Muslims in the Middle East

[WeiWenDi]

Ha! Damn, I got lazy and read the wrong domain when I picked a link after reading about this on better sources—thought I found the article I read. If I had spent a little more time on it I could have given a better link. And more to the point, I'm not actually opposed to linking to RT, as long as the article is properly sourced and potential conflict of interest is taken into consideration (as should be the case with any publication).

Fair enough, of course. I wasn't objecting to the substance of the article, only to its lack of sourcing (one link to a CNN story) and its source (not the most reliable), and I know that you're generally very well-informed on the topic.

Yeah, agreed. And I still haven't read the article I linked to.

Reading more today and hearing more about it there's much more to the connection than the mutterings of a US official. And truth be told, I'm skeptical of governments on certain things—even some such as the extent to which the FBI claims North Korea was behind the Sony hack—but it's not a terribly new thing for terrorists to receive training from and/or coordinate with terrorist cells in the Middle East. It doesn't make for a very good recruitment campaign, though.

I agree with that, absolutely. Definitely through their imams in France they had connexions with terrorist cells operating out of Iraq and Syria; I found multiple sources on that. And I'll have to do more research on the Yemeni connexion - I hadn't heard of that one before you'd mentioned it.

Yeah, and it's not just those examples. The Arab League and other countries chimed in as well. Not that I'd want to read a whole lot into voices from some of these sources. There's a degree of irony in chiming in on something like that while enforcing the more extreme interpretations of Sharia Law at home. Which also carries to the amusing irony in representation from many of the world leaders who went to France for the following march. It's a shame the United States couldn't make it to make their own ironic statement.

I did post some of my thoughts on that here. Personally, I found it reassuring that the President didn't cave to the pressure either from Fox News or from Jon Stewart to attend the rally. It would have sent precisely the wrong message, and in this case I think President Obama sent precisely the right one, and rightly measured. (The man does have a backbone. Problem is, I think he misplaces it from time to time. )

With regard to Arab League nations, I think there might be a self-defensive element as well, and a kind of 'the enemy of my enemy' mentality. None of them wants to see terrorism come to its own turf, even if some of them (like Saudi Arabia and Qatar) are particularly eager to fund it on their enemies' turf.

[James]

Fair enough, of course. I wasn't objecting to the substance of the article, only to its lack of sourcing (one link to a CNN story) and its source (not the most reliable), and I know that you're generally very well-informed on the topic.

I suppose while we're on subject, there's also this article I came across after replying.
Al Qaeda claims responsibility for Charlie Hebdo attacks

Not that I consider these stuff to be all that much of a revelation. It all rather seems par for the course, though I shuffle through some of it anyway just so I know a bit more about what's going on.

I agree with that, absolutely. Definitely through their imams in France they had connexions with terrorist cells operating out of Iraq and Syria; I found multiple sources on that. And I'll have to do more research on the Yemeni connexion - I hadn't heard of that one before you'd mentioned it.

Share a link if you come across anything interesting.

I did post some of my thoughts on that here. Personally, I found it reassuring that the President didn't cave to the pressure either from Fox News or from Jon Stewart to attend the rally. It would have sent precisely the wrong message, and in this case I think President Obama sent precisely the right one, and rightly measured. (The man does have a backbone. Problem is, I think he misplaces it from time to time. )

With regard to Arab League nations, I think there might be a self-defensive element as well, and a kind of 'the enemy of my enemy' mentality. None of them wants to see terrorism come to its own turf, even if some of them (like Saudi Arabia and Qatar) are particularly eager to fund it on their enemies' turf.

I think we're in agreement on all of this (but John Stewart, see below). I've friends with a collection of slightly more extremist Republicans and it's to a point, now, where I know what they're pushing on FOX and on Talk Radio just by the subjects that shift into and out of focus on my Facebook news feed. You can even predict it. CNN isn't displaying the new Charlie Hebdo cover? The 'terrorists have won' and are 'caving under pressure to appease the terrorists'. President didn't show up at some kind of prominent memorial to a tragedy? That'll get coverage simply to drag him through the mud. Or if he does show up, they'll analyze nuance. Why wasn't he moping around at Nelson Mandela's funeral? Not that they'd actually look into cultural differences between the United States and other countries.

