MajKrAzAm

American media is driven by a hysterical narrative that says it’s open season on blacks, but yet ignores the massive black violent crime epidemic. Those who have never lived in the US but use US media get this hackneyed narrative that is the opposite of reality. One notices this arrogance from Europeans on discussions about crime in America. They present the party line (blacks are being discriminated against by employers, the police, white flight, the educational system and basically everyone for no good reason whatsoever) as obvious truth and hint at the ingrained bigotry of white Americans as the primary cause of black dysfunction. There's not the least bit of interest in investigating the mechanisms that turn black ghettos into civilizational wastelands; I get the feeling that European journalists, as well-travelled and over-educated as they may be, cannot even fathom a reason for persistent racial inequality and strife other than irrational hatred. That said, most police in major cities and suburbs are worthless. They abuse their authority, are not very smart, and rape taxpayers with their bloated early retirements. Most of them have an "us vs. them" mentality which enables their worst inclinations. They will happily shoot you and your dog. Increasingly it's not the law you need to stay within but a cop's good graces.

In America, if you are black and grow up with no criminal record, and a college degree, then you can do much better than policing the community that produced you. So ghettos tend to be policed by marginal outsiders without a large investment or understanding of the culture. This results in an alienated and hostile police force. I can understand why a cop would feel like an occupying force. Every cop in the country wakes up in the morning and knows his day is going to be filled with nothing but fat, slovenly, dumb, irresponsible, television watching WalMartians and thieving, murderous congenital thugs who will shoot at them for almost no reason. They know that doing their actual job – terminating the violent elements of inner cities - is totally illegal from top to bottom, that they will not only get shot at by these thugs but sued, reprimanded and demoted along with having their town sacked by the only people who are legally allowed to destroy civilization with streets full of fire and blood. Cops are bad-tempered because they are the front line clean-up crew in a vast dystopia, and they aren't even allowed to clean it up.

You have not addressed any of my points in my previous posts, instead you reframe the argument and make fatuous comparisons between Islamists and secular extremists and attempt to draw a shameful moral equivalence between them. Your argument reduces the actions of Islamist groups to merely a reaction to Western foreign policy, without identifying anything specific to it, and – worse – conflates the actions of al-Qaeda with the justifiable general sentiment among people who have been wronged by America and the West. You forgot to mention the Anglican terrorists of the 18th century :laugh: .

Right, suicide bombing is not unique to jihadists, it’s only a coincidence that they happen to be extremely good at self-immolating thousands of innocent people every year. Point B is a lie. http://imgur.com/Ofq36qT Taken from the Global Terrorism Index 2014 Report. Your comment here does contain a little tiny glimmering of insight, but I suspect you don’t realize it. Bin Laden’s objection to American soldiers in KSA was religious in nature, and not nationalist. He described the soldiers as ‘Crusaders’ violating the sanctity of Mecca. That you don’t seem to understand this make me think you are a troll or an apologist for Islamism. Around 2002 Bin Laden issued another one of his rants where he whined on about the historical injustices against the Chaldeans that must be atoned for by the kuffir. Given that these events occurred before Islam or Christianity even existed you might wish to re-assess really how closely any concessionary strategy might actually go to satisfy Islamist fanatics This attack was state sponsored and planned by an Iranian proxy to interfere in Lebanon’s internal affairs in order to give Lebanon’s Shia militias strategic depth in a country of Sunnis, Christians, Druze and Shia. Foreign peacekeepers were an obstacle to Iran’s religious-sectarian goals. Again, you are confusing different things and lying on others. The idea that the US supported OBL and AQ is nothing more than a stupid meme. There is no straight line linking the mujahideen with AQ. Yes, foreign Arab fighters joined the Afghans in their war but these fighters had huge financial backing and had no need for American help. Nor would the CIA want to support foreigners who have no operational knowledge of Afghanistan. I suspect that you have confused the mujadhideen's role in the emergence of the Taliban. Again you are talking about an enormously complex group of different Afghan tribes with disparate aims and allegiances. You are overlooking Pakistan’s huge role in the creation of Taliban to give them a proxy to control southern Afghanistan in a future war against the Indians.

