75 dead in Nice in apparent terrorist attack

[chill98]

I'm not sure if I get your point, I haven't understood your last sentence 100%

There is a recent concern in Spain about second generation moroccans converting to radical Islam, but when they showed part of the propaganda videos on TV the enphasis of those had a lot more to do with "down with Western civilizacion" ,"Catholicism is ruling you"  and "Spain is originally muslim, let's take it back" (there is a political party that defends that btw) and less with "Hey, Islam is super" or "God wants you to do this"

Link please.  I don't doubt that the words above are entwined with the actual motive, as pointed out in my earlier quote:

...The alleged terrorist cell is said to have customised its strategy for a Spanish audience,...

But the actual backbone of the movement, islamic fundamentalism lies within the Qu'ran and other teachings/fatwas/etc :

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx

[drunkenshoe]

Yes I can blame Islam. The religion is justification for their actions. You can try to separate terrorism from Islam all day long, but the fact is that members of ISIS are as justified by their religion as any peace seeking Imam.

Nobody is trying to seperate Islam from Islamic terrorism. Again. This is a 'Darwin says people were monkeys before' argument. The problem is people seeing religious idealism as something magical that turns people into terrorists. And that is stupid. One side sees them as victims of an oppressive system, ignore the religious motivation, one side sees them as evil monsters born out of scripture. Both arguments are fucked up. There is no one answer to this and 'Islam-did-it' is not an argument.

Members of ISIL is an army of people who declared themselves an independent state attacking everyone possible.

If European born people are attacking their own society and kill, Islam-did-it doesn't cut it. If thousands of European people are leaving to join ISIL, 'islam-did-it' doesn't cut it.

Do you have any idea how many Westerners joined ISIL?

"Why are Westerners Attracted to ISIS"  

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/isis-foreign-fighters-political-pilgrims/399209/

What Westerners migrating to ISIS have in common with Westerners who sympathized with communism

In Political Pilgrims, the sociologist Paul Hollander exposes and excoriates the mentality of a certain kind of Western intellectual, who, such is the depth of his estrangement or alienation from his own society, is predisposed to extend sympathy to virtually any opposing political system.

The book is about the travels of 20th-century Western intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, and how these political travelers were able to find in such repressive countries a model of “the good society” in which they could invest their brightest hopes. Hollander documents in relentless and mortifying detail how this utopian impulse, driven by a deep discontent with their own societies, led them to deny or excuse the myriad moral defects of the places they visited.

But the significance of Political Pilgrims extends far beyond its immediate subject matter, and its insights may help to illuminate the mentality of that most recent and disconcerting set of pilgrims: namely, the Western migrants to the Islamic State, whose estrangement from their own societies can prime them to idealize the so-called Islamic State and overlook or justify its terrible human-rights abuses.

RELATED STORY


ISIS and the Foreign-Fighter Phenomenon

It is estimated that around 4,000 people have left their homes in the West to migrate to ISIS. Many have become jihadist fighters in the apparent hope of achieving martyrdom. A significant numberâ€"over 550 womenâ€"seem to have gone to become mothers and raise the next generation of jihadist “lions.” Some have left to put their medical expertise to use, and others to help in whatever capacity they can. Their motives are as mixed as their backgrounds. Indeed, the striking fact about these new pilgrims is that they don’t fit any single profile. They represent a broad spectrum of humanity, from former rappers and gangbangers to grandparents and gifted students.

On the face of it, they share little in common with the rarefied intellectuals of Political Pilgrims. Yet their estrangement from Western society and the force of their belief in an alternative system far superior to it, evidenced in interviews they have given and other forms of personal testimony, suggest that they share certain discontents and susceptibilities with the subjects of Hollander’s study.


Among the countless examples of folly cited by Hollander is Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s tome Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?, in which the Soviet penal system is praised forâ€"wait for itâ€"its progressive spirit. The second edition of this book, from which, as the historian Robert Conquest noted, “the question mark was triumphantly removed,” was published in 1937â€"“at precisely the time,” Conquest observed, that “the regime was in its worst phase of gloomy, all-embracing terror.”

