*ban
Dr. Shah Dupesh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WooRSfbrrtM

radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.

*ban
Attorney Shah Peerally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZMLkiOzD6k

@Asmo

On your comment:

The CIA's role in the 1953 Iran ouster is generally exaggerated. Several things - (1) by 1953, the Islamic clergy supported Mossadeq's ouster, something they have been suppressing ever since in inflating their anti-US stance (2) by the time of his ouster he also lacked the support of either his parliament or the people, (3) prior to it that year, he deposed his disapproving parliament with a clearly fraudulent 99% of the vote in a national referendum, (4) strictly speaking Iran was still a monarchy and the shah deposed his PM legally under the constitution, something that Mossadeq refused to abide by.

Did the UK put economic pressure on Iran when it threatened to nationalize its oil and usurp its remnants of imperialism? Sure. Did the UK then convince Eisenhower to mount a political and propaganda campaign against Mossadeq? Sure. Was that instrumental in fomenting a popular uprising of the parliament, the clergy and large portions of the 20m general population against him? Probably not.

Also I listened to it. Really, it's a meandering, probably scripted (the parts where he feigns surprise at the questioning is particularly humorous) that tries to generalize US actions, some of which were obviously harmful and support his argument. Putting Stalin in a positive light relative to the willingness of the US to use the bomb is, amusing? I'm not sure what to call it.

That the US needs a common threat to unite against holds some grains of truth in the present day but is really part of a wider narrative by Putin to construct the US as imperalist and domineering when by all accounts since the end of the Cold War, excluding GWB's term, it has been pulling back. It hardly needed to invent Iran's covert nuclear ambitions in the early 2000s, NK's saber rattling or China's stakes on the South China Sea islands.

Modern US foreign policy largely relies on reciprocation. The US provides a military alliance and counterweight to China's military for small SE Asian nations at a hefty cost to itself, and presumably gets various trade concession and voting support in various international agencies. The key word being reciprocation, something that Russia could learn a fair bit from in its own foreign policy.

Okay, so it's not a spontaneous and challenging interview but rather a soapbox for his philosophical meanderings.

And that makes him wrong how..?

A lot of the stuff he says is bang on the money, particular as it regards America's actions and stances. Iran is a perfect example. It wouldn't be climbing back from being a fundamentalist state if the US hadn't deposed the democratically elected leader and installed the Shah all those years ago. Which eventually precipitated Ayatollah Khomeni's rise to power as a fundamentalist leader by overthrowing the Shah... Now Israel, and ergo the US, rail against Iran being able to have nuclear power because they are a rogue state, but they are only a rogue state because of western interventionism.

You might not think much of the guy (I don't personally), but you can assess the truth of his words for yourself can't you? He's saying things that plenty of people think or understand, but few care to actually speak out about it. Yup, it's borderline propaganda, so approach it with a critical eye, but a lot of what he talks about is bang on.

So apparently this happens quite a bit on overnight trains. Found numerous articles including the following.

http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/train-theft-p3/

"KNOCK-OUT GAS ON OVERNIGHT TRAINS - Atul and Smriti Shah experienced it first-hand. “It happened during the night,” they concluded. “The entire compartment was sprayed with some sort of gas that knocked us out. Then our suitcase was slowly extracted from under our seat, the lock twisted loose and, with all the time in the world, the suitcase was looted....”"

R-Shah has been seconded for banination by Barseps. This account will now be disabled. If you would like to appeal this banination, R-Shah, you may contact the administrators.

R-Shah has been nominated for banination by kulpims. This may be due to abuse or violations of the posting guidelines. If this nomination is seconded, the account will be permanently disabled.

To a certain extent, but unfortunately a charismatic (or dictatorial) leadership, or even parents passing on their belief systems to their children, can create or enforce ideals that can shape society. Many people still adhere to religion because "that's the way it's always been", not because the religion actually fits their personal ethics...

In general, I do actually agree with you in regards to the concept that secularity tends to lead to enlightenment, but there are plenty of secular countries that are authoritarian/despotic (North Korea being a shining example), violent and considerably backwards compared to countries which have a high proportion of religious people and freedom. Unfortunately, enlightenment leads to arrogance as well.

The continual push by the media/politicians etc to classify Muslims as a homogenous whole smacks more of an attempt to play on xenophobia and racism than any factual evidence.

