Steely Dan

Tribal conflicts are savage, and if religion is also involved this is the icing on the cake. The colonial map making which carved up Africa and the Middle East took no account of either race or religion so in the post colonial era there were many potential powder kegs. Africa indeed is blighted by a large area where Christianity and Islam overlap, this fault line extends through Nigeria too and is possibly a reason why sub-Saharan Africans working in Libya were persecuted after Gaddafi was overthrown. It is also reasonable to speculate that religion may have been adopted en mass within given tribes thus giving another excuse for hostility.

I predict Nigeria will have to be split like Sudan was in the fullness of time.

It looks like the North Sudanese government is continuing it's policy of religion based ethnic cleansing. Christians have been given till April 8th to leave. I guess this is a tribal problem and it is just pure coincidence that the tribes involved have different religions.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11681/pub_detail.asp

The Sudanese regime is on its way to becoming the next Iran, regardless of whether President Omar Bashir remains in power or not. The country is moving towards becoming a full-blown Sharia state, comparable to Iran, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban. Towards that end, 500-700,000 Christians have been told to pack up and leave by April 8 or they’ll be treated as foreigners.

P.S Meanwhile Boko Haram the Nigerian Islamists made a similar declaration telling Christians to leave northern Nigeria.

Passengers told media outlets that the captain cursed at passengers and mentioned countries such as Israel, Iran and Iraq. As he attempted to get back into the cockpit, he also screamed to immediately land the plane, claiming that al-Qaeda had planted a bomb on board the aircraft.

Does anyone get the impression there is more to this story than written in the OP.

Bare in mind this is what the relatively moderate Afghan government are doing, the Taliban obviously provide no stats. It does beg the question whether this sort of regime is one Nato troops should be fighting and dying for.

Comparing such causes of death as road accidents and disease to terror actions might be rationally correct (can debate about that as well), but at least in people's perception they are not the same.

Disease and accidents aren't viewed as out to get you (well, at least until you drive in Thailand), terrorist attack are.Same thing with wars, btw, when it is dubbed "a war", the same things and worse are somehow easier to accept.

A better comaprison would be to check number of attacks/deaths associated with similar immigrant groups.

Threat is always an abstract to a degree until it plays out. The same dynamics were to a degree happening to the Jewish population in 30's Europe, many chose to ignore the signs. As per the perception of relative threat from different groups perhaps the jail population relative to size of each minority may also be a factor.

It's not paranoia if they really are trying to kill you.

Neither is it a phobia if the fear is rational. Denial is not an option, which is possibly why 25% of French Jews are considering moving to Israel or the U.S

Every time a Muslim commits murder in the name of Islam, the denial begins again: Western leaders and the mainstream media tie themselves into knots trying to explain what happened without making any reference to its guiding motivation.

Read more: http://www.americant...l#ixzz1qQHc7Oqs

This is sad. Rest in peace brothers.

As for the bleaters, all military folk know the risk of war and do as they are told and go to do their duty. That is the only way. What does grate is when you are fighting a war and people "back home" bleat about what a waste of time it is. They have a job to do and to them and a lot of Afghans it isn't a waste of time.

I have nothing against the initial aims of eliminating terrorists or giving human rights to the people. The sad truth is the commitment needed to achieve this is truly enormous and even the kahzai regime we helped install still puts more importance to the accidental burning of Qurans to the lives of innocent people killed as a result. Huge swathes of Afghanistan are still under Taliban control and our government is negotiating the terms of our surrender to the Taliban so they can reassert their 7th century status quo.

To succeed in replacing a totalitarian ideology with democracy might take hundreds of years and being imposed from the outside is even more difficult due to the resentment of outside interference. What really needs to happen is a Muslim civil war, not between Sunni and Shia, but between faith and reason. Reason has to win before progress is possible, but the whole world will welcome reason as a victorious brother should it eventually prevail.

Edit: This is the sort of thing I'm talking about - It's not worth sacrificing the lives of our brave troops to perpetuate this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17533816

I won't dignify allusions to racism with a reply, but instead offer this very current article based on the Obin report, which was carried out by a team commissioned by the French education ministry. If you read it there can be no doubt where the real racial and religious hatred is coming from and in that light it is little wonder that many Jewish children in French schools are reluctant to admit their religion. But alas, some would prefer to smear those who highlight such unpleasant truths.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/26/au-revoir-les-enfants/

Both Mansoor and Masood succumbed to their wounds at the Abbasi Shaheed hospital. But later, gunmen stormed the hospital and shot Mansoor four more times while the post-mortem was being conducted, police and doctors at the hospital said.