Migrations to ISIS, like past political pilgrimages to China and the Soviet Union, are further testimony to how desire can trump reason.
How could the Webbs and others like them have gotten it so wrong? They were clearly foolish, but they were not stupid. Indeed, writes Hollander, many of the intellectuals in his survey were widely revered for their fierce intelligence and lively skepticism. Hollander contends instead that they wanted to be deceived about the failures and depredations of the societies they visited. And this, he theorizes, was in turn because, psychologically, they needed to believe in the existence of a perfect social system that not only exemplified their deepest ideals but also gave voice to their deepest misgivings about their own societies.

“Wishful thinking,” the sociologist Karl Mannheim wrote, “has always figured in human affairs. When the imagination finds no satisfaction in existing reality, it seeks refuge in wishfully constructed places and periods.” Hollander approvingly reproduces this quote in his introduction to Political Pilgrims, and one of the great merits of his book is the clarity and force with which it shows how desire can supersede and subvert critical thinking.

The recent migrations to ISIS, just like the political pilgrimages before them, are yet further testimony to the power of wishful thinking and how desire can trump reason.

Earlier this month, it was reported that a family of 12 from Luton, Englandâ€"including, according to the BBC, “a baby and two grandparents”â€"had made the journey to Syria. It was the second family believed to have left the United Kingdom for the Islamic State since May. Was the family coerced or, as one relative has suggested, manipulated into going to Syria? Were they the victims of some collective psychosis? Not a chance, if a press release purportedly from the family is to be credited. The BBC acquired the statement from an individual claiming to be an Islamic State fighter, though the media organization could not verify its authenticity.


“None of us were forced against our will,” it said, describing a land “free from the corruption and oppression of man-made law ... in which a Muslim doesn’t feel oppression when practicing their religion. In which a parent doesn’t feel the worry of losing their child to the immorality of society. In which the sick and elderly do not wait in agony, tolerating the partiality of race or social class.” It also derisively alluded to the “so-called freedom and democracy” of Western states.

The statement, as the scholar Shiraz Maher pointed out, clearly serves a propagandistic purpose, and it could well be a fabrication. But it also accurately reflects the sentiments expressed by other Western migrants who have made the journey to Syria, and who in their social-media postings have mocked the notion that they have been “brainwashed” into joining ISIS. Furthermore, it distills two intimately connected themes that are essential for understanding the mentality of the Western migrants: estrangement and utopian hope.

It is possible that, at some deep psychological level, migrants to ISIS want to be deceived about its widely reported depredations.
ISIS’s caliphate project, because it offers a bracing utopian alternative to Western secular society, speaks directly to those who feel their lives are worthless, spiritually corrupted, empty, boring, or devoid of purpose and significance, and who see no value in their own societies. It promises, in short, salvation and ultimate meaning through total commitment to a sacred cause. “I don’t think there’s anything better than living in the land of Khilafah,” or caliphate, said one British jihadist in a video, “Eid Greetings from the Land of the Khilafah,” released last summer by ISIS’s media arm. “You’re not living under oppression. ... You’re not living under kuffar [unbelievers]. ... We don’t need any democracy. … All we need is shariah.”

Similar themes come out strongly in a recent report on female Western migrants. Based on the social-media postings of self-identified migrants apparently within ISIS-controlled territory, the authors found that estrangement from Western society and anger at perceived injustices against Muslims worldwide, together with a strong sense of religious calling and an unwavering faith in the rectitude of the newly emerging caliphate, form the basis for why these women journey to ISIS.


From this, it is clear that their departures owe as much to perceived corruption and oppression at home as to a desire to see in the Islamic State a utopian society free of any such secular perversions. This may also explain how, despite all the evidence, Western migrants to the caliphate can ignore or discount the mountain of incriminating evidence against ISIS, and risk everything to join it.

In Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron just this week introduced a counterterrorism strategy as part of what he called “the struggle of our generation,” debate over ISIS and its recruitment methods has become unhelpfully polarized. On the one side are those, including British officials, who portray ISIS recruits as “vulnerable” or impressionable youth who, despite their murderous intentions or actions, are actually victims. On the other side are those, often academics and human-rights activists, who similarly argue that ISIS recruits are victims, but of oppressive government policies and actions rather than sinister jihadist groomers. The problem with both lines of argument is that they deny the agency of those who join ISIS, and obscure the religious idealism that motivates them.

