It does not give the desire to create a life of fear, quite the opposite happens, it allows a sense of security that is yours to uphold, if you chose to do so. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

In a country that is in war where the military cannot handle the security (or be everywhere), civilians being armed is in my view understandable. Otherwise the positive aspects can be marginal to the negative one's: like starting from the fact that if people carry loaded guns that otherwise wouldn't use them and aren't basically interested in shooting, a lot of accidents will happen. People who can handle guns are fine, but usually it's those who have other problems end up being the one's that have accidents and use guns to harm themselves or others.

In a terrorist strike I think it would be extremely dangerous defend oneself or other people with a gun. The simple problem is that you may be shot yourself as a terrorist. People will likely not know just who are the terrorists and likely some idiot will define you as one of the terrorists. Hope then the police or the security forces aren't trigger happy, but in a terrorist attack they will likely shoot first and shoot to kill.

Now I don't have anything against gun ownership or people carrying guns, but what I would be really offended are these civilians "demonstrating their rights" by carrying their semi-automatic rifles as they would be patrolling a warzone, with their rifle at the ready and their finger close to the trigger. That goes way overboard. It's one of the basics of security personnel not to intimidate others.

And to Tiff's fear of her government (which is an interesting and deeply American thing): in one voluntary excersize we had, our reservists were taught how to make a VBIED, vehicle-born improvised explosive device and detonated it using a smart phone. And boom went the old car. There is something relaxing about it when a western government instructs it's citizens that aren't government employees techniques like that. It tells that at least the government (the armed forces here) still trusts it's citizens. That trust between the government and it's people is a two way thing.

How about everyone carry long range pistol tasers? That way if there's an accident, most people won't die, but you can still disarm someone with a gun.

Again, you're saying the the establishment gets to set the rules about what is fact and what is not. Anyone who says different should be criminalized? That is censorship of free speech. Ideas should stand or fall by their own merits. A great way to perpetuate non-scientific baloney is if you have a governing power making rules about what can and cannot be believed, e.g., the Roman Catholic Church, North Korea.

We live in a time where almost anyone has access to the greatest library ever conceived. If the argument for creationism is founded on lies about it's acceptance in the scientific community, it's quite easy for the deceived to find out.
My point is that someone who teaches creationism should not be classified in the same category as someone who murders another for eating 'holy' meat.

My limited understanding of ISIS was challenged by this article in the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ . Graeme Wood has done some careful research and challenges some commonly held beliefs. After reading this I'm convinced that the West should:

1. Declare war on the caliphate and treat citizens who have dealings with it under the good old statutes of treason, etc..

2. As the caliphate depends on holding territory, give maximum aid to alternative claimants to the territories they have a legitimate claim to and can control.

3. Selectively destroy munitions, military infrastructure, administrative centers etc. as we would do with any conventional enemy.

4. Above all avoid any rash changes in foreign policy. I see no need to change our policies on Syria, for instance. Assad needs to go, the refugees need help.

N.B. Some further clarification of Wood's position can be gleaned from his discussion with Sam Harris:http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-true-believers .

To be more on topic, now seems like a great time for the world's military powers to unite against a common enemy.
The US certainly has an interest. Russia lost over 200 in the airliner attack. France has now been attacked on home soil(twice). Japan has had journalists executed. the UK has had journalists/aid workers executed. Almost every country or people in the vicinity have been negatively effected by ISIS.

They're making an already complicated situation in Syria even more complicated, which is causing the refugee crisis to become even worse.
It would seem that the only reason Assad is being supported by Russia is because Russia wants to retain its leased naval base in Tartus. So why doesn't the US make a deal with Russia and the FSA to ensure they'll get to lease it for another decade so long as they help rid the world of ISIS?

This also might be the time for the Kurdish people to carve out a state for themselves if and when ISIS falls. If they do most of the suffering and fighting for this territory that the Iraq government can't keep and Turkey doesn't seem to care for I don't see why not.

My limited understanding of ISIS was challenged by this article in the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ . Graeme Wood has done some careful research and challenges some commonly held beliefs. — photographer

I have to say that this long article is in my view basically propaganda-talk and not the greatest articles. Yeah, they (the ISIS folk) are murderous, intolerant religious zealots with great expectations of their abilities. I think everyone has gotten that. But if that's the only reason to go there and bomb people, it's very lousy reasoning.

