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  1. ᗧ · · · ᗣ · · · ᗣ ᗣ Straight Male
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    Default Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    • Several attacks at airport and subway.
    • At least 34 confirmed dead and almost 200 injured

    http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-35869266
    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/22/eu...ive/index.html


    Here we go again.

  2. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    Horrible, sad, but not unexpected.

    So they attacked in Egypt, in Istanbul, and now in Brussels.

    We are, as I said, in a World War. And we need to step up our game if we want to win this one.

    ISIS in under attack at home and abroad. The attack in Brussels now was likely carried out by cells that would otherwise have been exposed by those arrested recently spilling the beans. As we put more pressure on them, they'll get more desperate, and activate more dormant assets. We need to get to those before they blow themselves up together with innocent civilians.

  3. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    No one wants to fight it like a war, because the ISIS combatants don't respect any of the conventions of war, so leaders are afraid they would "legitimize" the Islamic State by doing so. Retarded logic, I know.

    Why is everyone afraid of being thought of as xenophobic?
    Last edited by xparasite9; 2016-03-23 at 10:56 AM. Reason: mirrored video

  4. ᗧ · · · ᗣ · · · ᗣ ᗣ Straight Male
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    Trump was so in hurry to start scoring political points with the tragedy, that he forgot to tweet condolences to the victims and their families.


    @xparasite9 Isn't it a little late for a christmas gnome theme?

  5. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    I'm pretty sure this was an expected since Paris; Brussels used to be one of the main meeting places for the radio frequency conferences, but was removed as a location in December. I didn't really think about it initially, and even if i asked i probably wouldn't get the information, so I'll take it as an assumption for now

  6. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    The reason we're losing is because the terrorists hide in and receive aid from the 1.6 billion Islam religion and then that religion is, by political correctness, is allowed to say it was "just a few rogue outliers" and basically nothing happens.

    During 9/11 all of the Middle East was dancing and cheering on the streets, when the Lockerbie Bomber was released, he came to a hero's welcome in Libya, and the Charlie Hebdo and Danish Cartoons were met with region-wide death threats, boycotts, riots and terrorist attacks. I am not saying all of the 1.6 billion is responsible -- but a hell of a lot more of them are responsible than they claim it to be.

    Until we hold Islam accountable to what Islam does, this will continue. The thing is, as much as their propagandists moan and whine in liberal-sounding language to both absolve Islam of its crimes and blame those crimes on the West -- we do not have infinite patience. I am guessing especially when China and India get pissed off enough, we're going to have a lot of dead pimentos, but we're not at that point yet.

  7. Nuclear testing facility Straight Male
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    This is a terrific (and terrible) example of victim blaming. While their are certainly sources of support that like to feign helplessness (looking at you "rogue" Saudi nobles), you cannot forget that Muslims are taking far greater casualties in this war against ISIS and other extremists. The West certainly does shoulder some of the responsibility for destabilizing the region and inadvertently creating an environment where political and religious extremism can flourish.

    Actually, the reason we're "losing" is because it's really pineappleing hard for large modern armies to kill gorilla fighters. We have a virtually infinite number of fixed targets to defend with limited resources (not even considering we're fighting with our hands tied behind our backs) while our opponents are either A) incognito and hiding among innocent populations or B) caliphate soldiers which aren't a threat beyond the region except as they contribute to A.

    The religious (subsection) motivations for these attacks are both paramount and immaterial (yes that's a paradox). It's immaterial to ask why these attacks happen because there's nothing special about Islam that incites violence. Plenty of other excuses have and will be used to brainwash new soldiers. The cold reality for Western countries is that all the advanced technology in the world cannot stop every idiot with an AK or garden variety explosives from going on a rampage. These weapons are just too easily obtainable and there's no easy way to change that.

    Our inability to control the weapon makes the ability to control the attacker, and most importantly their motivations, paramount. Look at why some countries have much lower violent crime rates. There are a lot of factors involved, but in stable nations it basically boils down to socioeconomic status and culture. If there's a perception of an inability to advance within the system like climbing the economic ladder, it can build to a point of action. That action may be non-violent protests, political turnover, outright military revolt, or anything in between. In the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, this frequently occurs with autocratic dictators and religious oligarchies pointing the finger at the West in order to shape the outcry from disenfranchised populations that pose a potential danger to the regime if left unchecked.

    I think the West has two paradigms to chose from:
    1. Effectively accept the current state of affairs and the occasional domestic attack as the price of current liberties. Minimize the actual war effort to maintain the status quo and reduce war footing as much as possible. Basically say "not my problem" to any unstable regions

    2. Actively invest in long term sustainable but complex and nuanced solutions which target the underlying motivations for both political instability and radicalization motivations. This will almost certainly devolve into creating new problems as we attempt to solve old ones.

