Same guy who defended child prostitution and said it’s their (the childern’s) choice, therefore their fault.
Flawed, assumes you have to murder and rape to get oil/energy. And even if that were true; that that trasaction is one worth making. Says something about Westerners “morality”, basically they have none.
Ask a German prisoner of war during WW2, if there are any left. They’ll tell you a different story. The West still treats their prisoners of war better. That might tell you something about morality.
^ Initiating conflicts for money/power, then treating the people you didn’t murder, better. Got it. 
Al Qaida and ISIS have some similarities, such as using networks of terrorists unafraid of “martyrdom” to attack targets in the West, but the fact that ISIS wants to reestablish the Caliphate and take land (including reconquering Spain) does make it different.
Al Qaida had demands that Western (basically read as Christian-tradition) powers remove their forces from the Middle East and (implied, but less obviously stated) cease any support for Israel. If the West had acceded to those demands, there is a reasonable chance that the attempt to attack the “Far Enemy” might be canceled. Ironically, it is probably easier to negotiate with Al Qaida than it is with ISIS, although doing so would be unacceptable to most Western powers because it would involve negotiating with terror groups, and that sets up the wrong signal for how to manipulate the West.
ISIS really is in the business of seizing land, controlling territory and issuing sharia law. It is actively engaged in expanding that territory and taking power away from other muslim-dominated countries, not simply pushing the West out. Al Qaida maybe had a long-term plan for the rest of the muslim world, but ISIS is busy executing any muslim that doesn’t agree with it’s interpretation of the Koran, whereas Al Qaida tended to ignore those people (The Taliban didn’t, but that was just in Afghanistan). ISIS is telling Muslims that they should move to Syria or be considered infidels. And it’s pretty clear that if it ever becomes comfortable in Syria and Iraq, it will move in to attack surrounding countries, Egypt, Saudi, the Gulf States, North Africa, Turkey, etc…
Here were two articles I found interesting and elightening on the topic (also scary) that talks about (among other things) the difference between ISIS and Al Qaida. One of the things I drew out of it is that we are lucky that ISIS hates the Shia, because otherwise they might borrow nuclear capacity from Iran in their conscious attempts to provoke the muslim version of the apocalypse.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
Also
http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-revealed-by-their-magazine/
I see you’re appreciative of your very way of life. I’m sure it would be much better without the “west.” Carry on.
Reestablishing a caliphate is a common theme for militant groups, and doesn’t really separate ISIS. You and geo are correct that ISIS is a quasi state, but (IMO) that is not due to ideology, but methodology…
Taliban is a good comparison for ISIS, started off as a militia but eventually became a governing force. Granted they were far more limited in terms of ambition.
The Taliban weren’t actively expanding their borders and seizing foreign states. They also didn’t put out a call globally for all Muslims to move to Afghanistan to build the Caliphate (a call which is sadly being answered for ISIS). There are some similarities, but ISIS is far more advanced in terms of execution and sophisitication.
And ISIS is so extreme they make the Taliban look like enlightened rulers.
One thing I wonder if how long it will take Americans and others to realise that ISIS didn’t just buy those brand new Toyota Landcruisers out of their pocket change. Their rich Sunni friends in Saudi Arabia and Qatar buy those nice toys for them. Cutting off that funding is a critical step as well. Unfortunately those countries are friends of the U.S., because they are against Hezbollah and Iran (like ISIS), who are more actively against Israel than ISIS or Saudi Arabia (though niether would hesitate to go after Jews if they felt they could get away with it).
May talk about reestablishing a caliphate, but neither Al Qaida nor the Taliban actually went so far as to declare a Caliph. ISIS has. That’s a difference in ideology.
Then there’s the difference in methodology. To say that the groups are the same but have a different methodology is to say that they’re the same but they’re different. Particularly when the ideology is different.
Saying, “They’re just like Al Qaida, no… I mean they’re just like the Taliban” means that you weren’t very careful when you said “they’re just like Al Qaida”.
