What is the best strategy to fight ISIL/Al Qaeda/Taliban/Boko Haram/Al-Shabaab etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the attractions of ISIS is that it bills itself as pure Islam, free from the financial corruption of many of the Arab regimes. I do not for a minute believe that ISIS's leaders are not siphoning off funds from their oil revenue and donations for their own benefit.

Let's set some forensic accountants to work, freeze their assets in whatever financial institutions they've put them and publicize. Exposing their financial corruption will go a long way to showing duped followers that ISIS is yet another cynical power and wealth grab by an elite few.

Can you tell me what are the many Arab regimes because I only know of one.

Exposing their financial corruption will go a long way to showing duped followers that ISIS is yet another cynical power and wealth grab by an elite few.
That doesn't work to expose corruption in the US why would in work for a minority group claiming to be following a certain religion.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More info on how Saudi Arabia (SA) uses Islamic Teachings. Beheading people for allegedly marijuana sales, confessions were obtained by torture.

SA is the source of evil in the modern world.

I don't know that SA is "the source" of evil. I think there are plenty of sources.

Perhaps Americans should protest and demand our government severe its alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Can you tell me what are the many Arab regimes because I only know of one.

You are only aware of one Arab regime? Seriously?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Perhaps Americans should protest and demand our government severe its alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Absolutely. But, we had better think of a new financial system and an alternative to oil before doing so. Saudi Arabia will switch to the Euro for buying and selling oil and flood the market with dollars. We will be taking shopping bags of bills to the grocery store.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:The common denominator is that all the groups follow Wahhabi Islam. It will be very hard to get rid of them, maybe impossible. There is a long list of legitimate grievances among most Muslims. Nothing the US has proposed will reduce that list. In many ways, US military action will simply confirm many of the grievances and end up making the situation worse. There are few good actions the US could take and none of them are politically acceptable. The politically acceptable actions aren't good, but that's all available given the political realities. So, Obama has a strategy that will make things worse, but not as bad as some of the alternative strategies.

Jeff, what are those few actions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the attractions of ISIS is that it bills itself as pure Islam, free from the financial corruption of many of the Arab regimes. I do not for a minute believe that ISIS's leaders are not siphoning off funds from their oil revenue and donations for their own benefit.

Let's set some forensic accountants to work, freeze their assets in whatever financial institutions they've put them and publicize. Exposing their financial corruption will go a long way to showing duped followers that ISIS is yet another cynical power and wealth grab by an elite few.

But first we should go after the money that is funding ISIS. There must be complicit financial institutions--there is way too much money coming in daily for there not to be. If we can stop the flow of money and freeze what has been stored up, ISIS will run out of funds to pay its soldiers. A lot of them, particularly the Iraqis and Syrians, are in it for the income to provide for their families and will fall away if they are not paid.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The common denominator is that all the groups follow Wahhabi Islam. It will be very hard to get rid of them, maybe impossible. There is a long list of legitimate grievances among most Muslims. Nothing the US has proposed will reduce that list. In many ways, US military action will simply confirm many of the grievances and end up making the situation worse. There are few good actions the US could take and none of them are politically acceptable. The politically acceptable actions aren't good, but that's all available given the political realities. So, Obama has a strategy that will make things worse, but not as bad as some of the alternative strategies.

Jeff, what are those few actions?

The best course of action is to embrace American principles of democracy, liberty, freedom of expression, and economic freedom. One can argue about how much the US political system supports those principles domestically, but there is no argument internationally where we routinely ignore election outcomes and support dictatorships. That would mean acknowledging and treating as legitimate political representatives such groups as Hamas and Hizbollah that do not share US interests, but have popular support. It would mean supporting the rights of the opposition in Bahrain and opposing the Saudi Arabian military intervention there, it would mean opposing the Saudi Arabian political system and the economic monopolization demonstrated by the ruling family. It would mean supporting democratic opposition groups throughout the Arab world.

