Comments by "Gar Sm" (@garsm2290) on "Charlie Hebdo attack 'an act of war' claims far-right Dutch politician | Channel 4 News" video.

  1. "In order to have peace, we have to fight ...." Just what Isis, al-Qaeda say ....
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  2. Nick Breen Where is it from? What is the definition of "terrorist attack"? Very simple questions. Can you answer?
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  3. tinnsell I can see you are share his open-minded approach.
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  4. What a cheap comment ... blaming Muslims for Nazism. That's really low.
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  5. Can no-one see your cheap comment? How many Dutch collaborated with the Nazis, while thousands of Indian Muslims fought in the British army ...? http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/remembering-muslim-fought.html
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  6. Nick Breen Good, so at least you are no longer trying to pretend Muslims supported the Nazis while the Dutch did not.
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  7. Nick Breen Well, there were a few Dutch who resisted the Nazis .. brave, humanistic people who fought racism. And the bigots?
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  8. Nick Breen A person without knowledge of history is like a tree without roots. Bends in the slightest wind. Believes Fox News.
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  9. He's clever and manipulative ....
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  10. 3 % of Egyptians have a favourable view of Isis ... 5 % of Saudis ... http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119857/polls-middle-east-about-islamic-state-have-surprising-results
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  11. Nick Breen The poll I quoted was done in October. It showed, to quote the US magazine Foreign Policy that "ISIS has almost no popular support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon—even among Sunnis..." That destroys your argument that the population of the Middle East support extremists. Have you ever been to the Middle East? Islam and Muslims are as varied as any other group .. there are Shia, salafi pacifists, Sufis of many kinds, Kurdish naqshabandis, and many many others. For some reason, you are determined to spread a distorted view of Muslims. Hopefully you act from ignorance not malice ....
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  12. Nick Breen You have also distorted the Pew poll, said:  "Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians" ... even in the Palestianian territories, only 40% say suicide bombing is ever justified.
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  13. Nick Breen Go back and read it again.
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  14. Nick Breen It says "Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians" ... even in the Palestianian territories, only 40% say suicide bombing is ever justified. Can you read that please.
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  15. Nick Breen Of course it's not okay. But 40% is fairly low given how hopelessly the Palestinians have been outgunned by Israeli jets, artillery, phospherous bombs etc .. meaning that in any clashes they take 1,000 casualties for every Israeli .... There are Muslim authorities who have ruled out suicide bombings, just as there are people of other faiths who have used them, including Japanese and Tamils. Samson of course killed himself as part of killing enemies, as did the Knights Templar during the Crusades. It's far braver really than flying over in an F14 and vapourising an apartment block with children in it, or pressing a button in Langley to fire a missile from a drone at a wedding party in Afghanistan.
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  16. Those who are prepared to die themselves (whether like Samson or with a bomb) are brave than those who fly over in a F-14 - with no chance of being shot down - and fire missiles at civilian apartment blocks. Who do you think are braver?
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  17. Silas Sparkhammer I agree they are manipulated, but I don't think you can say they're not brave. And unfortunately, it's proved a very 'effective' tactic. Many of the suicide bombs in Iraq were just artillery shells strapped together, the ones the US army had failed to secure.
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  18. ***** It varies. Some can't go through with it because their nerve fails. In any case, the use of drugs is common among soldiers - look at the Americans in Vietnam. It's striking how the western portrayal has shifted from the brave mujahideen fighting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80s (trained by the British and US) to the mindless "terrorists" of today. It's ok when they serve western interests, but not when the hand comes back and bites you.
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  19. I would like consistency. The Afghan mujahidin were trained by the British SAS .. read Tom Carew's book Jihad if you don't know this. The key to the whole thing is the close alliance between western powers, especially and the US, and the ruling Saud family, who have been the main sponsors of militant Sunnism. So condemn that as well.
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  20. ***** But America, Britain and the Saudis backed the Islamic fundamentalists. The Soviets backed secular factions. The west has supported fundamentalism when it suited, and still has a close relationship with the Saudis (buying oil and selling arms). Can't blame all that on the wider Islamic world, that has so often been the victim of both western and Islamic fundamentalist violence.
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  21. Nick Breen Nonsense. Islam has had long periods of peace. Christianity has has long periods of violence. Neither is more or less violent than the other. The Nazis who launched WW2 weren't Muslims. Neither were the Mongols. Neither were those who carried out genocide in Ruanda. etc etc etc ....
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  22. Neither.
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  23. Funnily enough I was last night reading Foltz's Religions of the Silk Road, who concludes Islam spread so well in the area because of the number of Muslims engaged in commerce. It followed the trade routes very closely. The kind of generalisations you make - that Islam spreads through violence and other religions don't  - is simply not supported by history. You are a kind of mirror image of the extremists of Isis.
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  24. Where's that 25,000 figure from? What's the definition of "terrorist attacks"?
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  25. No, Islam has had far less of a structured hierarchy for most of its history. The book is a small part of a religion.
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  26. ***** That I doubt. But I agree the alliance between the US and the Saudis has been pernicious ... the Saudis have been paying for mosques through much of the Middle East since the 1980s. The root of this is an agreement in 1979-80 between the Saud family and the Wahabi clerics to 'export' radicalism. See Yaroslav Trofimov's The Siege of Mecca - as well as being interesting it reads very well. This agreement led on the connivance between Saudi, US and Pakistani intelligence over Afghanisatan, so laying the seeds of much that followed. On that Steve Coll, Ghost Wars.
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  27. Who is the equivalent of the pope in Islam?
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  28. Tim Brady My point is that there has never been in Islam a single hierarchy as there has been in Christianity. There has been more variation and shades of Islam .. even within Sunnism. Take the notion of a caliphate. There has never been one that all Muslims acknowledge. Islam has seen republics, hereditary monarchs .. it has seen sufis and poets, mystics and warriors.
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  29. ***** We aren't talking about the Koran, we're taking abut hierarchies. Islam has never had s single hierarchy, unlike Christianity. There's no-one to excommunicate people - for good or ill.
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  30. Ali Khamenei is not recognised as a leader by many Shia. Some regard him as a political leader but not a religious leader. In Shi'ism people always chose their marja. That's just one example of the variety in Islam.
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  31. Nick Breen Surveys of the Middle East have consistently shown low support for Isis. The Nazis took control of one of the most important states in the world. Let's not forget this all came from your cheap comment trying to link Nazism to Islam, when hundreds of thousands, maybe more, Muslims died fighting Nazisms in the British and Red armies.
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