Only someone on the autism spectrum would compare the two terror attacks un-ironically. Islamist terror is statistically fat tailed, it has exponential growth potential. Your estimation from past data has huge errors. A record of the people who died last few years has very very little predictive powers of how many will die the next year, and is biased downward. One large sudden 9/11 event can cause huge casualties. No, I'm operating under the assumption that I'm talking to an American community college history major that thinks that Islamist mass murder of (mostly Muslim) civilians is a genuine reaction to American foreign intervention. Do you honestly believe that an Israeli withdrawal from Palestine would have avoided the slaughter in Manhattan? It would take a moral nihilist to suggest that. Islamists make it very apparent that their quarrel is with modernity and secularism on principle, not with (or not just with) American foreign policy.

Invoking the ad hominem fallacy just doesn't work in this instance because you would actually be an idiot to deny the theological motivation behind flying a plane into a building. The level of your analysis, Xenoshi, is summed up by your willingness to accept uncritically and at face value Al Qaeda’s own explanation for its murderous acts. Such an explanation actually proves very little, if anything. Lots of people object to America’s foreign interventions: but very few have attempted mass murder of civilians as a result. The jihadists choose their methods because they are Islamists, not because any ‘political goals’ dictate or demand such methods. The methods they adopt demonstrate their ordering of priorities on an entirely non-political secular basis. There’s no real calculation of interests, no room for compromise or negotiation, nothing that resembles a basic understanding of politics as contest between groups over the distribution of power and resources – an understanding that is common to all political groups, in every culture everywhere, marking off serious political engagement from fanatical idealism. Islamists are idealists in the very worst sense of that word, and their fantasies have nothing in common, either, with sane political thinking and calculation. Nevertheless, apologists for the jihadists (Xenoshi et al) portray their Islamism as somehow having ‘rational political goals’ or a reaction or as ‘blowback’. This downplays the role of ideology as an explanation for the anti-human, nihilistic momentum of jihadist actions and serves to aim at pinning the blame elsewhere. The core motivation of Islamists is theocratic fanaticism. And the way they act, mass murder and rape, reflects this worldview.

Xenoshi actually thinks that Al-Qaeda represents some kind of third world liberationist ideology. That Osama bin Laden is a cross between Ghandhi and Che Guevara, holding an AK47 in one hand and a Quran in the other. There is nothing to debate with someone who believes this. They are either a troll or an Islamist. The objective of al-Qaeda is not the freedom of the Palestinians but the establishment of tyranny in the Muslim world by means of indiscriminate violence in both the Muslim and non-Muslim world, and those who confuse the two issues are idiots.

Harbringe is 100% correct. Jim UK: The idea that the West will be saved by its sanitation and health standards suggests you haven't been around any of the vibrant areas in major cities recently. And the idea is that a major virus is incubating in Africa, in a similar way that TB was brought back from the dead by immigrant Mexicans, possibly in a stronger form. Globalism and high population densities have created a new, favorable condition for disease spread, it's very naive to think that this changes nothing and using bacterial hand soap lets us off the hook. Are you aware of any period in history where global travel took hours? I've never seen anything like the sudden outbreaks of enterovirus' we are now seeing across North America. For years it was confined to the southwest with very few cases. Now we’re seeing mass eruptions fin clusters scattered around the country.

Compared to what the Israelis are using, the Palestinians are using bottle rockets. Hamas’ arsenal poses a negligible threat to Israel’s population. It's arsenal is considerably smaller from 2012, owing to the Egyptian government's decision to halt weapons smuggling (as it sees Hamas as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood). The number of dead in Gaza resulting from the Israeli assault has topped over 2000, mostly civilians. The number of wounded Palestinians is over 10,000 including a lot of children. At what point do the numbers of dead and wounded justify self-defense? 10,000? 20,000? At what point do Palestinians have the elemental right to protect their families and their homes? Their resistance is mostly symbolic, as makeshift rockets cause little damage. The ultimate fate of the Palestinians is sealed. So, the ultimate question then is, do Palestinians have the right to symbolically resist slow death punctuated by intermittent aerial slaughters, or must they lie down, submit, and let the Israelis finish them?