What is totally wrong in that article is that it actually doesn't say a word about the situation in Iraq and Syria and the reasons just why some ISIS loonies were so successfull (other than hinting that Muslims and/or Islam is inherently violent and fall for this stuff). Because it's not like that every supporter has come from the outside only after a television appearance by the Caliph. If I'm correct, Graeme Wood never even mentions the Shiites or the bloody Civil War going on in Iraq or in Syria. That in both countries, Syria and Iraq, the fight basically goes through the Sunni/Shia divide. That in Iraq the Sunni minority is in a very bad situation. This is crucial and totally elemental to understand just why some ex-Al Qaeda leader could get this whole IS thing going.

Let's first remember how the whole Sunni uprising in the Anbar province was "defeated" when the US was around. It wasn't "the Surge" that took care of it, it was what was called the "Anbar awakening", basically that the US negotiated in the fall of 2006 with other Sunni groups it was fighting to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq and these locals fed up with Al Qaeda themselves drove out with US assistance Al Qaeda. And after that the "Sunni triangle" came to be a peaceful place for the Marines to operate. Case solved! But then the US went away and the Shiite leader of Iraq that acted like a dictator didn't want anything to do with Sunni's or incorporate them to the new Iraq. And hence the Muslim extremists were given a second chance.

Anbar awakening back then: Sunni insurgent with an American soldier


And furthermore, what is then victory and liberation from ISIS? Tikrit, the hometown of the late Saddam Hussein is still a ghost town after it's liberation. And the reason is obvious from this article from the Independent

Just to take a quote from that article mentioned:

A report from Amnesty International, released on the anniversary of Isis’s capture of Mosul, gave details of deadly attacks on Sunni Arab communities by Shia and Yazidi militias which Amnesty says are in revenge for Isis’s crimes in northern Iraq.

According to the report, Yazidi militia targeted Jiri and Sibaya, Sunni villages in the Sinjar region, on 25 January. They killed 21 of the inhabitants and looted and burnt homes. In a separate incident on 26 January, at least 46 Sunni men were killed in the village of Barwana, in Diyala province. In Jiri and Sibaya, approximately half of those murdered by the Yazidi were elderly, disabled, or children. One man told Amnesty his 66-year-old father was shot dead in his wheelchair.

You can dismiss this that it's only a reaction because of IS, but I wouldn't be so sure. Because this is basically an internal war in the Muslim community. And thus to talk about the loonies on one side, how about the Shiite militias loyal to Iran in Iraq?

2. As the caliphate depends on holding territory, give maximum aid to alternative claimants to the territories they have a legitimate claim to and can control. — photographer

Those alternative claimants to the territories are the state of Iraq and the state of Syria. So, you want to help Assad, the Shiite regime in Iraq and basically Iran? What about the Kurds? Are you going to give them land (and infuriate Turkey)?

To be more on topic, now seems like a great time for the world's military powers to unite against a common enemy.
The US certainly has an interest. Russia lost over 200 in the airliner attack. France has now been attacked on home soil(twice). Japan has had journalists executed. the UK has had journalists/aid workers executed. Almost every country or people in the vicinity have been negatively effected by ISIS.

They're making an already complicated situation in Syria even more complicated, which is causing the refugee crisis to become even worse.
It would seem that the only reason Assad is being supported by Russia is because Russia wants to retain its leased naval base in Tartus. So why doesn't the US make a deal with Russia and the FSA to ensure they'll get to lease it for another decade so long as they help rid the world of ISIS? — ProbablyTrue

Because the Russians want to have a foothold in the Middle East and a customer for their weapons. Especially after Libya Russia won't likely start putting it's cards on some FSA and dump it's old ally. If the US had true statesmen at it's helm, this situation could be solved. At least Obama is meeting Putin. Yet to get a ceasefire in Syria will likely mean that Assad will stay.

You seem to have some basic facts wrong ssu. The Sunnis are a minority in Iraq. The reason for going to war against ISIS is their attack on our ally France. I explicitly excluded leaving Assad in place - let alone helping him - in my post. Now, I'm sure you read that and simply excluded it for rhetorical reasons. Wood's article is about what ISIS wants, not who or what made the emergence of the "caliphate" possible.

