UK ISIS/IS Fighters
Comments
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I don't understand the whole religion bit either but that's not exclusive to the middle east.
We are understandably wary of extremism becoming a problem that is growing and we're all worried because we don't know where it's heading. Right now the probability of it directly impacting your life is minimal.
If you live in the middle east when the west mobilises, there is a very real danger to your way of life.
The sad part is the arms trade fuels all of this chaos. Rather than invading, a global embargo on weapons sales to the middle east would go a long way to stabilising things but that's wishful thinking. Money wins.0 -
Rick much of what you say there is true,if obvious, but is it really nothing to do with faith? To say that ISIS has nothing to do with religion is a rather odd statement given their aim is to estalish a caliphate. It might be that the root causes that have allowed such a radical interpretation of that religion to take hold trace back to the actions of the West but to argue it's nothing to do with faith is to be in denial.
When we are discussing UK ISIS fighters and home grown radicals there is a question to be asked why do these people identify so strongly with a struggle in a region to which they have no attachment in terms of ancestry. If it is all about otched colonialism we are talking about territory and nations, land, home grown radicals have an attachment to the ideology. Isn't that the difference - in the former Yugoslavia I don't think many non-Serbs went to fight for Serbia but you did get an international element to the fight against them and this has been repeated in other conflicts since - whatever the rights and wrongs of the respective sides there is a difference there.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Islamic State (IS) is a radical Islamist group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.
Although currently limited to Iraq and Syria, IS has promised to "break the borders" of Jordan and Lebanon and to "free Palestine". It attracts support from Muslims across the world and demands that all swear allegiance to its leader - Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Some estimate that IS and its allies control about 40,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of Iraq and Syria - roughly the size of Belgium. Others believe they control closer to 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) - about the size of Jordan. That territory includes cities - Mosul, Tikrit, Falluja and Tal Afar in Iraq; Raqqa in Syria - oil fields, dams, main roads and border crossings.
Eight million people are believed to be living under partial or full IS control, where the group implements a strict interpretation of Sharia, forcing women to wear veils, non-Muslims to pay a special tax or convert, and imposing punishments that include floggings and executions.
A significant number of IS fighters are neither Iraqi nor Syrian. The Soufan Group recently estimated that more than 12,000 foreign nationals from at least 81 countries, including 2,500 from Western states, had travelled to Syria to fight over the past three years.
Islamic State is reported to have $2bn (£1.2bn) in cash and assets, making it the world's wealthiest militant group. Initially, much of its financial support came from individuals in Arab Gulf states. Today, IS is a largely self-financed organisation, earning millions of dollars a month from the oil and gas fields it controls, as well as from taxation, tolls, smuggling, extortion and kidnapping. The offensive in Iraq has also been lucrative, giving it access to cash held in major banks in cities and towns it has seized.
Do you still think it's not our problem ?0 -
CYCLESPORT1 wrote:Islamic State (IS) is a radical Islamist group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.
Although currently limited to Iraq and Syria, IS has promised to "break the borders" of Jordan and Lebanon and to "free Palestine". It attracts support from Muslims across the world and demands that all swear allegiance to its leader - Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Some estimate that IS and its allies control about 40,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of Iraq and Syria - roughly the size of Belgium. Others believe they control closer to 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) - about the size of Jordan. That territory includes cities - Mosul, Tikrit, Falluja and Tal Afar in Iraq; Raqqa in Syria - oil fields, dams, main roads and border crossings.
Eight million people are believed to be living under partial or full IS control, where the group implements a strict interpretation of Sharia, forcing women to wear veils, non-Muslims to pay a special tax or convert, and imposing punishments that include floggings and executions.
A significant number of IS fighters are neither Iraqi nor Syrian. The Soufan Group recently estimated that more than 12,000 foreign nationals from at least 81 countries, including 2,500 from Western states, had travelled to Syria to fight over the past three years.
Islamic State is reported to have $2bn (£1.2bn) in cash and assets, making it the world's wealthiest militant group. Initially, much of its financial support came from individuals in Arab Gulf states. Today, IS is a largely self-financed organisation, earning millions of dollars a month from the oil and gas fields it controls, as well as from taxation, tolls, smuggling, extortion and kidnapping. The offensive in Iraq has also been lucrative, giving it access to cash held in major banks in cities and towns it has seized.
Do you still think it's not our problem ?
Lots of places are bad in the world. Why aren't you so fussed about intervening in, say, Myanmar?
is Myanmar your problem? Or don't you know what's going on there?
