European views on ISIL

I cant even think about it, it gets me so mad angry when I do. No words can express the disgust I have for those bastards.

Interesting piece on Netanyahu and Iran, which also touches on ISIS.

Netanyahu presents Congress with a warped view of the Mideast - Haaretz

Edit: I was able to read this on my phone earlier, but it looks like the PC version of the site is beyond a paywall.

Brave young reporter:

http://nypost.com/2015/03/07/my-isis-boyfriend-a-reporters-undercover-life-with-a-terrorist/

Somewhat provocative title but a lot of food for thought in Jeffrey Goldberg's cover story for this month's The Atlantic. I'd encourage everyone to read the whole thing, despite its length, before commenting.



http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/

That was a long read (not all of it entirely relevant I felt save to project a particular view point) but the rise in antisemitism is clear and there is a part of that being played by the increasing Muslim population of Europe. And in part by an increasing lurch to the right in European politics that resulted in no small part as a reaction to the US led financial collapse of the world economy.
But you cant in my view split of Israel from all other jews in peoples mind- wrongly or not. Humans dont work that way.
No its not fair to judge those jews based on the actions of the Israeli government, and no violence on those grounds can ever be justified, but its only human nature if you find the actions of Israel dispicable that you will target it at those you think are part of it or sympathise with it.

I think the creation of Israel was a huge mistake and a complete betrayal of the Palestinians who stood and fought by us in WW2 and then were sold out by us right afterwards.
I think the treatment of Palestinians by Israel is criminal and catastrophic and can only lead to more hatred and violence- you cant lock a whole people up in the worlds largest open air prison, restrict their movement, all their goods, their business, steal their homes, their land, their agriculture and their water supply and expect them to thank you for it afterwards.

And you cant expect non-Jews to support you in these diabolical actions.

Granted I lump jews in with all the other religions as a bunch of mentally unstable folks who believe an invisible unprovable super being tells them how to live and that that way to live is the only right way to live and those who dont should be condemned or even killed for not believing in their invisible unprovable super being. But thats doesn't excuse anti-semitism, but nor does it excuse the actions of Israel or how utterly barbaric those actions have become towards an entire people.

If Israel really cared about jews outside its lands they would not be so cavalier in how they treat non Jews around them as they must know Israels actions reflect back on all jews everywhere, fair or not.
You cant commit acts of terror and suffering on a people and then complain when people find that hugely objectionable.

I'm opposed to Israel's treament of the Palestinians (and to a lesser extent its own Arab citizens) as well, don't get me wrong. But I can't say with a clear conscience that Israel was a mistake. Anti-semitism is probably the oldest continuous form of racial prejudice (I say racial since Jew is an ethno-religious label) and it has keeps cropping up over the centuries. Not just in Europe, although Europe probably has the worst track record on it. When I go back and look at the historical reasons why the Zionist movement began (which are still relevant reasons today), I can't disagree that having a Jewish homeland is a good thing for the continued existence (both physically and culturally) of the Jewish people. Not that all Jews want to move there or that they should feel pressured to do so, but as Goldberg points out, having a refuge of last resort makes a difference. But of course, this doesn't excuse the treatment of the Palestinians who were already living in the Jewish homeland that was selected for the Zionist project (not that any of the regions that were under consideration a century ago were completely uninhabited).

I'd like to think that it would have been possible for there to have been mass Jewish immigration to Palestine without the situation devolving into a civil war the way it did, but similar historical examples suggest that's rarely the case, even with sparsely inhabited regions (which Palestine was at the time). Looking strictly at the present, I'm skeptical of a two-state solution because I question the viability of a Palestinian state that is surrounded by Israel and only includes a fraction of the geographic region of Palestine anyway. But on the other hand, Israel hasn't proven very adept at being a "Jewish and democratic state" in a way that respects its minority populations.

It's not exactly a profound revelation to note that the Israel/Palestine situation is horrendously complicated, but still ... I dunno what else to say right now.

I just dont buy that for Judaism to survive it needs a homeland- they are not a race they are a religious group.
Israel was effectively lost by Ad70, it didn't stop the Jewish religion surviving and even prospering in other places during the following nearly 2 thousand years. It was not necessary to create a homeland and frankly not worth all the trouble or the betrayal of people who helped us when we needed it most.

a lot of it is religious and nothing to do with race, they want control of the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall and all that religious symbolic stuff.

US special forces are being evacuated from Yemen.

That has got to be the definition of a bad situation.

The Yemen conflict has been simmering and flaring up for a long time now. The situation has certainly deteriorated drastically in the past few months, which is why opportunists like ISIS are taking notice, but yeah. I feel for the people who are caught in the crossfire.

special forces are evacuated? what on earth could be bad enough for that to happen? what are they using mustard gas or something.