I do agree that they are closer to The Taliban than they are to Al Qaida. They are a kind of Taliban with imperial ambitions. But the Taliban wasn’t all that interested in attacking the west so much as keeping foreigners/infidels out of their affairs. Perhaps the limited imperial ambitions of the Taliban came from a fairly realistic assessment that only an ethnic Arab would be able to assert a convincing claim to a re-established Caliphate.
Sure, there’s a lot of overlap and similarities (they seem extreme, they shout Alahu Akbar a lot, and they get off on sharia law), but the difference in methodology is ultimately the most relevant… Certainly Al Qaida did not engage in mass executions of thousands of fellow muslims as ISIS did.
These differences in ideology IMO are splitting hairs so as to be immaterial. The core puppetmasters that run ISIS are not theologians, but former Baathist intel officials who are not religious and use religion as a strategic tool. The people who ran Al Qaeda weren’t ideologues either. In that context, ideological differences are not material, IS, Boko Haram, LeT, JeM, MILF are ideologically equivalent with minor differences.
But I agree the key point is not the ideological difference between them and other Sunni extremist groups, but their goals and methods.
IMO part of Taliban’s reluctance came from the fact that it is/was an instrument of the Pakistani state whose goal was to control Afg. IS has different backers and different goals, one of which I believe is to actually invite a military response.
More brutal than taliban, perhaps, although Taliban was pretty similar when they were carrying out genocides in the 90s.
The existential problem…the source of Islamic terror is the ally while the US claims to be in a “war on terror”.
United States Central Command: Officials Possibly Altered Intel on Islamic State Group, Report Says Senior officials at CENTCOM in Florida downplayed the Islamic State group’s threat to shed a more positive light on U.S. military operations against the group, the New York Times reported.
That’s the thing, everyone here is analyzing using the same pool of data, “the facts”, which came from US “intelligence” (chuckle), which were filtered and manipulated by government and media. By the time this stuff gets to you, you are left with something so impure – no serious analysis is possible.
Where do you get your superior, unfiltered information? I like to read and hear from all credible sources.
Please elaborate on what connects the statement that China is getting the benefits of the region without paying any of the costs of that benefit with the supposed assumption that one needs to murder and rape to get oil/energy.
WRT morality, I don’t recall saying anything about it, nor do I foster any illusions that all actions taken by the US government are taken from the moral high-ground. The US government, like all governments, takes actions that it believes are in its best interests. There are certainly some lines they hope not to cross, but US government officials are neither Boy Scounts nor saints. Morality is also in the eye of the beholder. Supporters of ISIS believe it’s moral and just to behead people, burn people alive, and blow up airplanes full of innocent people; most in the west do not. Most in the west believe it’s moral and just to bomb the living shit out of people who behead people, burn people alive, shoot and blow up people who are enjoying night out, and blow up airplanes full of innocent people; many in other parts of the world do not.
So Turkey shoots down Russian plane, pilots body captured by Turkmen rebels who post video.
*popcorn*
Im very surprised to see Turkey stand up for itself. Russia has been bombing Syrian rebels under the guise of attacking ISIS, and Turks didn’t bite this time.
Turkey is a member of NATO, so they know that Russia knows that any real retaliation potentially leads to WW3. It will be very interesting to hear what response, if any, the Russian pilot gave to the supposed 10 warnings he received from Turkey.
This act speaks volumes to the level of complexity of the situation. People in the US tend to see it as ISIS vs everyone. When you have Turkey bombing the Kurds, shooting down Russian planes and hitting ISIS while Syria fights our rebels plus ISIS plus other hardline factions, Russia until recently just bombed US backed rebels and openly supports Assad who we fight, etc.
+100
Here Russia was bombing Turks who are fighting Assad and claiming to bomb ISIS. While Turkey and Assad are both fighting Kurds who are fighting ISIS…could go on and on.
Is it a good idea to get US troops involved in this mess? I don’t think so,