Well when it comes to murder better to be safe than sorry.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4208904,00.html

12-year-old boy was beaten outside his Jewish school in Paris by youths reciting anti-Semitic slogans, school officials say, amid continued high security and tensions in France.

The school's human resources director, Katia Normal, said Tuesday that the child was hit and punched in the back of his head on Monday afternoon as he left school in the capital's southeast, but did not suffer serious injuries.

You can add to this 4 illegal culture enrichers trying to break down the door of a Jewish school in Brussels and a 74 year old Moroccan Jew killed with a hammer.

P.S And the icing on the cake is Merah's father, who now lives in Algeria wants to sue the French government for not capturing his son alive - It's a shame his family and all his ilk didn't fuc_k off back to Algeria years ago. I wonder if Robert Amsterdam is available?

Sadly few groupings within humanity come out looking very pleasant when it comes to mass murder.

Cambodia's Killing Fields sink the Buddhists

Croatia's Ustase scores for the Catholics

Serbians big it up for the Orthodox crew

Hitler, Mao and Stalin score well for the atheists

Hindus racked up quite a score in 1947 with the partition of India

Shintoism had a poor first half of the 20th century with episodes such as the Rape of Nanking

etc, etc

Amongst this premier league of mass murder and genocide your Muslims seem to rank rather lowly. Jihadist exploits and fraternal Shiite/Sunni infighting barely make the grade.

Also if Muslims constitute such an existential threat I'm surprised you chose to live in SE Asia given its Muslim population of 253million . Are the 4million Muslims in Thailand (not much less than found in France) going to take over Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok?

Or perhaps Muslims are not the monolithic threat that Clash of Civilizations likes to portray or islamophobes like the "Florida Security Council" rant about.

Firstly, I agree with your points on integration being emphasized and enforced through entry requirements as oppose to the total abdication of responsibility over border controls as we have today. If we were left with the festivals and the food who would complain.

As for your list of atrocities by faith, you really need to do some research otherwise you risk painting a totally misleading picture. Sudan, East Timor, Armenia, Hindus in India, and the 400,000 Jews killed in the Balkans are a few contemporary examples of Muslim genocides and if you look at the 18,600+ terrorist attacks since 9/11 you can see who are the prime culprits. I will leave it at that or this will head rapidly off topic.

As for your rebuttal of the clash of civilizations I would observe that Muslims are not a mono-culture, but Islam is a consistent ideology - there is no such thing as moderate Islam as Recep Erdogan himself said, so the fact that even in western Countries Muslims identify themselves primarily by religion not by nationality is significant, especially when the Sharia is their universal law supreme over man made law. Yes the U.S is Christian, Europe largely atheist and none of it a mono-culture, but non Muslims are referred to as kuffar, they are perceived as the 'other'.

Finally demographics; I don't want to get too deeply into another potential diversion from the topic, suffice to say I've recently read 3.8 Muslim children are born per family as oppose to a European average of 1.3. In the UK 250,000 emigrate each year. I will save you the maths, save to say there is plenty of studies that contradict the figures in your links.

More fallout from this supposed 'lone wolf' Jihaddist, extremists enter the UK from France in preparation to cause terror attacks during the Olympic games - How fitting for that showcase of human endevour, if they gave medals out for murdering civilians Islamists would sweep the board.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/310286/Olympic-terror-group-hunted

BRITISH security forces were last night hunting a group of Islamic terrorists intent on wreaking havoc during the Olympic Games.

Security sources have told the ­Sunday Express that 15 to 20 ­terror suspects entered Britain from France in the past week.

The warning, issued by the ­Renseignements Généraux, France’s equivalent to MI5, was given to British MI6 agents in ­Toulouse, south-west France, examining the home of extremist gunman Mohamed Merah, 23.

A recent gallup poll found 35% of French Muslims thought terrorism was justified if it advanced Islam, that equates to 360,000 people. There sure are a lot of bigots around it would seem.

