The ISIS Thread

[Electro Rock]

I don't see why there needs to be a push for democracy at all, its not like Western countries are truly democratic, we just get to change the middle management up every few years while banks and oligarchs really call the shots.

[taxi]

I don't see why there needs to be a push for democracy at all, its not like Western countries are truly democratic, we just get to change the middle management up every few years while banks and oligarchs really call the shots.

Did someone drag you into a prison for posting this?

[Salmonberries]

I don't see why there needs to be a push for democracy at all, its not like Western countries are truly democratic, we just get to change the middle management up every few years while banks and oligarchs really call the shots.

There doesn't.

And there hasn't been.

[Alflives]

I don't see why there needs to be a push for democracy at all, its not like Western countries are truly democratic, we just get to change the middle management up every few years while banks and oligarchs really call the shots.

Your opinion is naive. Here we do have freedoms that are part of our democracy. You might want to live in one of those countries you feel reflect our lack of freedoms for a while, then come and rethink your post. You are a very fortunate person to live in the greatest country on earth.

[Kaner]

I believe I read this earlier on in the thread, but I will say it again.

I wish ISIS someway is dumb enough to attack Russia, so they come back and while then out.

[Bocivus]

Your opinion is naive. Here we do have freedoms that are part of our democracy. You might want to live in one of those countries you feel reflect our lack of freedoms for a while, then come and rethink your post. You are a very fortunate person to live in the greatest country on earth.

If you aren't aware that the "elected" politicians are merely puppets for the banking elite then you are the naïve one.

We only have the freedoms that the government allows us to have, which in turn aren't really freedoms at all. Ever try to sell lemonade in your neighborhood without a permit? Ever try to collect your own rainwater? Those are only a few of a lot of examples. The police state that we are in is enforced by the political "leaders" that are bought and paid for by the financial elite. In no way do we have true freedom in any sense of the word.

[Electro Rock]

Your opinion is naive. Here we do have freedoms that are part of our democracy. You might want to live in one of those countries you feel reflect our lack of freedoms for a while, then come and rethink your post. You are a very fortunate person to live in the greatest country on earth.

And that's all besides the point of why we should be forcing our basic political model on anybody.

Most Western style democracies are deeply indebted has-beens that aren't going to compare so well a mere generation from now.

This whole idea of trying to force democracy on other cultures has a lot more to do with trying to establish control and stave off Western decline than it does concern for the inhabitants.

[taxi]

And that's all besides the point of why we should be forcing our basic political model on anybody.

Most Western style democracies are deeply indebted has-beens that aren't going to compare so well a mere generation from now.

This whole idea of trying to force democracy on other cultures has a lot more to do with trying to establish control and stave off Western decline than it does concern for the inhabitants.

If what you're saying is true, then nothing really matters.

The world is going to descend into nothingness in a generation anyways. Why concern ourselves with debating the proper course of dealing with ISIS?

[The Bookie]

Decoding Daesh: Why is the new name for ISIS so hard to understand?

By Alice Guthrie on 19/2/15

'Da'ish' becomes 'Ja'hish' - "The state of donkeys in Iraq and Syria".

Arabic translator Alice Guthrie investigates 'Daesh', the new name for ISIS recently adopted by several world leaders because it delegitimises the group's activities. But how can a new name undermine a terrorist organisation? And why do the English-speaking media find the name so difficult to understand?

Over the last few months, there has been a concerted effort by several senior global politicians to give a new name to the group known as ISIS, or Islamic State, IS or ISIL. That new name is ‘Daesh’. If you've followed coverage of this attempted official linguistic sea change, you'll have gathered that the new name, although it’s just an Arabic acronym equivalent to the English 'ISIS', apparently delegitimises the organisation, mocks them, and thus drives them to threaten taking violent retribution on anyone who uses it.

But why does this acronym have this power, and what's so offensive about it? If your access to news media is only in English, you might still be none the wiser. You may have got the impression from this coverage that the exact meaning and connotations of the word cannot quite be fathomed by anyone – that this word is a nebulous drifter, never to be pinned down. Basically, the coverage seems to imply, it’s obscured by a veil, like so much else in the Arabo-Islamic world, and we can’t hope to get it spelled out for us. It’s far too Eastern and weird for that.