I have had the depressing memory of the speech George W gave after 9/11 to the US Houses, with Tony Blair in attendance urging him on. The world was still in shock, and even though I never liked W, at that time I cheered him on, because I was convinced (like many others) that it was a battle for civilization.

Then there was the whole Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq, and W standing on the aircraft carrier with the Victory banner behind him. That was more than ten years ago - and now everything is even worse! After racking up $6 trillion dollars, thousands of servicemen dead, tens of thousands affected for life, Iraq/Syria is a roiling morass of chaos, far worse that it was on Sept 11 2001, and with no will left to really be able to do anything about it.

Anyway, I reckon they should simply disable all internet connections into the ISIS region, and then jam all the mobile phones. That would be a good start.

Bitter Crank posted this:
Outrages like the mob murder of a Moslem in India for allegedly eating meat from a sacred cow shouldn't be swept under the cultural relativity rug. India should investigate and punish the mob. There are religious outrages in America instigated by fundamentalists that shouldn't be tolerated either -- like teaching creationism in schools (secular or religious schools).

And Wayfarer responded saying he shouldn't equate the two.

This was your original comment that directly followed that.

As long as certain versions of creationism willfully distort established scientific facts, then it might be seen as the duty of a state to protect its citizens from fraud, the same way it ought to do it for products, such as power balance bracelets, which make fraudulent claims. — Πετροκότσυφας

Here's where you broke it down in your second to last comment.

I'm talking about deliberate attempts to present creationism as a theory accepted by scientific consensus. — Πετροκότσυφας

There is clearly no scientific consensus on the side of creationism so why are you going on about this? Even if someone did deliberately present it as such, who cares? You want to legislate lying? When it comes to ideas or products that can harm people, such laws already exist. For things as benign as what you're talking about I really don't see a need for the government to get involved. Let them live or die in the arena of ideas. They're already dying anyway.

*Edit*
Should probably start a new thread if you want to keep going. I'm guessing you don't though.

You seem to have some basic facts wrong ssu. The Sunnis are a minority in Iraq. — photographer

Sorry, misspelling. Of course I meant minority (of 20% or so). With a Sunni majority Iraq would be a totally different place. I'll correct that.

My point here is that people aren't actually on the ground so ideologically motivated as we tend to think. And those fighters aren't all extremists, not those that have joined from outside the region. For the people there their family and tribe are the things important. ISIS has gotten a lot of support because it filled a vacuum and seemed victorious or simply so dangerous that one would have to go along just from fear.

There simply isn't just a military solution of destroying ISIS and leave it there. The basic question is what is the place for the Sunni's in Iraq, for example. Or for that matter, their role in Syria too.

To take another example, just how quickly the Taleban regime fell tells this... as many warlords simply changed sides. Now this is something that might be possible in Iraq/Syria too, assuming something credible could be given to the Sunni population. US did that and it proved successfull, but Nuri Al-Maliki didn't tolerate at all armed Sunni militias that were fighting Al Qaeda.

Room service!

Let me just start by copying what I said when Charlie Hebdo happened because it's again relevant:

Let's put this in some historical perspective to really see what all this "emotion" is getting us... The backdrop is a lot of Western intervention in ME since around 1900 (not wanting to drag the Crusades into this) consisting of: direct and indirect support for oppressive regimes and attempts to overthrow other regimes we don't like, many conflicts in the area and harsh sanction against several nations in the area that are predominantly Muslim.

Considering the backdrop it's not entirely unlikely that some people from that region will blame the West and wish to harm it. This happens rather spectacularly on 9/11. Spectacularly but ineffectually, less than 3,000 US citizens are killed and two very large, symbolic buildings are destroyed. Two other planes crash killing their passengers but otherwise ineffectively. These men are not affiliated to any country. The hijackers are mostly from Saudi-Arabia, two are from United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon. Saudi-Arabia is a long standing "ally" from the US. They happen to be Muslim. Did they attack because they were Muslim and hate our freedoms or is it more complicated than that, given the backdrop?

Probably the latter but hey, we need a soundbite. An attack on our freedoms it is. Somehow the nuance gets lost that this was a fringe movement, Al-Qaeda not consisting of more than 1,000 persons. Suddenly Sikhs (not Muslims) must fear for their lives across the West because they wear turbans, along with Muslims in general. Such a wonderful job the governments and media did back then. Racism the likes of which we haven't seen since the Nazis runs rampant throughout Europe and the US (probably Canada and Australia too). All Muslims raus! Hooray!

