Oldskeptic wrote:
Anyone commenting in this thread should read the whole thing. It is the most balanced assessment of the situation that I have read.

Blip wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
Anyone commenting in this thread should read the whole thing. It is the most balanced assessment of the situation that I have read.

I've read it and I agree with this. Not only balanced, but offering a prescription too. Very much worth setting an hour aside to read.

michael^3 wrote:

Arnold Layne wrote:That's a very interesting article, thanks for that.

I wonder if Michael^3 will be along to comment on it?

Yes. The claim that IS is trying to implement a form of Islam is patently absurd. For one thing, the end of the world is decreed by God and he alone knows the hour. The idea that humans need to bring on Armageddon... good luck trying to find that in the Quran

Arnold Layne wrote:

michael^3 wrote:

Arnold Layne wrote:That's a very interesting article, thanks for that.

I wonder if Michael^3 will be along to comment on it?

Yes. The claim that IS is trying to implement a form of Islam is patently absurd. For one thing, the end of the world is decreed by God and he alone knows the hour. The idea that humans need to bring on Armageddon... good luck trying to find that in the Quran

Ah, that made up shit can't be true because of your made up shit.

The thing is, if you read the article properly, is that IS are saying that all other forms of Islam are incorrect and/or insufficient.

Blip wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
Anyone commenting in this thread should read the whole thing. It is the most balanced assessment of the situation that I have read.

I've read it and I agree with this. Not only balanced, but offering a prescription too. Very much worth setting an hour aside to read.

felltoearth wrote:

Blip wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
Anyone commenting in this thread should read the whole thing. It is the most balanced assessment of the situation that I have read.

I've read it and I agree with this. Not only balanced, but offering a prescription too. Very much worth setting an hour aside to read.

That'd be two hours for me, then.

The truth is, the Islamic State was destined for a short half-life anyway. It was contained by the Kurds in the north and
east and NATO’s second largest army and air force in the northwest. And it was surrounded by the Shiite crescent in
the populated, economically viable regions of lower Syria and Iraq.
So absent Washington’s misbegotten campaign to unseat Assad in Damascus and demonize his confession-
based Iranian ally, there would have been nowhere for the murderous fanatics who pitched a makeshift capital in
Raqqa to go. They would have run out of money, recruits, momentum and public acquiesce in their horrific rule in due
course.
But with the US Air Force functioning as their recruiting arm and France’s anti-Assad foreign policy helping to foment
a final spasm of anarchy in Syria, the gates of hell have been opened wide. What has been puked out is not an
organized war on Western civilization as Hollande so hysterically proclaimed in response to the mayhem of last
weekend.
It was just blowback carried out by that infinitesimally small salient of mentally deformed young men who can be
persuaded to strap on a suicide belt.
Needless to say, bombing wont stop them; it will just make more of them.
Ironically, what can stop them is the Assad government and the ground forces of its Hezbollah and the Iranian
Republican Guard allies. Its time to let them settle an ancient quarrel that has never been any of America’s business
anyway.
But Imperial Washington is so caught up in its myths, lies and hegemonic stupidity that it can not see the obvious.
And that is why a quarter century after the cold war ended peace still hasn’t been given a chance and the reason that
horrific events like last week’s barbarism in Paris still keep happening.

laklak wrote:Very interesting article. Yeah, I guess it's balanced, as balanced as you can get when writing about completely off the fucking wall batshit lunatic wild-eyed jibbering psychopaths. These ISIS dudes are fucking out there, man. It cements my views that the only way to deal with these people, if we choose to deal with them at all, is obliteration. They want Armageddon at Dabiq. Cool. Give it to them. Bring it up on Google Earth, what do you see? Open, flat farmland. No big population centers. You couldn't build a better place for a serious punch up if the world was Minecraft. And what do we do really, really well? Massed fucking armor with overwhelming air support. If we built it they would come, and we'd annihilate them.

In Islamic eschatology as found in the Hadith, the area of Dabiq is mentioned as a place of some of the events of the Muslim Malahim (which would equate to the Christian apocalypse, or Armageddon).[5][6] Abu Hurayrah, companion to Muhammad, reported in his Hadith that Muhammad said:

The Last Hour would not come until the Romans land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them).[7]

Scholars and hadith commentators suggest that the words Romans refers to Christians.[8] The hadith further relates the subsequent Muslim victory, followed by the peaceful takeover of Constantinople with invocations of takbir and tasbih, and finally the defeat of Anti-Christ following the return and descent of Jesus Christ.[9][10]

Armageddon (/ˌɑrməˈɡɛdᵊn/, from Ancient Greek: Ἁρμαγεδών Harmagedōn,[1][2] Late Latin: Armagedōn[3]) will be, according to the Book of Revelation, the site of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic sense to refer to any end of the world scenario.