One of the biggest challenges associated with countermessaging efforts against ISIS is how to prompt would-be migrants to rethink their favorable perceptions about the group and its self-proclaimed state. This is less a problem of finding the “right” narrative than of reconfiguring individual human desire, because it is possible that, at some deep psychological level, would-be migrants to ISIS want to be deceived about its widely reported depredations. As Christina Nemr, a former U.S. counterterrorism advisor, recently observed, people “push ‘threatening information’ away in favor of information that confirms their own beliefs.”

It is hard enough to sway those who have yet to make up their minds about ISISâ€" the so-called “fence-sitters.” But it is monumentally harder to sway those who, because of their idealism and estrangement from their own societies, want or need to see the best in ISIS.

[drunkenshoe]

Actually, I'll go further and say that even if ISIL, AQAP or any other well established islamic terrorism groups are wiped out in the near future, these individual attacks won't stop. They'll continue. 

Nice attack is not claimed by ISIL or some other Islamic terrorist group. The attacker is not even defined -at least as of now- as someone religious as a profile.

[pr126]

All those people who left their various countries to join ISIL have one thing in common.
Mind you, ISIL is just one of the hundreds of similar groups all over the planet.

All have the same ideology. What could it be?

[stromboli]

One attack versus many. Look at the rapes. These are done almost entirely by people who have either arrived as migrants or people who are more established, but they are the ones committing the rapes. Nobody claims ISIL for that either. The amount of rape has gone up significantly in the last decade throughout Europe. The point is that the religion justifies it. And I don't care about the nice guy Imams, because they don't change the doctrine, only cherry pick what they preach about.

Yes they can and have justified their behavior with their holy text. No I do not think that individual perpetrators are idealists. But think of it from the perpetrator's perspective. A rapist or thief or murderer in some context or other justifies their behavior to themselves. And there is no question that the people doing it are largely disenfranchised and often socially isolated, but there are enough instances of people with social attachments and belonging to a group to give pause to that as a sole argument.

The killers in the latest incident in Bangladesh were identified as middle class and fairly privileged people. How they came to be perpetrators of terror is an unknown, but "Peace TV" and the cleric on it was apparently radicalizing terrorists.

If one Imam, one, in any way justifies terror it affects thousands. No Imam is going to preach terrorism if they can't back it with scripture. And there are clerics doing precisely that.

[drunkenshoe]

One attack versus many. Look at the rapes. These are done almost entirely by people who have either arrived as migrants or people who are more established, but they are the ones committing the rapes. Nobody claims ISIL for that either. The amount of rape has gone up significantly in the last decade throughout Europe.

Really? Are you sure about that? Have you ever looked into it?

The point is that the religion justifies it. And I don't care about the nice guy Imams, because they don't change the doctrine, only cherry pick what they preach about.

Yes it does. Islam is an abrahamic religion. What's a 'nice guy imam' ffs. Yeah the problem is when they kill and rape they cherry pick too according to your logic and end of that road is true scotsman fallacy.

When a muslim eats bacon and drinks alcoholic beveraages, 'oh he is not a muslim then'. When a jew does that he is secular. Think about that when thinking about 'nice guys imams'.

snip  No I do not think that individual perpetrators are idealists. But think of it from the perpetrator's perspective. A rapist or thief or murderer in some context or other justifies their behavior to themselves. And there is no question that the people doing it are largely disenfranchised and often socially isolated, but there are enough instances of people with social attachments and belonging to a group to give pause to that as a sole argument.

You contradict yourself here. Because this mostly fits what I am saying.

The killers in the latest incident in Bangladesh were identified as middle class and fairly privileged people. How they came to be perpetrators of terror is an unknown, but "Peace TV" and the cleric on it was apparently radicalizing terrorists.

And some of the people who left EU to join ISIL are from midle class. Why does that surprise you?

If one Imam, one, in any way justifies terror it affects thousands. No Imam is going to preach terrorism if they can't back it with scripture. And there are clerics doing precisely that.

You can 'back' everything with scripture from a perspective of the religious, strom. They are using it to explain how universe came to existence and you are singling out murder and rape?

