FTA69 wrote: » It's generally accepted as historical fact that Muhammad came under attack from other forces in Arabia. The flight to Medina is also accepted historical fact as were numerous attempts on Muhammad's life.
This is true. I remember watching a video about Palestine in the 1960s and there were women in Gaza in bikinison the beach. When I was there the vast majority of women had hijabs on and only a small minority were in western dress; most of them were socialist-orientated feminists too who were associated with minority groups like the PFLP. There has been a pronounced "Islamist" trend that has emerged in the Muslim world and it's far from positive in my eyes.
CptMackey wrote: » It's great to see this religion of peace at it again. Where are all the protests from those who took to the streets over some cartoons and where are the left now? All because people follow some made up man in the sky. If it wouldn't kill more innocent people a nuke would be the job for these animals
Wibbs wrote: » Actually the historicity of Muhammed is extremely weak. There are many, especially online that would question the historicity of a figure like Jesus, but for some reason give Muhammed full historical credence. The problem is historically Muhammed is just as shadowy a figure as Jesus, is not slightly more so. The entire story of early Islam and Muhammed is entirely internal to Islam. All of Muhammed's apparently large pitched battles go completely unnoticed to the Byzantines and Persians in the area. In the various stories of Muhammed in Hadeeth there's even talk of him engaging with the Byzantines, but from their side there's a resounding "who?". Mecca which is painted as this major trade hub shows up on no maps or records of the time and is so far off the beaten track and away from any trade routes to be pretty much useless anyway. The first Islamic sources for Muhammed and his life are at least a century after his reported death and some are two centuries or more after. The very earliest specifically Muslim writings don't even mention him and the earliest specifically Muslim coinage doesn't either. External sources for Islam and Muhammed are either extremely thin a connection or completely absent until much later as the Islamic empire expands(and interestingly a few of those later ones tag Islam as a Christian sect that wears the cross as a symbol). So it really does depend on how you define "historical fact". If the Nazis had won World War 2 and destroyed all external records and only wrote up a biography and history of the major players in a centuries time no one would call it close to reliable. Very much so. It's not that long ago that Beirut was called the Paris of the Middle East. Again I'd lay most of the blame on too much western interference in the region over the last century.
petrolcan wrote: » Do you watch the news at all?
Egginacup wrote: » Didn't Saddam Hussein keep a boot on sectarianism in Iraq? Did he not keep lunatics apart? Was not Iraq the most progressive and secular Arab state until the moron Americans and kiss-ass Brits decided to trash the place just for a bit of oil?
Tail Docker wrote: » Well, that's one way to ensure there's another war. We've had "Saddam eats babies". We've had "Gaddafi eats babies and rapes their mommies", now we have "ISIS kills Babies for being Christian! Go gettem!". This is the path to war. Some benefit from ensuring we "go gettem!". Sadly, they will prevail and there will indeed be a war. "Muslims are bad kids, mkay?" You heard it here first. Ish.
Duck's hoop wrote: » What they're doing is utterly abhorrent. But to suggest that it is somehow beyond us to do similar because we 'are westerners' is fcuking crazy. There is a very real danger this is being used as anti-islam propaganda, further fomenting islamophobia. It's mind bogglingly cruel, heartless and they are deserving of death in turn. But we as westerners, lest we forget, have committed similar awful acts in the past in war time. It is not simply the preserve of Muslim extremists. And while people are dragging the Gaza thing in there, hundreds of babies and women have been eviscerated and decapitated in the past few weeks.
pragmatic1 wrote: » Something odd about this group. Even the Taliban, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. aren't so brutal that they would decapitate innocent children simply for being christian. This group isn't some grass roots terrorist movement, they seem to have appeared overnight, at a time in a time when much of the Muslim world seems in a state of flux. I'm generally not a conspiracy guy, but these guys look more like a professional army than a guerilla army.