When the US supports military dictators over popularly-elected Muslim groups as it did in Egypt, it undermines the moderates and liberals who would be our natural allies as they are left holding hollow political values (i.e. they support "democracy" which the US clearly does not). It strengthens the Muslim groups which oppose democracy. There is a strong tendency in Islam to actually oppose democracy because it presupposes that two fools can out-vote a genius. That is not far from the American position that democracy cannot be trusted because it elects the wrong leaders. Those who are told by Muslim leaders that democracy cannot be trusted, can easily see that the West doesn't trust it either.

The US would need to realize that oil dependency means that the monarchies of the Gulf have us in a stranglehold. We need to plan for resource-independence as a way of ending political dependence and therefore be better positioned to remove factors that create grievances among the common people of the Middle East.

In short, the US needs to take the long-term view that stability and peace better serve its interests than the short term view that we should attack anyone who doesn't support our immediate goals. All we do now is put out fires rather than implementing a long-term fire prevention plan.

[Anonymous]

What about just letting them have their own country? So, they take over a swath of Syria and Iraq. They make their own country. Now we know exactly where they are and the majority of the world has a real enemy. They attack another nation, then it's over for them. They get the same treatment Nazi Germany got, maybe worse. Even the countries we currently don't exactly love probably won't like the caliphate much- such a place would be a threat to even North Korea if they truly believe the world should adhere to a fundamental version of Islam.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The common denominator is that all the groups follow Wahhabi Islam. It will be very hard to get rid of them, maybe impossible. There is a long list of legitimate grievances among most Muslims. Nothing the US has proposed will reduce that list. In many ways, US military action will simply confirm many of the grievances and end up making the situation worse. There are few good actions the US could take and none of them are politically acceptable. The politically acceptable actions aren't good, but that's all available given the political realities. So, Obama has a strategy that will make things worse, but not as bad as some of the alternative strategies.

Jeff, what are those few actions?

The best course of action is to embrace American principles of democracy, liberty, freedom of expression, and economic freedom. One can argue about how much the US political system supports those principles domestically, but there is no argument internationally where we routinely ignore election outcomes and support dictatorships. That would mean acknowledging and treating as legitimate political representatives such groups as Hamas and Hizbollah that do not share US interests, but have popular support. It would mean supporting the rights of the opposition in Bahrain and opposing the Saudi Arabian military intervention there, it would mean opposing the Saudi Arabian political system and the economic monopolization demonstrated by the ruling family. It would mean supporting democratic opposition groups throughout the Arab world.

When the US supports military dictators over popularly-elected Muslim groups as it did in Egypt, it undermines the moderates and liberals who would be our natural allies as they are left holding hollow political values (i.e. they support "democracy" which the US clearly does not). It strengthens the Muslim groups which oppose democracy. There is a strong tendency in Islam to actually oppose democracy because it presupposes that two fools can out-vote a genius. That is not far from the American position that democracy cannot be trusted because it elects the wrong leaders. Those who are told by Muslim leaders that democracy cannot be trusted, can easily see that the West doesn't trust it either.

The US would need to realize that oil dependency means that the monarchies of the Gulf have us in a stranglehold. We need to plan for resource-independence as a way of ending political dependence and therefore be better positioned to remove factors that create grievances among the common people of the Middle East.

In short, the US needs to take the long-term view that stability and peace better serve its interests than the short term view that we should attack anyone who doesn't support our immediate goals. All we do now is put out fires rather than implementing a long-term fire prevention plan.

What you call "democracy" in Egypt was a militant terrorist organization taking advantage of a largely disenfranchised, uneducated, starving population in a country where the land mass is only capable of supporting about 1% of the current population. The Muslim Brotherhood handed out food and water in exchange for votes to people who are desperate, uneducated and unequipped to make political decisions in their own best interests. In fact, it's largely because of the deplorable living conditions in the Middle East and part of Africa that many of these terrorist organizations are able to take power. I think a PP who said more education is really on the right track. Also, you talk about fuel independence (which I personally agree with) but then why do so many liberals, as yourself, side against the Keystone pipeline and other efforts to increase fuel independence in this country?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
What you call "democracy" in Egypt was a militant terrorist organization taking advantage of a largely disenfranchised, uneducated, starving population in a country where the land mass is only capable of supporting about 1% of the current population. The Muslim Brotherhood handed out food and water in exchange for votes to people who are desperate, uneducated and unequipped to make political decisions in their own best interests. In fact, it's largely because of the deplorable living conditions in the Middle East and part of Africa that many of these terrorist organizations are able to take power. I think a PP who said more education is really on the right track. Also, you talk about fuel independence (which I personally agree with) but then why do so many liberals, as yourself, side against the Keystone pipeline and other efforts to increase fuel independence in this country?

