias Iran and corruption to stay in power, out of a sense of personal survival. That is why he did not want to resign. He figured he would be dead soon after.Nonc Hilaire wrote:A Reagan era Republican conservative has a different take:
Washington’s strategy in Iraq is in shambles, but not just because America’s spanker-in-chief is really a wimp at heart. The problem is far more generic. To wit, the geographic territory of Iraq is not a nation; it is an arbitrary series of lines on a map drawn 100 years ago by dandies in the foreign offices of two fading empires (the British and the French)—–which lines encircled numerous tribes, ethnicities and religious confessions that had no interest in sharing a common statehood.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/m ... -build-it/
The only thing the West can do is convince the Jihadis and their supporters that the fight is so terrible and/or so unwinnable that they don't want to fight anymore. Leave them alone and the roosters will come home.....Typhoon wrote:So what should the West do?
Not possible.Doc wrote:The only thing the West can do is convince the Jihadis and their supporters that the fight is so terrible and/or so unwinnable that they don't want to fight anymore.
Deservedly so.Leave them alone and the roosters will come home.....
Oh it is quite possible Though I lot of them would have to die for Allah first.YMix wrote:Not possible.Doc wrote:The only thing the West can do is convince the Jihadis and their supporters that the fight is so terrible and/or so unwinnable that they don't want to fight anymore.
Why "deservedly so"?Deservedly so.Leave them alone and the roosters will come home.....
That will only weed out the weak and the careless. The more impossible the dream, the harder some people strive to achieve it. You'd think people noticed that.Doc wrote:Oh it is quite possible Though I lot of them would have to die for Allah first.
Take a wild guess.Why "deservedly so"?
You tell meYMix wrote:That will only weed out the weak and the careless. The more impossible the dream, the harder some people strive to achieve it. You'd think people noticed that.Doc wrote:Oh it is quite possible Though I lot of them would have to die for Allah first.
Take a wild guess.Why "deservedly so"?
.16% of French Citizens Support ISIS, Poll Finds
By Madeline Grant
Filed: 8/26/14 at 12:49 PM | Updated: 8/27/14 at 11:25 AM
Islamic State
A resident of Tabqa city touring the streets on a motorcycle waves an Islamist flag in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa city August 24, 2014. Stringer/Reuters
AA
Filed Under: World, ISIS, Islamic State, France, Britain
One in six French citizens sympathises with the Islamist militant group ISIS, also known as Islamic State, a poll released this week found.
The poll of European attitudes towards the group, carried out by ICM for Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya, revealed that 16% of French citizens have a positive opinion of ISIS. This percentage increases among younger respondents, spiking at 27% for those aged 18-24.
A recent Ifop poll placed French president Francois Hollande’s approval rating at just 18%.
Newsweek Magazine is Back In Print
The survey also tested attitudes in Britain and Germany and found that 7% of British citizens responded favourably to ISIS. However, UK polling showed an inverse demographic trend to that of France, with support for ISIS rising with age. 4% of 18-24-year-olds saying they either strongly or somewhat support ISIS, compared to 6% of 24-35-year-olds surveyed and 11% of 35-44-year-olds. Positive attitudes to ISIS in Germany showed less divergence, remaining between 3% and 4% for all age groups.
Newsweek’s France Correspondent, Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, was unsurprised by the news. “This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds,” she said, “unemployed to the tune of 40%, who’ve been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda.” She pointed to a correlation between support for ISIS and rising anti-Semitism in France, adding that “these are the same people who torch synagogues”.
France is home to an estimated 5 million Muslims, largely of North African descent, who arrived from the 1950s onwards in the wake of France’s decolonisation and the 1970s 'regroupement familiale' policy, which welcomed the families of migrant workers from ex-colonies.
ICM interviewed 3,007 respondents in Britain (1,000), France (1,006) and Germany (1,001) by telephone between 11th and 21st July this year, before the group released a video of an apparently British jihadist executing American journalist James Foley.
