[notsony]

NO NO NO

Let's end the myth that Western foreign policy is (solely) to blame.

What about Islamic terrorists killing people in Southern Thailand? Is there something wrong with their foreign policy?

What about Islamic terrorists killing Filipinos for the past 20-30 years? Have Christians been oppressing Muslims over there?

What about the recent clashes between Muslims and Buddhist monks in Burma? What did the monks do wrong?

Radical Islam is a GLOBAL jihad movement.

[mbrock]

Yeah, what about Burma? You sound quite well-informed, so could you explain a bit about that history, and how it relates to the centuries of persecution of Muslims over there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims_in_Myan...

[omginternets]

Exactly this. The elements for violence are baked into Islamic cannon in a way that has no equivalent in any other messianic religion.

The west holds its share of blame, but so does Islam.

[DanBC]

You ignore the hundreds of years of violence perpetrated in the names of other religions.

[omginternets]

No, I absolutely do not. What you are ignoring is that the canonical text of these religions are not equal. Where are the Tibetan suicide bombers?

Ignoring the religious and theological basis for this violence is part of the reason we've been so ineffective in fighting it. Clearly social tensions are part of the problem, but so is the religion itself.

[DanBC]

Aum Shinryko drew upon Tibettan buddhist teachings.

There are plenty of buddhist terrorist attacks, and these can be found with simple web searches.

Tibetan armed struggle also happens, but because it's in China i) Chinese authority hides it ii) Chinese authority uses a too broad definition of terrorism. But there was armed resistance in 2008 in Lhassa.

[omginternets]

>There are plenty of buddhist terrorist attacks, and these can be found with simple web searches.

There's a negligible number of buddhist terrorist attacks compared to muslim terrorist attacks.

The position you're defending is absurd and betrays an a priori conclusion on your part.

[Natanael_L]

Still easy to find:

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/myanmars-buddhi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Regional... http://world.time.com/2013/06/20/extremist-buddhist-monks-fi...

[maxharris]

Christianity was muzzled during the Enlightenment. While the religious right has been getting worse in recent decades (and this poses a long-term threat to freedom), Christianity is not practiced seriously and purely on a massive scale as it was during the Dark Ages.

[jacquesm]

Every large group has a fringe.

[omginternets]

Agreed. And some fringes are orders of magnitude larger than others.

Moreover:

- Most Germans were non-violent people in 1944, but we can still talk about cultural elements that enabled Nazism

- Most Russians were non-violent in the 60's, but we can still talk about cultural elements that enabled Stalinism

- Most Chinese were non-violent during the Maoist dictatorship, but we can still talk about culutral elements that enabled Maoism

I could go on, but you get the point. Just because most Muslims are nice people doesn't mean that Islamic canon doesn't play a role in terrorism. No politically-correct nitpicking can change that.

[DanBC]

You still ignore that Christian fundamentalists who perpetuate violence? Or that right wing extremism is a greater threat to Americans that Islamic fundamentalism?

[omginternets]

We can talk about them too! I hate them just as much, but but understand that you're no longer addressing the original point.

The original point is that Christian terrorism is objectively rarer (though by no means rare). I argue that this discrepancy is mostly accounted for by a difference in canonical content of the religion, rather than in a meaningful difference in wealth or suffering.

I invite you to read this article (incidentally written by a Muslim man): http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/09/islam-is-a-religion-of-v...

In short:

1. Islam has jurisprudential elements that are not present in Christianity

2. Islam sets a precedent for a militarized, theocratic state with ambitions of (a minima) regional dominance, which is present in no other Abrahamic religion

3. The very prophet of Islam perpetrated unspeakable atrocities, contrary to every other Abrahamic religion.

Again: you must acknowledge these points, else you're betraying ignorance at best, and bad faith at worse.

[jacquesm]

> The original point is that Christian terrorism is objectively rarer

In the present.

> Again: you must acknowledge these points, else you're betraying ignorance at best, and bad faith at worse.

He doesn't have to do anything.

As for the subject itself, Islam has yet to go through 'enlightenment' (assuming that will happen some day) and before Christianity did it was one of the more brutal religions on the planet. 5 centuries of progress can't be suddenly synchronized across the planet.

[vezzy-fnord]

The Filipino-Moro conflict has a centuries long history that predates the modern jihadist movement, it's not a "past 20-30 years" thing. It's also hardly as one-sided as you're presenting it. The Spanish-American War was a significant externality in its escalation, go figure.

True, Western foreign policy is not solely to blame. But it has definitely shown itself to have cumulative negative effects.

[TheOtherHobbes]

And have you researched its origins? Have you looked into how it's funded, how it was funded, which countries support it now, and which countries supported it in the past?

Perhaps the media equivalent of "Four legs good, two legs bad" is not a very insightful way to understand geopolitics and post-war history.

[pan69]

Radical Islam has become a global jihad movement and it was created by the west interfering in the middle east.

[iofj]

Because it's not like attacks like this weren't committed by muslims before ? In reality they've been at it since the early middle ages.

[pan69]

You mean those middle ages where a bunch of Christians went over to the middle east to kill a bunch of Muslims? You mean those middle ages?

[iofj]

First crusade: 1096 AD

Muslim expansion wars: 736 AD

In a way you're right, you've just got the agressor wrong. In fact the crusades were started because of muslim agression. Because, and I'm quoting muslim historical sources here "the blood of Christians was standing above our knees in Jerusalem".

[pan69]

Attention people! We found the problem!

Apparently the Muslims did a big land grab about 1500 years ago or so (just like the Romans did before them) and that's, apparently, where it all started.

Turns out it has nothing to do with the US foreign policy of the past 60 or so years, the creation of the state of Israel (and the Israelis being a bunch of dicks about it, and for the record, I'm most certainly NOT an anti Semite, though I'm allergic to assholes) and the British hopelessly trying to colonize Afghanistan throughout 1800's and a whole bunch of other dickhead moves by the west and their buddies.

Apologies. I'm not trying to insult your (or anyone's) intelligence. I just couldn't resist...

/sarcasm

PS: I'm very much a westerner, white male, atheist, born and raised in the Netherlands and currently living in Australia, for what ever it's worth.

[tomelders]

Wastern foreign policy absolutely is to blame. You need to look at it on a timeline of a century to get the complete picture.