The word "Armageddon" appears only once in the Greek New Testament, in Revelation 16:16. The word is translated to Greek from Hebrew har məgiddô (הר מגידו), har - Strong H2022 - meaning "a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figuratively): - hill (country), mount (-ain), X promotion." This is a shortened form of Harar - Strong H2042 - "to loom up; a mountain; -hill, mount". Megiddo - Strong מְגִדּוֹן H4023 /meg-id-do'/ "Megiddon or Megiddo, a place of crowds.")[4] "Mount" Tel Megiddo is not actually a mountain, but a tell (a hill created by many generations of people living and rebuilding on the same spot)[5] on which ancient forts were built to guard the Via Maris, an ancient trade route linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Megiddo was the location of various ancient battles, including one in the 15th century BC and one in 609 BC. Modern Megiddo is a town approximately 25 miles (40 km) west-southwest of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee in the Kishon River area.[6]

According to one premillennial Christian interpretation, Jesus will return to earth and defeat the Antichrist (the "beast"), the False Prophet and Satan the Devil in the Battle of Armageddon. Then Satan will be put into the "bottomless pit" or abyss for 1,000 years, known as the Millennium. After being released from the abyss, Satan will gather Gog and Magog from the four corners of the earth. They will encamp surrounding the "holy ones" and the "beloved city" (this refers to Jerusalem). Fire will come down from God, out of heaven and devour Gog and Magog. The Devil, death, hell, and those not found written in the Book of Life are then thrown into Gehenna (the lake of fire burning with brimstone).[7]

Megiddo is mentioned twelve times in the Old Testament, ten times in reference to the ancient city of Megiddo, and twice with reference to "the plain of Megiddo", most probably simply meaning "the plain next to the city".[8] None of these Old Testament passages describes the city of Megiddo as being associated with any particular prophetic beliefs. The one New Testament reference to the city of Armageddon found in Revelation 16:16 in fact also makes no specific mention of any armies being predicted to one day gather in this city, but instead seems to predict only that "they (will gather) the kings together to .... Armageddon".[9] The text does however seem to imply, based on the text from the earlier passage of Revelation 16:14, that the purpose of this gathering of kings in the "place called Armageddon" is "for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty". Because of the seemingly highly symbolic and even cryptic language of this one New Testament passage, some Christian scholars conclude that Mount Armageddon must be an idealized location.[10] Rushdoony says, "There are no mountains of Megiddo, only the Plains of Megiddo. This is a deliberate destruction of the vision of any literal reference to the place."[11] Other scholars, including C. C. Torrey, Kline and Jordan argue that the word is derived from the Hebrew moed (מועד), meaning "assembly". Thus, "Armageddon" would mean "Mountain of Assembly," which Jordan says is "a reference to the assembly at Mount Sinai, and to its replacement, Mount Zion."[10]

Clive Durdle wrote:Article from Atlantic reminded me I was brought up in a similar group with end times beliefs but without scimitars.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ts/384980/

It is not obvious to me that there is any actual strategy of response out there because I have never heard any senior politicians or news analysis for example on the BBC even beginning to think in these terms.

Smuggling fighters into France who had posed as refugees is likely to have been a deliberate and calculating move, designed to exploit fears among some about the potential security risk posed by accepting Syrian refugees. Islamic State likens refugees seeking a future in Europe to the fracturing of Islam into various encampments following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632AD. Most of these sects arose from divisions over who should succeed the Prophet in leadership of the Muslim community, but some went into open apostasy.

Viewing events in this way, Islamic State argues that any Muslim not backing its project is guilty of heresy. For refugees to be running from it in such large numbers is particularly humiliating: the group even ran an advert that juxtaposed an image of a camouflaged military jacket alongside that of a life vest. A caption read, “How would you rather meet Allah?”

An article published this year in Islamic State’s English-language magazine Dabiq made this very point. It noted that: “Now, with the presence of the Islamic State, the opportunity to perform hijrah [migration] from darul-kufr [the land of disbelief] to darul-Islam [the land of Islam] and wage jihad against the Crusaders . . . is available to every Muslim as well as the chance to live under the shade of the Shariah alone.”

Islamic State recognises that it cannot kill all of the refugees, but by exploiting European fears about their arrival and presence, they can at least make their lives more difficult and force them into rethinking their choice. All of this falls into a strategy where IS wants to eradicate what it calls the “grayzone” of coexistence...

Beyond the tendency of all totalitarian movements to move towards absolutism in their quest for dominance, Islamic State also believes that by polarising and dividing the world it will hasten the return of the messiah. Once again, eschatology reveals itself as an important motivating principle...

Arnold Layne wrote:Having had a check of "David Stockman's Contra Corner," I can't make out if he deliberately goes out of his way to be contrarian. Certainly, given the name of his site, it seems that way.

Having said that, US foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired, but it doesn't mean...unless he is completely right.....that religion plays little part in what is happening. After all, sects were discriminated against in all these countries with dictators based on their religion, mostly. Granted, the removal of the dictators was more than short-sighted.