Manhattan explosion

[A'isha]

There is no doubt that separatism can incite terrorism.

True, which is why it's included in the Europol terrorism report and why your attempts to remove it are entirely illegitimate.

There is also no doubt that separatism can not incite Jihadi terrorism in EU.

False - that very thing is listed in the reports as a risk that Europol is preparing for.

Therefore it is entirely legitimate to exclude separatism to get a true background value.

No, since both are terrorism, and therefore both are included when discussing terrorism in the EU (as the report is). The "background value" is terrorism from all sources, which is what the report discusses.

So according to you, I said the number of the attacks was the sole factor in the post where I explicitly pointed out a Hadith that was also a factor.

No, you tried to claim, falsely, that the number of jihadist attacks was both higher than the number of non-jihadist attacks and higher as a percent of terrorist attacks than the percent of the Muslim population.

The hadith thing had nothing to do with that.

No, nothing of the sort. The process started small and it took some 150 years to get a critical mass, which then resulted in various unsavory actions (like genocides over Jews and the like). It's like an exponential function, which starts low and advances very slowly at first, but the process increases, well, exponentially.

So magic switch it is, then.

Obviously I'm completely innocent of what will most likely happen to you at the end. I'm doing my best to prevent the genocide over your people.

By telling us to meet your demands. Just like Anjem Choudary is trying to prevent terrorist attacks against infidels by urging them to meet his demands. Isn't he such a generous and considerate man?

Also please explain to me how is it "my side" that will be doing things to you, when I'm actively trying to sabotage them before they even begin.

Yes, "sabotage" them by telling us to give in to all their demands so they don't kill us.

It's kind of surreal, really. You remind me of a cancer patient

I am a cancer patient.

And you're not actually treating me like the patient. You're treating me like the disease.

 

[McHrozni]

No, since both are terrorism, and therefore both are included when discussing terrorism in the EU (as the report is). The "background value" is terrorism from all sources, which is what the report discusses.

If we stay with the cancer analogy, if you want to determine whether X causes cancer in an observational study, you will look for a set of individuals, determine how many were exposed to X and got cancer and how many out of the entire population got cancer. This is where your study stops.
An honest scientist will tell you that people who are exposed to X are also more likely to be exposed to Y, which is a known cancerogen, and less likely to be exposed to Z, another known cancerogen. An honest study will adjust for both variables (i.e. look for only people who are not exposed to Y or Z, or else adjust those risks in other ways), and thus obtain better results. It's exactly the same with separatists in EU - there are no Jihadi Breton nationalists, no Jihadi Basque separatists, no Jihadi Corsican nationalists, therefore those sources of terrorism are a known confounder and should be excluded to get an accurate result.

Your observation is no better than vegetarians who claim that eating meat is unhealthy, because meat eaters smoke more cigarettes and exercise less. Their claim involves cancer and stroke obviously, but the claim, once you fit in what is known, is exactly as I wrote it.

You absolutely refuse to touch any other point with a parsec-long pole, which is where I will tell you this proves you are wrong and should seriously reconsider your positions.

By telling us to meet your demands.

No, by telling you to heed my advice. You're free to continue sticking your head in the sand if you think that will work. The analogy with a doctor telling a cancer patient he will die a horrible death if he doesn't do as he says is entirely appropriate, except this patient retorts he will not heed any death threats and storms out of the office in the direction of the lawyer, because the doctor threatened him

You guys are too proud for your own good.

I am a cancer patient.

Yes, yes, I've heard that one before. Your point?

And you're not actually treating me like the patient. You're treating me like the disease.

Islam is the disease, Muslims are the sufferers and carriers. You continue to pretend that is one and the same, but I can never quite figure out why. Care to explain?

It would be a whole lot easier if the problem was all Muslims and not Islam. The solution then would be painful but straightforward. However Muslims are actually victims of an ideology conjured up by a 7th century robber baron in Arabia, in order for him to have unlimited sex and seek vengeance on people who made fun of him earlier in life. One of the main problems of his version of reality is that it allows for no criticism and no questioning of the faith. The results are obvious and plentiful in this very thread.

You are the patient, I seek to cure your disease, and you call that threatening you. I tell you what to do to cure the disease and you tell me that I'm treating you like a disease I tell you what will happen to you if you don't heed my advice and you retort that in that case maybe it's not your ideology that's the problem

Just so you know, I actually care more about your peoples' well-being than they do. Keep that in mind, will you?

