Guns don't make a populace harder to control, and haven't for some time. A modern military full of trained soldiers can effortlessly contain even the best armed populace.
Not necessarily if the standing army comes from the same population as the civilians and is sympathetic to their grievances. The military may ignore orders and stay in barracks or refuse to fire upon civilians, as occurred when Soviet hardliners tried to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Or members of the military may actually join with rebellion citizens, as in the US Civil War.
You are obviously confusing civil rights (completely unrelated to guns)...
You are misinformed regarding the civil rights movement. One of the rights the movement fought for was firearms ownership. Blacks were being discriminated against with respect to firearms too. The KKK boys prefer their victims unarmed when they show up.
... You are the one making assumptions. And dated doesn't mean bad. Nothing fundamental has changed... because the technology is so simple. There's very little engineering involved. We're talking about problems which were solved twenty years ago...
OK, you have lost all credibility. Any mild amount of googling proves you wrong. Try it some time. Once you get remotely familiar with the topic you will find that both paths need significant research and engineering and cost reductions. The old swimming pool sized study you cling to proves little.
... because the most efficient algae for your location will just show up and colonize the pond
The most efficient with respect to survival in the environment. That is not the same thing as the most efficient with respect to production of the desired chemicals and the efficiency of use of the injected CO2.
But they want to do algae in "reactors" (which is generally the focus of the industry) because it's a more controlled environment. They don't want to use the cheap, easy way we have to do it already for all the usual reasons.
You are making many assumptions about your very dated and very early stage research citation. There are still many technical problems with ponds and reactors are expensive. If quality control and non-seasonality are more important than cost then in the short term reactors are the way to go, this seems to be the case for the military. The industry is still researching both paths and expects large scale productions to be decades away. As I said, there is a lot of engineering to do to go from a small feasibility study to actual large scale production.
Swings in desert temperatures were very disruptive, hostile to many species
This is not a serious problem, because over time the best species will colonize the ponds and you simply harvest the dieoffs.
No, the goal is not to simply get something to grow. The point is to get specific species that produce desired byproducts efficiently to grow. Selection for the environment is one thing, selecting for efficient industrial production is something else. This is one of the differences between basic scientific research that demonstrates feasibility and engineering that produces a product, in academia a certain amount of hand waving, of leaving secondary problems for the next researcher (or engineer), is allowed.
Because the military will do something slow and expensively, it can't be done right?
Like it or not the military is leading the effort to industrialize biofuels and do large scale production. Historically many scientific and engineering advances have come from the military. When the military wants a technology then that field generally advances faster than when left purely to academia and industry. Military involvement is probably very good news for biofuels.
Actually, the best solution would be to produce Butanol. We'd be able to buy that already but a holding company owned jointly by BP and DuPont is suing a company owned by GE ventures to prevent them from selling it to us. It's a less polluting 1:1 replacement for gasoline made by bacteria since the 1800s. The patent should have been denied on the basis of obviousness and it relates to copying the gene for the ABE process from the original organism into basically anything else that might be suitable to carry it, and it was developed at a public university and therefore partly with our money (yours and mine.)
Many public universities retain patents related to any research done by their faculty or students. Licensing is a source of revenue, in theory reducing the amount of taxpayer revenue to run the place. At the University of California 50% of licensing fees go to the statewide university system, 25% to the department of the researchers and 25% to the researchers themselves. Researchers are required to report anything that is remotely patentable, a special department handles all the legal BS. The university does give small and/or local companies preferential pricing and consideration with respect to licensing fees, hoping to promote a local cluster of expertise.
Your own old citation proves otherwise. Your citation mentions various open questions moving from lab conditions to field conditions. Swings in desert temperatures were very disruptive, hostile to many species. At best your citation claims they have shown large scale plausibilty. As I said, much work remains.
Wiki shows that more recent government cost estimates approach US$200 a barrel pricing.
No. The fact that the technology is proven does not mean that it is ready to scale up to necessary levels any time soon.
Yes. The test was applicable to large-scale production. If you had read the report then you would know this. I've read the whole thing, how much have you read?