Or South Sudan? Or Venezuela?0 -
I think it's because, as mentioned, there are people born and bred in the UK who actively sympathise with their struggles, and are carrying out terrorist attacks on UK end EU soil, and preaching hate against the UK and what it stands for from within its borders.
I don't think the same could be said for Burma or Venezuela.
Are you deliberately missing the point?0 -
Well said
coriordan wrote:I think it's because, as mentioned, there are people born and bred in the UK who actively sympathise with their struggles, and are carrying out terrorist attacks on UK end EU soil, and preaching hate against the UK and what it stands for from within its borders.
I don't think the same could be said for Burma or Venezuela.
Are you deliberately missing the point?0 -
coriordan wrote:I think it's because, as mentioned, there are people born and bred in the UK who actively sympathise with their struggles, and are carrying out terrorist attacks on UK end EU soil, and preaching hate against the UK and what it stands for from within its borders.
I don't think the same could be said for Burma or Venezuela.
Are you deliberately missing the point?
I think that's the case principally because the UK took Iraq to be its problem, when it wasn't.
It's the attitude displayed by pro-interventionists that causes the UK to be a target in the first place.
That's exactly the point. Had the UK invaded South Sudan, I would expect UK to be a terrorist target from South Sudani terrorists.
etc.
It's been made the UK's problem. ISIS doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it didn't come up hating the West for no reason.0 -
I have seen interviews on British TV with British born muslim's where some have stated that the poodle Bliar's (New Labour) government collusion/intervention with the US in Iraq/Afghanistan has made the UK a legitimate target, in their eye's/thinking. Hence the security services now having to work overtime to foil acts of terrorism in the UK.0
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I'm absolutely not endorsing their actions. However, I can understand why they might see it that way.DJ58 wrote:I have seen interviews on British TV with British born muslim's where some have stated that the poodle Bliar's (Labour) government collusion/intervention with the US in Iraq/Afghanistan has made the UK a legitimate target, in their eye's/thinking. Hence the security services now having to work overtime to foil acts of terrorism in the UK.
The UK and US did invade countries in a predominantly Muslim region and depose their governments. I think we do have an attitude and expectation that our western governments (usually with the US at the vanguard) can intervene when they disapprove of, or have a vested interest in, events in other regions. However the idea that countries or groups in these regions may consider themselves justified in doing likewise is considered absurd.
International regulation and policing is essential but it must be properly and fairly mandated. The UN should be serving this purpose but it's proven itself ineffective in many, many cases. The Israel/Palestine conflict alone makes a mockery of the UN.
When the US, Russia, UK, etc are imposing themselves on others they forfeit any moral high ground and simultaneously foster the animosity they are supposedly setting out to combat. There has never been a recruitment campaign for terrorists to rival the "war on terror". Peace through war simply does not work. It's not difficult to understand and yet that's the excuse, again, and again and again...0 -
I blame King Richard.Rick Chasey wrote:It's been made the UK's problem. ISIS doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it didn't come up hating the West for no reason.
Wiggle can rest easy.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:The reaction to 9/11 was an invasion of 2 countries with local deaths in excess of 100,000.
Israel responds to a load of failed rocket attacks by shelling and bombing an entire city of Muslims, with the biggest proportion of deaths being women & children.
Stop painting everyone with the same brush.
Half my office is Muslim and you wouldn't know unless you tried to shove a bacon sarnie in their face. You seem to spend a lot of time focussed on a disturbed minority with a view to painting everyone else with the same brush.
Either you're myopic or you're stupid. Perhaps you should take a look at history and total up the number of atrocities, both as part of war & terrorism and see which faith or group has the worst record. You'd be surprised (hint - Europeans & Christians come out worst, with some of the biggest genocides)
The Middle East is politically unstable, and has been ever since the botched colonialist period, and that instability leads to pockets extremism. Nothing to do with the faith. In the same way botched colonialism in Northern Ireland led to instability and thus terrorism.
You are exceptionally quick to paint me as a racist. And now you accused me of being stupid. I am however myopic. Should you be reported to the mods?
FFS read properly what I have written. I did not say anywhere that all muslims are hate preachers, nor are they all terrorists, nor all of them jihadists. I did point out that there is something about that religion that makes some of them go to barbaric extremes in order to defend it.
And for crying out loud stop trying to draw comparisons to what Christians did in the crusades or the Spanish inquisition.
That is my whole point.
Religion is medieval.