    3. Kill 'em all and let God(s) sort it out. Alternatively known as Nuke it 'til it glows. (not serious)

    @Satellite; Bit of a low blow since Trump doesn't write his own tweets. The usual prayers and condolences are empty gestures anyway. The lack of proper punctuation irritates me more than the political miss step.

  8. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    @Justin
    @Luxeraph

    It's not "radical" Islam, it's Islam.

  9. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    If you can forgive me for keeping my answer short, (I have to go shortly,) the thing I would point out to prove that Islam collectively is not a "victim" as it claims to be is the fact that Jews have been run out of all places in the Middle East except for Israel, and Christianity in the Middle East is being subjected to a full-blown genocide, despite the screaming of all of the priests and ministers including the Pope. If the Muslims are truly as peaceful and tolerant as they claim to be, why are they doing this? Why are they running out and killing people that have lived there peacefully for literally thousands of years? Also, if Islam is worthy of our sympathy, please explain to me Islam's total disregard for the rights of women, such as Iran's forcing of rape victims to marry their rapists, and Saudi Arabia's laws that make women carry a permission slip from a man to get on a bus, and then they must sit on the back of the bus when they get on.

    The phenomena I am talking about are not the work of some deranged minority, but rather of the Islamic population in the region as a whole. Very hard to picture a small minority exterminating Christian civilization in the whole region, right now. And it is downright BIZARRE that Western liberals support ultra-far-right Muslims in their never-ending quest to disenfranchise and bully literally anybody different from themselves.

    It is not bigotry to deny rights in your land to those who would deny you all rights in theirs.
    Last edited by Derimed; 2016-03-22 at 09:50 PM.

  10. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    Probably because they have confused themselves into thinking Islam is a race, which is why they are such protectorates while often simultaneously being anti-religion.

  11. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    You're conflating Islam with Middle Eastern values.

  12. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    If you want to take a single video, with one room filled with people who would have obviously similar views, and project that onto an entire culture of 1.5billion people, that's on you. But don't try to construe it as factual evidence of how everyone else feels about the matter. I'm sure I could find many, MANY similar videos about Christians or any other religion and/or race. The narrative can be spun any way you want it to.

  13. Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    False distinction. In the example you cited me making, Iran is a Muslim country ruled by Muslim laws. More broadly, Islam and the Middle East are almost totally inseparable because the overwhelming majority of the governments are either Muslim and/or their constituents are mostly Muslims. Muslims and Islam have the real power. Christians and Jews have basically no rights in the Middle East at this point except in Israel, which the rest of the Middle East is doing its best to exterminate precisely because it is not a Muslim country with a Muslim-style government. The Jews were run out of Muslim countries decades ago, and now Christianity is being wholesale-exterminated, there is NOTHING you can tell me that can somehow mitigate this basic fact.

  14. Nuclear testing facility Straight Male
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    To respond to your previous post, I didn't mean to imply that "Islam" is a victim. I was stating that Islamic people have suffered more at the hands of violent Islamic extremism than most Westerners. Why did Christians start the Crusades with their (intermittently) friendly trading partners in the Middle East despite adhering to religion which preaches "love thy neighbor" as one of it's founding tenants? Why didn't other Christians stop the Popes which blessed such actions? This line of reasoning isn't particularly productive, but who knows? We may see an equivalent to the Protestants arise from the moderate Islamic factions. I'd merely suggest that many Middle Eastern Muslims are not in a viable position to fight militant groups be they government sanctioned or otherwise without significant military aid in some situations. It's difficult to have a modern day revolution a la the American colonies when you're facing F-15s and tanks with small arms like in Syria.

    Saying it doesn't make it so. You're completely ignoring Turkey, Jordan, Egypt (treatment has varied widely in recent years), and India (significant but not majority Muslims) which are all involved in the region and don't fit the Islamic picture you paint with such broad strokes. You'll also find that there's an incredibly wide gap between the Iranian government which is controlled by the clerics and the Iranian people. Ahmadinejad would actually be a fair parallel to Trump becoming president. Both were considered unrealistic candidates due to their extremist positions which represent reactionary views not held by a majority of the population and feature a strong vein of nationalism. Both based their electoral support on religious conservatives and low income workers.

  15. Trump minus th money
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    Their views are representative of the vast majority of Muslims in the West. If the same question were asked in any mosque in the US you would see a similar show of hands.
    I think the only person you would ask who would respond differently would be the kind of muslim who does not attend a mosque, who does not pray 5 times a day, who consumes alcohol. But at that point are they really muslim?