You need to re-read. They claim nothing more than plausibility of large scale production from the olympic sized pool testing. The US military is only now attempting large scale production and anticipates **decades** of work ahead. And the needs of the military are dwarfed by commercial trucking. After basic science comes engineering and engineering takes time.
Maybe someday, but not today.
A perfect summary of the situation regarding algae based biofuels. I'd love to see it happen but for the near future we could move to natural gas or continue to use petroleum.
In the US we could greatly reduce pollution in the very near future with existing technology by switching our heavy trucks from diesel to natural gas.
False. We could switch them to biodiesel from algae, though.
No we could not do that in the very near future.
Biodiesel might be interesting but its not ready to scale up as necessary anytime soon.
False. We could scale it up in very short order if we wanted to. You pump seawater into the desert and grow algae in raceway ponds. The USDoE proved this technology at Sandia NREL in the 1980s, and showed that it should be profitable by the time diesel fuel hit $3/gal. It is over that now.
No. The fact that the technology is proven does not mean that it is ready to scale up to necessary levels any time soon. We are only now just beginning to experiment with large scale production as part of US military pilot programs. Your algae ponds will be tied up in court for a decade or more before the first shovel touches desert tortoise or kangaroo rat habitat. Let alone all the necessary engineering that still needs to take place.
That said we probably need to cleanup our natural gas production so that any gains on the back end (trucking) are not lost on the front end (production).
Natgas production is today based on fracking. Fail, fail.
No, the fracking techniques could be cleaned up. Regulations are need to ensure proper shaft creation, non-toxic fluids being pumped, fracking is at proper depths and below proper impermeable layers, etc. There is nothing wrong with the fracking concept, its the current implementation that is screwed up. An implementation based on low costs not safety.
In the US we could greatly reduce pollution in the very near future with existing technology by switching our heavy trucks from diesel to natural gas. Such trucks aren't going electric anytime soon. Biodiesel might be interesting but its not ready to scale up as necessary anytime soon. We'll probably have to wait some number of decades as the US military breaks ground with respect to large scale use of biofuels.
That said we probably need to cleanup our natural gas production so that any gains on the back end (trucking) are not lost on the front end (production).
Well, apparently, you don't need to invoke OT to come up with the idea of death penalties in such within the framework of Christianity. So it would seem that the exclusive focus on OT is unwarranted.
The post I responded to listed various OT laws with death and other extreme punishments as evidence of Christian capital crimes.
Other than self defense and "just wars" Christianity does not permit killing. There are no approved death penalties for any crimes. Now had their been murderous crimes committed in the past, yes, by those with heretical beliefs seeking/maintaining the power of the state, not by those practicing the teaching of Christ.
Who said anything about OT violations? Neither Chrysostom nor Aquinas justified their support for corporal and capital punishment for religious crimes based on OT.
See older posts. OT violations leading to death and other severe penalties are the topic.
The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, made an interesting speech to a group of Imams supporting my position that moderate muslims in the region have not done enough.
"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move because this umma [community] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands." http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
Christ is not here but many of his teaching are with us. And as I said his actively interfering with a "lawful" stoning is among those lessons. The lesson was clear. Killing for old testament law violations is wrong.
Now please continue making us laugh by arguing that Christ's teachings and examples don't constitute christian beliefs.
You misunderstand the topic. That tolerance for extremist views that allows for attacks on the west and westerners is far more acceptable in modern times than historically more distant times (say 100 years ago). The criticism of the attack on the school in Pakistan does not counter this because the target was local not western. In the past criticism of the extremists was not so selective.
The lack of criticism for pro-caliphate teachings is not restricted to areas under ISIS influence. That is the problem, not that people with an ISIS gun at their head remain silent.