We live in the 21st century and humanity should be rid of any nonsense religion, so that it can concentrate on what it does best. Science and Exploration.
I couldn't give a flying wotsit whether half your colleagues are Muslims, Buddhists, Knights Templar or Jedi Knights. Eat bacon butties, devour Pringles or scoff bean sprouts. The point is all religion is redundant.
The only thing I would concede you is the Ed B4ll5 up of drawing in lines in the sand. And the intervention in Iraq/Afghan/Libya et all. Far better to have left it ruled with the iron fists of the dictators. Nasty bits of work though they were, at least they knew the problems that the different Islamic factions coupled with tribalism would cause.
Yours sincerely
Mr Goo (Devout Atheist & Soon to be excommunicated from BR)
NB.
If RC decides to terminate my logon. I would just like to say 'farewell one and all, it's been fun'.Always be yourself, unless you can be Aaron Rodgers....Then always be Aaron Rodgers.0 -
And yet you pursue your atheism with religious fervour!
Sorry couldn't resist.0 -
There is undeniably a problem that many Muslims are prepared to actively pursue terrorism / a radical path. But interpretation is based on context. Were Mr Goo to refer to a Muslim problem, it would be easy to assume that he felt Muslims were a problem by their existence.Ballysmate wrote:@Morstar
I am glad that you actually believe there is a problem, the Moslem problem as you call it. I'm sure Goo would have been branded racist if he had used such a term.
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On a broader note and to underline the total inconsistencies of the western approach. When Syria became a humanitarian crisis, many felt the west would / could / should intervene against Syria.
For many reasons we didn't but in those early days, many individuals did mobilise for humanitarian reasons. At some point that mobilisation evolved from humanitarian to more radical motives. How and why did that happen?
I suspect in part some would argue considering our willingness to mobilise in Afghanistan and Iraq we had a duty to do so in Syria. Damned if we do damned if we don't but probably fuel to the fire of the West being selfish in its actions.
The whole thing is a mess but the region needs to resolve this itself and the west should only intervene in a positive way or when directly threatened (not notionally).
We can't cherry pick global concerns and randomly intervene killing thousands. Not doing so will be a basis of a just foreign policy. If there isn't broad sympathy for an anti west cause, the extremists are isolated nutters. Right now there is palpable resentment at our treatment of a predominantly muslim region which just happens to be full of oil. It's not just extremists who think recent western interventions in the middle east have been very ill conceived. But there never was an easy answer to 9/11.0 -
Some people would have us believe that it is all our fault in the west but is it that simple? Yes, the West invaded Iraq, perhaps for dubious reasons, and removed a tyrant in Saddam. But with his demise, a myriad of groups sprang up. These groups had several things in common, they were all Muslim and all were intent in killing other Muslims.
Even now, IS is fighting, killing and torturing other Muslims in the name of its perverse religion.
This week Saudi Arabia launched attacks on Yemen. We have the bizarre situation where Saudis are allies of one faction but the enemy of a similar faction in another theatre.
There is one common denominator in all this mess. Islam.0 -
Well said Ballysmate !0
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World war 1 and 2, common denominator, Christianity. Falkland isles, two christian countries.Ballysmate wrote:Some people would have us believe that it is all our fault in the west but is it that simple? Yes, the West invaded Iraq, perhaps for dubious reasons, and removed a tyrant in Saddam. But with his demise, a myriad of groups sprang up. These groups had several things in common, they were all Muslim and all were intent in killing other Muslims.
Even now, IS is fighting, killing and torturing other Muslims in the name of its perverse religion.
This week Saudi Arabia launched attacks on Yemen. We have the bizarre situation where Saudis are allies of one faction but the enemy of a similar faction in another theatre.
There is one common denominator in all this mess. Islam.
We can play religious top trumps until we're blue in the face. The middle east is a cluster f*ck in exactly the same way western Europe was in the early 20th century. People and ideologies are the problem, of which Islam is just one variant.
No the west is not the root cause of the problems but it hasn't helped. Why are we so embroiled in the middle east? Does it have anything to do with oil? We let African nations (where we have more of a historical legacy) turn to cr@p. And yet the middle east has to put up with our meddling even when it's basically stable, I.e. As Iraq was by 2000 as it was skint and could no longer cause any more trouble the Saudis (our allies) do through beheadings and torture and god knows what else against their own people.
Yes we probably should have finished the job in 91 when there would have been widespread support and we'd been invited into the region rather than under contrived circumstances in 2001/2 ish. But there wasn't a UN resolution back then.
