To your comments I would like to add: the Russians invading Afghanistan, the CIA arming and training of all kind of "rebels", the invasion of Irak, the protection of the House of Saud by the EUA, the interest of Israel in being the only strong nation in the area, the support of dictatorial regimens (and their removal) by the "western powers", etc..

It's almost impossible to solve a problem without understanding it. And this is not a simple problem.

At the same time CIA wanted to destabilize the region, to kick the currently Russia-friendly government out (and as a consequence kick Russia out of its pretty much only naval base in the region). So they kept funneling funds, training and weapons to the "moderate" rebels.

Of course all those weapons (along with many left behind in Iraq), and all those "moderate" rebels switched to ISIS. Now you can either say CIA is stupid or malicious. Stupid because despite the $100B in funding, they couldn't foresee it and it was a surprise, or it was pretty much the plan.

One can say, at the end of the day what are they (and many other military and intelligence) branches will do if is there is no new threat to worry about. "No drones or SIGINT targets, no promotions and paychecks". Both for military industrial complex and the government employees alike.

Either way I find it interesting how this was spun as a surprise to the media: "We had no idea why ISIS grew so fast, and managed to occupy so much territory. Not really sure how they got those modern tank killer missiles they keep making videos with...".

"Defense Intelligence $80.1 billion[12] 3.3% Because of classified nature, budget is an estimate and may not be the actual figure"

Something makes me doubt another $20B into the intelligence budget would have changed the outcome for the better.

More sauce:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/1...

https://en.zamanalwsl.net/readNews.php?id=5696 (translated)

http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/u-s-backed-syrian-group-joins-isl...

> This smacks of conspiracy claptrap that adds nothing of substance to the discussion.

Well, did you have anything to discuss, or just wanted sauce? Because I am not sure "src pls!" replies add much to the discussion.

I understand your decision to reply with snark to a snarky comment, but in this instance, "src pls!" does in fact add to the discussion.

For example it could have been "Well I think the budget is a bit off, CIA itself doesn't get that money, did you mean the total intelligence budget".

Or "Agreed, do you have any sources for the fighters who switched side? that would be interesting to see".

Imagine you are sitting by the fire and discussing something, and someone just chimes with "src pls", "srs pls", I wouldn't consider them contributing to the discussion, rather derailing it.

So I agree, source would help here, did provide sources but responded snarky to give the person asking for them a hint (not so subtle, perhaps) that in general that is not a constructive way to hold a conversation.

Secondly, I asked for source to support the claim that "all rebels switched to ISIS", but apparently you don't have that and are just of the opinion that that is what has occurred.

They get really agitated and say we're not Wahabbis we're just true muslims.

One interesting theory I read is that 19th Century Islam was forced to confront the reality that they had declined while Europe had soared.

In the ensuing conflict of ideas the one that won out was the thesis that the Islamic world had declined because they had gotten out of touch with the true values of Islam as practised by those at the time of the prophet.

Hence Salafism - Literally a return to the time of the prophet. Francis Fukuyama was laughed at for claiming the end of history a few years ago as he believed Western Democracy had achieved an eternal triumph.

What are we then to make of these people who believe that the end of history happened more than a thousand years ago ?

In the world of Fukuyama et al, rather than a basic religious worldview with precise tenets, is there a solid framework of meaningfully defining/determining good/triumph/progress? How/why does it matter in the long run whether or not a bunch of Amoeba get transformed into more complicated organisms, or hot elementary particles end up forming heavy atoms and structures, or killing and chaos spreads among the humans a la world war II? From a materialistic/nihilistic standpoint, everything -- or nothing, for that matter -- can be viewed as triumph or end of some (part of) history (or not).

Islam in the 19th century was no more and no less than what it was before, but the Muslims were (and still are) trying to come to terms with the colonial destructions and ensuing effects.

Fukuyama said that Capitalist Democracy was the pinnacle of civilisation.

In the same way Salafi / Wahabbi ideology says that we must as much as possible live like the prophet and his contemporaries. Any innovation is derided as Bida/Heretical.

So its not possible to reform certain laws in response to changing circumstances. Eg: Women can inherit only half of what men do. Now I'm not justifying this but this might have been pragmatic (socially acceptable??) for a time where women were subjugated and men were often the sole breadwinners for the entire family.

However in the 21st century noone can really argue that its relevant. But if anyone tries to reform laws such as these you'll have the Wahabbis and Salafis going ape and branding everyone heretics.

There was a cleric in my part of the country who had a very unorthodox interpretation of the scriptures. He was a brilliant orator and a scholar who could hold his fort against the traditionalists. He began gaining a lot of followers however one day he just disappeared and was never found again.