Furthermore the historical point stands that past generations (100+ years) repeatedly put down taliban-like isis-like "lets establish an caliphate" movements. The advocates of such groups were looked down upon. The views of such groups were pointed out to be heretical. Ex. Near the end of WW1 when one such group tried to exert power in newly liberated Damascus they were immediately driven from city hall, when they organized and attempted to revolt against the "moderates" they were put down by force. The various sheiks who assumed control and carried out these anti-caliphate actions openly stated that the caliphate advocates were unfit for any leadership roles because of their heresies and their inability to use logic in decision making. The sheiks had overwhelming public support for these anti-caliphate actions. This all occurred before British forces arrived, moderate muslims policed their own. The sheiks explained to westerners that the pro-caliphate extremists attempted mischief one or twice a century and were overwhelmingly rejected by the people as heretics and put down by local authorities before they made too much mischief. They expected the cycle to continue.
However something has changed and the pro-caliphates are now tolerated or supported to a far larger degree.
It was left for the new administration to negotiate a status of forces agreement that was expected to include a residual force to be left behind. When the Iraqis initially said "no" to immunity for US troops the Obama administration essentially used that as an excuse to leave no forces at all. No serious effort was made to overcome this "no" to immunity. The Bush administration also received an initial "no" regarding immunity in its various agreement, however it increased its offer and the Iraqis agreed to immunity in those past agreements. The initial "no" is a bargaining tactic to get more out of a deal. The Obama administration wanted to be rid of Iraq completely, to them the initial "no" was the perfect excuse not a starting point for negotiations.
Warlord and drug cartel behavior is hardly equivalent to the actions of a somewhat "normal" father or brother who commits an "honor killing". You comparison utterly fails.
The local newspapers, the local imams preaching in the local mosques, the talk in the shops, etc used to be that the extremists are wrong. In particular wrong in their beliefs regarding islam, that they were heretics. The dried up the pool volunteers to a sufficient degree. And the region that this occurred in was historic Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia. At least from some historical sources that I had read from over 100 years ago that was discussing the periodic rise of extremists. Individuals who acted on such extremist beliefs were often shunned by their family and tribe. A extremely serious repercussion in those days.
In contrast, today, in some communities, we get heroic posters of suicide bombers.
You can't protect or refuse to criticize muslim extremists merely because they share your faith. When non-muslims have legitimate grievances against muslim extremists then moderate muslims need to side with the non-muslims.
First of all the attack on the Pakistani schools would not count since the victims were muslim. the non-muslim v muslim element is not present.
Second I'm not referring to PR statements to the western media and other western venues that the extremists will never read or care about.. I'm talking about the local papers explaining that some attack was wrong and counter to islam, that extremist justifications and teachings are counter to islam; I'm talking about the local imams preaching these things in the local mosques; etc. That is where extremism used to be stopped.
The way moderates find extremists in their communities is by reaching out to them (or at least those around them) and convincing them that peace is better.
Historically moderates have triumphed and stopped extremist movements by showing that the extremist teaching are counter to Islam. They may fall short of using the word "heretical" to be polite but that is essentially what they are saying even if they avoid the word.
Insisting that moderates address us to condemn the extremists disrupts this process.
You got it wrong. We are not expecting them to apologize to us for the others. We are expecting them to act as their grandfathers and other ancestors once did and clean their own house, stop their local heresies. To do as their ancestors did, ancestors who did so for no other reason than that the extremists were wrong. The problem in the west is that we don't see much evidence of this INTERNAL debate. Some isolated voices but largely silence.
But the fact remains that without the US invasion the unrest and deaths would very likely not have happened.
The mass graves of the Saddam regime indicate that deaths were already occurring.
Why do moderate muslims always have to appologize for and/or condemn extremists. Are you an American? If so can I ask you to condemn Glenn Beck whenever he says something crazy?
When Beck picks up a gun or bomb rather than a microphone I'll gladly condemn him. To fail to do so because he is an American or a Christian would make me part of his crime by tolerating him by remaining silent.
The historical fact is that extremist ideologies occur periodically in the region. However the moderates have, over and over, stamped it out themselves. The radical interpretation of Islam proposed by these extremists were (are) considered heretical by the majority. Moderates used to preach against these heresies. Moderates used to stop these extremists. They need to do so again.