We've tried to impose western beliefs on a region and they don't like it. It is hard to fathom some of the cultural opposition to democracy but it is what it is and our job is to accept that and only challenge it when it actually is a direct threat, not when we don't understand it and are simply worrying about what it will do to oil prices.0 -
Well Morstar you've convinced me. IS has nothing to do with Islam.
It's desire to set up a Caliphate has nothing to do with Islam.
The code whereby adulterers are stoned to death in accordance to Islamic law,
Homosexuals put to death, in accordance with Islamic law
Apostasy - death sentence, in accordance with Islamic law
Believing in another religion - death sentence, in accordance with Islamic law
Being a member of a different Muslim sect - death sentence.
Shiites killing Sunnis, Sunnis killing Shiites.
No siree, nothing to do with Islam.
How could I have been so wrong for so long. All the Muslim sects in the Middle East are one big family and get along famously.0 -
Are you paraphrasing me?
I don't think you've quite got the jist of my point.
My last post on the subject.
Isis is about power, wars, uprisings etc. are always about power. You need two things, an ideology and a common enemy to unite people. Islam is the obvious structure to hijack and the west has conveniently provided a common enemy to rally against.
I've made this point a few times of late on similar threads, Islam is just the vehicle that is being corrupted. You cannot condemn Islam based on a twisted version anymore than you can Christianity. To do so is to deny history.0 -
I have no time for Christianity either. But in its defence, it has moved from medieval times to some extent, even if it is mumbo jumbo.
You talk about the west as being the common enemy, but I suggest you take a fresh look at who IS are fighting. Have a look at who Saudi Arabia attacked.
Shiite is fighting Sunni and Kurd. All followers of Islam.
The fact is that the vast majority of victims of these conflicts are Muslim.0 -
Ballysmate wrote:I have no time for Christianity either. But in its defence, it has moved from medieval times to some extent, even if it is mumbo jumbo.
You talk about the west as being the common enemy, but I suggest you take a fresh look at who IS are fighting. Have a look at who Saudi Arabia attacked.
Shiite is fighting Sunni and Kurd. All followers of Islam.
The fact is that the vast majority of victims of these conflicts are Muslim.
Exactly. This is the real challenge in the 21st century. All mainstream religions bar one have now become a marginal aspect of the followers way of life, certainly in western society and advanced far eastern society. Education and improved living standards have seen to this. For many people, myself included, it is quite shocking to see a religion that is exceptionally orthodox even in its moderate forms and one that goes against the grain of what we all want - an open and fair democratic society.
In my opinion Islam is still clinging onto its origins of the few educated (all men) controlling and subjugating the masses with religious dogma. This also leaves it open to being hijacked and used as a banner to reap havoc and bl00dy murder against non believers and believers of its different sects.
The Middle East is a complete and utter mess. The only reason that Saudi and Iran are involving themselves against ISIS/Al Qaeda/et all, is that they are the last two major dictatorships in the region. An 'arab spring' in either would be catastrophic.Always be yourself, unless you can be Aaron Rodgers....Then always be Aaron Rodgers.0 -
So that's the cause of those wars, I always wondered! Presumably Christianity's responsible for Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler too - who, of course, make Rick's "majority Christian genocide" stats look a bit pathetic.morstar wrote:World war 1 and 2, common denominator, Christianity.0 -
bompington wrote:
So that's the cause of those wars, I always wondered! Presumably Christianity's responsible for Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler too - who, of course, make Rick's "majority Christian genocide" stats look a bit pathetic.morstar wrote:World war 1 and 2, common denominator, Christianity.
Don't forget The Falklands. Apparently it was the Argies attempt to make sure all the islanders converted to Catholicism.
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bompington wrote:
So that's the cause of those wars, I always wondered! Presumably Christianity's responsible for Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler too - who, of course, make Rick's "majority Christian genocide" stats look a bit pathetic.morstar wrote:World war 1 and 2, common denominator, Christianity.
Western anti-Semitism, homophobia and anti-gypsy sentiment all have deep (but by no means exclusive) roots in Christian churches. Hitler didn't get his ideas from a vacuum.0 -
Mr Goo wrote:Ballysmate wrote:I have no time for Christianity either. But in its defence, it has moved from medieval times to some extent, even if it is mumbo jumbo.
You talk about the west as being the common enemy, but I suggest you take a fresh look at who IS are fighting. Have a look at who Saudi Arabia attacked.