Last week a British MP claimed that as many as 1,500 British Muslims may have travelled to the Middle East to fight for ISIS, putting the figure at more than twice the number that fight for the British armed forces
<shrug> Muslims supporting their own.Doc wrote:BTW did you know that 16% of French citizens support ISIS? Why do you think that is true?
The question is who do they consider "their own" and why?YMix wrote:<shrug> Muslims supporting their own.Doc wrote:BTW did you know that 16% of French citizens support ISIS? Why do you think that is true?
Is that so? How much experience do you have with European hiring policies?Doc wrote:Hint: In the US the important things when search for a job is What do you know and How hard do you work? In Europe it is more who are you related too? and what interest group are you a member of?
Enough to know that there is a 40% unemployment rate among young French Muslims Which means more time on the Internet and sitting in front of sat TV. Instead of building a life making them vested French citizens.YMix wrote:Is that so? How much experience do you have with European hiring policies?Doc wrote:Hint: In the US the important things when search for a job is What do you know and How hard do you work? In Europe it is more who are you related too? and what interest group are you a member of?
“unemployed to the tune of 40%, who’ve been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda.”
And that's the fault of interest groups?Doc wrote:Enough to know that there is a 40% unemployment rate among young French Muslims Which means more time on the Internet and sitting in front of sat TV. Instead of building a life making them vested French citizens.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Nonc Hilaire.Nonc Hilaire wrote:Doc, ISIS does not appear to be Islamic at all. They are pretending.
A. Every Islamic organization condemns them. Even the Vatican agrees. ISIS are not Muslim. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/ ... -isis.html
B. The number one rule for Muslims is do not harm other Muslims. Mega fail.
C. Not one, but two faked and bloodless " beheadings".
D. Muslims do not allow interest, but the first act of ISIS was to seize the Iraqi Central Bank. They aren't copying Willie Sutton. They want to control interest-based lending. If they were Muslim every bond in the place would be in a burn barrel.
Either ISIS is an old school IMF/NWO stunt, or they are a new school BRICS/NWO stunt. BRICS is not a challenge to globalization, it is a back-up plan. Just like the Bolshevik/Capitalist conflict, the same group controls both sides. ISIS is simply demagoguery 101 - find a mutual enemy to unite the population behind your agenda.
Anytime someone can point to a single source for a SNAFU this immense, they are lying. And ISIS is a lie.
FWIW, that's not what I am hearing.... That the Taliban and others are considering to join up if they determine that ISIS/IS is a true Caliphate...A. Every Islamic organization condemns them. Even the Vatican agrees. ISIS are not Muslim.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29009125Commander Mirwais Commander Mirwais says Muslims around the world are "thirsty for an Islamic caliphate"
Fighters from a militant Islamic group in Afghanistan, allied to the Taliban, have told the BBC they are considering joining forces with Islamic State (IS).
Their commander also said they would still fight the Afghan government, even after Nato forces left in 2014.
Commander Mirwais said that if IS, which he called by its Arabic acronym Daish, proved a true Islamic caliphate, they would link up with it.
Not really....B. The number one rule for Muslims is do not harm other Muslims. Mega fail.
Perhaps you MAY be correct here....C. Not one, but two faked and bloodless " beheadings".
Muslims have approved ways to get around this alleged prohibition. For example: a Muslim needs the equivalent of a mortgage for a house he wants to buy. Goes to an Islamic/Islamic Compliant Bank. Banker buy the house at the sellers price. The Banker then sells the house to the Muslim for a higher price which includes what would have been the interest charged to a non-Muslim and allow the Muslim buyer to make monthly payments until the debt is paid.D. Muslims do not allow interest,
IMHO not at all..... Single mistakes can be quite disastrous....Anytime someone can point to a single source for a SNAFU this immense, they are lying.
As part of Islam, IMO ISIS is based on delusions & lies....And ISIS is a lie.