You forgot the part where the Shia dominated government pissed off the Sunni's to the point of revolt.
That is related to the complete US withdrawal. With US influence in the country the Shia government is more likely to be moderated or reigned in. Its the total US abandonment of Iraq that made the Sunnis desperate enough to rethink their relationship with ISIS.
Either way there's no such thing as a flawless war. Bush probably screwed up disbanding ISIS but the alternative might have been a Shia revolt or a military coup by the Sunni army.
A re-organizing of the Iraqi Army under temporary US command would probably have involve some tribal and religious considerations. Predominantly sunni troops in the sunni heartland, shia troops in the shia heartland, etc. The generals were aware of the complications, T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and such being required reading in all the military academies.
And if the US stayed in Iraq (after convincing the Iraqi's to let them) things might be better, or they might be in an '06 level surge of violence with ISIS spreading to Lebanon, Jordan, or Turkey instead.
Doubtful. ISIS only became a powerful and news-headlining force in the absence of US power. Their early incarnation was marginalized by US and tribal forces. Their heavy weapons and power only permitted to exist in lawless areas such as civil war burdened Syria. Jordan and Turkey, like the US, possess air power that would not allow ISIS to roll down the highway with heavy weapons and get a foothold, outgun Kurds and other locals, etc. ISIS absolutely needs the power vacuum to get beyond being a marginal player.
The big one is a peaceful resolution to Israel/Palestine.
Not really. Most countries in the region don't truly care about the Palestinians. They do care about the existence of Israel but the suffering of the Palestinians is a tool to support an agenda, not a problem be solved.
What if they invaded France for no good reason and sparked civil unrest killing 100,000+?
That is quite twisted logic and wording. The factions involved need little excuse to fight and mistrust each other. Start from there and give one faction brutal dictatorial power that repressed and subjugated the other for decades. That brutal dictatorship is what caused the fighting and ethnic cleansing type behavior.
Muslim's aren't dumb, they notice the freakout the west has whenever they hear the word Islam, if you're treating someone like your enemy they're likely to do the same in reverse.
It goes both ways. You can't protect or refuse to criticize muslim extremists merely because they share your faith. When non-muslims have legitimate grievances against muslim extremists then moderate muslims need to side with the non-muslims.
Like invading countries and launching drone strikes until ISIS popped up?
Actually ISIS (although going by a different name at the time) popped up during the US occupation and was put down by US and Iraqi troops (tribally organized not central gov't mostly) during the Anbar Awakening. An excellent example of the fundamental mistake being fools in Washington who insisted that the Iraqi Army be entirely disbanded. Yeah, get rid of the high ranking officers and the republican guard, but the jr officers and the majority of the enlisted troops should have been left in service and answering to US officers. As we did at the end of WW2 with German and Japanese troops.
ISIS filled the vacuum created by a premature withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, before a credible Iraqi security force was in place, without any US stabilization force that could have been called in for assistance. For example had the US actually tried to get a status of forces agreement (it didn't, it made superficial gestures with no desire or intent to actually reach such an agreement -- taking initial rejection of an offer as a firm no and failing to sweeten the deal to get to yes as was required every other time in the past to get immunity etc) the existing Iraqi forces could have called in US air support. Its doubtful US ground forces would have been needed to assist. ISIS would not have been able to roll down the highway in their Toyotas with their heavy weapons from town to town with US air support around. ISIS only gained ground because Iraqi army units felt abandoned by the Iraqi gov't and the US.
So ISIS was initially a creation of the Bush administration's foolish disbanding of the Iraqi army, but they corrected/reversed that to a degree creating the tribal security forces that fought along side the US.
And then ISIS was resurrected by the Obama administration's foolish desire to be entirely rid of Iraq, and is now in the processes of reluctantly correcting/reversing that to a degree.
Those are Old Testament rules, not Christian rules. Jesus and the New Testament changed the rules. Jesus actively interfered with enforcing such rules, ex. "cast the first stone".
When was the last time you heard of such rules being enforced? Modern "honor killings" come time mind, and those practicing honor killings don't seem to be misguided heretics of the Christian variety.