Well, I'm an Arabic translator, so my work revolves around pinning down and spelling out Arabic words and explaining them in English, and I’m here to let you know that there’s nothing mysterious about this new acronym: it may be from a language quite different to English, and an Eastern one at that, but trust me: it can be explained.

I’ve come across some wildly inaccurate blethering lately about the word’s significance and its signification: even if you don’t know any Arabic at all, you might have been surprised to read in your major liberal broadsheet that although this new name is a transliteration of the Arabic acronym equivalent to ISIS, there are ‘certain schools of thought’ as to what the name means, or that you are being offered analysis based on ‘rough translations’ of the words in the acronym. If you’re particularly observant, you may have asked yourself how one of the words in the Arabic acronym of 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria can also mean ‘to crush or trample underfoot’ (as a major UK broadsheet faithfully ‘explained’ recently) – perhaps pondering, over your cornflakes, which of the words is the one with this double meaning: ‘state’ or ‘Islamic’, ‘Iraq’ or ‘Syria’? And wondering why you haven’t ever heard tell of this strange phenomenon before? If you’re a linguist, you will have scoffed at repeated references to a word that seems to shift between being a noun and a verb according to how it’s ‘conjugated’, taking extravagant semiotic leaps along the way. Perhaps, getting the impression from all this that the Arabic language is such uncharted territory, you even got inspired to start learning it, and get stuck in at the East-West decoding coalface? Is this ringing any Orientalist bells? But it’s really not that complicated, and certainly not uncharted territory at all.

The main misapprehensions about the word currently circulating in our media boil down to the following list:

• That daesh is an Arabic word in its own right (rather than an acronym) meaning ‘a group of bigots who impose their will on others’
• That it can be ‘differently conjugated’ to mean either the phrase above or ‘to trample and crush’
• That one of the words in the acronym also means ‘to trample or crush’
• That it is an insult or swearword in its own right
• That is has different meanings in the plural form

Read around a bit, across several UK and US broadsheets, and you will quickly spot the same misinformation being repeated almost word for word: publications are either quoting each other as supposed reliable sources on the story, with acknowledgments, or simply repeating each other’s lines without explicitly referencing them. In most cases, the explanation is not only wrong, it doesn’t actually make sense. But why all this speculation? Why so much mystery? Why are phrases like ‘rough translation’ and ‘possibly linked to this word’ being used, making the story out to be as elusive and contested as many of the political developments on the ground in Syria? Clearly none of these journalists or their researchers have accessed an Arabic/English dictionary (there are many freely searchable online) nor – even easier – contacted an arabophone, to check these basic facts.

So what does Daesh really mean? Well, D.A.E.SH is a transliteration of the Arabic acronym formed of the same words that make up I.S.I.S in English: 'Islamic State in Iraq and Syria', or 'لدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام' ('al-dowla al-islaamiyya fii-il-i’raaq wa-ash-shaam'). That’s the full name chosen by the organisation, and – when used in full – it’s definitely how they want to be referred to. In Arabic, just like in English, that phrase consists of six words, four of which make it into the acronym (‘in’ and ‘and’ are omitted) : 'دولة dowla' (state) + 'إسلامية islaamiyya' (Islamic) + 'عراق i’raaq' (Iraq) + 'شام shaam'. That last word, 'shaam', is variously used in Arabic to denote Damascus (in Syrian dialect) ‘Greater Syria’ / the Levant, or Syria – hence the US-preferred acronym ISIL, with the L standing for Levant. In Arabic there is a single letter for the sound 'sh', hence our transliteration of the acronym having five letters, not four. And the vowel which begins the word 'islaamiyya' becomes an 'a' sound when differently positioned in a word, hence the acronym being pronounced 'da’ish' when written in Arabic, and the 'a' coming over into our transliteration of the acronym. Of course the amazing Arabic letter 'ع' which begins the word for 'Iraq' is unpronounceable to an anglophone, and can’t be written in Latin letters, hence the use of an 'e' (or occasionally an ’e) in the transliteration.

