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Shootouts and explosions in Paris

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My personal theory is that the hate comes from the Western world dropping bombs in their heads and killing their wives and children for quite some time now, all in the name of Democracy and Freedom.

In the current context, this amounts to blaming the victims.

Look, people in that region, and in other regions, have been doing shitty things for a long time before "western imperialism". I'm sure the Vikings that murdered monks on Lindisfarne were probably bullied as pre-schoolers, and Tamerlane clearly was made fun of because he was a cripple. Poor thing! And the Nazis, well, you'd be mad too if people accused you of being gay. The world made them do it.

Horseshit.

ISIS is murdering their fellow Muslims. Their goal isn't even to get revenge on the West. It's to impose a brutal religious theocracy on a bunch of people who, like the vast majority of people throughout history, just want to be left the fuck alone.

You can argue that destabilizing then abandoning Iraq gave those religious freaks a strategic opening, but it didn't create the ideology that motivates them. The Taliban was home-grown. AQ was blowing up idols in Afghanistan, blowing up embassies, and flying planes into buildings for their own reasons, not because we bombed them.

And how about Boko Haram, which is at least as brutal? Did us evil Westerners "create" them by bombing them too? Or were they home-grown, with evil, twisted people creating those movements for their own reasons?

This penchant for blaming everything bad that happens on the West is the worst form of self-obsession. We are not the only movers of events in the world. Other people have the own freewill and make their own choices for their own reasons. Lenin didn't starve millions of peasants because of U.S. bombing, Idi Ami didn't brutalize his own people because the British were mean to him, the Turks didn't abuse the Armemians because the French drew a cartoon, and Pol Pot didn't murder millions of his own people because the West made him do it.

These people, and these groups, made their own choices for their own reasons, and it has a lot less to do with the West than the self-flagellation of the left would like us to think.
 
I don't mean to be difficult, but who is 'they'? Muslims? Arabs? Arabic Muslims? The militants? Who?
I guess all of them, but I was specifically asking about ISIS.
 
My beef with Reza Aslan is that he doesn't go far enough. Being a recognizable voice, he would do wonders for the BDS movement in Palestine. He'd prefer to executive produce for shows like Dig, though.
His issue, from a Middle East Studies Association viewpoint, is that the boycott would isolate scholars who are anti-Israel occupation but are Israeli/Jewish (such as Benny Morris, Noah Feldman, Joel Beinin, and Norman Finkelstein). Now, the response against that, were many of such scholars were supportive of BDS. Reza's viewpoint was that, to a certain degree, the full-on cultural boycott could actually hurt activists, academics, businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, etc. opposed to the occupation who, in some way, are affiliated with Israel.
 
In the current context, this amounts to blaming the victims.

All fair points, so let me clarify: The hypocrisy of the West is so obvious, that to fuel the hate against the Western world and its values is probably one of the easiest things you can do. Especially when you are focusing your attention on those who've lost their parents in American drone attacks.

Read this article and pay attention to the following quote:
"Be logical," the AQAP source said, "how can a 12-year-old [sic] be a member of Al-Qaeda? Our aim was to convince him to join us in the future, especially considering that his father was killed in a drone strike."

Link: http://www.yementimes.com/en/1855/report/4851/Did-a-13-year-old-boy-join-Al-Qaeda.htm
 
You do realize there is a difference between a refugee and an immigrant? Given these folks were not refugees, it would seem that the screening process is working quite well.

Uh, wow. Flash of insight.

First, you've honestly changed my mind on this issue. Opposition to these refugees is frankly pretty damn myopic. The truth is that the refugees that enter this country are undergoing far more screening than are other immigrants. And that's just for the immigrants who enter legally. The ones who enter illegally don't undergo any screening at all.

But the logical corollary of your argument raises a much bigger issue. We need to make it just as difficult for immigrants to enter this country as we do refugees, with true border security, much heavier screening, the works.

When the Administration points to all the security measures it takes to ensure refugees aren't terrorists, it is in fact illustrating what it should be doing to ensure that nobody entering our country is a terrorist. That's the angle the critics of the Administration should be taking, not focusing on the refugees themselves.
 
May sound stupid, but can someone simplistically break down why they hate western culture so much?

Because for decades, western countries have felt the need to install brutal dictators in their countries, slaughter their people indiscriminately, and completely control everything they do over there.
 
10,000 to 100,000 people are going to control this much land? That's like 1 person for every acre at best. You're out of your mind. 1.2 Billion Muslims, 15-25% radicalized. Do the math. Last good estimate in 2014 was 200,000 and that number grew by 10's of thousands a month since then.

ISIS-territorial-plan.jpg

ISIS isn't controlling that much land. Not even remotely close to that.
 
Because for decades, western countries have felt the need to install brutal dictators in their countries, slaughter their people indiscriminately, and completely control everything they do over there.

So their plan to fight against the slaughtering of innocents is to slaughter innocents?

They should be attacking government entities, not concert halls full of innocent people.
 