Slashdot Mirror
Guns don't make a populace harder to control, and haven't for some time. A modern military full of trained soldiers can effortlessly contain even the best armed populace.
Not necessarily if the standing army comes from the same population as the civilians and is sympathetic to their grievances. The military may ignore orders and stay in barracks or refuse to fire upon civilians, as occurred when Soviet hardliners tried to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Or members of the military may actually join with rebellion citizens, as in the US Civil War.
The NFL should update their requirement to say 12.5 PSI minimum, at some particular temperature.
The particular temperature being the temperature on the field.
You are obviously confusing civil rights (completely unrelated to guns) ...
You are misinformed regarding the civil rights movement. One of the rights the movement fought for was firearms ownership. Blacks were being discriminated against with respect to firearms too. The KKK boys prefer their victims unarmed when they show up.
... You are the one making assumptions. And dated doesn't mean bad. Nothing fundamental has changed ... because the technology is so simple. There's very little engineering involved. We're talking about problems which were solved twenty years ago ...
OK, you have lost all credibility. Any mild amount of googling proves you wrong. Try it some time. Once you get remotely familiar with the topic you will find that both paths need significant research and engineering and cost reductions. The old swimming pool sized study you cling to proves little.
... because the most efficient algae for your location will just show up and colonize the pond
The most efficient with respect to survival in the environment. That is not the same thing as the most efficient with respect to production of the desired chemicals and the efficiency of use of the injected CO2.
But they want to do algae in "reactors" (which is generally the focus of the industry) because it's a more controlled environment. They don't want to use the cheap, easy way we have to do it already for all the usual reasons.
You are making many assumptions about your very dated and very early stage research citation. There are still many technical problems with ponds and reactors are expensive. If quality control and non-seasonality are more important than cost then in the short term reactors are the way to go, this seems to be the case for the military. The industry is still researching both paths and expects large scale productions to be decades away. As I said, there is a lot of engineering to do to go from a small feasibility study to actual large scale production.
Swings in desert temperatures were very disruptive, hostile to many species
This is not a serious problem, because over time the best species will colonize the ponds and you simply harvest the dieoffs.
No, the goal is not to simply get something to grow. The point is to get specific species that produce desired byproducts efficiently to grow. Selection for the environment is one thing, selecting for efficient industrial production is something else. This is one of the differences between basic scientific research that demonstrates feasibility and engineering that produces a product, in academia a certain amount of hand waving, of leaving secondary problems for the next researcher (or engineer), is allowed.
Because the military will do something slow and expensively, it can't be done right?
Like it or not the military is leading the effort to industrialize biofuels and do large scale production. Historically many scientific and engineering advances have come from the military. When the military wants a technology then that field generally advances faster than when left purely to academia and industry. Military involvement is probably very good news for biofuels.
Actually, the best solution would be to produce Butanol. We'd be able to buy that already but a holding company owned jointly by BP and DuPont is suing a company owned by GE ventures to prevent them from selling it to us. It's a less polluting 1:1 replacement for gasoline made by bacteria since the 1800s. The patent should have been denied on the basis of obviousness and it relates to copying the gene for the ABE process from the original organism into basically anything else that might be suitable to carry it, and it was developed at a public university and therefore partly with our money (yours and mine.)
Many public universities retain patents related to any research done by their faculty or students. Licensing is a source of revenue, in theory reducing the amount of taxpayer revenue to run the place. At the University of California 50% of licensing fees go to the statewide university system, 25% to the department of the researchers and 25% to the researchers themselves. Researchers are required to report anything that is remotely patentable, a special department handles all the legal BS. The university does give small and/or local companies preferential pricing and consideration with respect to licensing fees, hoping to promote a local cluster of expertise.
No we could not do that in the very near future.
Yes, yes we could. It's cheap and easy.
Your own old citation proves otherwise. Your citation mentions various open questions moving from lab conditions to field conditions. Swings in desert temperatures were very disruptive, hostile to many species. At best your citation claims they have shown large scale plausibilty. As I said, much work remains.
