re: Unbanned - BigScrub here to eat BigCrow

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Militant Islam is a problem.

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I think this is a tough one to define. The most hardcore of the hardcore Islamic terrorists aren't doing this:

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encircled the globe with a militant destruction

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actually quite the opposite, they are focusing on very specific geographic locations with the goal of far reaching political change. ie 911.

Most of the globe encircling has been the western powers, lead by the US. I see this as just as much a problem as Islamic terrorism, because it gets us into messes that can't be cleaned up with bombs or by saying nice things (which is what liberals think will work).

I think our battle is not at all with Islam, but instead with unpredictable, non state political actors who are trying to form the beginning of a large scale war of movement against the western powers through acts of terrorism. It's these people, not their religion, that is the issue. When we don't admit that we get sidetracked from focusing on the very real issues that spawn support for these violent groups in the first place. We give them legitimacy when we focus on the idea of religion (which is impossible to pin down, and thus a useful tool for both sides) and not the actions of the criminal actors themselves. I think it's just too easy to say "well the problem is Islam" or that it is some particular brand of Islam. The problem is the actors, not the ideas. We have actors doing similar things from all backgrounds, races, religions, and economic circumstances, but it's rarely discussed how similar groups like the FARC are to ME terrorist or insurgency groups actually are. Why is that? A combination of reasons, one of them certainly being their affinity for using the predominant religion of the area as a unifying tool. Marxists use the same tool, and Christians have used it for evil before as well.

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And until militant group Islam demonstrates it can peacefully coexist with other expressions of faith it will be treated with suspicion. It is that simple.

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We will forever be dealing with these people in some capacity. Terrorism and extremist (violent) ideologies are one of the few tools available for disrupting states that are as powerful as ours in the West. It's just the nature of the beast unfortunately. I think it's a bad idea to import a bunch of poor and most likely stupid people into the US while simultaneously bombing the ever lovin shite out of the places from which they just left.

Anyhoo, just my opinion. Did you guys have a good Christmas?