    Because the Crusades were in response to muslim conquest. The Crusaders weren't ISIS, they were fighting ISIS. By the time the Crusades even started, muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of "christian" territories.

  16. Nuclear testing facility Straight Male
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    The Byzantine Empire had been failing for decades. You can hardly equate it's collapse to the rise of ISIS. The sacking of Constantinople shows that the war wasn't about Christianity vs Islam. It was about loot. I'm not trying to equate the Crusades with ISIS, just point out that this is hardly the first instance of a religion being used to encourage violence in a way that isn't representative of the religion itself.

  17. ᗧ · · · ᗣ · · · ᗣ ᗣ Straight Male
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    There's two sides to this conversation:

    Actual polls in muslim countries, which never paint a picture of a tiny minority. Even in Europe and US, polls find a significant support for sharia and even terrorism. We can't simply deny statistics and shout "RACIST" or "NAZI" at every person who brings these up. Human rights abuses are mainstream in too many Islamic countries and communities to ignore. This is a fact.

    Secondly there's the question, what conclusions and actions you draw from these statistics? Kill innocent family members of terrorists? Expel or even exterminate entire demographic minority? Bomb the hell out of their homes even if you may end up killing 90% civilians? Or for pineapples sake, write bible verses on these bombs...Congratulations, you're no better than the terrorists.

    Besides it's simply stupid strategy.

    Bombing people who want to be bombed hasn't worked and isn't going to work. Dethroning dictators in middle eastern countries and magically assuming them to turn into prosperous democracies hasn't worked and isn't going to work.

    What would work?

    • Don't let ISIS recruits return to Europe (it's insane that I even need to mention this here).
    • Work harder with Islamic communities in US/Europe to curb extremist ideas and getting rid of radicalists from these communities.
    • Support reformists in Islamic countries
    • Cut economic ties with countries that arm and fund islamist militants/terrorists or spread radical forms of Islam.
    • Ban and actively prevent arm deals to such countries or elsewhere where there's a significant risk of weapons ending up in the black market.

    There's a few things to begin with but most western countries are not interested because they would lose money.

  18. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    And the Conquistadores in Central America were in response to Aztec violence?

    Every religion that views itself as the one and only Truth, and commands its believers to spread the word, is liable to be used as a tool by powerhungry or greedy leaders, to get their people to fight and die "in the name of God."

    The average Muslim, like the average Christian, Jew, or Buddhist, would much rather just live their own lives, and stay out of trouble. This includes giving whatever answer they think the people in power want to hear, whenever asked for their opinion.

    Iran, up until the 1970's, was a modern, "enlightened" country. It had high technology and good universities, and a largely "secular" population - they were Muslim in the same way most Americans are Christian: not fanatic, not letting religion get in the way of anything they actually wanted to do.
    Unfortunately, the Shah was a despot, and the people didn't like how he hoarded so much of the wealth of the country, and used secret police and similar totalitarian tactics to continue to rule. So, the religious leaders used this point to work their way to power, overthrow the Shah, and with him all semblance of "corrupt" Western civilization.
    They still keep their science and technology up, though, which makes them far more dangerous than such nuts as Ghaddafi of Lybia, who was totally dependent on the Russians.
    Anyway, the average Iranian doesn't care one way or the other about the American or Zionist Devils their leaders keep talking about. The average Iranian wouldn't dare be caught saying so, however, because they value their life and semblance of freedom.

    Trying to declare war on 1.5 billion people is not the way to go. What are you going to do? Round up every Muslim in every country where they're not the majority, and deport them? And then carpet-bomb (or nuke) all of North Africa, most of the Middle East, and large parts of Asia?
    Do you think they will take that lying down? If you try to do this, you will get every single Muslim hating you and fighting you, because they will be fighting for their lives. And since there is no way to find them all (most Western countries don't keep any record of anyone's religion. And are you going to actually strip people of their citizenship based solely on what you think their religion is?), you'll only make the problem worse.

  19. Trump minus th money
    IGN: xparasite9
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    a bit of a false equivalency. Separated by thousands of miles of rough ocean, it was difficult to rein in abuse. The question you are trying to equate was "Why didn't other Christians stop the Popes which blessed such actions (of the Crusades)?"

    Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolome de las Casas were very brave whistleblowers who alerted the Spanish government and the Church of the atrocities. And upon hearing of it, they weren't happy about it at all, to say the least. They condemned the actions of the conquistadors. Quite different from the imams who shout "death to America"

  20. Orbital Bee Cannon
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    Default Re: Terrorist attacks in Brussels


    The Spanish government and the Church sent their soldiers over there to get the gold and the souls of the natives.
    The soldiers on site might have been more "atrocious" than their senders intended, but the original purpose was never a peaceful mission.

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