There is a large difference between native French and even second and third generation Immigrant Muslim French. That is hardly a coincidence. In France where you are from or even where your father's father was from matters a lot. The thing is the Muslim French are not assimilated enough. They don't have a vested interest in being French first because of it. At one point French Police had higher causality rates fighting Muslims in the streets of Paris then US troops had in Iraq. Not that they were killed in higher number but that they were injured in higher numbers.YMix wrote:And that's the fault of interest groups?Doc wrote:Enough to know that there is a 40% unemployment rate among young French Muslims Which means more time on the Internet and sitting in front of sat TV. Instead of building a life making them vested French citizens.
But you generalized this situation to include all European countries.Doc wrote:There is a large difference between native French and even second and third generation Immigrant Muslim French. That is hardly a coincidence. In France where you are from or even where your father's father was from matters a lot.
YMix wrote:But you generalized this situation to include all European countries.Doc wrote:There is a large difference between native French and even second and third generation Immigrant Muslim French. That is hardly a coincidence. In France where you are from or even where your father's father was from matters a lot.
There is little assimilation of poor Muslims.Doc wrote:It does not work if there is no assimilation.
most people come with a pre-existing group of friends and family so they will only extend that group if its advantageous to them, a poor person would have to be extra charismatic/ interesting to break through that barrier.YMix wrote:There is little assimilation of poor Muslims.Doc wrote:It does not work if there is no assimilation.
EDIT: Come to think of it, there's little assimilation of poor people in general. When the Daily Mail talks about the Romanian problem in England, it's not Romanian businessmen they complain about. If you're working class and above, your language and customs are just one more problem to be overcome at work or during business negotiations. If you're poor... god help you.
Poor yes that is true. I knew a pair of Mexican Brother. They came with a group of us to a science museum. One of the play thing display was a magnet with Iron filings inside a acrylic box. Both were amazed like it was magic. They had never seen anything like it They grew up poor and drop out of school at a young age. The difference between them was that one really showed his amazement and the other hide it fairly well. Guess which one stayed in the US and which one went back to Mexico?YMix wrote:There is little assimilation of poor Muslims.Doc wrote:It does not work if there is no assimilation.
EDIT: Come to think of it, there's little assimilation of poor people in general. When the Daily Mail talks about the Romanian problem in England, it's not Romanian businessmen they complain about. If you're working class and above, your language and customs are just one more problem to be overcome at work or during business negotiations. If you're poor... god help you.
How "PC" of you...First my "Stero Types" Are not out of ignorance they are first hand. SECONDLY THEY tell me HAVE BEEN telling me for years well BEFORE 911 that there is a problem. They complain about the books being sold at the mosques. The ones married to Americans complain that they are always having to defend American women against the others. Your experience is not the same thing.kmich wrote:I grew up in an immigrant family that was constantly under suspicion by various authorities because of my parents' status as Russian refugees and particularly my father’s service in the Red Army. Suspicion was a serious barrier to my father’s employment as a plumber and we were always being visited by FBI and assorted INS doofuses. Paycheck to paycheck. I was constantly taunted and bullied at school for being a Russian “commie” until my father taught me how to box like he did in the army.
So, the endless talk about the “problem” with the “Muslims” really gets on my nerves. If they are legally admitted into your country, obey your laws, and can support themselves, they are not a “problem,” unless you want to make them one with your ignorant stereotypes. Immigrants, regardless of religion or nation of origin, come to your country because the opportunities you offer. So you are best off making sure your immigrant populations have a stake in the success of your society by using and rewarding their contributions regardless of their station in life. If you don’t, they could give up and go off the rails to find a stake in something else like various destructive radical groups, particularly if they are high spirited and inadequately socialized young men. But that is not just the problem of a particular immigrant community, it is your society’s failure at inclusion.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/20 ... pe-ghettosIntegration
According to a 2004 telephone survey of a sample of 1846 Muslims conducted by the polling organization Zogby, the respondents were more educated and affluent than the national average, with 59% of them holding at least an undergraduate college degree.[116] Citing the Zogby survey, a 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial by Bret Stephens and Joseph Rago expressed the tendency of American Muslims to report employment in professional fields, with one in three having an income over $75,000 a year.[117] The editorial also characterized American Muslims as "role models both as Americans and as Muslims".