So their plan to fight against the slaughtering of innocents is to slaughter innocents?

They should be attacking government entities, not concert halls full of innocent people.
Don't forget that the West is both the supporter of and the puppet of the great boogeyman, the Jews. The West is the source of vices and temptation and that's because the Jews want it to be. They attack concert halls full of innocents because that concert hall until very recently was owned by Jews. Thus, they weren't innocent in the attackers eyes.
 

Because for decades, western countries have felt the need to install brutal dictators in their countries, slaughter their people indiscriminately, and completely control everything they do over there.

This is such utter crap....

The two countries in which ISIS is the strongest both had home-grown dictators. Saddam rose to and secured power on his own back in the 60's and 70's. To the extent he had a sponsor, it was the Soviet Union. Same thing with Assad in Syria. Both guys, to the extent they were in the orbit of any great power, were aligned with the Soviets, not the West. And both brutalized their own people, including gassing them.

Thirty years ago, you could have made a case for Iran. But the Shah has been out of power for more than 35 years, and all the intolerance and repression there is by home-grown mullahs.

And as has been pointed out, these assholes have been murdering and repressing their own people, which is a pretty odd response if their primary motivation was revenge for colonialism. The only reason we're bombing them now is because it sickens us to see what they're doing to the innocents over there.

And pop-culture politics to the contrary, the real historical oppressor of that region was the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
 
So their plan to fight against the slaughtering of innocents is to slaughter innocents?

They should be attacking government entities, not concert halls full of innocent people.

By attacking innocent people they are attacking government entities. They are bankrupting our government by dragging on these wars for years, which has been their plan all along. Because let's face it, how the fuck are they going to attack the U.S. military? Without American aid money and arms, they are a bunch of peasants with nothing. They are helpless when our government goes over there dictating how they live their lives. So they strike back the only way they can.

Is it right? Of course not. It's despicable. But if you want it to stop you have to know why it started. You can't end it by killing more of them, because that just helps recruiting. The fact is though, that our government doesn't want to end it, otherwise why the fuck are they over there trying to overthrow Gaddafi and Assad in the first place? They never threatened the U.S., or even could if they wanted to.
 
By attacking innocent people they are attacking government entities. They are bankrupting our government by dragging on these wars for years, which has been their plan all along. Because let's face it, how the fuck are they going to attack the U.S. military? Without American aid money and arms, they are a bunch of peasants with nothing. They are helpless when our government goes over there dictating how they live their lives. So they strike back the only way they can.

Is it right? Of course not. It's despicable. But if you want it to stop you have to know why it started. You can't end it by killing more of them, because that just helps recruiting. The fact is though, that our government doesn't want to end it, otherwise why the fuck are they over there trying to overthrow Gaddafi and Assad in the first place? They never threatened the U.S., or even could if they wanted to.

Given where we are in this right now, what would you do next if you were the POTUS and you had the best interest of our country in mind?
 
Given where we are in this right now, what would you do next if you were the POTUS and you had the best interest of our country in mind?

Well, I would never want to be the POTUS, and if I was elected, I would probably be killed before I was inaugurated.

But say it were to happen, I would have to honor my oath of office I suppose. If Congress wants to keep fighting over there, they will give me a declaration of war, and we would do that. They won't though, because their constituents are tired of war, so I would bring back all troops from the region, tell Russia if they want to take care of ISIS, have at it, make it clear that the U.S. isn't in the business of choosing their leaders anymore, make it clear the U.S. won't be giving anyone aid anymore. It would be a mess for a long while, but eventually things would settle down and we would have a lot fewer enemies and a lot more trade partners. In the mean time, even though I hate the notion of borders, I would have to lock down immigration to make sure we knew who was trying to come in, at least until things settled down. There would be no more federal gun laws, so that would help secure some places here from attacks, though not the states that have their own tight restrictions.

The thing is though, that even if all of that happened, the people that were once in power would want to get back in power, so we would have all kinds of false flag attacks here, the media would demonize me, Hillary would be on TV with Muslim blood dripping from her chin, and the people would get whipped up into a frenzy calling for my removal. For anyone remotely like me to be elected president would take a massive awakening on the part of the people.
 
Ok, US homeless first...we agree.

Next, if i have to bring in 10,000 people, i choose 10,000 starving orphans from Africa over the Syrians...you?

Why not help both? I think both are crises where hundreds of thousands of people are potentially facing death.
 
An article from the most well funded, most biased news organization supporting the left is a guarantee of a free lunch?


I'm neither left nor right to be clear. So don't start. I believe in global warming, pro-choice, pro gun, and for gay marriage. All of them shouldn't even be a political issue. Do you know how many hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to become President? There is no one funding a run out of their own pocket. These people were all bought and paid for, left and right, before they ever stepped foot in the whitehouse. They owe favors for those "donations." If you think otherwise you are nuts.

Bernie isn't bought and paid for by anybody.

Every one else up there though, yes, I'd agree; including Obama.
 

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