Another one that hurts

I know what problems you think there are. I was not asking you to repeat, for the dozenth time, what problems you see or that in your opinion we should improve our handling of the problems. Once again: Apparently you feel very strongly we should do something more to encourage integration of Muslims, but I haven't see anything specific from you. Really the best I can get from you is that we should 'improve' things and criticize ideas we don't like more.

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Is there really nothing else on your mind? I'm going to go ahead and answer this question for you. No Mod, I have nothing else on my mind. I just like complaining.If this is incorrect, please correct me. Thanks.

People dying anywhere around the world in any numbers large or small seem like they should be a concern to everyone everywhere. Some are within our power to do something to some degree, some aren't. Some threaten us to some degree, some don't. Where there *is* something we can do we have to marshal our resources carefully, for they are not infinite. Where we do nothing or have done nothing doesn't mean we don't or shouldn't care.So your opinion, if I understand it, surprises me a great deal. Am I correct in interpreting you as saying you don't think the terrorist acts in Paris merit concern and action?--Percy

If they merit concern and action, then there are thousands of things that merit our concern and action significantly more. Consider how many lives we could save from Malaria with the money we have spent trying to prevent the surviving members of the 'cell' from killing themselves?Terrorism poses no particular threat to us. We've been under 'attack' from suicide jihadists for some considerable time.During that time, our own financial sector has proven itself a greater threat to our livelihoods. Our epidemic response has proven a greater liability than the occasional moron. The war on drugs has caused bigger problems than any terrorist group.So here is the actions we should be taking:
1. Withdraw ground forces from the Middle East
2. Enforce the law.
3. Don't panic.There you go.

Okay, now this adds a nuance. You do see the Paris terrorist attacks as a concern and a problem that deserves action, but you think think the problem is the exploitation of fear in ways that erode freedom and cost a great deal. I agree, but I think prevention of further terrorist acts also deserves a great deal of attention.My own sentiments are against bombing ISIS back to the stone age, but some of the military actions against ISIS make a lot of sense to me. I've found it puzzling that ISIS has so quickly and effectively projected their terrorism around the world, and I learned a couple weeks ago that ISIS has oil income of around $500 million a year, perhaps explaining their rapid rise and ability to project their power and influence so widely. Given this, the recent attacks against their oil transportation system seems a good idea, as do many things that could hurt their ability to carry out terrorist attacks and recruit western support.But in the long term I still think the solution requires solving the Middle East problem, as impossible as that sounds. I'm not saying I know the solution, just that without a solution the problem will persist, that unrest and death and destruction will continue to pour out of that region.--Percy

I don't think Tangle was using personal attacks as a tactic to disguise a lack of knowledge and insight. I know two isn't a statistically valid sample, but it's twice as good as one, and I had pretty much the same interpretation of what you were saying earlier as Tangle. I found it shocking and heartless when you said that there have been huge numbers of deaths over the course of human history, and that the death and destruction in Paris wasn't a problem. It turns out you had a larger and more complex point, but you chose a way of introducing it that painted you as uncaring, even crossing the border well into the inhumane. I'm not trying to attack you, just explaining, because you don't seem aware of how that post (Message 306) came across to at least some people.In this post you've added another nuance I wasn't aware of, that you *are* apparently in favor of action in against ISIS, but you think the details of how to effectively carry it out, given the interplay of factions and sects, are very involved and complex.--Percy

Well kind of. Actually the attacks are not really a problem.
Our reactions to the attacks are the problem. Then withdrawal of the ground forces in the middle east is the way to go. I don't think that's realistically on the agenda. OK. ISIS, of course, have no capacity or immediate desire to cause us any real harm. But if you think we should enter into a de facto military alliance with the Shia and Russians I think you ought to consider that this is likely to INCREASE terrorist attacks against our homelands - not prevent it. So we harm ISIS' supplies a little bit. They rebuild. We harm them again. They rebuild.....I guarantee they won't mind all that much.Watch their propaganda videos. They tell you that military occupation of their lands is their primary recruiting tool for western Muslims. They paint it as a us vs them battle for survival and they have to pick sides {a bit like Tangle has been doing}. Exactly. That's the problem.Nobheads with firecrackers in capital cities are at their most trumped up - an annoying symptom.