This point always gets repeated: that Hamas et al are morally reprehensible because they launch rocket salvos from populated areas. Have any of the people who've said this ever taken a look at Gaza? Even a youtube video tour? There is nowhere you can fire a rocket out of Gaza that isn't in close proximity to civilians. The place is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. They live on-top of each other like rats and they're pissed off at the generational humiliation they receive from Israel. If I were Gazan, you bet I'd want to take revenge on Israel. Even if it means firing a roman candle across the border, or mooning my ass at a border guard; they would have to kill me before I give up. Yes, it is, I do believe it is in the top three.... However, there is still large areas that are agricultural/undeveloped. Doesn't matter how you try and paint it, Hamas is MAKING SURE civilians are casualties of their war. Are you denying the agency of the Israelis? I'm pretty sure the responsibility of destroying an area lies with the person who launched the missile on that particular area. The Israelis have the choice to decide whether to bomb a civilian area. Instead they act like cry-baby children and overreact everytime some firecracker lands on a sidewalk 20 miles from Tel Aviv. Keep trying to shift the blame on a raggedly bunch of half-starved rebels playing jihad and deny the contribution of the sophisticated Israeli military machine to what's happened in Gaza.

Not even close. According to this the actual population density of Gaza is 9,713 per sq mile. Which doesn't even take into account the empty 200 meter buffer zone the Israelis have around the area. The population density of Israel is 809 per sq mile and 5,050 for Tel Aviv. Israel is given billion of dollars in aid by the United States, rather than spend it on initiatives that promote compromise and reconciliation, they continue to slaughter the Palestinians and displace them from their homeland. Let me reiterate that I don't give a rat's ass about the eternal grievances and blood feuds of Middle-Eastern people. It's just a disgrace that American taxpayer dollars are subsidizing the diplomatic nightmare that is Israel, and the whole world will benefit the sooner it is extinguished.

This point always gets repeated: that Hamas et al are morally reprehensible because they launch rocket salvos from populated areas. Have any of the people who've said this ever taken a look at Gaza? Even a youtube video tour? There is nowhere you can fire a rocket out of Gaza that isn't in close proximity to civilians. The place is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. They live on-top of each other like rats and they're pissed off at the generational humiliation they receive from Israel. If I were Gazan, you bet I'd want to take revenge on Israel. Even if it means firing a roman candle across the border, or mooning my ass at a border guard; they would have to kill me before I give up.

These comments make me chuckle.... some of you guys have justified Israel's leveling of a densely populated civilian area....and then you act surprised and shocked that the Palestinians continually resist Israeli aggression. They're shooting fireworks into Israel! It's like another Holocaust!

Where do you think the US got its b.s intel on Iraq from? Who do you think has an interest in supporting IS and destabilizing Syria? Yes, I’ll say it plain: Israel and the Sunni jihadis in Syria are allies. If anybody had the sense to look carefully at how the IDF has reacted to the Syrian Civil War, god damn it, they’d have seen this years ago. Every time Israel has used its air power against any military force in Syria, it’s been against the Alawites and their Shia allies, Hezbollah. Never, never once, against ISIS. You know why? Because bleeding Hezbollah and Assad, who are organized enough to really worry Israel in a way the grab-bag of Sunni militias never could. There’s no moral distinction between Assad and his Sunni enemies. Assad is a mass murderer many times over — but he happens to be an Iranian client and an ally of Hezbollah and those are the only two forces that really worry Israel.