As a result, the US picks up suspects outside of the rule of law, tortures them and gets fales intel that Iraq was involved. the US goes to the UN and doesn't get the support it needs and therefore goes at it outside of the legal framework with support from the UK. A grave blow to both the US legal system and an undermining of the shaky international legal order - although I'll grant not everyone believes the latter is a bad thing. Along the way though I noticed a steep decline in my privacy rights as an EU citizen, which is ten times worse in the US.

The US and the UK governments, despite majority opposition from their own constituency because of the common-sense that Iraq couldn't have anything to do with it, attack Iraq.

The biggest irony of course is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost more US soldiers' lives than that were lost on 9/11. The economic cost is absolutely staggering in comparison to the material damage of 9/11. Oh yeah, before I forget, it also violently killed at least 100,000 Iraqis and due to the disintegration of health care and infrastructure, the knock-on effect is estimated at an additional 1,5 million deaths. But who cares about a bunch of sand niggers right? I mean, it's really far away!

So, please, can someone walk me through the rationale behind this all please because I'm not seeing it.

And if we're not careful, and listen to the stupid little people claiming it is all about Islam it indeed will be all about Islam eventually - as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we continue to treat that religion as the cause of everything we perceive as evil then it will become true. Many people already treat Muslims as enemies; if enough people do that they will become the enemy. So my questions in the earlier posts are to show the other side of the coin.

[..] from where I'm standing it's extremists all around, the same hate, the same stupidity, the same lack of empathy.

If it is so easy to explain why the West gives so much attention to the Paris attacks, then surely it shouldn't be too hard to understand why the attacks happened? We are reaping what we sow, what we've been sowing for a century. At the personal level I can feel sorry for these victims but at a much larger scale I see the West as carrying the most blame.

Not only the century of oppression and intervention that created the conditions that gave rise to militant extremists, but in particular because it was the West that escalated what were attacks from a fringe movement into a full blown war against a country. That it so cavalierly decided on the fate of millions of people. If 9/11 was indiscriminate killing then we need a new word for the attack on Iraq because "more indiscriminate" doesn't exactly cover it. I could go on and on about how we've cajoled, threatened, intervened, attacked and manipulated in that region well before 9/11 and for the life of me, I cannot make a list of Muslims or ME-countries, whether individually or organized, having done the same thing. — Benkei

To this recent attack. I'm one of those "pansy liberals" who thinks the only good reaction to what happend in Paris is absolutely no reaction. Society should get on with life. The government can make a statement that - like any other criminals - they will do their best to catch them and bring them to justice in front of court. Every time the social conclusion (by which I mean, that which is put into effect by government, media and public support) is that this is "special", requiring a military reaction, requiring a hollowing out of our rights through increased surveillance or limiting our freedom of movement. These terrorists are winning little by little. We let them disrupt our societies and by doing so it disintegrates piece by piece.

We already see that Muslims living in Western countries feel more loyalty towards people thousands of miles away then their neighbours and countrymen. This process of radicalisation is the most threatening to our society because if we do not prevent it, we can barely stop it - attacks can come from any where at any time. Luckily, a lot of research has been done and it has shown that ideology alone does not guarantee radicalisation; that means that whatever people believe it doesn't mean that has to result in violent action.

I'll reiterate what I've said time and again; Islam is not the problem but Islamic-inspired terrorism is an accident to the geopolitical tensions existing in this world. Anti-western sentiment is not limited to Islamic countries, it's pretty much relevant, and in many cases prevalent, everywhere but in the West. The West is trying to impose its values, its narrative and its history on the rest of the world.

And no, that's not an apology for violence by terrorists but if you don't get that it is a reason for them, then you cannot engage the underlying consequences because in the end, terrorism is a symptom.

The most pathetic, neo-colonial claims in this respect are those claiming Islam should have an "Enlightenment", which really is just another way of saying Islamic countries must "get with the program and share our values". Well, the fact is they don't have to share those. And it's not as if "Christianity" had an "Enlightenment" either and equating Islam with culture is just emblematic of not having a clue. If Islam really was such a problem, we would've seen violence by "them" on "us" much sooner.