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. You are now equating our actions - the actions of democratic societies following international law whose purpose is - to choose just one example - 'liberty, equality, fraternity' , with ISIS,

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You attempt to equate the West's actions with those of ISIS

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Your entire contribution here has been a veiled attempt to equate ISIS's vile actions and motivations with our own actions in defending ourselves against them.

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Like I said way back, you're just an closet apologist for ISIS.

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{what modulous is alleged to have said} are said so as to deny or ameliorate the core motive of ISIS

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He also attempts to equate our actions with theirs

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{modulous}'s saying we're all the same, just people, they're no better and no worse than us.

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You're trying to say that we're all the same

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Seems to me that Tangle has spent more time trying to paint me as an ISIS apologist, sympathiser or enabler than he has actually answering any of the questions I have been asking him.So Tangle has made this discussion personal, in continuously making it about me in some very strained and absurd circumstances. Here I am as a result, doing yet another meta post defending myself personally and not discussing the topic. This should be evidence that Tangle has been trying, and apparently succeeding at avoiding the topic by attacking me and putting me in a position of having to waste time and effort to defend myself rather than address the subject at hand.Maybe the avoidance of the topic and the shifting of the focus onto my character are entirely unrelated. Feel free to believe that, but I don't. It's odd. I've been saying this kind of thing regularly since Sep 11 2001, which was also inconsequential except in our reaction to it {which killed a thousand times more people than the terrorism} Here is how I introduced this in this topic two weeks ago:

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Given how many people the Syrians have lost to this madness - are you really suggesting we chicken out of helping the survivors because a measly 6 score people died?

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120 people dying is inconsequential. To worry because a bunch of morons with guns and improvised explosives mostly killed themselves in a night of inefficient mayhem would be foolish.

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Let's talk about a real problem for a capital city. Such as the Blitz. 18,000T of explosive was dropped on London over about 300 days. About 30,000 people died. That's about 1 Parisian attack per day. The Blitz however, did significant damage to infrastructure and residential capacity and so on. As miserable and expensive as it all was, it really didn't advance Hitler's objectives even after such a sustained effort that on balance, cost him more than it gained him. And he had organisation and mass production to offset costs.

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So why are we so worried about these kinds of things? Their only success is in provoking visceral reactions from the pampered limp-wristed fops in Europe, of justifying maniacs in Russia, or allowing the Eagle in the west to pillage with impunity. This will justify their own next wave of stupidity and be used for propaganda purposes to find appropriate troops. Alone, even the worst terrorism has so far offered has been basically useless. Only our reactions can really hurt us in the medium to long term. You either win in the very short term or risk being drowned by little mops and be left praying that the wizard comes in.

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Alternatively, stop hacking and try and learn some magic pronto.

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Message 109I am perfectly aware that not being PC will result in some people getting their panties in a wad so much that they can pretend to use it as a reason to avoid difficult conversations.And I couldn't give less of a fuck.Tangle was wrong in almost everything he has said about me. It was fun pointing this out, but now I want to hear his, apparently superior, solutions. Now we've learned our lesson - it's hard to conduct
A war when the pre-war intelligence sucked.
No some say the country is totally f...
...ar beyond anything a well-meaning super power could ever hope to reconstruct
But don't try to say we aren't winning,
Hang in there, its only the 23rd inning...
and its a double beheader
and the new games beginning.
- Roy Zimmerman, almost a decade ago.Nevertheless - it did take some considerable time to get past War 101 with Tangle: The belligerents all want peace - but on their own terms. Eventually, in Message 264 a week ago I said:

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I am speaking English and you have direct access to interrogate me. Not only do you have my position wrong, but you have it wrong in places where I have already told you have it wrong, and explained to you the correct understanding of what I am saying. You can't even seem to remember what you are saying, let alone what I am saying. You ask me to pick a side and when I decline you accuse me of refusing to discuss ideas. This is a degree of disconnect from reality that makes discussing something as complex as Syria with you impossible.

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For instance. The Alawites face an existential threat in ISIS. The Alawites are Shia - but they are also a particularly weird form of Shia that, for instance, does not pray 5 times a day. If ISIS gets their hands on them, they're dead. All of them.

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So do we help the Alawites? Well there are other factions helping the Alawites. Iran, noticeably, as well as Russia. If we help the Alawites, we are entering a de facto military alliance with the Shia and Russia.