Wiki shows that more recent government cost estimates approach US$200 a barrel pricing.
No. The fact that the technology is proven does not mean that it is ready to scale up to necessary levels any time soon.
Yes. The test was applicable to large-scale production. If you had read the report then you would know this. I've read the whole thing, how much have you read?
You need to re-read. They claim nothing more than plausibility of large scale production from the olympic sized pool testing. The US military is only now attempting large scale production and anticipates **decades** of work ahead. And the needs of the military are dwarfed by commercial trucking. After basic science comes engineering and engineering takes time.
Maybe someday, but not today.
A perfect summary of the situation regarding algae based biofuels. I'd love to see it happen but for the near future we could move to natural gas or continue to use petroleum.
In the US we could greatly reduce pollution in the very near future with existing technology by switching our heavy trucks from diesel to natural gas.
False. We could switch them to biodiesel from algae, though.
No we could not do that in the very near future.
Biodiesel might be interesting but its not ready to scale up as necessary anytime soon.
False. We could scale it up in very short order if we wanted to. You pump seawater into the desert and grow algae in raceway ponds. The USDoE proved this technology at Sandia NREL in the 1980s, and showed that it should be profitable by the time diesel fuel hit $3/gal. It is over that now.
No. The fact that the technology is proven does not mean that it is ready to scale up to necessary levels any time soon. We are only now just beginning to experiment with large scale production as part of US military pilot programs. Your algae ponds will be tied up in court for a decade or more before the first shovel touches desert tortoise or kangaroo rat habitat. Let alone all the necessary engineering that still needs to take place.
That said we probably need to cleanup our natural gas production so that any gains on the back end (trucking) are not lost on the front end (production).
Natgas production is today based on fracking. Fail, fail.
No, the fracking techniques could be cleaned up. Regulations are need to ensure proper shaft creation, non-toxic fluids being pumped, fracking is at proper depths and below proper impermeable layers, etc. There is nothing wrong with the fracking concept, its the current implementation that is screwed up. An implementation based on low costs not safety.
In the US we could greatly reduce pollution in the very near future with existing technology by switching our heavy trucks from diesel to natural gas. Such trucks aren't going electric anytime soon. Biodiesel might be interesting but its not ready to scale up as necessary anytime soon. We'll probably have to wait some number of decades as the US military breaks ground with respect to large scale use of biofuels.
That said we probably need to cleanup our natural gas production so that any gains on the back end (trucking) are not lost on the front end (production).
Well, apparently, you don't need to invoke OT to come up with the idea of death penalties in such within the framework of Christianity. So it would seem that the exclusive focus on OT is unwarranted.
The post I responded to listed various OT laws with death and other extreme punishments as evidence of Christian capital crimes.
Other than self defense and "just wars" Christianity does not permit killing. There are no approved death penalties for any crimes. Now had their been murderous crimes committed in the past, yes, by those with heretical beliefs seeking/maintaining the power of the state, not by those practicing the teaching of Christ.
Who said anything about OT violations? Neither Chrysostom nor Aquinas justified their support for corporal and capital punishment for religious crimes based on OT.
See older posts. OT violations leading to death and other severe penalties are the topic.
The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, made an interesting speech to a group of Imams supporting my position that moderate muslims in the region have not done enough.
"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move because this umma [community] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
Christ is not here but many of his teaching are with us. And as I said his actively interfering with a "lawful" stoning is among those lessons. The lesson was clear. Killing for old testament law violations is wrong.
Now please continue making us laugh by arguing that Christ's teachings and examples don't constitute christian beliefs.
Opinions of early church fathers do not have the standing of the teachings of Christ. Again, Christ actively interfered with a "lawful" stoning.
That said, an early church father advocating punching someone in the mouth is very far from stoning someone to death.
You misunderstand the topic. That tolerance for extremist views that allows for attacks on the west and westerners is far more acceptable in modern times than historically more distant times (say 100 years ago). The criticism of the attack on the school in Pakistan does not counter this because the target was local not western. In the past criticism of the extremists was not so selective.