Particularly when the enlightened country making the most noise about it has "In God We Trust" printed on their currency. Compound that with provoking and polarising moderate Muslims by marginalising and insulting them? Enlightenment does not preclude gross stupidity.

A simple look at the US (secular mind you) shows stark differences between the north and the south, red states and blue states etc. You're proposing that 1.5 bn people (that would be ~5 times more people than the entire population of the US) spread across most countries in the world are somehow tightly aligned purely because they share a religion that is as varied as any other in the world?

And the mean truth? The arrogance and presumption of "enlightened neighbours" are part of the reasons why certain countries are as they are...

Iran is a classic example. The US (all enlightened and shit) engineers the coup that deposes a democratically elected Prime Minister hailed as a leading champion of secular democracy. And when the Shah was overthrown, it was by fundamentalists lead by Ayatollah Khomeini, ushering in an era of strict theocracy and an abiding hatred of the US.

Your last paragraph highlights the problem perfectly. We have two media reporters, deliberately or ignorantly, disseminating false information which would probably lead to discrimination against Muslims. How ethical is it to incite an entire country to hate over the actions of a tiny percentage of the whole? How ethical is it to ignore humanitarian disasters in countries which have no strategic or natural resource value (and places where no white people have been beheaded)?

And when presented with empirical truth, how ethical is it to refuse to accept it?

The reason Iran hates the US...

Years of interference, supporting the Shah's oppressive regime, supporting Saddam in Iraq v Iran, constantly interfering in domestic politics, constant support of Israel's interference in Iran...

You bully a country long enough and they're going to have a grudge against you, surprise sur-fucking-prise...

If you can simplify the actors in the deal down to just singular American and Iranian entities that have been immutable and unchanged over the decades then I'd be inclined to agree.

The thing is, the popular Iranian revolution against the Shah(and America by proxy) was essentially hijacked by the Ayatollah and his crew to form the state that they wanted. Within Iran public opinions are diverse, not much unlike in America. Things have changed over the years and American and Iranian policies can't be judged solely and only on what happened 30+ years ago, the current realities need to be recognized too.

America isn't the only aggressor today. Iranian leadership isn't merely loudly threatening to wipe out the west and even more vehemently Israel. Iran is actively training, equipping and funding military forces like Hezbollah that ARE launching direct attacks at Israel itself.

The issue is not as simple as America/Iran did this nasty thing and so they are wrong and the other is right. Both sides have legitimate grievances and cause for concern/mistrust. Bridging that is tough. IMHO, the fact that the Iranian government seems to trust it's own people less than America does is a big reason I mistrust their leadership more, but that's me.

It's a more sinister piece of propaganda than that though, at least in that it IS citing true facts. For all the quotes save for those from the newly elected president(which I just haven't searched) there exists written and video evidence of the attributed quotes and none of the leaders quoted would deny them.

The propaganda part is in completely leaving out the reasons for the overthrow of the Shah, who was running a brutal regime of his own over the Iranian people. If the American support for the Shah wasn't enough reason for mistrust of America, there was the American backing of Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war that saw hundreds of thousands of Iranians killed in Saddam's war of aggression. That war included some of the most prolific use of chemical weapons in, well, pretty much ever and the use was entirely against the Iranians. The public support for anti-American sentiment didn't come out of a vacuum.

That said, the mistrust cuts both ways and with Iranian leadership promising death to America and Israel for the last couple decades while steadily building up the infrastructure required to build nuclear weapons is legitimately cause for concern too.

Sorry, I think that got long and preachy.

Regimes supported

Juan Vicente Gomez, Venezuela, 1908-1935.
Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931-1944.
Fulgencio Batista, Republic of Cuba 1952-1959.
Syngman Rhee, Republic of Korea (South Korea), 1948-1960.
Rafael Trujillo, Dominican Republic, 1930-1961.[citation needed]
Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), 1955-1963.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran, 1953-1979.
Anastasio Somoza Garcia, Nicaragua, 1967-1979.
Military Junta in Guatemala, 1954-1982.
Military Junta in Bolivia, 1964-1982.[citation needed]
Military Junta in Argentina, 1976-1983.
Brazilian military government, 1964-1985.
François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Republic of Haiti, 1957-1971; 1971-1986.[citation needed]
Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay, 1954-1989.[citation needed]
Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1965-1986.[8][9]
General Manuel Noriega, Republic of Panama, 1983-1989.
General Augusto Pinochet, Chile, 1973-1990.
Saddam Hussein, Republic of Iraq, 1982-1990.
General (military), Suharto Republic of Indonesia, 1975-1995.
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire/Congo, 1965-1997.
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, 1981-2011.
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Kingdom of Bahrain, 2012.
Saudi royal family, 2012.
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan, 1991-2012.[10]
Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia, 1995-2012.[11]
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea, 2006-2012.[12]