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On the other hand, if the Alawites fall, then so does Damascus for sure. The internally displaced civilians will become refugees and the refugee crisis will be three times as worse as it is today.

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Of course, the Alawites HAVE to fall. We want them gone. But if it happens now - we're fucked.

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If we do attack ISIS we strengthen the Alawites for now, but what happens if they are attacked by the many other militant groups that want them dead as soon as ISIS is pushed back enough to stop fighting the militant groups?

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Or do we contain for now, and push from Iraq? Yet more Shia alliance here, which is messy and risks pushing them straight at Assad, destroying what's left of Syria's stability entirely.

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Honestly if you can't get your head round the notion that most people involved in this aren't evil but actually trying to defend themselves and create a land where their families can once and for all, live in peace - then I really can't get expect you to come up with a cogent path through this geo-political nightmare dreamscape.

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But as is par for the course, Tangle declined to comment on this issue either.Any suggestions for engaging with Tangle? If he does indeed possess knowledge and insight I'd like to access it.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

That is arguably one of the stupidest, most self-indulgently sophomoric bits of shit I have ever read here. Fuck you.

Right back at you.

Hi Modulous,I don't want to get into a back and forth with you. I was just trying to help discussion along by describing how some of your posts look to others, that it wasn't just Tangle but me, too, and also, apparently, Capt Stormfield. You can argue all you want that they don't, but they do. Trying to make people's natural reaction to such posts their fault only makes it worse.--Percy

As I said just last week, in Message 266:

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Well we are all the same, just people. If we lose sight of this primary point, we risk becoming monsters too. I think it's ridiculous to waste our time establishing that we all agree murder and rape are bad things and the perpetrators are bad people, but apparently one still has to occasionally spell this out to people. If you don't, you evidently open yourself up absurd cheap shots.