Have you got the details on this "recent Gallup poll", when was it published, was it just done by Gallup or in association with any other organization?

The following is the source I found, which incorporates date from Pew and Gallup, it is dated March 2010.

Actually in some ways French Muslims were found to be better integrated than those of other western Countries so maybe there is hope.

If integration is a "lost cause" what are the alternatives?

I of course gave you the diametric opposite thesis to the current one of addressing internal grievances and economic disenfranchisement. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. I think honesty is the best policy and enforcement of existing laws and social norms is the start. I think religion should first be kept out of education and secondly any behavior which is contrary to universal human rights should be stamped upon without backing away from the issue if religious scripture is used to justify such behavior. Residency should be contingent on acceptable behavior and I think the Schengen agreement needs to be scrapped so Countries have control of their own borders. It is a difficult issue, but I suspect short term expediency and money in the back pockets of politicians will stop any real policy changes and eventually as a worse case scenario Europe could become Lebanon on a giant scale.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17512436

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to ban militant Muslim preachers from entering the country.

Well it's a small symbolic step, but in the age of the internet pretty meaningless. Unfortunately he fails at the first real hurdle by condemning Marine Le Pen's call to end Muslim immigration because the killer was born and brought up in France. The glaringly obvious conclusion is there are still others coming in radicalizing French citizens and some never even assimilated in the first place but had children who were born in France.

P.S Colin, If you get flak its a sure sign you are above the target.

A recent gallup poll found 35% of French Muslims thought terrorism was justified if it advanced Islam, that equates to 360,000 people. There sure are a lot of bigots around it would seem.

To distill things into bullet points there are the following factors the French government needs to consider.

• Why is it that many Muslims, especially the younger ones actually de-assimilating relative to the previous generation.
  
• If current trends of birth and migration continue what will France look like in 20 years and are indigenous those who regard themselves as culturally French going to be happy to change to reflect a new cultural consensus of values?
  
• What (if anything) can be done to integrate into society those that want to live separately from it or change its laws or values?
  

I think the following link is required background towards understanding why integration is proving a problem, which should be given consideration instead of focusing on manufactured external gripes or social provision issues.

It seems to me that the modern immigration systems of most Western European nations adopted an open door policy with too little in the way of checks and balances. Dealing with the outcome is not an easy task at the best of times, more so in the context of the current political climate.

Ain't that the truth. Indeed the UK Labour government actually set aggressive quotas for immigrants from southern Asia to the degree effort was even made to explain our benefits system to prospective immigrants. Even more wickedly many were let in even with criminal records. We can talk about the failure of multiculturalism, but in truth the folly is not recognizing how and why an influx of immigrants from say Pakistan, Bangladesh or Somalia is infinitely more problematic than immigrants arriving from Cambodia, Burma or Nepal. Islam is not just a religion, it is an all in one political ideology with it's own self contained judicial system governing 'moral' conduct as well as interactions with those not of the faith. A recent survey of British Muslims found 40% are in favour of living under Sharia law. Now Sharia law is not compatable with the universal human rights accepted by secular law, so we have an enormous problem. To count those who will murder for ideology now is missing the point - there are huge numbers also engaged in Jihad, but that is a slow jihad of demographics - The murders come later.

@Folium,

We could bat this one back and forth all day, but for now here is a link showing how many French Muslims are estimated to have gone to Pakistan to train with the Taliban, this does not include other Countries or networks they set up on their return.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/officials-dozens-of-french-muslims-training-with-taliban-in-pakistan/2012/03/24/gIQAmHGCYS_story.html

Secondly I suggest you google Pew research as to how people view themselves, either by their nationality or religion. The Muslim world views itself essentially as one nation whereas people in the west view themselves strongly by nationality. Most worryingly the current generation of young Muslims are actually less well integrated than the previous one, we are in uncharted territory as this has not happened before and is deeply worrying for anyone who still believes in multiculturalism.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/muslim-western-tensions-persist/

The law of unintended consequences is sadly the fate of many misguided responses to situations. Knee-jerk, neanderthal responses to terrorism, only serve to make the "good" guys look as bad as the terrorists, and achieve exactly what the "bad" guys set out to achieve.