The ideas related to the roles, responsibilities and respectability of the individuals are different in the Islamic creed. Yes, a woman gets half from her father (her husband owes her, legally), and she is exempt from the basic responsibility to become the breadwinner. Any Muslim is meant to respect and care for his/her mother more than the father. Historically many Muslim women were scholars (https://archive.org/download/AlMuhaddithat/al%20-%20Muhaddit...) and rich (in the old Muslim heritage, many of the large endowments for public welfare are known to be from women). Besides, a merely demographically Muslim territory may not embody much of the Islamic ideals though.

In the other part, I was referring to the epistemological basis regarding the concepts of triumph/progress; in particular, in a framework where basically, "we are from nowhere, we are going to nowhere and we are here for nothing", nothing really signifies anything.

Thanks.

You're right but woman not being a breadwinner is no longer the social reality today. So do we change the law or go back to the old ways ?

> I cant reply directly as HN has blockedit.

Yes, you can reply directly. Beyond a certain depth HN may not show a reply link when you view the whole thread, but you can still directly reply by clicking the direct link to the specific comment (the one that has the "5 minutes ago" or whatever the time interval is), and then the reply box will be shown.

I think this is intended to make people think before replying to a very deeply nested comment as a way of curbing unproductive Ping-Pong discussions, but it seems mostly to get people to post lateral replies (that is, replies attached to a comment somewhere upthread from the comment they actually respond to), invariably complaining about the inability to reply directly, which is worse for the flow of discussion than if they just posted direct replies.

I presume you mean "latest" here? The term "last" implies that Christianity and Judaism are no longer practiced today...

They were the last to be visited by god, and had the most-recent prophet, according to whom their mortal leaders speak ex-cathedra. Mormonism is even growing faster than Islam. It is the ultimate(1) Abrahamic religion.

Mormonism is even truly a religion of peace. Its leader was under persecution at the time and he does not speak out for killing and injustice.

1) Judging all religions objectively by the same standard of proof.

That point reminds me though of a particular set of standards employed by an academic on that very topic: http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/528/viewall/miraculous...

Thus we know mormon leadership speak ex-cathedra because Smith said so, and so forth. Where things conflict however, like Mohammed's statement that he's the last prophet, obviously he's wrong because Joseph Smith, etc, meet the same criteria.

Going by the truth revealed in each document, Mormon's are the closest to god - the latest, most direct, pipeline to the divine. It's essentially religious science.

Once you meet the rigorous standards of 1) writing it down and 2) claiming to override all previous prophets, yes. I'd count you. (However, this will void your membership in the CotFSM.)

Until then though, Mormonism, FTW.

I don't claim to know much of mormonism; however the conflicts in such notions as 'ultimate', 'objective' here are difficult to reconcile: mormonism conflicts with Vatican/pope with respect to the core of any religious thoughts, namely, the identity of God; hence it is quite strange to insist on a notion of non-conflicting ideas, which is both logically impossible and non-existent. If mormonism was not correcting some ideas, which necessarily implies that there are conflicts, why Mr. Smith bothered to bring mormonism in the first place? Isn't it redundant, as long as it is not claiming to fix something (=>conflict)?

And if you concede the possibility of other valid new prophets and religious claims possible in the future following this Mr. Smith, how can you even choose to use the word "ultimate"? You see the logical contradiction there is too glaring to work out, no? Please make sure that the reasoning remains reasonably sound. Thanks and bye.

And I only mean ultimate, now. Compared to the other religions we could be squabbling over. In a future religion, god could be all that + offer you a pony. We'll never know. But for now, of the choices, they're all obvious losers compared to Mormonism. Literally, you could upgrade a catholic or a muslim by giving them Mormonism.

As for Smith's motivations, who's saying he wasn't fixing things. He just didn't feel the need to get all stabby and make killing a sacrament.

And it conflicts nothing - it tells it how it is. The pope is god's voice, there's no conflict. Perhaps the pope is the missing element in islam. As the ultimate religion we can only assume it has not just a point, but a great one.

Fukuyama himself considered capitalist democracy to be the End of History, so yes.

Besides, I was coming from a philosophical perspective to the point where the basis of the things transcend the transient notions; that is, from a materialistic viewpoint (which I presume is Fukuyama's and many of the fellows' here), how/why does having an oligarchy or a corporate tyranny or a state with social welfare somewhere at some point in time is any more significant than some predator somewhere making some species extinct or some big wave scattering across in the ocean a million year ago or after (or any other event, such as a massacre by some of the humans, in the universe, for that matter).