Still with me? Nothing mysterious there – or nothing that anyone who speaks Arabic wouldn’t be able to explain. It’s not a previously existing word in its own right. It does indeed now mean ‘tyrannical, despotic, murdering fundamentalists who claim to be Islamic and claim to be a state’ but only as a result of how it sounds (more on that in a minute) and as a result of the associations that quickly attach to a neologism, in the same way that they have attached to the word ISIS. So it’s not based on any previous – or mysterious, or quasi-mystical Eastern – meaning.

And so if the word is basically 'ISIS', but in Arabic, why are the people it describes in such a fury about it? Because they hear it, quite rightly, as a challenge to their legitimacy: a dismissal of their aspirations to define Islamic practice, to be 'a state for all Muslims’ and – crucially – as a refusal to acknowledge and address them as such. They want to be addressed as exactly what they claim to be, by people so in awe of them that they use the pompous, long and delusional name created by the group, not some funny-sounding made-up word. And here is the very simple key point that has been overlooked in all the anglophone press coverage I’ve seen: in Arabic, acronyms are not anything like as widely used as they are in English, and so arabophones are not as used to hearing them as anglophones are. Thus, the creation and use of a title that stands out as a nonsense neologism for an organisation like this one is inherently funny, disrespectful, and ultimately threatening of the organisation’s status. Khaled al-Haj Salih, the Syrian activist who coined the term back in 2013, says that initially even many of his fellow activists, resisting Daesh alongside him, were shocked by the idea of an Arabic acronym, and he had to justify it to them by referencing the tradition of acronyms being used as names by Palestinian organisations (such as Fatah). So saturated in acronyms are we in English that we struggle to imagine this, but it’s true.

All of this means that the name lends itself well to satire, and for the arabophones trying to resist Daesh, humour and satire are essential weapons in their nightmarish struggle. But the satirical weight of the word as a weapon, in the hands of the Syrian activists who have hewn it from the rock of their nightmare reality, does not just consist of the weirdness of acronyms. As well as being an acronym, it is also only one letter different from the word 'daes داعس' , meaning someone or something that crushes or tramples. Of course that doesn’t mean, as many articles have claimed, that 'daesh' is 'another conjugation' of the verb ‘to crush or trample’, nor that that is 'a rough translation of one of the words in the acronym' – it’s simply one letter different from this other word. Imagine if the acronym of 'Islamic State in Iraq and Syria' spelt out ‘S.H.I.D’ in English: activists and critics would certainly seize the opportunity to refer to the organisation as ‘$&!#’ – but I think it’s safe to say that no serious foreign media outlet would claim that '$&!#' was another conjugation of the verb 'shid', nor a rough translation of it. Of course, that analogy is an unfair one, given the hegemonic global linguistic position of English, not to mention the heightened currency of scatological words; but there is a serious point to be made here about the anglophone media’s tendency to give up before it’s begun understanding non-European languages.

And obviously understanding things outside of English, and explaining them to each other via our (social)media hive mind is hugely important on many levels: in the broadest sense, it allows us to attempt to take our place as global citizens, and feeds our connection to other humans on planet Earth. Sadly, the story of the word 'Daesh' is neither the only nor even the worst example of anglophone media failing us in this regard. But there’s something specifically important in this particular story which is being overlooked as a result of all the lazy journalism around it: the use of this word is part of a multi-pronged, diverse range of efforts by Arabs and Muslims to reject the terrorists’ linguistic posturing, their pseudo-classical use of Arabic, their claims to Quranic authority and an absolute foundation in sacred scripture, as reflected in their pompous name. This ridiculous claim has of course been masterfully and witheringly deconstructed at the Islamic level, but at the secular level, satire is a crucial weapon in the fight against these maniacs: there is a fertile tradition of Syrian and satire as not only defiance but coping strategy, and which has been quite under-reported. In satirical Arabic media (and conversation) various diminutives of the word have also gone viral – elegantly diminishing their subject, belittling them, patronising and relegating them to a zone beyond any formal naming in a single sweep.