Perhaps the law of unintended consequences could work both ways and perhaps result in enough social anger for the indigenous French to do something radical like elect Marine Le Pen. I suspect it is only a matter of time before a major European nation duly elects a far right party and then the clash of civilizations can begin in earnest, though I would observe that it has already started but our leaders and press are still in denial.

And that is exactly the tragic trap that the likes of al Qaida want to achieve. Gloriously sidelined in the current turmoil enveloping the Arab world in particular, a slide into neo-con short-sightedness by any "developed" nation would represent a major triumph for the terrorists.

I love your use of the word "indigenous", do you mean just white people or do you have a cut off date for what makes someone "indigenous". Are Patrice Evra, Florent Malouda, Thierry Henry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole etc "indigenous" enough?

The great irony about this murdering individual, Mohammed Merah, is that the 3 French soldiers he murdered were Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, Corporal Abel Chennouf, and Private Mohamed Legouad. Were they "indigenous" enough to serve their country?

I think not burning the flag of the host nation, grooming it's underaged girls as if they were cattle and not setting up virtual no go zones in cities for other minorities disapproved of would be a loose enough definition of indigenous, I was actually referring to a cultural rather than racial or religious identification with the Country . By the way it has not escaped my notice that three of those murdered were Muslims, or that one had a girlfriend currently expecting his child. I do not desire a clash of civilizations but if you examine population demographics in tandem with the social attitudes of the Muslim population as a whole you could make a conservative estimate that there are already thousands of would be lone wolf jihaddists in France alone and unless the aforementioned social attitudes change I see a spiral of escalating violence as inevitable. What would you suggest by the way?

Edit: I don't want to stray too far O/T but I don't thing Al Qaeda were sidelined in Libya, or their proxies elsewhere during the so called Arab spring.

The law of unintended consequences is sadly the fate of many misguided responses to situations. Knee-jerk, neanderthal responses to terrorism, only serve to make the "good" guys look as bad as the terrorists, and achieve exactly what the "bad" guys set out to achieve.

Perhaps the law of unintended consequences could work both ways and perhaps result in enough social anger for the indigenous French to do something radical like elect Marine Le Pen. I suspect it is only a matter of time before a major European nation duly elects a far right party and then the clash of civilizations can begin in earnest, though I would observe that it has already started but our leaders and press are still in denial.

Yeah George its quite plain you know "the Score" ,and could be that Bookmans remarks about Chooka's post being somehow "ludicrous and nonsense"for me just meant that political correctness is very much alive and well even "down under" and speaking or writing the truth is very much frowned upon just in case you "offend" someone ,maybe thats the problem with modern day society

Quite so. There is always trouble these days using facts if they don't follow the PC premise that all groups should be treated as if they behave according to universal norms. I read for instance that the incidence of domestic violence in Aboriginal communities is fifty (50) times greater than in the ethnic Caucasian population. There are many reasons for this, indeed out of all groups the Aboriginals probably experienced the greatest culture shock encountering western civilization as essentially stone age hunter gatherers. They had no alcohol in their culture, which caused massive problems when they encountered it, but the fact remains nevertheless.

There is a huge difference between recognizing what may contribute to behavioral problems and denying they exist, and yes the historical treatment of the aborigines was not good, but it is equally wrong to overcompensate by taking things too far the other way.

Only up to 15 Dan?, That could well mean that the remaining pupils agreed with this left wing lunatic ,I dispare I really do ,this sort of thing is on the increase ,the dangerous part of it is that this sort of infantile brainwashing starts at a very early age, many Muslim kids are taught to hate European Culture ,and many Europeans are taught to be ashamed of it "lest they offend" , The end result?, you tell me!!

I can't tell you as it would be ruled hate speech, as would most of Winston Churchills warnings about national socialism had it been on the rise in 2012 as oppose to the 1930's. If you really want to know what I think google 'Sultan knish The New' and you will see the sad reality spelled out as it is in France and indeed Europe today.

Sultan Knish?

Seriously?

Sounds like a Borat routine.

You need to google a knishe to understand. Sort of like perogies, but not as heavy.

Alas, the content is even heavier than perogies, but on a lighter if off topic note there was an unfortunate mix up at a medal ceremony in Kuwait where a Kazakhstan medal winner was played the spoof national anthem from the film Borat, presumably by mistake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17491344