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The Islamic state

Many counterterrorism experts say the threat from Daesh towards the west is exaggerated, they're more interested for the time being in murdering Shias and Yezidis. Dunno where that fits into phils theories about 'the british'
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Cos it seems like you've got a serious case of simplifying categories and looking at them as 'others', and that comes across in your thing about going on about 'British' people (as well as other countries and populations). And I wondered if that was easier to have from a distance.
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Living abroad, especially in the Muslim world, does give one some perspective on how the British are viewed globally--and it's very different from their self-image.
 
phildwyer said:
But then where does one stop?

One might blame only those who voted for Blair and/or Cameron. But then there are many such who did so for other reasons and who oppose their foreign policy. One might blame only politicians. But then there are many politicians who bravely speak out against the wars. One might blame only the soldiers who actually fight the wars. But then there are many such who joined up out of economic necessity. And so forth.

Surely someone must be to blame?
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Capital.
 
frogwoman said:
Capital.
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Yes, I think you're right. But...

That would mean conceiving of capital as a non-human power, one which merely works through human beings. It would mean abandoning the concept of class war, among others. It would involve a philosophical return to metaphysics. I'm not sure the world is ready for that.
 
phildwyer said:
Yes, I think you're right. But...

That would mean conceiving of capital as a non-human power, one which merely works through human beings. It would mean abandoning the concept of class war, among others. It would involve a philosophical return to metaphysics. I'm not sure the world is ready for that.
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Why would it mean abandoning the concept of class war?
 
Hang on a minute for me to catch up... isn't it a dynamic involving both of them, the ruling class and capital? That interact to create structures of power and powerlessness?

And can we just drop the moralism please?
 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...a-myths-terrorism-war-mistakes-9-11?CMP=fb_gu

Fourteen years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a series of misconceptions about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida became widely accepted. Some focused on the person of Bin Laden himself – his wealth, health and history. The group that he led, until then relatively marginal with no real support base and only a few hundred members, was portrayed as a sprawling global terrorist organisation, with obedient “operatives” and “sleeper cells” on every continent, and an ability to mobilise, radicalise and attack far beyond its real capacities. Historic incidents with no connection to the group or its leader were suddenly recast as “al-Qaida operations”. Any incident, anywhere in the world, could become an al-Qaida attack.

This had an impact on the western reaction to the events of 11 September 2001. The threat posed by al-Qaida was described in apocalyptic terms, and a response of an equally massive scale was seen as necessary. The group’s ideological motivations were ignored, while the individual agency of its leaders was emphasised. If they were killed, the logic went, the problem would disappear. Al-Qaida’s links with other terrorist or extremist organisations were distorted, often by political leaders who hoped for domestic gain and international support. So too were supposed links – all imaginary – to the governments of several states. One result was the “global war on terror”, a monumentally misconceived strategy that is in part to blame for the spread of radical Islamic militancy over the past decade.

Despite the lessons learned over the years, and the very different approach of political leaders in the US and Europe, there is a danger that at least some of those mistakes will be repeated withIslamic State. Already there are parallels. The emergence of Isis in 2013 prompted reactions that resemble those in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and that, despite the generally sensible analysis of the administration of Barack Obama, risk influencing policy. Isis, despite no real evidence, has, like al-Qaida, been linked to plans to acquire weapons of mass destruction, as well as, ludicrously, to send Ebola-infected “operatives” against its enemies. Media in the US reported a network of Isis “sleeper cells” in the “homeland”, and “sleeper agents” in Europe, exactly as they had with al-Qaida in 2002. These claims were, at best, a gross misrepresentation of how either organisation operates and how individuals are radicalised. The atmosphere in Europe following the attacks in Paris of January 2015, only indirectly connected with Isis, also recalled that of a decade earlier, with US commentators making the same hysterical claims of “no-go zones” in European cities where Islamic law had supposedly been imposed.

Isis has also been linked, and sometimes deliberately conflated, with an extraordinary range of global “bad guys”, from Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic extremist organisation, to Mexican drug cartels. If the importance of the ideas of al-Qaida in the Islamic world was ignored, current analysis misses the resonance of the Isis bid to restore the lost power and glory of Islamic empires. Obama, explaining how his administration would “degrade and ultimately destroy” Isis, described the enemy as “a terrorist organisation, pure and simple”. This is not true. Isis is a hybrid of insurgency, separatism, terrorism and criminality, with deep roots in its immediate local environment, in broader regional conflicts and in geopolitical battles that link what happens in Raqqa or Mosul to chancelleries in capitals across Asia and the west.
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camouflage said:
Perfidious Albion?
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Quenelle_2789306b.jpg
 
phildwyer said:
And it's just this kind of relativism on the part of the public that has allowed the British government to get away with its crimes.
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It's no kind of relativism that 'allowed' the British government, it's the fact that most people that live in Britain are either pretty fucked over and (even if they're not) don't have much or any power to stop the State doing things it wants too.

I think your head is firmly stuck in some deluded and odd lefty cloud cuckoo land of books, metaphysics, and moralism.
 
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