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So here goes. DISCLAIMER ALERTMurder is bad. The high profile Parisian murders were awful things to happen to anyone. ISIS are, as a group, doing awful things to other peopleCan we please now acknowledge that the point of terrorism is to promote fear and panic, and stop being afraid or panicked. Let's not treat the Parisian deaths as some reason to act any differently strategically than we have been doing. The reason we should be acting is because hundreds and hundreds ... of thousands of people have died over there, and millions are fleeing the area.The Syrian civil war is primarily the result of the Arab Spring peaceful protests being fired upon and the subsequent crackdown by Assad. However, ISIS sprang out of our activities more or less directly, not deliberately, but evidence suggests - with aforeknowledge. Perhaps we should just push ISIS out of Iraq, and let Syria deal with itself? Did we prevent an Iraq spring inadvertently? Would such a thing have pressured Assad enough?If you think we should focus even more on domestic security out of fear of this kind of thing, I'm stunned by the cowardice. We are already doing a ridiculous amount, and frankly - it's not difficult to kill lots of people without detection and given that so much chaos can so easily be caused - the reason we don't see society collapsing is because its rare and localised. It's one thing to believe that killing yourself to kill kafir is good, but it's only fraction that actually do.We probably can't afford to keep up all the domestic antiterror expenses indefinitely, less so if we start spending more.So, if our goal is to end terrorism on our lands. If the Parisian deaths are the kind of price you aren't prepared to take on the chin with relative indifference {AS AWFUL AS IT IS TO MURDER, BE MURDERED, BE INJURED, WITNESS IT, HAVE RELATIVES SO AFFECTED ETC}, then your primary objective should be to withdraw military intervention in the middle east as soon as possible. I agree with this goal, but I don't think we should be doing it fully just at the moment. Not until we make a decision on Saudi Arabia, and probably not until the region has attained stability. So not any time soon. So oh well.If the Islamic State is the problem, and since the subject line I chose has a temporal theme, perhaps we can imagine a near future Middle East in peace and what that would look like.I think Iraq is gone. Syria too, probably at least as we know it. They're likely going to be reworked. A new Kurdish territory I expect. Unfortunately a whole can of Shia-Sunni issues is being unleashed. ISIS get the money today, but if they piss off the wrong people, or make strategic mistakes on the ground, funding may get redirected to other groups. We cut off one head and another rises. So before we can really say what is best, we need to know the end game. Do we let the locals decide territorial boundaries and determine sovereignty issues by themselves? It will no doubt be a bloody bloody affair. Then again, perhaps this was inevitable since the collapse of the Ottoman empire and we've just been dragging it out? Do we try a new and improved Sykes-Picot style agreement?So do we contain ISIS in the meantime? Do we leave alone? Do we 'declare war' on them? If we get heavily involved, might this lead us to increased chances of a Turkey style problem with entangling with Russia? Mismanagement here could get very very very ugly.Frankly, at this point I don't know.I honestly do not think that 'requiring' integration, or increasing the stringent asylum process so much that people are drowning out of fear that they might be unpleasant, criminal or jihadist people are goals that can ever work together.ISIS, and al-Qaeda both use the us vs them mentality to get immigrants and second generation immigrants angry at the government's attacks against the Muslim people. It's not hard, as there have been so many. But once they stress that they Muslim, part of the ummah, and that these attacks are against them as well as their brothers - the rest becomes rationalizing atrocity in pragmatic and religious ways.The best defence against this would be to make it not seem like there is an us vs them mentality in the Western mindset.Tangle mentioned examining the purpose of terrorism. He didn't seem to be in 'good faith' mode at the time. But one of the points of terrorism is to incite counter terrorism, counter insurgency etc. It's to divide the population, and insurgency and terrorism breed radicalism. Anger and fury start flying around. People see horrible things, hear poisonous words, people start killing each other.We see this to an extreme in Syria. There are moderates with influence in the area, but at the grassroots - there is devastation and death and fear which leads to even basically decent people doing bad things.The people fighting for the moderate, they may have started with good intentions, but they've resorted to some means that they hope will justify their ends that are functionally little different than ISIS.And so I propose we don't let fear divide us at home, and we remain resolute and unphased. We remain inclusive of Muslims as we always do, and we try and help as many refugees as we possibly can. If Britain can spend 170billion extra on defending against Russia and ISIS then can we cut 30 billion out of that and try and help more refugees? Try and eradicate the us vs them mentality that certain media institutions are determined to promulgate, as well as the Jihadists.Resist the base urges, I say. By all means feel sorrow for those that died, but be aware that not spending proportional energies of sorrow on many of the other deaths going on seems a little parochial and certainly can't help dispel the us vs them image the jihadists are painting. 'OH look how they cry over a few hundred deaths', they might say, 'yet when they bomb our schools, our hospitals, our weddings and thousands die they shrug their shoulders and perhaps tut and shake their heads because in their eyes we're only Muslims.'There is a gigantic mess here. The people in the region have a historical mindset, we have to acknowledge that our past actions count. We've had a century of 'managing' the area. By persecuting the Jews, we forced refugees into Palestine, and then more or less permitted ethnic cleansing of the area. We took control of arbitrarily drawn territories and tried to hold control despite the populace revolting. We helped despots take power to control the region with an iron fists, we destabilised Iraq fatally, our bombs have killed too many in the last decade and a half. If we don't take into account how we have a decent share of the responsibility in causing problems, we are unlikely to move forward without critically erring. However, obviously there are states apart from ourselves who hold responsibility, and we need to develop a plan for dealing with them too.Any bright ideas?

In objective terms Mod is correct. The number of lives taken by ISIS pales in comparison to a whole host of other risks. 30 British people have lost their lives to ISIS. 120 odd French people. How many Americans has ISIS killed? In cost benefit terms the attention and focus of resources on 'security' measures in response to that particular phenomenon is a paranoid and over the top reaction to a statistically rather insignificant threat. Looked at in cold hard statistical terms and one can't help but conclude that governments are using this as a bit of an excuse to impose freedom curbing controls that have little real justification because the public feel scared and are thus open to such changes in a way they might otherwise not be. Mod's main point seems to be that ultimately ISIS are not an existential threat to Western democracies and all the hyperbole and fearmongering suggesting otherwise is basically bullshit that should be ignored rather than any reason to change our way of life.Where I think Mod isn't helping his case is with the language used. Unusually for him he seems to be ignoring the very human psychological and emotional responses that are a part of the situation here. A bunch of zealots killing innocent people in Western capitals isn't about just numbers. There are emotional and psychological factors (the same ones being utilised to fearmonger so effectively) that are very real. Describing it as 'not a problem' etc. invites derision from those who, in my opinion, he should be seeking to persuade.I would describe such actions as very much "a problem" in the sense that any tragic loss of life is "a problem". But at the same time I would ask how we objectively compare different "problems" and the basis upon which we objectively choose to focus resource and attention on which problems.I think that would be a less direct but more effective method of making the point I think Mod is making.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I wasn't commenting on Modulous's views in that post and the one before. You can find such comments in my other posts. I think I understand what Modulous thinks is his foundational point.But as you note yourself, Modulous has chosen a particularly provocative and offensive way of saying it. Modulous thinks Tangle is attacking him, and I was just trying to explain to Modulous why I don't think he is. That such views are repugnant is something that multiple people have noted now. People cannot be blamed for expressing their natural reactions to statements that boil down to, "The Paris murders of 130 people by terrorists aren't a problem."--Percy