I had considered you to be asking about Fukuyama's views. In my views, history doesn't have an end, except possibly for everyone dying out.

>Besides, I was coming from a philosophical perspective to the point where the basis of the things transcend the transient notions;

The what now?

>how/why does having an oligarchy or a corporate tyranny or a state with social welfare somewhere at some point in time is any more significant than some predator somewhere making some species extinct or some big wave scattering across in the ocean a million year ago or after

It's significant to the people living through it! How's that supposed to not count as significant?

Startups seem to be pretty good at convincing a never-ending stream of youth to surrender 500% productivity now in exchange for (usually lies about) riches in the future.

"Yeah, it's linkedfacebox, you know, a super cool startup and everybody there just works through the night because we're all so dedicated to the cause. Gotta keep crushing it so the founders can get a few billion dollars richer otherwise they won't let me cash out my 0.0001% for $3 million."

humans have limited psychological reactions to things. The "believe in a cause" bucket uses the same manipulation tools no matter if you're a startup, a cult, a thousand year old religion, or a radicalized intentional hate group with a persecution complex. You set up an enemy ("the others" / "the adversary", "disruption"), you rally your troops to beat the enemy at all costs (sacrifice yourself/your time/your health for the greater good and you will be rewarded), then perpetuate cycles of wins/losses to reinforce belief and dedication to externalized, and personally abdicated, leadership.

I know this is pretty far fetched, but at the end, I feel both have the same kind of appeal :

Stay where you are and remain an anonymous cog in the machine, or move to a place, where you will endure hardship, but where in the end you can change the world and you will create a legacy.

And in both case, the reality is less rosy. This is a kind of an archetypal "Call to Adventure", but it might have another name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_war | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_modernity

A half-century ago, very little of what was happening in the Middle East had anything to do with Islam. Most of the leadership in the region was secular; some states were quite democratic.

Egypt is one of the most conservative places today, chafes under the yoke of a secular government, wants to be Islamist. A half-century ago under Nasser, Egypt was the source of secularism in the region and was pulling other Middle Eastern nations towards its secular nationalism. Similarly, Iran was extremely secular in the 50s, and remained so under the Shah; many secular elements were instrumental in pulling him down.

Both of these poles were toppled by American efforts. Egypt was slowly pulled towards the Washington Consensus by buying the government, which became increasingly repressive. The same result was achieved in Iran with a coup that toppled the democratic government. In both of these places the reaction to a repressive secular regime had a strong Islamist component (both Shia and Sunni).

It wasn't just in government that this reversal happened; the primary popular resistance organizations during the 20th century were also secular. The PLO, PFLP, and so on were all secular Marxist organisations, and young radicals fighting against American hegemony, the same space ISIS has colonised now, would not have given a fig for jihad. It was the failure of these organisations to provide the liberation sought that led to the eventual rise of Islamist alternatives, like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda.

Contemporary Sunni jihadi ideology, in fact, had its origins in Egypt in the 60s thanks to people like Hassan al-Banna and Sayed Qutb, who developed much of the thinking that fueled al-Qaeda ideologically. This was a modern development, a reaction to the spread of secular thought and colonialism; it is not a continuous expression of Islam.

Finally, let's not forget the active American support of conservative religious Saudi Arabia, to the tune of billions in military hardware and ironclad political alliance, as well as the arming of the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets, both of which were signal events in fanning the flames of radical Sunni Islamism.

Anyway, we are in danger that this narrative and others similar becomes the only explanation in the mainstream media, instead of only a factor that probably is not very relevant. After all, the majority of Muslims don't believe that they should go to war with other countries.

This is not to say, that I agree with what the west is doing. I think "what goes around, comes around" applies here very well...

This way of thinking of "us vs. them" in a global scale. After all Europe and the States have his own domestic terrorist too.

You have convinced me that religion is important here. I will think about it.

Did you convinced somebody before about anything in an Internet forum? ;-)

Look no further than hate-motivated crimes against people of color, transgendered people, and non-heterosexual people - often backed up with violent rhetoric based on Christianity.

Does that mean the ideology of Christianity itself has failed to modernize?

A key difference between al Qaeda, which could broadly be defined as trying to "tip the scales eventually toward a Caliphate" whilst battling for certain populist causes and ISIS is that the latter considers itself to be a Caliphate, and is actively pushing for the Islamic equivalent of Armageddon. That means it isn't going to calm down, but it also means that its claims to legitimacy based on fulfilment of prophecies about unification of territories are more readily defeated by military means than other jihadists' claims to be defending the Muslim world from infidels.