Regardless of how the Muslim Brotherhood got elected, they were elected. Either you have to support the outcome of elections are stop supporting the idea of elections. It is hypocritical to support elections that only have the desired outcome.

I don't view the Keystone pipeline, which is supposed to transport oil from Canada, as a stop towards energy independence. The rest of the world would still need Middle East oil, so things really wouldn't change much (except the resulting pollution would increase global warming). We need to move to a non-petroleum fuel.

[Anonymous]

They keystone pipeline is already irrelevant.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324324404579045060424047346

U.S. companies that refine oil increasingly doubt that the controversial Keystone XL pipeline expansion will ever be built, and now they don't particularly care.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Perhaps Americans should protest and demand our government severe its alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Absolutely. But, we had better think of a new financial system and an alternative to oil before doing so. Saudi Arabia will switch to the Euro for buying and selling oil and flood the market with dollars. We will be taking shopping bags of bills to the grocery store.

Disagree with the need for new financial system. Dollars are still king. Would be a benefit for us if some govs DID switch to Euros. And a switch by SA would not be a huge impact. Curious how you get to it being a big impact.

Might be a necessary issue to get the attention of some of these politicians as to what would happen if real dollar flight happens and no one wants to buy US bonds. And when that happens, it will not be a gradual thing. It will happen within days, we will not even see it coming until it happens and the US securities are screwed. That will be real fear in US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More info on how Saudi Arabia (SA) uses Islamic Teachings. Beheading people for allegedly marijuana sales, confessions were obtained by torture.

SA is the source of evil in the modern world.


From - Al Jazeera at http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/saudi-beheads-four-men-smuggling-drugs-2014818184317907443.html

The government-owned SPA news agency identified the Saudi men on Monday as two sets of brothers - Hadi and Awad al-Motleq, and Mufarraj and Ali al-Yami. They were beheaded in the southwestern city of Najran, found to have smuggled "a large quantity of hashish" into the country. The government did not say when the executions took place. The beheadings raise to 32 the number of executions announced in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to a tally by the AFP news agency. Rights watchdog Amnesty International denounced what it called a "disturbing surge" in executions in Saudi Arabia. "The Saudi Arabian authorities must halt all executions," the group said, adding that the executions of the two sets of brothers came "reportedly on the basis of forced confessions extracted through torture". Amnesty's statement said the latest executions "bring the number of state killings in Saudi Arabia in the past two weeks to 17 - a rate of more than one execution per day".

"The recent increase in executions in Saudi Arabia is a deeply disturbing deterioration. The authorities must act immediately to halt this cruel practice," Amnesty's Said Boumedouha said. The group said it was contacted by relatives of the men on Thursday "asking for help amid fears that the executions were imminent", and that later the family was told by the interior ministry to stop contacting the rights watchdog.

Last year, there were 78 executions in Saudi Arabia and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced a "sharp increase in the use of capital punishment".

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islamic teachings.

Best strategy is to attack and fight the spread of Wahhabism. It is an evil cult supported by oil. Export all Saudis from Virginia would be a start. Close the cancer that is the Saudi embassy.

What would change mean? Over the past three decades, Riyadh has spent tens of billions of dollars exporting Wahhabism through thousands of mosques and madrasas across the world. From Asia to Africa, from Europe to the Americas, this theological perversion has wrought havoc. As one former extremist in Kosovo told The Times, “The Saudis completely changed Islam here with their money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/opinion/mohammad-javad-zarif-let-us-rid-the-world-of-wahhabism.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region