Although I don't care much for either side of this conflict, I take pleasure in knowing that I will in my lifetime live to see the Israelis finally get theirs in the near future. In what bizarro universe can anyone say with a straight face that Israelis are loyal allies of Americans, when Israel has deliberately bombed American ships, conducted espionage against the US government, and sold American military secrets to China?. Not to mention the oft-neglected fact that Israelis have never sent any soldiers to fight in America's wars. The escalation of Islamic terrorism over the past several decades is a direct consequence of Hebrew duplicity and malfeasance throughout the Middle East, and the buck has to stop somewhere.

Trespassers into western countries are presently incentivized only by the relative size of the carrots on offer. A few disciplinary sticks are necessary. Invading our lands should not be an enjoyable exercise. A deported Johnny Sanchez needs to regale his chums in Guatemala with tales of the unpleasantness that await in Arizona. They need to be convinced that their disrespect to us will be met in kind. We need to stop being the kindly old couple who says "Oh dear, did we invite you in? Well here's a soft bed and warm cookies for you and your friends until we can get this all sorted out." Our compassion goes unrequited. Our charity is exploited. We are either going to become serious about deportation or we will remain frivolous about dispossession.

Homosexuality in animals is almost always an expression of pathology or extreme environmental turmoil.

When did you grow up; the 1950s?

This is one of those dramatic military stories that mean a lot less than meets the eye. The “Iraqi Army” routed by ISIS wasn’t really a national army, and ISIS isn’t really a dominant military force. It was able to occupy those cities because they were vacuums, abandoned by a weak, sectarian force. Aurelius is correct; by crushing Saddam’s Sunni-led Iraq, the Americans made partition inevitable. Iraq has been partitioned ever since the invasion; it’s just been partitioned badly, into two parts instead of the natural three: the Kurdish north, and the remainder occupied by a weak sectarian Shia force going by the name of “The Iraqi Army.” The center of the country, the so-called “Sunni Triangle,” had no share in this partition and was under the inept, weak rule of the Shia army. ISIS is a response to this grievance. By occupying (re-taking) the Sunni cities, ISIS has simply made a more rational partition, adding a third part, putting the Sunni Triangle back under Sunni rule. The Shia troops who fled as soon as they heard that the ISIS was on the way seem to have anticipated that the Sunni would claim their own territory someday. That’s why they fled without giving even a pretense of battle - the Sunnis had returned to take back what's theirs.

When people talk of Patton, they are describing a myth. Patton was an aggressive panzer-general, but this does not equate to brilliance. In every campaign Patton took part in, the Germans were outnumbered, outgunned, and in the process of retreating. Here is the story of the Patton’s WW2 Europe campaign in a nutshell: Acute German shortages on the one hand, and on the other and tremendous Allied resources which could provide an overwhelming level of firepower and a unending stream of replacements that could compensate for the grossest tactical failures. Add skilled public relations and a press hungry for heroes, and you had the circumstance so favourable that even an average panzer-general like Patton could seem like one of history’s greatest commanders.

When Americans compare Putin's actions to Hitler's, it is ridiculous. Where was America in WW2? For Americans no myth is more cherished than their awesome military brilliance and fighting excellence, and never is this pseudo-history more celebrated than in World War II. We were the Sleeping Giant, Americans pridefully note, and we cleaned everyone's clocks! In reality America exercised a fair bit of discretion in World War II, and when they did enter the fray they had the advantage of fighting enemies who were drastically overextended, caught up in multi-front engagements, and lacking crucial resources with which to wage an extended conflict. American troops were virtually always in a state of lavish oversupply, and had the big luxury of being too far away to counterattack. (When the Japanese attacked a couple of vacation islands a few thousand miles away from us, Americans were traumatized and still shudder about it like it was the most diabolical thing in history, until 9/11 of course.) I understand that playing the Hitler card is a pretty traditional American thing to do---Noriega was Hitler, for a while? And of course Saddam, and Milosevic, Gaddafi, and Karadzic, and Saddam again. The thing you have to understand, though, is that for Russia, Hitler is a pretty big deal. For most of the 20th century, Russia pretty much got handed the dirty end of the stick. Collapse of empire, that whole Soviet thing, the civil war that made us look like pikers. But the fight against the fascists, they could stand up and be proud of that. They were brutalized by the Wehrmacht, and kept standing . . . and then they hit back. Maybe one American in a hundred could tell you when VE Day is. Every Russian can tell you when Victory Day is. Playing the Hitler card is stupid, provocative and pointlessly inflammatory.