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How do we make this stop? Is this like 1940, when it became apparent that peaceful measures had failed and that putting the dictator back in his box would be a formidable challenge? Are we again a year or two late in keeping local troubles from blossoming into a major threat to world peace and stability?

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I doubt it will stop anytime soon. Because the problem is circular, it just seems to be feeding into itself. Unless droves of moderate Muslims are willing to keep militants one's in check, this will go down as a battle of attrition that could last for hundreds of years.

Oh Good. Another post about me and not things that actually matter. Covyote thinks we should let thousands of Arab and African people die so we can avoid about a hundred Europeans dying. Given the outrage, me saying the opposite caused, I'm surprised this overt wishing for countless deaths hasn't drawn much attention. It's basically as racist as 'nice' people get these days. Nobody thinks this is awful? Hurray for dying Arabs. Forgetting the other arguments about this, its just not true. Many Islamic leaders preach for peace and nonviolence. However, many among those that utilize violence in practice or in rhetoric, generally want their lands to be a peaceful Islamic paradises and they believe their violence will achieve this.So this is generalizing a diverse religion to take a slogany potshot.This was the tone of the debate as I came in. Quite quickly Tangle elected to focus on side issues and try to argue against the most absurd interpretation rather than the most sensible one, resulting in a rather surreal back and forth. Finally Tangle challenged me to tackle the real matter: Picking a side. I retorted Setting us up for strategic planning discussion rather than reactions.After dismissing Tangle's distraction response all about me as simply wrong, I went on to discuss some of the strategic concerns in the region: Then Tangle responds by making it about me again and I replied Then, continuing with the strategic level discussions rather than the personal one: Tangle also brought the subject to domestic concerns so, Tangle replied with arguing for the need for better integration of Muslim immigrants.I asked for details.Tangle asked me to start.I did.Tangle wanted more. We agreed the law should be followed and enforced.I asked if he had any suggestions about promoting enforcement.Tangle says we should do it better. And we should promote moderate Islam.I ask for specifics, and offer suggestions: At which point of course it became all about how Mod respects inciters and Nazis. Which is the important point to take away from what I said, of course.And, Tangle said with regard to the immigration issue he had no other ideas and once again proposed I solve the problems he thought existed. And of course And Tangle replied I replied, again talking about the strategic issue of immigrants and refugees coming into our lands, the topic at hand: As far as immigration policy, the subject we were discussing. If we're worried about letting people from Muslim countries in because people are dying in France I find this parochialism grotesquely offensive. The reason those people are fleeing is because they are dying in much greater numbers there.I'd sooner take a terrorist campaign fear deathtoll over the warzone and refugee camps fear and deathtoll. Because I value the lives of the fleeing victims of a civil war we participated in just as much as people in France, and think they are the ones facing the problem, I'm an outrageous and heartless crass piece of shit.Tangle also mentioned a bunch of international affairs, in reply to our discussion about integrating British Muslims and me not thinking there was as big a deal as everyone was making out. So I said To stress that we were talking about integrating Muslims. Again, here I am stressing that if its lives we want to save, we shouldn't be focussing on the small number of lives we are losing, but on the huge numbers of lives being lost elsewhere, that we have the power to help with.Tangle once again decided to call me crass.I ignored him mostly, with a little chastisement thrown in and tried to get the focus back to the issue he had originally raised himself.Tangle replied that he was choosing to ignore me because he preferred the discussion to be focussed on my character I simply asked Tangle to deal with the issues that had been raised within the topic so far.Tangle snidely remarked that since I don't think there's a problem why bother discussing how he thinks we might solve the problems he sees we face as a result of insufficient Muslim integration.Most recently Tangle has reiterated that he thinks problems exist in the world today.I have asked him he has any ideas he'd like to propose to tackle these problems. No response.But you are right Percy. I chose a particularly provocative and offensive way of saying 'a few scores of people dying is insignificant compared with the thousands that are dying in Syria, Iraq etc.'. It is an outrageous proposition to think that Tangle has ignored what I am saying on the whole and tried to focus in on something that he can spin to sound outraged about. It's not like he's been doing that the entire thread or anything, is it? It's not like I was accused of being an ISIS apologist, and so on is it? Nope. Tangle has definitely not deliberately focussed this on me. It was all my doing. I've done nothing but try to shift the focus back on me me me me me with my outrageous statements.Tangle refused to give details, but the stakes are so high that changing policy to be more stringent surrounding immigration is likely to cost more human lives than it saves.But fine, it's my fault. Please explain how I can put into perspective that in the arena of immigration and asylum policy how the deaths in France are a orders of magnitude smaller problems, for people that value all human life equally, than the ones we are trying to alleviate by allowing people to flee here, and perhaps even settle in the long term in such a way that someone like Tangle couldn't find a way to magnify on it and make it the new 'We must establish who is liable in some stupid side issue in an evcforum debate' rather than actually trying to collate our thoughts and ideas to see if we can, as voters, decide how we want our countries to react to the situations we face. Because who wants that? So let me know, I'll even go back and edit the posts {keeping the original, hiding it and noting this in the edit notes} to avoid any further misunderstandings. Anything that will satisfy you.It's clearly my responsibility in a back and forth discussion like that to ensure that the full context of the discussion is laid bare, so it is clear that I am not being inhuman, but I'm talking big picture strategic issues. Things that should cause us to change our strategic decision making.THat is why I am now posting this monstrosity. There is the ridiculous side issue, from my perspective, if people really want to continue discussing it.If anyone would like to work out what might be the preferred avenue of action I'd much prefer that. Dronester - you may have a position on this - what is the kind of magnitude of financial support from Saudi Arabia ISIS and co are receiving? I'm guessing precise numbers are impossible, but what, in your view, are the bestimates?