(just the start of a much longer article, for all you linguistic nerds)

 

source - https://www.freewordcentre.com/blog/2015/02/daesh-isis-media-alice-guthrie/

[Tom Sestito]

Dalai Lama on point as usual

"People want to lead a peaceful lives. The terrorists are short-sighted, and this is one of the causes of rampant suicide bombings. We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.

We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody's interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments."

 

[AlphaHoneyBadger]

On 10/12/2015, 8:13:50, Alflives said:

Your opinion is naive. Here we do have freedoms that are part of our democracy. You might want to live in one of those countries you feel reflect our lack of freedoms for a while, then come and rethink your post. You are a very fortunate person to live in the greatest country on earth.

Not sure I agree entirely. Our current government was elected with something like 40% of the votes. That means most of the country does not favour them. 

[Mainly Mattias]

On 2015-10-12, 8:13:50, Alflives said:

Your opinion is naive. Here we do have freedoms that are part of our democracy. You might want to live in one of those countries you feel reflect our lack of freedoms for a while, then come and rethink your post. You are a very fortunate person to live in the greatest country on earth.

Yep.  We are soo fortunate to be living here. 

We have plenty of freedoms; most are so ingrained in our society that people don't miss them until they are infringed upon.  Every system is imperfect since people are imperfect.  We function well (for the most part) because we agree that cruelty is bad and realize that a society doesn't flourish when people are concerned about their basic physiological and safety needs.  Terror groups don't work for the good of society though.  They gain support/compliance through threatening the basic need of safety and appealing to other strong needs such as revenge, belonging and purpose.

How do you address those issues?  Mitigate the growing numbers by feeding/housing/educating everyone and removing the impetus of inequality?  Probably overall the solution for the world.  Due to the impracticality of that, governments have opted to try to eliminate the source, increase controls, increase punishments, block communications.. all which affect the masses and gain negative buy-in.

[Dittohead]

Bring our planes home now.  We do not need to be there. Not our problem.

[Heretic]

15 minutes ago, Dittohead said:

Bring our planes home now.  We do not need to be there. Not our problem.

It's everyone's problem.  Unless you're not part of the human race...

[LuckyLuciano]

How come Allah hasn't punished them for all these wrong doings? I just don't get it!

[Heretic]

Well, it appears ISIS has ticked off another country:

 

 Beijing vows justice as ISIS kills Chinese, Norwegian hostages

Hong Kong (CNN)Beijing has vowed to bring ISIS to justice after the group said it had executed two hostages, a Chinese and a Norwegian.

ISIS said it had killed the two men, identified as Chinese national Fan Jinghui and Norwegian citizen Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad in its English-language online magazine Dabiq.

President Xi Jinping "strongly condemned" ISIS for the killing of Fan, the first known Chinese national to be killed by the group, and the country's foreign ministry said the Chinese government would "definitely hold the perpetrators accountable."

But how to respond to Fan's "cold-blooded and violent" death presents a dilemma for China, which has stayed on the sidelines in the fight against ISIS and has a long-held principle of noninterference in other countries' affairs.

To date, Beijing has been vague on the question of what it will contribute to the global fight against ISIS and has declined to explicitly offer its support for airstrikes being conducted against the group in Syria.

Norway also condemned the killings.

"We have no grounds to doubt the contents of the photos that have been published," Foreign Minister Boerge Brende said, according to Reuters.

 

Teacher turned drifter

 

It's not known how Fan was captured by ISIS or whether he was abducted in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere.

Fan doesn't appear to have a military background and worked as a high school teacher before switching to a career in advertising, according to Chinese state media.

In 2001, according to Chinese magazine Caijing, he told a Chinese radio program that he was a "drifter" but he hoped to win awards for his advertising work.

When news of Fan's capture first spread in September, neighbors near his last known address told Reuters that he hadn't lived at the home in many years, and that they didn't know if he had any family.

"The Chinese government and people have been very concerned about Fan Jinghui's safety since he was kidnapped," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement Thursday.