The special forces guys were there to partner with and train government forces for anti-terrorism stuff. Now that the Yemeni government has basically collapsed there's not much they can do. Staying there makes them a target and creates the chance they'll be attacked, which would require a response and draw America deeper into the civil war. Pulling them out is the sensible thing to do right now.

fair enough, I got the wrong end of the stick

But the phrase "special forces are being evacuated" does make it sound like some sort of Predator versus Alien stuff is going down.

Unfortunately, action movies are a pretty bad lens through which to analyze foreign policy.

what not even Transformers?

Sean Hannity has become such a parody of himself that he now makes Pat Buchanan look liberal.*

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/watch-pat-buchanan-school-hannity-iran

Though in the interest of fairness, Buchanan gave a vastly more levelheaded assessment of Iran than most of the (generally more moderate) media has.  One comes to expect to be disappointed by the media, but they've screwed the pooch with the Iran story even by their own standards with the majority not even thinking to question the word of fear- and warmongers.

*Honestly Buchanan is probably closer to the paleoconservative tradition here than Hannity.  The real story is how intellectually bankrupt neoconservative foreign policy is. Always nice to see policy wonks representing though.

I figure this goes here as well as anywhere else. No surprises here, but a very clear portrayal of Middle Eastern views of the west.

What people in the Middle East say in private about the West
Many in the Muslim world have a love-hate relationship with the West and America, Zainab Salbi observes

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/05/26/what-people-in-the-middle-east-are-saying-in-private-about-the-west/

More often than not, public perception of people in the Middle East is that they hate America and the West. This belief has been reinforced during the past few years by spectacles including radical rallies and the mobbing of Americans in the streets of Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. But within these societies, such scenes are often attributed to thugs and radicals, elements outside the mainstream. I dare say that most people in these countries do not share the radical sentiments or anger at America expressed by mobs in the street. In fact, most people who view such agitation in their own countries often assume that it is staged by radicals who are eager to provoke a reaction, whether domestically, internationally or both.

It is true that that some people in the Middle East harbor feelings of disdain and mistrust of the Western world. But such sentiments are not straightforward feelings of hatred. Rather, they reflect a dynamic of love-hate, or love-resentment-anger. The true complexity of these feelings emerges in whispers during dinner-table conversations, through nuanced gestures or comments that people utter only in their native tongues and almost never in English or to Westerners. These comments reflect the “unspoken” feeling that is close to the nerve and too sensitive to acknowledge to the outside world.

Most Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa admire and aspire to the essence of Western life: freedom of opportunity, freedom of expression and creativity, and the diversity of options available in life. Hollywood plays a major role in promoting this life, in which people have decent homes and jobs, cars and nice clothes. On a daily basis, these aspirations are reflected not only in people’s love of Western popular movies and TV series, but also through the latest fashion that everyone seeks to obtain and replicate, the latest style of haircuts, an obsession with celebrities and what they are doing or saying. Music, too, is a key cultural influence, and what you hear in most restaurants in the region is Western music, mostly from the ’80s.

But such aspiration is followed by the crushing realization that the Western standard of success is out of reach for the majority of the societies in the MENA region. The resentment starts with the disparity between the ideals vaunted by the Western world and the economic constriction and lack of opportunity that are a day-to-day reality in people’s lives. Being in America, you may say: That is not my problem. And you may be right. But what people in the MENA region hear and believe is that America held out hope to all, came to Iraq, promised it liberation and prosperity, and ended up destroying the country. The Iraq invasion and the ensuing weakening of the country have perpetuated conspiracy theories about the Western world and America’s malignant intentions toward the Middle East. The experience is held up as proof that the West never cared about the Middle East. This has also given strength to the following stereotypes and feelings about American and Western society:

Inconsistent Values: Mainstream MENA populations believe that “all the Western world wants out of the Middle East is its oil, and that nothing the West says about democracy and freedom is genuine. If it were, the thinking goes, the West would not have supported regimes in the region that oppressed their own people and suppressed basic human rights, from Qaddafi in Libya to Mubarak in Egypt, among others.” This inconsistency between publically promoted values and actual actions by Western governments has led to a reinforcement of the idea that the West is concerned only with its own financial wellbeing at any cost, even if that entails the destruction of “our country.” Beyond conspiracy theories, this is leading to a lack of respect: “They are hypocrites.” One man recently told me at a nice dinner party. “They say something and they act with another thing. We cannot trust them at all.” This is perhaps the most common theme aired in every country I have visited lately. It is a sad reality, but one that must be faced.

