Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Islamic State: Can its savagery be explained?


9 September 2014

From the section Middle East


This article as can be seen above was posted on BBC News online over twelve months ago. Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn and his batty followers should volunteer to have a nice cosy chat with them and point out the error of their ways.


Since the sudden appearance of the extremist Sunni Islamic State (IS), the group has seized headlines with a shocking level of blood-letting and cruelty - but can its savagery be explained, asks Fawaz A Gerges.

Islamic State has become synonymous with viciousness - beheadings, crucifixions, stonings, massacres, burying victims alive and religious and ethnic cleansing.

While such savagery might seem senseless to the vast majority of civilised human beings, for IS it is a rational choice. It is a conscious decision to terrorise enemies and impress and co-opt new recruits.

IS adheres to a doctrine of total war without limits and constraints - no such thing, for instance, as arbitration or compromise when it comes to settling disputes with even Sunni Islamist rivals. Unlike its parent organisation, al-Qaeda, IS pays no lip service to theology to justify its crimes.

The violence has its roots in what can be identified as two earlier waves, though the scale and intensity of IS' brutality far exceeds either.




The first wave, led by disciples of Sayyid Qutb - a radical Egyptian Islamist regarded as the master theoretician of modern jihadism - targeted pro-Western secular Arab regimes or what they called the "near enemy", and, on balance, showed restraint in the use of political violence.

Beginning with the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1980, this Islamist insurgency dissipated by the end of the 1990s. It had cost some 2,000 lives and saw a large number of militants head to Afghanistan to battle a new global enemy - the Soviet Union.

'Killing machine'

The Afghan jihad against the Soviets gave birth to a second wave, with a specific target - the "far enemy", or the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe.

It was spearheaded by a wealthy Saudi turned revolutionary, Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden went to great lengths to rationalise al-Qaeda's attack on the US on 11 September 2001, calling it "defensive jihad", or retaliation against perceived US domination of Muslim societies.


Conscious of the importance of winning hearts and minds, Bin Laden sold his message to Muslims and even Americans as self-defence, not aggression.

This kind of justification, however, carries no weight with IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who cannot care less what the world thinks of his blood-letting.

In fact, he and his cohorts revel in displaying barbarity and coming across as savage.

In contrast to the first two waves, IS actually stresses violent action over theology and theory, and has produced no repertoire of ideas to sustain and nourish its social base. It is a killing machine powered by blood and iron.

Going beyond Bin Laden's doctrine that "when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse", al-Baghdadi's "victory through terrorism" signals to friends and foes that IS is a winning horse. Get out of the way or you will be crushed; join our caravan and make history.

Increasing evidence shows that over the past few months, hundreds, if not thousands, of diehard former Islamist enemies of IS, such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic Front, answered al-Baghdadi's call.

'Shock-and-awe'

IS' sophisticated outreach campaign appeals to disaffected and deluded young Sunnis worldwide because it is seen as a powerful vanguard that delivers victory and salvation.

Far from abhorring the group's brutality, young recruits are attracted by its shock-and-awe tactics against the enemies of Islam.


Its exploits on the battlefield - especially capturing huge swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, and establishing a caliphate - resonate near and far. Nothing succeeds like success, and IS' recent military gains have brought it a recruitment bonanza.

Muslim men living in Western countries join IS and other extremist groups because they feel part of a greater mission - to resurrect a lost idealised type of caliphate and be part of a tight-knit community with a potent identity.

Initially, many young men from London, Berlin and Paris and elsewhere migrate to the lands of jihad to defend persecuted co-religionists, but they end up in the clutches of IS, doing its evil deeds, such as beheading innocent civilians.

The drivers behind IS' unrestrained extremism can be traced to its origins with al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by the Americans in 2006.

Not unlike its predecessor, IS is nourished on an anti-Shia diet and visceral hatred of minorities in general, portraying itself as the spearhead of Sunni Arabs in the fight against sectarian-based regimes in Baghdad and Damascus.

Al-Zarqawi and al-Baghdadi view Shias as infidels, a fifth column in the heart of Islam that must be wiped out - a genocidal worldview.

Following in the footsteps of al-Zarqawi, al-Baghdadi ignored repeated pleas by his mentor Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda, and other top militants to avoid indiscriminate killing of Shia and, instead, to attack the Shia-dominated and Alawite regimes in Iraq and Syria.



Sights on US?

