Reply to Inconvenient Truth: There is no simple military strategy to defeat ISIS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Muslima]You can't bomb and kill enough jihadists to stop terror. You can kill as many al Qaeda and ISIS members, and that will just birth new ones and new groups. Unless the root causes are analyzed and solutions provided for them, there will always be another insurgency. You can't bomb them into submission
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I disagree that we need to analyze and solve the root problems, if by that you mean things like poverty and discontent with autocracy. [b]Terrorism still thrives in places like the UK and France where there is no poverty, and human rights [/b]are as well respected as anywhere.

The fact is that the jihadists were controlled very effectively for many decades by the likes of Assad. What you need to control jihadists is a strong state with a strong intelligence service and army. That may mean supporting someone whose approach to human rights is very different from our own. But we manage to do that in Saudi, Egypt etc. without complaint.  The fact is we should never have brought down Saddam, and we should never have brought down Gaddafi, and we should never have supported the opponents of Assad. [/quote]

Unfortuately, Muslims in France and the UK would not share that view.  Discrimantion against Muslims in places like France and Belgium is well known!  And lets be honest, at least 2 of the Paris attackers were born IN FRANCE and at least 2 were born IN BELGIUM. [b] These were folks who were turned radical by the conditions and the treatment of Muslims in the countries that they were born in. [/b] 
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Nonsense. The large majority of Muslims in these countries would not support such actions. There are some terrorists from the States who have been similarly radicalized. Would you say that it is the result of the conditions and treatment of Muslims in the states that led to their radicalization? The fact is that the freedom and wealth and work opportunities afforded in Europe and the States are infinitely greater than anything you will find in most parts of the Middle East. This argument that they became radicalized because they are discriminated against makes superficial sense, but it is not accurate. Many groups face higher hurdles entering the job market and are in a worse socio-economic situation but do not set out to kill as many people as they can. The fact that people like Timothy McVeigh emerge is not proof that he suffered some kind of systematic persecution, but rather that there will always be weak-minded and amoral people drawn to extremist ideologies. It is the ideology of extremist Islam that is the root cause here, not discrimination in Europe.[/quote]

Although I cannot disagree with anything you have said, you have talked around my point.  It is not about how YOU or I think the conditions are.  We are talking about the potential factors that make a mind ripe for the extremism to take root!  Writing all extremists off as "weak-minded" is a mistake that the uninformed make (that's not a dig at you personally).  I do know, however, that the increasing number of young Musilims flocking to extremism is a concern to many moderate Islamic theologians and many of them are trying to grapple with it.  And I agree with others - "bombing the region back to the stone age" is only going fertilize MORE extremists. [/quote]

Well, there are two possibilities: 1. That the conditions that Muslims endure in Europe and America are so appalling that many of them are forced into extremism as a result, or 2. That the insidious ideology of extremist islam will appeal to some lost souls whatever the social circumstances surrounding them. The children of immigrants, whatever their origin, will often face a particular crisis of identity. They may react against the license of western culture, with its problems with alcohol and drugs. They may seek a purity and perfection that every day life, with its compromises and tedium, cannot offer.

Extremism will always appeal to some people. Its appeal may be greater to people that are outside the mainstream of society, and to children of immigrants that feel that they don't really "fit in" in any group. But this doesn't mean that the extremism is the result of poor conditions or discrimination.

In many ways this is an empirical question. Are the poorer immigrants more likely to be radicalized than the rich? Are the more educated less likely to be radicalized than the better educated? Are those who are unemployed more likely to join ISIS than those with jobs?

We don't have enough evidence, but my strong suspicion is that it is not the poorest and the most down-trodden members of the community that are signing up, because they are not signing up as a result of anger with their poverty and ill-treatment. They are signing up because they are reacting against western culture and a seeking an alternative identity, a search which fundamentalists can capitalize on and exploit. [/quote]

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