Edit: see also this user's point and linked article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10581489

I agree. The fact that ISIS effectively seeks to become a nation state makes fighting them a lot more straight forward. It's very difficult to fight an insurgency or terrorist group which is not interested in holding territory and blends in with the population. It's pretty straight forward to bomb, lay siege to, or generally bleed a group which needs to have government buildings, infrastructure, police, logistics etc. The fact that their legitimacy is primarily based on continuous expansion is also great, as defeat creates a highly negative feedback loop for them making recruitment more difficult.

From what I've been told and read, they've already established a Caliphate. The primary driver of having a Caliphate is that ISIS must control territory, without controlling territory, there is no Caliphate - correct?

This was one of the best explanations I've read about why ISIS is doing what it is doing:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi...

If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate. Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement: take away its command of territory, and all those oaths of allegiance are no longer binding.

Hitting them with bombs can only achieve so much and should be just one step in many to understand this phenomenon. I do think that this attack in particular has seen so universal condemnation, (largely because France is not regarded as a major invading force like the US or NATO are), that it's actually going to hurt ISIS reputation, probably fatally. OTOH destroying them doesn't seem to be the end of the story...

Condemnation doesn't work. What does work is a combination of excellent police work in routing out cells of recruiters and operators, and precise, devastating bombing raids followed by boots on the ground to protect and empower the civilians, most of whom would never support these psychopaths by choice.

If Iraq had a fully capable military(instead of the partially capable one they have now), ISIS would never have spread into the country. For all the problems the US and its allies created in Iraq, the country was comparatively much more stable, and for the most part people got on with their lives.

I think they are seeking both selective (that is, among non-Muslims) and poorly focused (at Muslims in general, rather than focused on Daesh in particular) condemnation, rather than "universal condemnation". And they seek that specifically so that the Muslims, who are the population they target to establish dominion over in the form of a Caliphate, will see non-Muslims as a threat (because Muslims become seen by non-Muslims as a threat) against whom Daesh is the only defense, and that the cost of accepting the dominion that Daesh offers is lower than the cost of being outside of it (they also want Muslims to be afraid of defying Daesh, which also makes the cost of accepting dominion less than the cost of rejecting it.)

Contemporary radical Islam is brewing just for one (young) generation and is result of applying western individual freedom and reason to principles of Islam.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...

Yup, and that's just what ISIS is trying to do -- everyone in the world, convert to radical Sunni Islam and follow ISIS or die.

To heck with the details: The US, France, Germany, England, all of NATO has a right to defend themselves.

With the ISIS ideology, they will be trying to kill everyone else, infidels, as long as there is just one ISIS person left.

At this point it is not enough to stop the ISIS killings. Instead, we must stop the ability of ISIS to do harm outside of their area.

Sure, taking the desert area of ISIS and wiping it clean is not reasonable, but neither is ISIS.

I don't want to kill them. I especially don't want to hurt the girls and young women, especially the ones they have made into sex slaves. I don't even want to hurt their flocks and camels.

But I want to stop ISIS now and forever in the future. I don't want to spend even one drop of NATO blood. I don't want to spend even one US penny more than necessary. But I want ISIS stopped. We are not obligated to put up with their wacko nonsense. It is our responsibility that they be stopped. If they had any responsibility or deserved any from us, then they would long since have stopped their wacko, medieval nonsense. Since they have not stopped and have no sense of responsibility, we need just to stop them.

Stop them from the air. Take out their leaders and their oil infrastructure. Occupy their oil areas and take the oil. For the rest of the area, we might for a while try to send them back to tents, flocks, and camels cooking their food with camel dung. I I suspect it won't work, that all they have is what their radical clerics tell them, and those clerics will stop only when dead.

Basically they have a wacko, violent, ugly, stupid medieval culture enabled by oil money and nothing else, are 1000 years out of date, with no hope of moving ahead the needed several hundred years. No hope.

And their nuke threat is real. Time to stop them.

I've seen some footage from Sinjar after it was retaken by the Kurds: not a single building was left standing. It's hard to imagine anyone still living there.

Armies are good at breaking down nation-states by destroying the opposing military and means of production. Putting the middle east aside, as it's still happening, I think the history of the 20th century aptly demonstrates that organized military force isn't effective in defeating revolutionary movements. The Vietnamese were successful in ejecting France and the US, the Irish were able to defeat the British Empire, the Yugoslavians were successful against the Germans.

The Germans pretty much did what you suggest NATO is capable of, given the will. They executed hostages in reprisal. They blew up towns and burned crops. They rounded up partisan leaders and hung them on the roadside. Again, didn't really work. From a humanist perspective, I don't think that is the type of conduct NATO countries aspire to.

