Breaking - explosions at Brussels Airport **Mod warning in post 1**

Anyone else 'news phobic' because of all the recent unrest?

I find myself switching on a radio, hearing of an attack and switching off. It numbs you and overwhelms.

I don't even bother with the TV.

walshyn93 wrote: »

Westerners aren't committing terrorist attacks in Muslim countries.

Well if they did you know what would happen to their heads........

thattequilagirl wrote: »

I don't feel responsible for the Omagh bombing. Should I? I've never explicitly condemned it in public either. Does that mean I tacitly support it?

In what other circumstances do we expect an entire community to apologise for the actions of people they have never met and don't agree with?

It's just so stupid.

Nodin wrote: »

But we don't blame men, women, Jews, Afro-Americans and whoever else for the activities of a minority within their gender/religion/ethnicity so why do it for muslims?

It's because these attacks were committed in the name of Islam - like it or not this brings their religion into the equation. We aren't blaming men or Arabs in general, or Belgians for this attack, because last I checked these terrorists don't commit atrocities using any of those other factors as justification. They do it because their sect of Islam promotes it and glorifies it. Isn't it 100 virgins or something as reward for the Islamic martyr?

mr_sheen wrote: »

how do you know this is correct ?

how do you know what will make the terrorists win ?

First of all thank you for not calling my comment "left wing crap" or some of the other revolting stuff that has been thrown around in this thread, or like some other "individuals" have done in reply to my post.

To answer your questions:

1.) I've lived in Germany for a large part of my life, both in small villages and in large metropolitan areas, namely the Rhein-Main area around Frankfurt. I'm basing my statements on first hand observations, on talks with my colleagues from the eastern med, or the Maghreb region and hearing what they've been faced with.
Now, admittedly I can't say how the dynamic in the Frankfurt area relates to other areas in Germany, I've never lived near other hotspots like Berlin or the Ruhrgebiet. However, radicalisation has been something that has been covered by the media in Germany very extensively in the years up to 2012, when I emigrated, and the story has been pretty much identical for any would-be attacker that has been apprehended by German authorities over the last years.

2.) They "win" when they have converted everyone to their perverted, twisted version of Islam, and when they've eliminated anyone who doesn't share their monstrous ideology, other muslims included. Interesting tidbit that I've picked up from media reports about defectors or escapees from Daesh territory: you'll have a hard time finding any Quran in their territory, and indeed individual reading of the Quran is frowned upon as it would undermine the "moral" (if you want to use that term) primacy of the Daesh leadership.
The real question is whether they actually CAN win, and I have serious doubts about that. The potential recruiting "pool" is rather small, only a handful of disillusioned youths, mostly second or third generation immigrants who are "caught between worlds", out of touch with the cultures of their parents, yet rejected by their home nation, which ties in with the original point that I made.
In addition, their logistics base is looking increasingly shaky, with Daesh being pushed back, and the traditional sponsors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE getting more and more worried about being able to control the monsters they've created. Furthermore, the attacks, as horrific as they are,
The big worry for me is that Europe forgets its own values in the course of the fight against the proponents of this twisted belief system. If we allow ourselves to believe that painting one entire religion as "the enemy" is acceptable, we risk slipping back into a dark time ourselves, a time that I had hoped Europe had left behind with the defeat of Germany back in 1945.

Hope that answers your questions.

Eugene Norman wrote: »

You said there are no religious leaders. You didn't say that there has to be one leader of all religions which is the logic you are now applying.

No I didn't:

wes wrote: »

a religion is comprised of various sects, with varying beliefs, and no single leadership.

I said no single leadership, which due to the existence of sects, is a simple factual statements.

Eugene Norman wrote: »

As for the term sect it's rarely used when a religion is as large as Catholicism. That's about 1B people. Nominally anyway.

It is still a sect, regardless of its size. Also, in the West Christian sects are regularly separated, where as other Religions, they are largely ignored and referred to as a monolith.