Je Suis Charlie

What have you been smoking?

I don't know about Putin's paradise, but here in Blighty, Muslims and Islam get plenty of coverage - sometimes you can't open a paper or turn on the telly or radio without hearing about this wretched creed, and some extremist spouting hateful guff.

While AQ, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al Shabaab and ISIS differ in their aims and approaches (if not in savagery), the ultimate aim of the jihadist mindset is the complete subjugation of the entire world to the yoke of Islam (highly unlikely of course, but much blood will be shed in the process).

You are right on one point - Islam is not a monolithic faith of course, and is as prone to fissiparousness as many other religious ideologies. But that does not make the extremist Sunni strains any less dangerous.

Not at all suggesting that the Middle Ages were better, but they didn't live under the notion that a few psychopaths could "push the button" and cause millions to die...perhaps even ending the world as we know it.

Even the bubonic plague wasn't that efficient.

"Better" is relative, but I'd rather live in today's world than then.  Being surrounded by people who love you for whatever time you have is far better than any level of luxury or technology at any point in history and being alone & unloved.  Look at America - fares very poorly in "happiness" ratings among modern countries when these sorts of things are (albeit imprecisely) measured.

Do you really think that love meant any less in previous eras of human history?

An amazing thought, IMHO

ATB from George

Hi George:

If you were directing that at my comment, I'd suggest you re-read.  If not, I apologize in advance.

(Perhaps I should have put "But being surrounded..."  Or perhaps I misunderstand your reply!)

Dear Mark,

I re-read your post. I am not sure that I completely understood it. So please ignore my previous post.

Sorry!

ATB from George

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31656222

There are no words. OK I'll try. The perpetrators of this are the lowest, most ignorant, arrogant, stupid and delusional scum that I can imagine. They and their colleagues should be purged from the face of the planet. Their "moderate" apologists should experience barely less favourable treatment.

then what are the CIA chiefs that pull the strings behind all this?

Come on Sharik, grow up. The CIA had their hands full yesterday in Moscow !

They can't be in two places at once !

I still haven't forgiven the CIA for the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings that started the second war in Chechnya, or for poisoning Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 with polonium-210!

Every time something evil happens in the world it's always the CIA who are behind it.

Makes you wonder why so many Islamists are flocking to North America.

You'd think they'd want to stay as far away as possible from the source of evil.

I know I have no intention of moving to any of the places where people are getting their heads chopped off for nothing.

I could say the same thing for all the Russians moving here. Be careful guys we have polonium-210 if you step out of line.

It was their fault I failed my first driving test too! B@stards!

It was definitely the CIA's fault that West Ham surrendered so meekly to Palace today. And if it wasn't them, it was definitely Mossad.

The CIA is always meddling, doing things like hacking Bangladeshi atheists to death, or murdering Boris Nemtsov, so that Vladimir Putin - surely the greatest and least camp leader who ever walked the earth, whose benificence, goodwill and sheer godlike genius and mercy puts the likes of Jesus to shame - is discredited, because nasty old Obama is so scared that the whole world adores kindly Vlad and is really jealous and he wants some of Vlad's glory.

If only we had a free media here in the West, like they do in Russia, we would know all these things, but we are lucky because we have Sharik, who is most definitely not a wazzock or a troll or a shill, to keep us informed of the truth.

nah, that was MI6 who did it.

if wanted to murder him, it was high time to do that 10 years ago when the man was still big, unlike what he's become now - a failure at politics, totally unpopular with Russians and not of any threat to Putin.

 and i'm not indeed.

A very good article about ISIS from the Atlantic magazine for anyone who has an interest beyond silly jokes:

http://www.theatlantic.com/fea...really-wants/384980/

Haim,

The tone of your post seems to suggest that silly jokes and an interest beyond silly jokes has to be mutually exclusive. I can't speak for others, but having spent a few years in troubled parts of the Middle East, I can assure you that silly jokes, jokes and an interest beyond both jokes and silly jokes is not mutually exclusive.

Cheers

Don

The CIA and Mossad don't need to waste their time carrying out covert operations. The US military killed tens of thousands of women and childen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Israeli military thousands in Palestine, with impunity. 

Of course the free press/media in the west report what goes on, but for some reason it doesn't stop. So much for free press.

