VerrKol Wrote:This is a terrific (and terrible) example of victim blaming. While their are certainly sources of support that like to feign helplessness (looking at you "rogue" Saudi nobles), you cannot forget that Muslims are taking far greater casualties in this war against ISIS and other extremists. The West certainly does shoulder some of the responsibility for destabilizing the region and inadvertently creating an environment where political and religious extremism can flourish.
Actually, the reason we're "losing" is because it's really pineappleing hard for large modern armies to kill gorilla fighters. We have a virtually infinite number of fixed targets to defend with limited resources (not even considering we're fighting with our hands tied behind our backs) while our opponents are either A) incognito and hiding among innocent populations or B) caliphate soldiers which aren't a threat beyond the region except as they contribute to A.
The religious (subsection) motivations for these attacks are both paramount and immaterial (yes that's a paradox). It's immaterial to ask why these attacks happen because there's nothing special about Islam that incites violence. Plenty of other excuses have and will be used to brainwash new soldiers. The cold reality for Western countries is that all the advanced technology in the world cannot stop every idiot with an AK or garden variety explosives from going on a rampage. These weapons are just too easily obtainable and there's no easy way to change that.
Our inability to control the weapon makes the ability to control the attacker, and most importantly their motivations, paramount. Look at why some countries have much lower violent crime rates. There are a lot of factors involved, but in stable nations it basically boils down to socioeconomic status and culture. If there's a perception of an inability to advance within the system like climbing the economic ladder, it can build to a point of action. That action may be non-violent protests, political turnover, outright military revolt, or anything in between. In the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, this frequently occurs with autocratic dictators and religious oligarchies pointing the finger at the West in order to shape the outcry from disenfranchised populations that pose a potential danger to the regime if left unchecked.
I think the West has two paradigms to chose from:
1. Effectively accept the current state of affairs and the occasional domestic attack as the price of current liberties. Minimize the actual war effort to maintain the status quo and reduce war footing as much as possible. Basically say "not my problem" to any unstable regions
2. Actively invest in long term sustainable but complex and nuanced solutions which target the underlying motivations for both political instability and radicalization motivations. This will almost certainly devolve into creating new problems as we attempt to solve old ones.
3. Kill 'em all and let God(s) sort it out. Alternatively known as Nuke it 'til it glows. (not serious)
Satellite; Bit of a low blow since Trump doesn't write his own tweets. The usual prayers and condolences are empty gestures anyway. The lack of proper punctuation irritates me more than the political miss step.
If you can forgive me for keeping my answer short, (I have to go shortly,) the thing I would point out to prove that Islam collectively is not a "victim" as it claims to be is the fact that Jews have been run out of all places in the Middle East except for Israel, and Christianity in the Middle East is being subjected to a full-blown genocide, despite the screaming of all of the priests and ministers including the Pope. If the Muslims are truly as peaceful and tolerant as they claim to be, why are they doing this? Why are they running out and killing people that have lived there peacefully for literally thousands of years? Also, if Islam is worthy of our sympathy, please explain to me Islam's total disregard for the rights of women, such as Iran's forcing of rape victims to marry their rapists, and Saudi Arabia's laws that make women carry a permission slip from a man to get on a bus, and then they must sit on the back of the bus when they get on.
The phenomena I am talking about are not the work of some deranged minority, but rather of the Islamic population in the region as a whole. Very hard to picture a small minority exterminating Christian civilization in the whole region, right now. And it is downright BIZARRE that Western liberals support ultra-far-right Muslims in their never-ending quest to disenfranchise and bully literally anybody different from themselves.
It is not bigotry to deny rights in your land to those who would deny you all rights in theirs.