Financial Corruption: These range from rumors of thefts by American soldiers of cash in duffel bags upon the invasion of Iraq, to corrupt actions of business executives offering bribes and doing deals under the table in Middle Eastern countries to avoid taxes or regulations. Such charges are discussed in a matter of fact way as evidence of the West’s inconsistent values. The West does not care about helping “us” in building our economy in a constructive way. “They” do not have an interest in helping us build factories, roads and schools. All “they” care about is taking “our” natural resources at any cost before they leave the country. One businessman in Iraq recently told me, “I used to think of America as the moral country of the world. Now I think it is China and Russia for they understand our reality so much more than Americans do.”

Moral corruption: This is based more on the images mainstream people see on Western TV and the Internet, nudity or near nudity on public billboards, explicit discussion of sexual acts and behaviors, and over-consumption of alcohol leading to drunkenness. The moral judgment runs both East to West and West to East. Just as the West stereotypes all Muslim women as being oppressed, the East’s stereotype of Western women is that they are all morally loose. Both are unfair to most women and both are based on a small minority being generalized to whole cultures and countries.

Racism and bigotry: This stems not only from images of police brutality and the killing of African-Americans, but also from the first hand experiences of Middle Easterners who have brown skin, an accent, and maybe a different wardrobe when traveling in America or the Western world—from checkpoints at airports to derogatory remarks thrown at them in random encounters. Yes, people still hear the terms “sand nigger” or “rag head” or get asked the most absurd questions about Muslim practices, with the undertone that all Muslims oppress their women and send their kids to be suicide bombers. Such perceptions are based on the behavior of the marginal minorities in the larger Muslim countries rather than on mainstream society. To ascribe such stereotypes to all Muslims is like thinking all Americans are members of the KKK, or that all Europeans are Nazis—neither fair nor true.

I gathered the perceptions and misperceptions listed here not from radicals or from ISIS, but from mainstream society in the MENA region, the middle class and the educated, the youth and the business community. Fortunately, these feelings are offset by admiration and aspiration toward the lifestyle and core values of Western societies.

This conversation is not a dead end but one that should be held publicly, leading to reflection in the East and the West rather than defensiveness. Many, if not the majority, of the Muslim societies in the Arab world are indeed hurt by what they believe are the West’s ill intentions. The path to a true conversation starts with both sides of the aisle knowing – truly knowing – what the others think of them and deciding for themselves what is the truth and what is not, what needs adjustment and change and what does not. As someone who lives in two worlds and thinks of America as my home as much as the Middle East and Iraq, I see the fault and the good in both sides and the hope for more authentic communication.

Zainab Salbi is a humanitarian, author, and media commentator who has dedicated herself to women’s rights and freedom. At the age of 23, she founded Women for Women International—a grassroots humanitarian and development organization dedicated to serving women survivors of war. She is the author of several books including best selling memoir Between Two Worlds; Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam. Salbi is an editor at large for Women in the World who travels around the Middle East and North Africa and files reports on the intersection of Middle Eastern and Western cultures. She’s developing a new talk show that will deal with similar issues. For more information on Salbi’s work visit www.zainabsalbi.com.

that's very interesting reading.

Beyond conspiracy theories, this is leading to a lack of respect: “They are hypocrites.” One man recently told me at a nice dinner party. “They say something and they act with another thing. We cannot trust them at all.” This is perhaps the most common theme aired in every country I have visited lately. It is a sad reality, but one that must be faced.

I can't argue with that. A lot of Americans share that view of our own government.

Re that article above: is it really in contention that women in the Middle East are "stereotyped" as oppressed, when in fact most are living in peace and harmony with their totally not actually misogynistic societies?

I see this kind of moral dilution from leftists a lot (I'm a small l John Stuart Mill-esque liberal, not an evil conservative, just in case you were wondering) and it annoys me a great deal. To admit that women actually are treated like crap in most societies (including our own, until the recent past and in some cases they are still) is not to "stereotype" them - it is to take an active position on the moral unacceptability of repressive and pervasive misogyny.

I think the problem is in overstating the case. Where I am I'm surrounded by Iranian Engineering graduate students; many of them women. They didn't get their undergraduate degrees here; they weren't 'protected' from travel to the evil West. Then they get here and hear the line that they are treated like chattel back home, where everyone chants 'death to America'. Yep, that has to be annoying.

They come here and don't complain about America's evil ways, yet we go there and spout off about the backwardness of Islamic society (those at least who don't open their eyes to what is around them). Yes, both societies are corrupt, but I think Westerners are more likely to point the finger while in other societies. This would rub folks the wrong way for good reason.

I am going off how an actual Iranian woman sees her society. The animated film 'Persepolis'. and its not a happy picture.

To be fair, her portrayal of Germany isn't a very happy picture either (selfish booger-eating men )

well to be fair, in Germany the only public executions in stadiums are the English football team.