LorMal wrote: » Some good points here. Nice to see a thread concentrating on the actual vicious bastards rather than the non stop American bashing elsewhere. Maybe the pics helped to focus the debate. I want these ISIS bastards dead, now. Every last one of them. And no, we are not all the same. I have lived on this planet for nearly 50 years and I have yet to meet someone capable of these acts. The vast majority of human beings could never ever contemplate such horror. I want America to act with all their military might against ISIS. This needs to be stopped now before it spreads. This Islamic fundamentalist ****e has been excused for too long as we wring our hands in the West and beat ourselves up for fear of being 'Islamophobic' FFS!!! Kill them now, all of them. (meanwhile back in the Emerald Isle our politicians are trying to wriggle out of the EU sanctions against Russia. 'sure the farmers might lose a few bob...'.)
Autonomous Cowherd wrote: » I have lived on this planet a few years too, and in terms of viciousness i seem to remember the Balkans war in the heartland of Europe in times we thought ourselves beyond such barbarity as being particularly horrifying, what with cruel and unusual methods of killing and vast rape camps. Not only that but the rest of Europe was slow to engage AND let us not forget Srebenica when thousands of men and boys were massacred while a Dutch led UN force effectively withdrew their protection. ISIL is barbaric beyond words. unfortunately they are not unique on that score. CF Rwanda and the massacres where we rounded up the deaths to the closest million. * I choose to use ISIL as the corruption of the name of an ancient Goddess is unnecessary. But that is just my quirk.
Duck's hoop wrote: » There is a very real danger this is being used as anti-islam propaganda, further fomenting islamophobia.
LorMal wrote: » you use the term 'we' too loosely. Unfortunately this kind of moral equivalence leads to a blurring of the lines - if we are all guilty then we can do nothing about the f--kers. they are a terrible danger to the world. They need to be destroyed.
LorMal wrote: » Battle hardened in the civil wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq. Plenty of time to practice. Dangerous movement this. Very sinister.
Wibbs wrote: » Oh how I wish that were true. The skin of civilisation is wafer thin. Go back to 1920 and pick a world nation and culture that within a few years would happily commit one of the biggest stains on humanity's history and you'd be unlikely to pick Germany. Germany has one of the deepest and broadest civilisations in Europe. A towering culture that gave and still gives a huge amount to world civilisation, yet within one generation it went completely and utterly insane. It takes surprisingly little for humans to become "devils". Put it another way if this online community were in 1930's Germany some of you reading would be actively true blue Nazis most would be passive Nazis or be happy to turn a blind eye to their excesses and the few anti Nazis that came along would be banned as trolls.
Frank Lee Midere wrote: » Yeah. You popping over? Or are you expecting Uncle Sam to drop their precision ISIS killing ordinances? What if those ordinances kill Christians via schrapnel cutting their throats? And how can these people with no real army threaten "the world".
Frank Lee Midere wrote: » As late as this year - early 2014 - the US neo cons were arguing for intervention in Syria against both Assad and "Hezbollah" and in favour of the other groups in Syria, particularly Sunni groups. John McCain.http://m.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22683261
Autonomous Cowherd wrote: » We actually yes...we did nothing. Like we do not get out of our chairs and march about massacres in Palestine or Iraq or anywhere at all really. I organised large quantities of food relief and imperishables to be sent repeatedly to the Balkans during that war. Fact is if WE actually gave a ****e we could change the world. Believing we are powerless is where the lines blur actually....
DarkyHughes wrote: » America did not win the IRAq war. They bombed the place, then sent in ground troops, killed a couple of 100,000 people (including 1000's of kids), destroyed the country, helped create sectarian militias, left & left it in the hands of the ISIS devils. This process will be repeated until they make peace with Syria & Iran & stop tying to overthrow their governments.
ireland.man wrote: » I've noticed that the stories of children being executed and beheaded come from only a very small number of Christian-based media. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part but could this be false or exaggerated? Is there any MSM articles verifying this? The actual intentional mass executions of children as a policy seems way, way beyond even the worst excesses of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. I can't imagine ISIS doing this and also winning over the support of Sunnis in Iraq. I know they shell randomly into communities and chase thousands into mountains and let them die en-masse, but up close and personal executions of children seems the sort of stories made to push for war, like Germans crucifying their enemy and throwing babies out of incubators in Belgium, and then again the same story being told of Saddam's forces in Kuwait. Either way, let's hope the Kurdish forces can hold them off until Baghdad gets its act together.
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