He added the government had made "all-out" efforts to rescue him.

 

More here:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/18/asia/isis-hostages-china-norway/

 

[Dral]

On 10/12/2015, 10:22:59, SwedeHockey said:

I believe I read this earlier on in the thread, but I will say it again.

 

 

I wish ISIS someway is dumb enough to attack Russia, so they come back and while then out.

I always thought ISIS would be in way more trouble if they attacked China...

 

 

2 hours ago, Heretic said:

Well, it appears ISIS has ticked off another country:

 

 Beijing vows justice as ISIS kills Chinese, Norwegian hostages

Hong Kong (CNN)Beijing has vowed to bring ISIS to justice after the group said it had executed two hostages, a Chinese and a Norwegian.

ISIS said it had killed the two men, identified as Chinese national Fan Jinghui and Norwegian citizen Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad in its English-language online magazine Dabiq.

President Xi Jinping "strongly condemned" ISIS for the killing of Fan, the first known Chinese national to be killed by the group, and the country's foreign ministry said the Chinese government would "definitely hold the perpetrators accountable."

But how to respond to Fan's "cold-blooded and violent" death presents a dilemma for China, which has stayed on the sidelines in the fight against ISIS and has a long-held principle of noninterference in other countries' affairs.

To date, Beijing has been vague on the question of what it will contribute to the global fight against ISIS and has declined to explicitly offer its support for airstrikes being conducted against the group in Syria.

Norway also condemned the killings.

"We have no grounds to doubt the contents of the photos that have been published," Foreign Minister Boerge Brende said, according to Reuters.

 

Teacher turned drifter

 

It's not known how Fan was captured by ISIS or whether he was abducted in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere.

Fan doesn't appear to have a military background and worked as a high school teacher before switching to a career in advertising, according to Chinese state media.

In 2001, according to Chinese magazine Caijing, he told a Chinese radio program that he was a "drifter" but he hoped to win awards for his advertising work.

When news of Fan's capture first spread in September, neighbors near his last known address told Reuters that he hadn't lived at the home in many years, and that they didn't know if he had any family.

"The Chinese government and people have been very concerned about Fan Jinghui's safety since he was kidnapped," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement Thursday.

He added the government had made "all-out" efforts to rescue him.

 

More here:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/18/asia/isis-hostages-china-norway/

 

 

And here we go... heh

[Armada]

Imagine if everyone worked together. US, Russia and China. 

It won't happen though. 

[nux4lyfe]

2 minutes ago, Armada said:

Imagine if everyone worked together. US, Russia and China. 

It won't happen though. 

Russia and China will..That should be plenty enough, US needs to butt out..

[Edlerberry]

5 hours ago, Heretic said:

Well, it appears ISIS has ticked off another country:

 

 Beijing vows justice as ISIS kills Chinese, Norwegian hostages

 

so this is ok, but that isn't

http://www.lifenews.com/2015/05/05/china-is-killing-christians-and-political-prisoners-and-selling-their-organs-on-the-black-market/

Quote

Permit me to mention only a small fraction of the evidence that led us to our conclusion:

• Investigators made many calls to hospitals, detention centres and other facilities across China claiming to be relatives of patients needing transplants and asking if they had organs of Falun Gong for sale. We obtained on tape and then transcribed and translated admissions that a number of facilities trafficking in the Falun Gong organs provided.

• Falun Gong prisoners, who later got out of China, testified that they were systematically blood-tested and organ-examined while in forced-labour camps across the country. This could not have been for their health since they were regularly tortured, but it is necessary for organ transplants and for building a bank of live “donors”.

• In a few cases, family members of Falun Gong practitioners were able to see mutilated corpses of their loved ones between death and cremation. Organs had been removed.

• We interviewed the ex-wife of a surgeon from Sujiatun in Shenyang City, Liaoning. The surgeon told her that he had removed corneas from 2,000 Falun Gong prisoners between 2001 and 2003. He made it clear to her that none of these sources survived because different surgeons removed other organs and their bodies were then burned.

 

&^@# isis