I always laugh at the Putin-Hitler comparisons. I imagined them being written by some Westerner who's knowledge of Russian history comes from video games and Hollywood action films. The Hitler comparison is always drawn out whenever the West wants to replace a foreign leader. The motivation is transparent: by comparing a foreign leader to Hitler, it allows the speaker to compare himself to Churchill, and any legitimate domestic opponents to foreign adventurism are compared to Chamberlain. It's really pathetic. Russians appreciate the fact that Putin is not nearly as destructive a leader as Yeltsin, and that his power apparatus keeps hot water in the pipes and police in the streets. They know that giving the smallest slack to any of the oligarchs will lead to rapid destabilization of the same sort that happened in the mid-90s, with the infamous Parade of Sovereignties. The Russians that lived through that era know how easy it is to go from civilization to chaos, especially compounded by an additional decade of infrastructural decay.

Putin believes his country was humiliated and shabbily treated after the Cold War, and sees himself as protector of the ethnic Russians left behind when the Soviet Union came apart. Between 1989 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev had freed the captive nations of Eastern Europe, allowed the USSR to dissolve into dozens of nations, and had held out a hand of friendship to the West. What did we do? Moved NATO right onto Russia’s front porch. We brought all the liberated nations of Eastern Europe into our military alliance, along with three former Soviet republics. The West tried to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, which was established to contain and, if necessary, fight Russia. Had they succeeded, we could have been at war with Russia in 2008 over Georgia and South Ossetia, and today over Crimea. Up until recently, we heard calls for Ukraine and Georgia to be brought into NATO. Are these people sane?

What continues to strike me about this whole debate is how Russia is portrayed as a bogeyman, and its people as either oppressed or as tools of a new Hitler. Such disaffection has gone quite far enough already, thanks to the weird, selective anti-Russian prejudices of so many in the USA. What exactly does the West see as its concrete reason for its hostility to Russia? What is it actually about? The past 20 years of Western policy towards Russia has been a complete failure. The West has consistently tried to humiliate and undermine Russia in its own backyard and sphere of influence. Even though the Cold War is over, the West continued to expand NATO membership eastward, encroaching closer towards Russia. The US also lobbied for missile defense systems in Czech Republic and Poland, with the pathetic excuse that these were aimed at countering Iran. The West humiliated the Russians in Serbia, the Eastern frontier of Orthodox Slavic civilization, where they could not help their compatriots who were under siege from both the West and Balkan Muslims. The West gave tacit approval to Georgia to invade South Ossettia and Abkazia. Just one week before the invasion, over 1,000 US troops staged war-games in Georgia. After the Cold War ended, the Russians believed there was an unspoken agreement that, in return for the break-up of the USSR, they would be allowed their dignity. They Russians believe that agreement has been broken. And now the West feigns surprise, and outrage, when Russia eventually takes the opportunity to stand up for its interests, certainly no more aggressively than the West has acted in Kosovo, Iraq and Libya.

There is this mind-virus that exists that says American history begins with Ellis Island, and American vitality is unthinkable without it. America is a nation of immigrants…America is a nation of immigrants…America is a nation of immigrants I would feel less irritated by this wooden, repetitive insult if it were delivered properly: via a cheap animatronic that could be activated to issue stupid platitudes that the speaker can’t bring himself to utter with feigned sincerity. This would allow the enemies and traitors that rule the US/Western world to maintain some dignity amongst their peers when addressing the average joe .