The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[Valmy]

With Daesh/IS/whatever? Then all of NATO should be at war yes? That is how this is supposed to work right?

[Richard Hakluyt]

With Daesh/IS/whatever? Then all of NATO should be at war yes? That is how this is supposed to work right?

With ISIS.

He can apparently invoke a NATO treaty article if he wants help from the rest of us.

[The Minsky Moment]

Really how could it be otherwise?  ISIS is a putative state, it has unquestionably engaged in an act of war, under any definition.

[Valmy]

Will he? What would the Turks do?

[Savonarola]

His policy was premised on the understanding that Daesh was content to build its Potemkin caliphate in the desert regions of Iraq and Syria and thus could be "contained".  Events have overtaken those assumptions.  There is an effective fighting force already on the ground and within striking distance of the Daesh capital.  NATO ground troops fighting alongside would make the work go much faster.

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

[The Minsky Moment]

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

A mess/probably not.
Still no real choice at this point.

[Malthus]

because "positive" religions aren't any better.

Fucking Quaker psychos.  They need to get their heads examined.

They produce guys like Richard Nixon. You can't trust 'em. 

But more generally - religions are not all of a piece. Quakers are a subset of "Christian" and there have been lots of very violent Christian movements - even though the foundational texts are more or less the same. Likewise, there are Muslim sects that are pretty non-violent (and in fact, a lot like Quakers) - such as some varieties of Sufism. They resemble Quakers because they share a greater emphasis on intuitive religion - whereas others put a greater emphasis on (say) millennialism.

With religions, you have to be pretty specific. General labels like "Muslim" are not helpful, even though they all share the same foundational texts - different sects behave totally differently.

[Valmy]

I think the word we are looking for is Salafism right? Maybe even a subsection of that.

Sufis are a "positive" religion and therefore "aren't any better". Better at what I have no idea

[Eddie Teach]

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

You know, I think anarchy would probably be preferable to ISIS.

[Grey Fox]

At being resonable humane human beings.

[crazy canuck]

If you replace Allah with God then it fits with a lot of fundamentalist North American apocalyptic nonsense too 

Moral equivalence FTW!!!

It is not Moral equivalence to point out hypocrisy 

Condemning a whole religion for the acts of a very small number is nonsense.

[The Minsky Moment]

Sufism isn't really a sect, it's more a set of disciplines and approaches, although there are Sufi "orders".  Sufism crosses sectional divisions, for example the Ayatollah Khomeini studied Sufi texts and wrote Sufi poetry as a student.   It's true that Dash/Al-Qaeda/Salafi/Wahhabbi tendency is anti-Sufi and in its extreme manifestations resorts to violence and extirpation.

[PJL]

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

You know, I think anarchy would probably be preferable to ISIS.

It's the lack of state authority which caused ISIS to appear in the first place, so that is not the answer. A strong state authority is.

[Savonarola]

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

A mess/probably not.
Still no real choice at this point.

Barack has doubled down on his commitment not to use ground troops:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-16/obama-rejects-calls-to-send-u-s-ground-troops-to-syria-fight

[Savonarola]

Okay, but then what happens after ISIS has been overthrown?  Is the United States or any NATO power willing to keep troops in the area and spend money for long term nation building?

You know, I think anarchy would probably be preferable to ISIS.

It's the lack of state authority which caused ISIS to appear in the first place, so that is not the answer. A strong state authority is.

But then, how can that be done without propping up a dictator?