McHrozni

 

[Dipayan]

As an uninvolved bystander with a neutral stance, I would just like to chime in now to say that A'isha seems to be making a lot of strong, rational points supported by data. McHrozni seems to be fixated on only his POV, and trying to cherry pick data to support his worldview.

Merely from this exchange, I am more convinced by A'isha's arguments.

 

[McHrozni]

As an uninvolved bystander with a neutral stance, I would just like to chime in now to say that A'isha seems to be making a lot of strong, rational points supported by data. McHrozni seems to be fixated on only his POV, and trying to cherry pick data to support his worldview.

Merely from this exchange, I am more convinced by A'isha's arguments.

Merely as someone who is mentioned in your comment, I think you haven't red the exchange at all and are merely making a comment based on your preexisting views.

McHrozni

 

[smartcooky]

As an uninvolved bystander with a neutral stance, I would just like to chime in now to say that A'isha seems to be making a lot of strong, rational points supported by data. McHrozni seems to be fixated on only his POV, and trying to cherry pick data to support his worldview.

Merely from this exchange, I am more convinced by A'isha's arguments.

Yet, I find it the other way around.

McHronzi isn't cherry picking data, he is (rightly IMO) excluding data that bears no relevance!

 

[marplots]

There's another option available to us.

Instead of fighting Islam and Jihadis, we could simply join them and adopt Islam for ourselves. It's quite possible that the new, US based neo-Islam could alter the landscape dramatically.

Do we pray 5 times a day? No way, we pray 10! With the updated "blink prayer" you simply close your eyes for a moment while envisioning Mecca and in a short second you're done.

Holidays? You want holidays? US-Lam adds all your traditional middle-eastern holidays to our existing list. Dress up as your favorite Koranic character for the five-day festival of Halloween-Ramadan. No fasting in this version, but you are only allowed to eat candy!

And have you seen our latest in Burka fashions? You'll love the Burka-Bling line with the LEDs and rhinestones.

 

[McHrozni]

Yet, I find it the other way around.

McHronzi isn't cherry picking data, he is (rightly IMO) excluding data that bears no relevance!

Thanks. I also try to include data that bears relevance. A'isha is fixated on the number of executed attacks, in a specific area of the world, in a certain time frame. She is completely unwilling to talk about the severity of those attacks, the reasons behind those attacks or the situation with Islam around the world.

She responds to that one statistic, which is only relatively weakly against her, and then tries to present that this one statistic as the sole standard by which to judge Islam.

To demonstrate how twisted this is, European Muslim population is roughly 10 million people, and A'isha insists - insists - we should judge Islam solely by one indicator (chosen by her and disputed by others) of the behavior of those 10 million people, and use no other methods whatsoever.

So she really should answer not only why that should be the sole standard, but also why shouldn't we use a different subset of Muslims to judge Islam by? Why not use solely the Pakistanis who support extremists? That's more than 10 million people, easy.

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf

In fact, about 70 million of them (give or take) think family planning is wrong, and less than half oppose 'honor' killings, less than one in ten would allow their child to marry outside of faith ... and so on. It's an interesting poll to look over, page 132 is interesting for this forum, 15 and 139 for this topic, and so on. Judging from this study, they're actually more representative of Islam than A'ishas chosen demographic.

The totality of evidence is clear. A'isha clings to the sole straw that shows it only weakly, and pretends this means the rest of the evidence doesn't exist. Funny, that.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

There's another option available to us.

Instead of fighting Islam and Jihadis, we could simply join them and adopt Islam for ourselves. It's quite possible that the new, US based neo-Islam could alter the landscape dramatically.

Yeah, let's all be Muslim and inter-faith conflict will disappear. We'd all have loads and loads of intra-faith conflict, which tends to last longer and be a lot bloodier, but at least the inter-faith conflict would disappear. As would scientific and humanist progress, but that's another story.

McHrozni

 

[marplots]

Yeah, let's all be Muslim and inter-faith conflict will disappear. We'd all have loads and loads of intra-faith conflict, which tends to last longer and be a lot bloodier, but at least the inter-faith conflict would disappear. As would scientific and humanist progress, but that's another story.

McHrozni

We have plenty of science already. Science isn't going to protect us. Time to try Allah.