By exploiting the deepening Sunni-Shia rift in Iraq and the sectarian civil war in Syria, al-Baghdadi has built a powerful base of support among rebellious Sunnis and has blended his group into local communities.

He also restructured his military network and co-opted experienced officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army who turned IS into a professional sectarian fighting force.


IS has so far consistently focused on the Shia and not the "far enemy". The struggle against the US and Europe is distant, not a priority; it has to await liberation at home.

At the height of Israeli bombings of Gaza in August, militants on social media criticised IS for killing Muslims while doing nothing to help the Palestinians.

IS retorted by saying the struggle against the Shia takes priority over everything else.

Now that the US and Europe have joined the conflict against IS, the group will use all its assets in retaliation, including further beheading of hostages. There is also a growing likelihood that it will attack soft diplomatic targets in the Middle East.

While it might want to stage a spectacular operation on the American or European homeland, it is doubtful that IS currently has the capabilities to carry out complex attacks like 9/11.

A few months ago, in response to chatter by his followers, al-Baghdadi acknowledged that his organisation was not equipped to attack the Americans at home.

He said though that he wished the US would deploy boots on the ground so that IS could directly engage the Americans - and kill them.

Fawaz A Gerges holds the Emirates Chair in Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is author of several books, including Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy.

where's FRED when you want to hear a voice of reason?

returned home yesterday . islam as declared war on non muslms
the west must act . or allow islam to rule the world we must never allow them to
win . assad is not the problem it is the terrorists fighting in the name of islam

muslims are protecting these terrorists they no who they are but are silent

islam is evil . religion is a killer

fellow muslims in paris new the plot they must be found
the west must go in and end the world of isil wipe them out

the migrant camps in france must be closed down and deport them . full of terrorists . and any one trying to get on to a lorry shoot on site action is needed or
allow criminals to rule

for those that do not no the migrants walk round with knifes threating drivers

Thinking about the results of Afghanistan, Iraq Libya and other wars since 2001 and earlier.

Also, thinking about who supplied the arms to various groups, throughout the World.

Also, what is the hoped-for gains from such actions last evening in France


Again recalling the remark"the world has not yet reached a condition of ego dominance, and the veneer of civilization is very thin.”

open borders allow terrorists to walk freely around Europe all borders must be closed
and make no mistake their must be over 120 involved in this attack behind the attack

assad is not the problem we should be behind him . the usa must back him

the uk has allowed terrorists who went to Syria to come back they should of been shot
and anyone who wants to go put them on a one way plane

Borders will eventually be back up as the EU crumbles ,it was always a stupid idea ,the United States of Europe was never going to work .

jimmy you are wrong it works great for terrorists , any one crossing a border should now be shot on site that will end the crises

the usa uk Europe have weak leaders which are the reasons for the rise of isil
the west have allowed these cowards to kill . bring back leaders with guts bring back Maggie the only thing these scum understand is violence thinking they are going to meet a god and vigins what a load of crap

their is no god .

the west leaders talk but no action the whole of the eu and the usa must go in any wipe out the shit

the uk law must now state any one talking or hate against the west must be deported
to their mother country . no mercy act

the uk cities are full of fighters who have come back to the uk plus hundreds of illegals
who we do not no are here . they should be rounded up and sent back .

these killers are killing in the name of islam and have never been condemned by any muslim leader , when are muslim leaders going to act and hand them to the police

Jihadi Jez is cancelling this speech today

Jeremy Corbyn will condemn the UK's role in a series of "disastrous" wars in the Middle East, including current operations against Islamic State.

64510 - a non-answer as was a racing certainty

The problem in France is :that the French people are very relaxed with the Muslim population around them ; effectively you cannot blame all french arabs/muslims for what happened yesterday evening, just abolishing frontiers in europe is a bad.. bad mistake by the eurozone countries.....also Paris and France in general has very few cctv cameras,..
I hate to say this but the reason is that they don't want people ratting on them when they sleep with the neighbours wife for instance....that might sound harsh...I'm sorry if it does but that is the reality of how it is.....you cannot stop guns getting into france with the present european system....drive along the border motorways ; you cross into Germany Italy Belgium....no controls...nobody stops you...nobody cares either.....so preventing international terrorism is going to be difficult.....and France is going to face some tough decisions in clamping down on their arab/maghreb migrants and the generations of north africans that have been in france for perhaps a hundred years or so now...