I urge everyone to read this a large part of the world hates us (use google translate)

Now as to the OP.

In your estimation:

Is it theoretically possible (I don't personally have the technique) to identify, infiltrate, and disrupt cells that plan and execute terrorist attacks?

[It seems to me the best bet, but is it possible?] — Bitter Crank

It is done and some cells are rounded up but it's not 100% effective. Like any other criminal organisation, you cannot think to stop every illegal activity. We have to live with a certain amount of insecurity or submit to a police state.

Is there an acceptable defense that can stand at the ready?

[This would probably require an onerous, burdensome, and inconvenient public deployment of a large military presence. The benefits might very well be nil.]

I would think efforts would be misguided here in the larger context that I don't believe terrorism is the main problem but a result of international politics and social changes in our own countries.

Is there an acceptable social strategy for France to become less of a target?

[France must not cease being France. No nation should redecorate in order to make terrorists happy.]

Yes. Don't get fucking involved in military interventions abroad on the basis of being allied with one country and not the other but make a sincere judgment each and every time the question comes up. It's valid to say "no" to your allies if you don't believe their cause is just.

Internally, politicians and media have to reevaluate how they address this problem. It has to move away from an "us" versus "them" and away from a military interpretation of this conflict. It has to offer Muslims a narrative that they can be vocal and critical of France's values and empower them to embrace non-violent solutions to their real and/or perceived problems.

Is there an acceptable social strategy for France (or Japan or Luxembourg, or Russia, or Peru...) to become less of a target? Who in the world of Islam lends the most support to terrorism, directly and indirectly--Iran or Saudi Arabia? My guess is that it our ally and not our nemesis. Is it Wahhabism that underlies the most radical versions of Islam? (The Saudis certainly have the most money...)

Wahhabism and other interpretations of Islam have existed for some time. It's relatively recent that this has led to violent action and therefore not the only cause. It's definitely a contributory factor because of the harsh condemnation of Western values.

In October 1985, specialist operators from the KGB's Group "A" (Alpha) were dispatched to Beirut, Lebanon. The Kremlin had been informed of the kidnapping of four Soviet diplomats by the militant group, the Islamic Liberation Organization (a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood). It was believed that this was retaliation for the Soviet support of Syrian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. However, by the time Alpha arrived, one of the hostages had already been killed. It is alleged that through a network of supporting KGB operatives, members of the task force identified each of the perpetrators involved in the crisis; once these had been identified, the team began to take relatives of these militants as hostages. Following the standard Soviet policy of not negotiating with terrorists, some of the hostages taken by Alpha were dismembered, and their body parts sent to the militants. The warning was clear: more would follow unless the remaining hostages were released immediately. The show of force worked, and for a period of 20 years no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive, until the 2006 abduction and murder of four Russian embassy staff in Iraq.

However, the veracity of this story has been brought into question. Another version says that the release of the Soviet hostages was the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who appealed to King Hussein of Jordan, and the leaders of Libya and Iran, to use their influence on the kidnappers.

I post this story as a challenge, since it posits a way of dealing with terrorism most of us would find brutal and savage, and against all notions of human rights. Those of you who demand a 'response' might want to start with this one, since it is the most extreme I have heard.

Once again, many lefties and liberals rush to characterize this attack as an understandable response to Western militarism. It seems like a willful blindness. ISIS no doubt benefited from the incompetence of the Western intervention, but there is a barely repressed urge among left liberal commentators to go further, to say "what do we expect?" But contrary to what is implied in these sentiments, ISIS are not heroic freedom-fighters struggling against oppression, pushed to violence by the military actions of the West--as Kenan Malik points out:

The terrorists did not target symbols of the French state, or of French militarism. They did not even target tourist spots. They targeted, rather, the areas and the places where mainly young, anti-racist, multiethnic Parisians hang out. The cafes, restaurants, bars and music venue that were attacked – Le Carillon, La Belle Equipe, Le Petit Cambodge, and the Jewish-owned Bataclan – are in the 10th and 11th arrondisements, areas that, though increasingly gentrified, remain ethnically and culturally mixed and still with a working class presence.

[...]