It's the people and their circumstances and their ideals that make terrorists. Not some written down paper. Yeah like christian priests do too.

When a fucked up pastor says "government should kill gays" or "children should be put in death penalty" or "if the raped woman gets pregnant, it is not rape because Lord wanted the child to be born" they are doing the same thing, with clerics BUT christians do not attack - at least yet- their OWN or found a terrorist group with a global threat.

Why? Because they are Christians and Christianity is a religion of peace?

Bible is based on the same principles with Quran. The key lies within the dynamics, circumstances, conditions and identity of the group.

[pr126]

Islam never was an Abrahamic religion.
Muhammad has said this to claim himself an ancestry. He plagiarised ideas from several religions, Judaism, Christanity, Zoroastrian, Sabean and pagan.
Before mMuhammad no Arab had a biblical name.

In fact, most of the Islamic rituals, such as hajj, running between Safa and Marwa, the black stone, Allah are all pagan, which were never practised by the Jews or Christians.

This can be researched on the web. Find out about Islam's pagan origins.

[drunkenshoe]

Islam never was an Abrahamic religion.
Muhammad has said this to claim himself an ancestry. He plagiarised ideas from several religions, Judaism, Christanity, Zoroastrian, Sabean and pagan.
Before mMuhammad no Arab had a biblical name.

In fact, most of the Islamic rituals, such as hajj, running between Safa and Marwa, the black stone, Allah are all pagan, which were never practised by the Jews or Christians.

This can be researched on the web.

LOOL And what do you think happened with Judaism and Christianty or other religions you count up there? They are all from pagan roots and actually the same specific one.

There is no such thing as monotheist religions. It's human made. There is no such thing as god or a creator; there is no difference between worshipping apollo or jesus. It's an upgrade on the metaphysical fairy tale.

See, it is this kind of moronity pitched by the supposedly secular or nonbeliever that pisses me off.

He is talking as if there was some natural phenomenon called 'monotheist religion' AND Judiasm or Christianity are the actual; original form of that phenomenon. WTF.

[baronvonrort]

I congratulate baronvonrort

Yeah you nailed the whole thing, you are a fucking genius! It's all about sunnahs and scripture and a some holy book. Yeah...No.

Stop underestimating islamic terrorism, stop thinking in religious terms.

If Islamic terror has nothing to do with Islam why did Qadri need 600 pages for his fatwa to outlaw terror?

The Islamic texts say those who Jihad in the way of Allah get a better reward in heaven I think it's about time people start calling bullshit on this.

[pr126]

 [/quote]

[Shiranu]

Classy.

[GSOgymrat]

I think I missed some vital piece of information. EVERYONE is saying this is an Islamic terrorist attack, and I am not saying it isn't, but this is all I have heard from CNN:

Bouhlel was identified by fingerprints after his identification card was found in the truck, Molins said. Authorities began searching an apartment building where Bouhlel apparently lived, and Molins said Bouhlel's ex-wife had been detained.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and authorities did not release information about a motive.

Bouhlel was known to police because of allegations of threats, violence and thefts over the last six years, and he was given a suspended six-month prison sentence this year after being convicted of violence with a weapon, Molins said.

Bouhlel's father, who lives in Tunisia, has revealed that his son showed signs of mental health issues -- having had multiple nervous breakdowns and volatile behavior, said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

The man was "entirely unknown by the intelligence services, whether nationally or locally," Molins said.

"He had never been the subject of any kind of file or indication of radicalization," Molins said.

[Shiranu]

Bouhlel's father, who lives in Tunisia, has revealed that his son showed signs of mental health issues -- having had multiple nervous breakdowns and volatile behavior, said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

Hah, you mean to imply that actual psychology might play a role in how people behave? What nonsense.

[marom1963]

Even if they weren't responsible for it, if they claimed it, they need to be punished for it.

[drunkenshoe]

If Islamic terror has nothing to do with Islam why did Qadri need 600 pages for his fatwa to outlaw terror?

The Islamic texts say those who Jihad in the way of Allah get a better reward in heaven I think it's about time people start calling bullshit on this.

When did anyone say anything like this? See, you are a tabloid reporter.