 

[A'isha]

A'isha is fixated on the number of executed attacks

Actually, I specifically chose the Europol report because their totals include not just the number of executed attacks, but also the number of attempted but failed attacks and the number of attacks that were stopped by the authorities before they could even be attempted.

And those combined totals for jihadist terrorism are still a tiny fraction of the totals for other sources of terrorism.

So she really should answer not only why that should be the sole standard, but also why shouldn't we use a different subset of Muslims to judge Islam by?

Because Europe is one of the main places where Islam and "the West" come into sustained contact, making it a prime location for the kind of drastic conflict we'd be seeing if your interpretations and assertions were correct. And, as the Europol combined totals show, we simply don't see that kind of conflict there.

 

[smartcooky]

There's another option available to us.

Instead of fighting Islam and Jihadis, we could simply join them and adopt Islam for ourselves. It's quite possible that the new, US based neo-Islam could alter the landscape dramatically.

Which subset of Islam would that be... Sunni? Shi'ite?, Sufi? Baha'i? Alawis? Ahmadiyyas?

These people routinely murder each other over the colour of their clothes and/or the length of their beards...it would not end the conflict.

 

[McHrozni]

And those combined totals for jihadist terrorism are still a tiny fraction of the totals for other sources of terrorism.

In EU, you mean. Where Muslim population is an even tinier minority, and Jihadis are still the main cause of terrorist deaths. You keep ignoring those without giving a justification.

Because Europe is one of the main places where Islam and "the West" come into sustained contact, making it a prime location for the kind of drastic conflict we'd be seeing if your interpretations and assertions were correct.

Mm, yeah. Europe is indeed the place where Islam and the West come into sustained contact indeed. I wouldn't open THAT can of worms if I were you though, for several fairly obvious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade#Rise_of_the_Barbary_Pirates

That said, one of highly important issues with Islam is also that it is inherently incompatible with a free and democratic society and results in copious amounts of intra-religious conflict. These problems don't even register in Europe, because the Muslim population is (thankfully) still small enough as not to overwhelm the existing institutions and values. Europe is a place where Muslim population has increased in the past decades, and we only see the beginnings of an inter-religious conflict, which occurred because immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into a culture they fled to, and prefer to keep the culture they fled from. For a good number of reasons this conflict only shows the bare fringes of the levels of conflict Islam usually brings about. The only reason EU is debated is because EU doesn't oppress anyone, lest of all Muslims, it doesn't discriminate against Muslims (yet), and the other usual excuses of foreign interference, lack of opportunities in education, economy and politics simply don't apply. Your assertion that modern Europe should be the centerpiece of conflict with Islam is entirely inappropriate. It used to be though, as little as 200 years ago. I wouldn't go into that if I were you, besides we're discussing modern Islam.

When put into a modern, civilized society, Muslims still present a measurably larger terror threat than the general population. This evidence, combined with the horrendous levels of Islamic violence and terrorism elsewhere in the world, incompatible with levels non-Muslims resort to in similar conditions, Islamic holy literature that contains copious amounts of supremacism, racism, misogyny and justifications for those, alongside the fact loads of Muslims subscribe and obey those commands, and polls which show alarming levels of support for them (double digit support is almost universal), as well as consistent refusal to even discuss these issues by virtually all Muslims we know of, amounts to irrefutable proof Islam is a massive source of problems all by itself.

I'm trying to make sure Islam doesn't turn into all Muslims, whereas you're doing your very best to ensure it does. Somehow that makes me a bigot. Go figure

And, as the Europol combined totals show, we simply don't see that kind of conflict there.

They do, but you simply ignore the data that shows it. You remind me of 9/11 Twoofers, honestly.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Which subset of Islam would that be... Sunni? Shi'ite?, Sufi? Baha'i? Alawis? Ahmadiyyas?

These people routinely murder each other over the colour of their clothes and/or the length of their beards...it would not end the conflict.

It would end the inter-religious conflict and move it to a much worse intra-religious conflict.

I see no reason why that would be preferable, but I don't think he's particularly serious either.

McHrozni

 

[Dipayan]

Yet, I find it the other way around.

McHronzi isn't cherry picking data, he is (rightly IMO) excluding data that bears no relevance!

If the topic of conversation is 'terrorism', how would it make sense to remove 'separatist terrorism' from the numbers? Unless you look at terrorism as a whole, how are you supposed to figure out how big a role Islamist terrorism plays? Do terrorism victims care if it was separatist terrorism or Isamist terrorism that killed them?