What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people, drinking, eating, laughing, mixing. That is what they hated – not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism. — Kenan Malik

https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/after-paris/

And if left liberals really do want to halt the "clash of civilizations" narrative and to stand up for the rights of ordinary Muslims, then they must stop reacting to attacks like these by saying, in effect, "look what happens when you push a Muslim to breaking point." It doesn't take a genius to see how racist this attitude is.

My limited understanding of ISIS was challenged by this article in the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ . Graeme Wood has done some careful research and challenges some commonly held beliefs. After reading this I'm convinced that the West should:

1. Declare war on the caliphate and treat citizens who have dealings with it under the good old statutes of treason, etc..

2. As the caliphate depends on holding territory, give maximum aid to alternative claimants to the territories they have a legitimate claim to and can control.

3. Selectively destroy munitions, military infrastructure, administrative centers etc. as we would do with any conventional enemy.

4. Above all avoid any rash changes in foreign policy. I see no need to change our policies on Syria, for instance. Assad needs to go, the refugees need help. — photographer

Yes, that article was an education for me too. It casts doubt on the oft-heard opinion, expressed already in this thread, that military action is useless because the ISIS fighters will just melt away into obscurity for a while to bide their time, i.e. that ISIS is just like al-Qaeda. If Wood is right, everything hinges on their holding of territory. And that is something that can be taken from them.

But contrary to what is implied in these sentiments, ISIS are not heroic freedom-fighters struggling against oppression, pushed to violence by the military actions of the West — jamalrob

I am sure there are leftists and liberals suggesting that this is the case, but, being a leftist myself, I would modify this statement to the following:

ISIS are a group of Islamo-fascists that gained power as a result of Western imperialism who provided an answer to questions that arose in the minds of locals that suffered from Western imperialism.

I don't think most leftists would not instantly denounce ISIS for what they represent, but certainly what happened in France is to be expected. At least someone that suffered in the Middle East as a result of Western imperialism would rally the people under some ideology and hammer a series of "let's fight back" propaganda. As Georges Sorel would say: all organizations with power have with it a mythological endpoint in which the people unite under, which provides the hope and purpose for those within the organization. ISIS's myth is the establishment of some bullshit caliphate, and in creating this myth also designed it with anti-Western imperialism embedded into it.

So, of course we should expect some group to rise up. But which group? Well, the West has since dismantled the left, massacring them, and has historically provided active support to right-wing groups like ISIS, whether directly or indirectly. In this case, we should expect something like this to happen.

My argument isn't a tu quoque one; it is simply a matter of political fact that this would happen.

But ISIS is not a group whose immediate targets are Western states, and they are not motivated primarily by anti-imperialism, and they are not made up primarily of people who have suffered so much at the hands of the West that they burn with the desire for revenge. I think this is a fantasy, and I don't know how anyone with some knowledge of what ISIS is and what it has done could be taken in by it.

I post this story as a challenge, since it posits a way of dealing with terrorism most of us would find brutal and savage, and against all notions of human rights. Those of you who demand a 'response' might want to start with this one, since it is the most extreme I have heard. — coolazice

Well, in fact similar kind of methods of violence that Alpha used against terrorists kept the Soviet system afloat in Russia and it's satellite states until 1989-1992. (Actually I remember hearing this story in the late 1980's of the no-nonsense attitude of the Soviets.)

Except ISIS consists of ex-Iraqi generals, soldiers, and civilians.

Furthermore, people in the Middle East actually dislike Western governments as a whole, look at Westerners with suspicion, and haven't forgotten what the West has done to them in the past century. It isn't any surprise to think that an environment such as this would be a breeding ground for people who would cling to misguided and repugnant answers presented to them by religious extremists when there aren't many answers to what they had to suffer.

Once again, I don't understand how you fail to see this fact. ISIS could not possibly exist in this day and age if there was no Western imperialism in the first place. The thousands of Iraqis wouldn't have joined them, they wouldn't dare do shit in Iraq if Saddam were still in power and the Iraqi state and infrastructure weren't in tatters, if the West and Russia weren't fighting a proxy war in Syria, if the West didn't fund and protect the Saudis for the past couple decades... all these factors go on and on. I mean, you are so quick to try to place a complete moral blame on Muslims and would like to frame ISIS as some sort of group that just came to be in a vacuum because they hate laughter and puppy dogs. ISIS doesn't recruit kids simply by schooling them in a Mosque. They go to communities and set up circuses and fairs and shit. People don't just join up with them all solely because they're scared. ISIS uses salesmanship on top of propaganda.