QM, Mossadegh's effort to nationalize his nation's oil was not a threat to the United States. For one, they were not doing it to make a political point against any government; so, the Iranians had no interest in withholding oil from any customers. What they wanted were the revenues and profits from the oil coming out of their own land; which would have hurt British interests, or more specifically, the precursor to BP. The US got involved because of cold war ideology. Also, our governments were not in conflict at the time; Mossadegh even visited the states at least once.

Your proposition that they would have eventually overthrown Mossadegh is faulty on a number of points. First of all, Mossadegh was an elderly man who could not have lasted a couple of decades. Secondly, he was a prime minister in a democracy with many thriving factions. Like in all democracies, his administration would have eventually been voted out. Also, the Islamic fundies in Iran developed as a direct result of the Shah's brutality. The Persians had one of the richest, intellectual and tolerant cultures in the region, beforehand, IMO. If their democracy had had a chance to mature and thrive, they could have been a major positive force in the region. Why would people in possession of wealth and democracy overthrow their own government?

It's a very interesting story, documented in the book All the Shah's Men, if you are interested in learning more.

>> ^quantumushroom:

@ChaosEngine Thank you for your more civil tone of late. Am I surprised that someone reached for the mouse to downvote MY comment while ignoring THIS?

Stukafox: There's only two kinds of Republicans: Corporate tools and complete psychopaths.

The Blame America First mindset is very real. It's taught in our public schools government indoctrination centers from K thru kollij. "Anarchist" Gnome Chompsky has made millions off this bizarre worldview, which glibly ignores the 100 million murdered by communist regimes and the defeat of fascism (and rebuilding of Europe) by the United States.
As for the charge of US meddling in Iran, the reality is we have interests around the world, things we want to buy and nations that want to sell. Glancing at wikipedia: when the elected government nationalized the Iranian oil industry, that was a threat to both Britain and the US.
Yeah, the Shah was an a-hole, but he was replaced with an even bigger a-hole, an islamic fundie. So instead of utopian perfection, we had an evil replaced with a greater evil. (And who's to say had Prime Minister Mosaddegh kept power through the 1970s, he wouldn't have been overthrown by Khomeini anyway)?
There is not any one era when international relations was superior and reasonable, just brief burps where there was an odd peace.
If you want to celebrate red china for "putting America in its place" like our idiot excuse of a president does, you better damned well understand what you're favoring: a ruthless communist regime that kills people as easily as you throw away coat hangers.

@ChaosEngine Thank you for your more civil tone of late. Am I surprised that someone reached for the mouse to downvote MY comment while ignoring THIS?

Stukafox: There's only two kinds of Republicans: Corporate tools and complete psychopaths.

The Blame America First mindset is very real. It's taught in our public schools government indoctrination centers from K thru kollij. "Anarchist" Gnome Chompsky has made millions off this bizarre worldview, which glibly ignores the 100 million murdered by communist regimes and the defeat of fascism (and rebuilding of Europe) by the United States.

As for the charge of US meddling in Iran, the reality is we have interests around the world, things we want to buy and nations that want to sell. Glancing at wikipedia: when the elected government nationalized the Iranian oil industry, that was a threat to both Britain and the US.

Yeah, the Shah was an a-hole, but he was replaced with an even bigger a-hole, an islamic fundie. So instead of utopian perfection, we had an evil replaced with a greater evil. (And who's to say had Prime Minister Mosaddegh kept power through the 1970s, he wouldn't have been overthrown by Khomeini anyway)?

There is not any one era when international relations was superior and reasonable, just brief burps where there was an odd peace.

If you want to celebrate red china for "putting America in its place" like our idiot excuse of a president does, you better damned well understand what you're favoring: a ruthless communist regime that kills people as easily as you throw away coat hangers.