 

[A'isha]

In EU, you mean. Where Muslim population is an even tinier minority

It's a larger minority than in the US. And yet the percentage of successful, failed, or foiled attacks by jihadists in the EU is smaller than the percentage of the Muslim population in the EU. If the "baseline terrorism rate" of a population should be, as your theory has it, equal to the percentage of that population, then Muslims in Europe are less likely to be terrorists than your theory predicts, not more.

From 2006 to 2015, there were 3220 successful, failed, and foiled terrorist attacks in the EU. 38 of those attacks were jihadist attacks, or 1.18%. In 2010, the Muslim population of the EU was 3.8% (though most Muslims in the EU are concentrated in just a handful of countries: 7.5% of the 2010 population in France, 5.9% of the 2010 population in Belgium, 5.8% of the 2010 population in Germany, and 4.6-4.8% of the 2010 population in Sweden and the UK).

Mm, yeah. Europe is indeed the place where Islam and the West come into sustained contact indeed. I wouldn't open THAT can of worms if I were you though, for several fairly obvious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade#Rise_of_the_Barbary_Pirates

Ah, right, the Barbary Pirate nonsense. Again. I'm surprised you didn't start ranting about the 1683 Siege of Vienna, too.

And in any case, I wasn't talking about international conflicts between states three hundred years ago, but about population admixture in the present day.

That said, one of highly important issues with Islam is also that it is inherently incompatible with a free and democratic society

For you, maybe. Most Muslims in Europe and America don't have any problem with that whatsoever.

When put into a modern, civilized society, Muslims still present a measurably larger terror threat than the general population.

Nope. And if you actually believed in the purported reasoning you say you use, you'd be freaking the **** out about Basques, not Muslims.

 

[Giz]

From 2006 to 2015, there were 3220 successful, failed, and foiled terrorist attacks in the EU. 38 of those attacks were jihadist attacks, or 1.18%.

Honest question: do you really think that jihadists pose about 1 percent of the terrorist threat to the EU? (Aka, do you think those 3220 "terrorist" attacks are all comparable?)

 

[A'isha]

Honest question: do you really think that jihadists pose about 1 percent of the terrorist threat to the EU? (Aka, do you think those 3220 "terrorist" attacks are all comparable?)

Okay, then I'll give you an honest answer, to the best of my ability.

I don't really think "threat" can be meaningfully measured by looking at percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population (not least because ten individuals carrying out one terror attack each and one individual carrying out ten attacks will both result in the same overall percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population, but they don't at all imply the same level of threat from that population [EDIT: I don't consider "terror threat from an entire population of people", whether based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion, to even be a valid, much less useful, thing to be measuring in the first place]). I was using McHrozni's own claims that you can measure the terrorism threat by looking at percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population to show that his own methodology doesn't actually prove what he says it proves.

I think jihadist terror is currently a major threat that needs to be heavily focused on, especially given ISIS' apparent reliance on emergent copycat behavior rather than direct recruiting for its attacks in Europe and America (their direct recruits seem to be funneled more into the fight in Syria and Iraq), which is immensely harder to guard against than the "traditional" terror plot carried out by organized cells.

I also think that said current jihadist terror threat is contextual and situational, rooted in the particular combination of geopolitics, religion, and ideology that presently exists, and is not the result of some kind of broad historical trend, inevitable theological process, or grand clash of civilizations. The threat that exists today is not the same threat, in either type or extent, that existed a few decades ago (or even just a few years ago) - ISIS attacks have almost completely displaced Al Qaeda attacks in the US and Europe, and while separatist terror attacks used to be far more of a threat to Europe than jihadist attacks, with the peace deals in Northern Ireland and Spain and the rise of ISIS, the two types of threats appear to be switching places. And a few decades hence it will undoubtedly be different again, with entirely different threats caused by different players with different ideologies. To think otherwise is, in my opinion, simply a form of is-ought fallacy - "this is the way things are right now, therefore this is the way they're supposed to be/always have been/are going to be in the future".

 

[Giz]

I don't really think "threat" can be meaningfully measured by looking at percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population (not least because ten individuals carrying out one terror attack each and one individual carrying out ten attacks will both result in the same overall percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population, but they don't at all imply the same level of threat from that population). I was using McHrozni's own claims that you can measure the terrorism threat by looking at percentage of terrorist attacks vs. percentage of population to show that his own methodology doesn't actually prove what he says it proves.