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For those that think strategy level discussion sounds crass, I say you are part of the problem. You know why? Because you are voting for the kinds of people that stand up and say 'the French situation is terrible, let's all focus on that issue and how we can retaliate and remove freedoms to fight terror'. Whenever a politician speaks in terms of '130 dead French people is bad, but it does not shake our resolve or change our policy with regards to welcoming asylum seekers, in fact in order to save lives we need let more in, and probably stop dropping bombs', they risk losing his or her seat. So you drive the overreactions and you can't just blame the politiciansBut let's talk about people individually if that is less crass Refugee

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Before the war started in Syria I was a carpenter in a village in the south of the country, close to Dara’a. I had a simple life, but a good life. But when the war began, people stopped wanting to build and spend money on such things, so life started to become harder.

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I have nine children, aged between two and 16. One of my sons was two and a half when the war started. Every time he could hear bombing he would get very scared and hide under the covers. He still does this here in the camp when he sees planes coming over, as he thinks they are coming to bomb us.

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My children haven’t only seen bombing; they have also seen death with their own eyes. One of my cousins has lost two children, and his mother, sister and brother, from the bombing. This is why I left: I had to save my family’s lives.

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When we arrived at the Zataari camp in February 2013 it was very cold. At first we were all living in a tent that used to leak every time it rained. But there was no option. We either stayed in that tent or took our children to their death.

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My wife was about to give birth to twins so it was important to get more settled before their arrival. I borrowed money from a friend to buy two caravans for us to live in. Imagine once living in your own house and now you come home to a caravan where there isn’t enough space to sit or sleep and no electricity.

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I’ve heard that most of the houses in our village have now been destroyed so there are very few people left. We find out what is happening back home mostly through a neighbour who sends us messages. Even though I’m here in Jordan, whenever I hear news about my homeland I feel as if I am with my fellow Syrians. What is happening there has affected me deeply.

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So yeah. There is some individual lives to consider if we want to talk asylum policy on this scale rather than the 'crass' perspective.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.