Unlike many Muslims in Europe, American Muslims overall do not tend to feel marginalized or isolated from political participation and have often adopted a politically proactive stance. Several organizations were formed by the American Muslim community to serve as 'critical consultants' on U.S. policy regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. Other groups have worked with law enforcement agencies to point out Muslims within the United States that they suspect of fostering 'intolerant attitudes'. Still others have worked to invite interfaith dialogue and improved relations between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans.[118]
Growing Muslim populations have caused public agencies to adapt to their religious practices. Airports such as the Indianapolis International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport[119][not in citation given], Kansas City International Airport have installed foot-baths to allow Muslims, particularly taxicab drivers who service the airports, to perform their religious ablutions in a safe and sanitary manner.[120] and Denver International Airport included a mosque as part of its Interfaith Chapel when opened in 1996[121] although such developments have not been without criticism.[122]
As of May 30, 2005, over 15,000 Muslims were serving in the United States Armed Forces.[123]
A Pew report released in 2009 noted that nearly six-in-ten American adults see Muslims as being subject to discrimination, more than Mormons, Atheists, or Jews.[124] While Muslims comprise less than one percent of the American population, they accounted for approximately one quarter of the religious discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during 2009.[125] According to FBI statistics, hate crimes against Muslims are rare, at 6.0 per 100,000, compared to blacks at 6.7, homosexuals and bisexuals at 11.5, and Jews at 14.8.[126][127]
In the U.S., Immigrants Find Acceptance; in Europe, Ghettos
Ed Husain
Ed Husain is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is on Twitter.
Updated June 5, 2013, 5:33 PM
I am a product of immigration and multiculturalism. I was born and raised in England to Indian parents. I have lived and worked in Syria and Saudi Arabia, and now New York is my home. I am grateful to Europe for all that it has given me, but it continues to fail to provide a “sense of belonging” to its immigrants and their children.
In the United States, immigrants are accepted; in most of Europe, they are just tolerated. Unlike France and Germany, Britain has been experimenting with multiculturalism for three decades now. The British are ahead of mainland Europe, having fostered greater diversity in business, media and politics. But we’ve also helped create monocultural ghettos in northern cities where entire communities can survive without speaking English or making any contact with “white Britain.” Physically they are in Britain, mentally in Pakistan. Germany and Denmark refer to second- and third-generation “immigrants” as “guest workers” in a “host country”; they are seen as Turks, not Germans, despite birth and upbringing in Deutschland.
In Europe, millions of Muslims and people of color do not feel 'European.'
When multiculturalism creates communal segregation and sectarianism and sows the seeds for future conflicts, we have a civic duty to take our heads out of the sand. In Europe, millions of Muslims and people of color do not feel “European.” They are mostly perceived as and therefore behave as “outsiders.” Granted, some feel British or French, but I am not sure whether “host countries” and their upper classes see them that way. (Class structure, of course, is another barrier to integration in Europe.) At lower rungs of society, the rise of right-wing parties confirms my suspicions of Europe.
Europe itself lacks an identity. How can it welcome newcomers? In contrast, America is confident in itself: multiculturalism here is different, and broadly successful. The Statue of Liberty (ironic: a French gift) continues to call toward constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In President Obama’s America, minorities, women and youth are presidential kingmakers. Multiculturalism thrives when there is a framework of national identity underpinning it. Europe lacks that; America cherishes it every day as children from all backgrounds swear allegiance to the Stars and Stripes.
Finally, the ultimate test of when members of an immigrant community stop being “outsiders” is when its sons and daughters offer the ultimate sacrifice by joining a nation’s armed forces. American Muslims and members of other minority communities serve in the U.S. military and in law enforcement, and they do so with communal pride and support from elders. I have met American Muslims who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some have been laid to rest as heroes at Arlington cemetery. In Europe, such dedication remains taboo and is still seen as betrayal by fellow Muslims who see a false choice between Islam and the West. To fight for a western country is to oppose Islam, they argue. American Muslims defy that false narrative.
Multiculturalism in Europe needs desperate mending, not ending. And the United States offers instructive insights on how Europe can perhaps heal.