At the same time, France and Belgium appear to be suffering far more than Hungary or Poland. There does seem to be some kind of a population link (as Mao said, the “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”) Y

I think jihadist terror is currently a major threat that needs to be heavily focused on, especially given ISIS' apparent reliance on emergent copycat behavior rather than direct recruiting for its attacks in Europe and America (their direct recruits seem to be funneled more into the fight in Syria and Iraq), which is immensely harder to guard against than the "traditional" terror plot carried out by organized cells.

Yes, it’s a question of countering ideology (and stopping the funding behind radical islam). The issue is the relative attractiveness... a real problem is the immature muslim 20 year old, faced with a choice between an apologetic western culture in which his status is uncertain, or a supremacist jihadism in which he is glorified and conceives of himself in an apocalyptic Manichean role. That’s a heady cocktail for a lot of young males.

I rather think that we need to blow the horn of Western culture and hard won progress a bit more loudly in schools – there’s an inspiring story in the growth of popular representation, individual rights etc.

I also think that said current jihadist terror threat is contextual and situational, rooted in the particular combination of geopolitics, religion, and ideology that presently exists, and is not the result of some kind of broad historical trend, inevitable theological process, or grand clash of civilizations. The threat that exists today is not the same threat, in either type or extent, that existed a few decades ago (or even just a few years ago) - ISIS attacks have almost completely displaced Al Qaeda attacks in the US and Europe, and while separatist terror attacks used to be far more of a threat to Europe than jihadist attacks, with the peace deals in Northern Ireland and Spain and the rise of ISIS, the two types of threats appear to be switching places. And a few decades hence it will undoubtedly be different again, with entirely different threats caused by different players with different ideologies. To think otherwise is, in my opinion, simply a form of is-ought fallacy - "this is the way things are right now, therefore this is the way they're supposed to be/always have been/are going to be in the future".

Certainly "this is the way things are right now, therefore this is the way they're supposed to be/always have been/are going to be in the future" is a fallacy. But that doesn't mean that Islamist attacks in Europe will fade. It could be that (as demographic changes intensify) casualties from jihadist attacks in Europe approach the level currently seen in the Middle East.

 

[A'isha]

At the same time, France and Belgium appear to be suffering far more than Hungary or Poland. There does seem to be some kind of a population link

I think it's more complex than that, since the US suffers far more than European countries with the same percentage of population (and even more than some countries with a higher percentage of population) [EDIT: And the increase among those particular populations hasn't really been large enough to explain the changing incident rate and resulting threat level over the past few years].

Yes, it’s a question of countering ideology (and stopping the funding behind radical islam). The issue is the relative attractiveness... a real problem is the immature muslim 20 year old, faced with a choice between an apologetic western culture in which his status is uncertain, or a supremacist jihadism in which he is glorified and conceives of himself in an apocalyptic Manichean role. That’s a heady cocktail for a lot of young males.

I don't actually disagree with a lot of that. The reluctance of jihadists to recruit those Muslims who are more grounded in their religion means there fortunately appear to be multiple options for ways to combat the apparent appeal of the jihadist ideology, if a way can be found to take advantage of all those options.

Certainly "this is the way things are right now, therefore this is the way they're supposed to be/always have been/are going to be in the future" is a fallacy. But that doesn't mean that Islamist attacks in Europe will fade.

Doesn't mean they won't, either. But I never claimed to be able to predict the future.

It could be that (as demographic changes intensify) casualties from jihadist attacks in Europe approach the level currently seen in the Middle East.

I personally am doubtful about that, particularly the issue of demographic changes, given both the lack of direct link between those demographic changes and the terrorism threat and the previous pattern of those kinds of changes. I understand that this is one of the major points of contention in discussions like this, though.

 

[EHocking]

At the same time, France and Belgium appear to be suffering far more than Hungary or Poland..

Probably due to these countries' "militant" secularism (particularly France's) which particularly targeted Islamic "religious" dress, such as full veils.

While France seems to be more universal in their determination to ban religious adornment in public, Belgium only seems to target Islamic veils.

Despite the current headlines, this persecution of religion (as some undoubtedly would see it) has been pursued in France and Belgium for over a decade.
A ripe environment for stirring up discord with the "oppressed".