No exclusivity here, Don, just a good article for people who are interested in going a little deeper. I am not asking anyone to loose his or her sense of humor.

Somewhat rambling.

I might give it another read.

Frank,

I just had a quick look on a random website - something like IBC - Iraq Body Count.

They don't look like a Gov sponsored org, quite the opposite, and although they claim to be impartial, I got a feeling that they weren't. They appear to be anti-the Iraq invasion. Their headline figures are in the region of 150,000 to 200,000 deaths in Iraq as a result of the US led invasion.

However, when I filtered the body count to show deaths caused by US led forces, the totals in the period 2003 to 2015 were about 15,000. I couldn't find an easy breakdown into fighters/civilians or into men/women/children. Nor could I find a breakdown into US v US led forces.

I'm only guessing therefore that most of these 15,000 deaths were fighters. The numbers of non-combatant men, women and children would appear to be significantly fewer and women and children even fewer still.

I haven't done a search on Afghanistan or Pakistan, but I nevertheless have reservations about your statement that "The US military killed tens of thousands of women and children" being factually correct.

More problematic is the context. The references in this thread to  the CIA, Mossad and Putin are in relation to deliberate, targeted killings. I do not believe that the US military deliberately targeted tens of thousands of innocent women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

In no way am I belittleing any deaths of innocent women and children by the US  military, or their allies. However, you figures would appear to be misleadingly sensational.

However, as I said, "a quick look at a random website". Perhaps you could direct me to your source ?

Don.

I googled Iraq Body Count and this site came up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-toll_n_4102855.html

It suggests the Iraq Body Count figures are under estimated, they use media reports, hospital and morgue records, and official and non-governmental accounts. It occurs to me, anybody on the receiving end of a bomb dropped by a B52 isn't going to need a hospital and morgue, they'd just disappear.

The figures in the link indicate 461,000 deaths, 70 percent of Iraq deaths from 2003-2011 were violent in nature, that's over 300,000.  Coalition forces were blamed for 35 percent of violent deaths, that's 100,000.

No indication how many where women and children, but the shelling and bombing of populated cities kills a lot, Gaza and Beirut are proof of that.

Nobody accurately knows how many where killed, so wild exaggerations either way will happen.

The point I was making is the free press is not all it's cracked up to be. Governments are openly killing innocent people, it's reported by the press/media, and still it carries on.

It wasn't the war that had the biggest impact on the Iraqi death toll.  The sanctions led to a situation where deaths of anywhere between 100,000 and 270,000 children in Iraq.

"UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight-year period 1991 to 1998.

As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.""

The guy who headed the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad resigned calling the program a genocide.  His successor also resigned in protest at what was happening.

Now war is a terrible thing and innocents can and do get killed but if it's truly accidental then that's one thing but for governments to impose the kind of humanitarian crisis that they knew was leading to so many deaths and to do nothing to stop or change it, what do we call that?  Civilised? What image does that promote of us?

I'd say it's a good shout we're as much responsible for the terrorism there as the terrorists.  We broke the country, it's government and all it's functionality which left a vacuum.

I remember the warnings before we went to war and they went unheeded.  Act first and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  There's no arguing the situation in Iraq is infinitely worse than what it was before we stormed in there.  That's before we even start on Libya and call me Dave wanting to bomb Syria.

Why are we as a population of white Brits not expected to have to go around making public apologies to the Muslim people for the actions of the government we vote and pay for in the way they're expected to come out and decry and apologise for every terrorist attack like the one's who attacked Hebdo?  I find it a bit of a double standard.

I agree with you in respect of the free press.

I disagree with your original comment about the US military, which now seems to have morphed into "Governments". There is a huge difference between deliberate targetted killings of men, women and children by the CIA, Mossad and Putin on the one hand and the actions of the US military in Iraq where some women and children no doubt did die in very, very unfortunate circumstances, but most certainly not in their tens of thousands.

Whether Iraq is better off or worse off without Saddam is a matter of conjecture. I stated on this forum at the time of the invasion that it was an unnecessary and ill-judge action. .

news to me that Putin ever ordered to kill civillians, not to mention how come he's on a par with the CIA and Mossad all of the sudden?