Shiite is fighting Sunni and Kurd. All followers of Islam.
The fact is that the vast majority of victims of these conflicts are Muslim.
Exactly. This is the real challenge in the 21st century. All mainstream religions bar one have now become a marginal aspect of the followers way of life, certainly in western society and advanced far eastern society. Education and improved living standards have seen to this. For many people, myself included, it is quite shocking to see a religion that is exceptionally orthodox even in its moderate forms and one that goes against the grain of what we all want - an open and fair democratic society.
In my opinion Islam is still clinging onto its origins of the few educated (all men) controlling and subjugating the masses with religious dogma. This also leaves it open to being hijacked and used as a banner to reap havoc and bl00dy murder against non believers and believers of its different sects.
The Middle East is a complete and utter mess. The only reason that Saudi and Iran are involving themselves against ISIS/Al Qaeda/et all, is that they are the last two major dictatorships in the region. An 'arab spring' in either would be catastrophic.
The problem is that you are both looking at this entirely from a Western perspective. Christianity has been marginalised in large parts of Europe, that is true, but throughout many other parts of the world, it is still a major force and is still linked to many forms of oppression - look at Uganda, for example.0 -
The difference is surely that Christians - even those with abhorrent fundamentalist views - tend not to see themselves as part of a worldwide "nation" and they don't join crusades with the intention of imposing their religion on the rest of the world. There are people with horrible views all over the world but fundamentalist Islam seems to unite a large number of them who have nothing else in common - that is what makes it more dangerous on a global level than isolated groups of religious nutters.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0
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I'm not sure that even ISIS wants to take over the entire world, and regimes as awful as the Taliban and the Iranian government haven't actually banned people from following other religions, even if they did persecute them to varying extents.0
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johnfinch wrote:Mr Goo wrote:Ballysmate wrote:I have no time for Christianity either. But in its defence, it has moved from medieval times to some extent, even if it is mumbo jumbo.
You talk about the west as being the common enemy, but I suggest you take a fresh look at who IS are fighting. Have a look at who Saudi Arabia attacked.
Shiite is fighting Sunni and Kurd. All followers of Islam.
The fact is that the vast majority of victims of these conflicts are Muslim.
Exactly. This is the real challenge in the 21st century. All mainstream religions bar one have now become a marginal aspect of the followers way of life, certainly in western society and advanced far eastern society. Education and improved living standards have seen to this. For many people, myself included, it is quite shocking to see a religion that is exceptionally orthodox even in its moderate forms and one that goes against the grain of what we all want - an open and fair democratic society.
In my opinion Islam is still clinging onto its origins of the few educated (all men) controlling and subjugating the masses with religious dogma. This also leaves it open to being hijacked and used as a banner to reap havoc and bl00dy murder against non believers and believers of its different sects.
The Middle East is a complete and utter mess. The only reason that Saudi and Iran are involving themselves against ISIS/Al Qaeda/et all, is that they are the last two major dictatorships in the region. An 'arab spring' in either would be catastrophic.
The problem is that you are both looking at this entirely from a Western perspective. Christianity has been marginalised in large parts of Europe, that is true, but throughout many other parts of the world, it is still a major force and is still linked to many forms of oppression - look at Uganda, for example.
Finchy, just to be clear, I think that mankind is being held back by all religions with their bizarre superstitions. At the moment though, fundamental Islam seems the most primitive.
Word of God written down in the desert centuries ago ...yeah right.0 -
Maybe, but the levels of persecution - including plenty of murders - would render that kind of ban pretty academic. It's a bit like saying "Hitler didn't kill all the Jews".johnfinch wrote:regimes as awful as the Taliban and the Iranian government haven't actually banned people from following other religions
And thanks for the raising the example of Uganda, now for the other 99.5% of the world's population...0 -
bompington wrote:
Maybe, but the levels of persecution - including plenty of murders - would render that kind of ban pretty academic. It's a bit like saying "Hitler didn't kill all the Jews".johnfinch wrote:regimes as awful as the Taliban and the Iranian government haven't actually banned people from following other religions
And thanks for the raising the example of Uganda, now for the other 99.5% of the world's population...
I'm just saying that Islamic fundamentalists don't generally try to forcibly convert the entire world to Islam. They're bad enough that they can be judged negatively from their actions, we don't need to attribute other crimes to them.
What about the other 99.5% of the world's population? Persecution based on Christian doctrine is fairly widespread throughout poorer countries.0