Once again, you can't get thousands of people to back your bullshit caliphate if all you do is bring the hammer of fear. You can see this in all forms of dictatorships. Look at Thailand: the first thing the current military dictator did was release a rock ballad praising his regime, gave out free movie tickets, paid off the farmers, and so on. This is typical behavior of dictators that get into power without the people's consent. You slowly integrate them into a system through childish bribery. ISIS is doing that exact same thing.

you are so quick to try to place a complete moral blame on Muslims and would like to frame ISIS as some sort of group that just came to be in a vacuum because they hate laughter and puppy dogs. — discoii

Just a note to point out that I did not say anything remotely like this, nor would I.

Internally, politicians and media have to reevaluate how they address this problem. It has to move away from an "us" versus "them" and away from a military interpretation of this conflict. — Benkei

But remember that the way Americans interventionism to basically everywhere is sold to the American public through fear.

I mean let's face the facts: The US is very safe. It has no rival. It has two large oceans separating it and it's totally in control of it's own continent, basically. It's population is basically not actually thrilled to be entangled everywhere with every dispute there is. Yet it's foreign relations community at large, the real community that sets the goals and policies of the US, favours this interventionism. The neocon isn't so far off from a liberal internationalist, actually. That even might be the correct way for a Superpower to stay as a Superpower. And the way to sell this thing is through fear.

You quoted Kenan Malik in your other post saying

What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people, drinking, eating, laughing, mixing. That is what they hated – not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism.

(Taken directly from your post).

Yes, and? What does that have to do with your characterization of my position--the one I objected to?

And hence my post. I guess I would add that ISIS is a pretty diverse organization itself. You don't just gain support to carry out an attack just for shits and giggles. There is an overall strategy to what they are doing, which certainly isn't anti-diversity and pluralism (whatever that means).

Your characterization of my position does not follow from the words I quoted from Kenan Malik.

certainly isn't anti-diversity and pluralism — discoii

You're joking, right?

Yes, that article was an education for me too. It casts doubt on the oft-heard opinion, expressed already in this thread, that military action is useless because the ISIS fighters will just melt away into obscurity for a while to bide their time, i.e. that ISIS is just like al-Qaeda. If Wood is right, everything hinges on their holding of territory. And that is something that can be taken from them. — jamalrob

Please define what you see as the problem? Is it terrorist attacks here, in the West? If so, then what should we care about IS holding territory in the ME? The Taliban wasn't much better (if at all) and they never attacked the West. So why is IS different?

What makes you think that defeating IS solves this problem and doesn't exacerbate it? How much worse do things actually have to get before it's clear that military intervention so far has only gotten us more problems - aside from a refugee stream we're going to have a hell of a time to accomodate in Europe?

Radicalisation of our youth isn't just caused because IS exists and it isn't caused by the simple existence of morbid interpretations of Islam. To draw an analogy, anti-semitism existed well before Hitler, it wasn't exactly a novel idea. It took additional circumstances to make a society turn on an ethnic/religious group just as that it requires more than just ideas to radicalise people.

It wasn't IS that attacked us but our own.

Have you read the article?

Also, are you suggesting that the defeat of ISIS is not a worthy goal?

This thread is about the Paris attacks.

All of a sudden it's about IS, hence, what is the problem you believe requires a solution?

Diversity and pluralism generally means nothing when the entire state apparatus in France, the media apparatus, and the cultural apparatus of the West has been heavily modified to create an anti-Muslim bias in the West, and especially in France. Sure, the French emphasize a secular state and secular education systems, but if secular means unbiased default, then obviously, given everything else, it is exclusionary of Muslims.

As for your quoting Kenan Malik, I read it as your introducing the usual emotional-inducing "they hate us for our freedoms", which is generally vacuous as an explanation, as opposed to "they are carrying out an overall strategy". Terrorist strategy has rarely been about attacking government symbols, it has always been about creating fear that brings about a costly overreaction. This further marginalizes the Muslims in the West, which then leads to more recruits for the only groups that have the reach and answers for them.