My first thought is, just how much of our leaders' time do we want to be spent on appearances vs. the business of actually running a government? I'm not terribly fond of any political perspective that is critical of world leaders for missing out on events like these—even something as awful as the Charlie Hebdo shootings—just for the sake of their expectations.

On John Stewart, where did he jump on the bandwagon of condemning Barack Obama for not showing up? I watched his show (episode, segment)* on the event, and looking back at it I can see how it might come across as if he's lambasting Obama. I'm a pretty big fan of his, though, and that's not what I took away from the segment. It's far more inline with the satyrical style he likes to adopt in mocking the media, and not the sort of position I would have expected him to take anyway. Although searching now, I can see the story making its rounds through the right-wing blogosphere and talk circuit.

*Actually a really cool episode, I thought. And I have no idea how long these links will stay online. It may be down as soon as tomorrow. Hopefully the segment videos stay up longer.

[WeiWenDi]

Really only tangentially-related to the topic, but:

ISIS suffers heaviest defeat in Iraq in a single day

I don't really have anything to add to this other than 'thanks be to God', that the enemies of everything that is good and decent in the world are being driven back. By, ahem, 'Iraqi government forces, Shiite militias, Sunni tribes and Kurdish forces'. As it turns out, good Muslims are perfectly capable of taking out their own garbage if we let them. And if we give them smart support rather than stupidly blundering in, wrecking their homes and communities, aerially strafing wedding parties, murdering them in their homes, torturing them and so forth...

[Shikanosuke]

Really only tangentially-related to the topic, but:

ISIS suffers heaviest defeat in Iraq in a single day

I don't really have anything to add to this other than 'thanks be to God', that the enemies of everything that is good and decent in the world are being driven back. By, ahem, 'Iraqi government forces, Shiite militias, Sunni tribes and Kurdish forces'. As it turns out, good Muslims are perfectly capable of taking out their own garbage if we let them. And if we give them smart support rather than stupidly blundering in, wrecking their homes and communities, aerially strafing wedding parties, murdering them in their homes, torturing them and so forth...

I'm with you on the 'thanks be to God' part. But I question your summation of all parties there listed 'good Muslims'. Some of those factions I doubt qualify as 'good Muslims', or rather, as 'good human beings'. Many of those factions are corrupt organized gangs warring with another power. What they seem to be capable of doing is banding together against a recognized foe who threatens the security of the entire debacle. I'd say they can recognize the 'more evil' among them.

And if you were usually the term 'good Muslims' in a tongue in cheek manner then, well, i've misread and i'm the silly one.

[WeiWenDi]

Really only tangentially-related to the topic, but:

ISIS suffers heaviest defeat in Iraq in a single day

I don't really have anything to add to this other than 'thanks be to God', that the enemies of everything that is good and decent in the world are being driven back. By, ahem, 'Iraqi government forces, Shiite militias, Sunni tribes and Kurdish forces'. As it turns out, good Muslims are perfectly capable of taking out their own garbage if we let them. And if we give them smart support rather than stupidly blundering in, wrecking their homes and communities, aerially strafing wedding parties, murdering them in their homes, torturing them and so forth...

I'm with you on the 'thanks be to God' part. But I question your summation of all parties there listed 'good Muslims'. Some of those factions I doubt qualify as 'good Muslims', or rather, as 'good human beings'. Many of those factions are corrupt organized gangs warring with another power. What they seem to be capable of doing is banding together against a recognized foe who threatens the security of the entire debacle. I'd say they can recognize the 'more evil' among them.

And if you were usually the term 'good Muslims' in a tongue in cheek manner then, well, i've misread and i'm the silly one.

Only half tongue-in-cheek.

I was indeed being flippant, but I do have a genuine respect and sympathy for some of the actors involved, even if not all of them are perfectly competent and even if some of them have certain ulterior motives. My sympathy for any given faction in the Fertile Crescent is directly proportional to that faction's sympathies with secular Arab nationalism, commitment to nation-building, and peaceful relations with the region's Christians and Shiites in particular.

That 'good Muslims' comment was more directed at the OP, which seemed to be of the opinion that the Muslims of the Middle East were all either hopelessly violent or indifferent to this kind of greater evil; and I felt this story seemed to contradict that statement.