You don't stop revolutionary movements by blowing stuff up. You have to undermine the base of ideology or grievances.

You're mistaken [0][1][2].

[0] http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO

(2) France has something they label the 'force de frappe', which, though vastly reduced could turn a relatively large area of desert into a parking lot overnight, so even if they are part of NATO they don't actually need it to respond on an extremely high casualty level if the French get pissed off enough. Fortunately, France is one of the more levelheaded nuclear powers and has - to date - not even put that option on the table. But I would not take that as a given or forever.

France is a NATO member, and has been the whole time NATO has existed. It withdrew from some NATO structures (e.g., the integrated military command) in 1966, but rejoined the integrated military command in 2009.

Page

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/16/why-nato-probably-wont-help-f...

clearly claims that France is a member of NATO.

> You have to undermine the base of ideology or grievances.

Would be nice. That would be the nice way. For Viet Nam, my position was, and remains, just come home. And now the US and Viet Nam get along fine. We could have gotten along fine starting as soon as the Japanese left -- Viet Nam liked us then, we got rid of the Japanese who had taken over their country and they had helped downed US pilots, and could have liked us continually and more and more to the present. I never did understand why Ho, a dishwasher from Paris, was so eager to get free dinners in Moscow and Peking just to torque off the US.

What you said about Germany did work for a while, and what defeated Germany was mostly just the US, especially the US Eighth air force with B-17s leveling German cities, ones that were at all connected with war production and likely more.

But ISIS is no longer a "revolutionary movement" and, instead, is essentially a nation state. So, I don't recommend occupying them and hanging their leaders from lamp posts. I don't want diplomacy, negotiations, surrender, unconditional surrender, or treaties. We can't settle for their promising to stop their nonsense or even stopping their nonsense. And I don't want to try to occupy them like W did -- that would cost US blood and treasure, and not one drop of blood and not one dime more treasure than it takes to defend the US.

Instead, given their strong culture and many very clear statements, we have to make sure they are no longer able in any sense to pursue their nonsense. At this point, I will pay attention their capabilities, not their statements or behavior, and want to make sure they have no capabilities to inflict harm outside their territories. Sure, in part that would mean that no one, except maybe some boys under 6 or some girls under 10, from the ISIS area is ever permitted to leave.

They are eager to die and to kill us. We can help them die, and without dying ourselves. We don't have to be ashamed of helping them die the way they want.

In particular they must not have the resources or ability to get a nuke bomb. Essentially they have to be sent back to tents, flocks, and camels, tightly controlled, with their oil taken, and that's at least. The only safe way to remove a boot on their necks and just forget about them is, basically, to kill all of them. It's come to that -- they make that fully clear in all their propaganda. So be it.

They would love to light off a nuke in NY harbor, and I'm just 70 miles from there. 'Nuff for me -- defend ourselves.

The only serious tool they have is our reluctance to kill their civilians, which are really just their children and most of their women. They have that tool only due to our extreme, nearly suicidal, generosity. We don't owe them that.

I'm sure that in WWII the US killed a lot of really nice, wonderful civilian people in both Japan and Germany. But, we had to win the war, and we did. And Japan and Germany had killed a lot of really nice, wonderful civilians before we did.

"Nuke" -- ISIS said the wrong word. There are no extenuating grievances, history, or considerations. It's back to tents, flocks, and camels right away or, and likely soon, just "wipe the desert clean".

Saddam said the wrong word -- nuke. ISIS is really slow at learning and really fast to forget.

W was a total fumble bumble, but his sense of responsibility as POTUS to defend the US was correct. I'm sure the next POTUS, either Hillary or any of the Repub candidates, will also take that responsibility seriously. I don't like Hillary, but she is not stupid; I very much don't like Hillary, but she is likely the best informed and brightest in the race; I believe and very much hope she loses, but I am fairly confident that, as part of being a responsible POTUS, and I am sure she has plenty of pride for that, she would be ready, willing, able, and eager to tell the USAF to level the ISIS areas -- wipe the desert clean.

ISIS wants to take their magic carpet ride to Allah, and it's about certain they will. I'm very sorry the ISIS area innocent women and children have to go along for the ride.

A threat of a nuke in a US harbor -- we need to make sure we don't have to worry about that at all, and we can, and I believe that we should and will.

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"; I didn't, and don't, think that statement was appropriate when C. Rice said it, but I believe it's appropriate now. We don't want to wait; the Paris attack was enough for a Pearl Harbor wake up call.

For the ISIS areas, France is fully capable of wiping "the desert clean" in an afternoon -- they better do it.