The lack of criticism for pro-caliphate teachings is not restricted to areas under ISIS influence. That is the problem, not that people with an ISIS gun at their head remain silent.
Furthermore the historical point stands that past generations (100+ years) repeatedly put down taliban-like isis-like "lets establish an caliphate" movements. The advocates of such groups were looked down upon. The views of such groups were pointed out to be heretical. Ex. Near the end of WW1 when one such group tried to exert power in newly liberated Damascus they were immediately driven from city hall, when they organized and attempted to revolt against the "moderates" they were put down by force. The various sheiks who assumed control and carried out these anti-caliphate actions openly stated that the caliphate advocates were unfit for any leadership roles because of their heresies and their inability to use logic in decision making. The sheiks had overwhelming public support for these anti-caliphate actions. This all occurred before British forces arrived, moderate muslims policed their own. The sheiks explained to westerners that the pro-caliphate extremists attempted mischief one or twice a century and were overwhelmingly rejected by the people as heretics and put down by local authorities before they made too much mischief. They expected the cycle to continue.
However something has changed and the pro-caliphates are now tolerated or supported to a far larger degree.
It was left for the new administration to negotiate a status of forces agreement that was expected to include a residual force to be left behind. When the Iraqis initially said "no" to immunity for US troops the Obama administration essentially used that as an excuse to leave no forces at all. No serious effort was made to overcome this "no" to immunity. The Bush administration also received an initial "no" regarding immunity in its various agreement, however it increased its offer and the Iraqis agreed to immunity in those past agreements. The initial "no" is a bargaining tactic to get more out of a deal. The Obama administration wanted to be rid of Iraq completely, to them the initial "no" was the perfect excuse not a starting point for negotiations.
Warlord and drug cartel behavior is hardly equivalent to the actions of a somewhat "normal" father or brother who commits an "honor killing". You comparison utterly fails.
The local newspapers, the local imams preaching in the local mosques, the talk in the shops, etc used to be that the extremists are wrong. In particular wrong in their beliefs regarding islam, that they were heretics. The dried up the pool volunteers to a sufficient degree. And the region that this occurred in was historic Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia. At least from some historical sources that I had read from over 100 years ago that was discussing the periodic rise of extremists. Individuals who acted on such extremist beliefs were often shunned by their family and tribe. A extremely serious repercussion in those days.
In contrast, today, in some communities, we get heroic posters of suicide bombers.
But they do! Everywhere except, apparently, in stories reported by the mainstream media. Gotta keep fear alive.
First of all the attack on the Pakistani schools would not count since the victims were muslim. the non-muslim v muslim element is not present.
Second I'm not referring to PR statements to the western media and other western venues that the extremists will never read or care about.. I'm talking about the local papers explaining that some attack was wrong and counter to islam, that extremist justifications and teachings are counter to islam; I'm talking about the local imams preaching these things in the local mosques; etc. That is where extremism used to be stopped.
The way moderates find extremists in their communities is by reaching out to them (or at least those around them) and convincing them that peace is better.
Historically moderates have triumphed and stopped extremist movements by showing that the extremist teaching are counter to Islam. They may fall short of using the word "heretical" to be polite but that is essentially what they are saying even if they avoid the word.
Insisting that moderates address us to condemn the extremists disrupts this process.
You got it wrong. We are not expecting them to apologize to us for the others. We are expecting them to act as their grandfathers and other ancestors once did and clean their own house, stop their local heresies. To do as their ancestors did, ancestors who did so for no other reason than that the extremists were wrong. The problem in the west is that we don't see much evidence of this INTERNAL debate. Some isolated voices but largely silence.
But the fact remains that without the US invasion the unrest and deaths would very likely not have happened.
The mass graves of the Saddam regime indicate that deaths were already occurring.
Why do moderate muslims always have to appologize for and/or condemn extremists. Are you an American? If so can I ask you to condemn Glenn Beck whenever he says something crazy?
When Beck picks up a gun or bomb rather than a microphone I'll gladly condemn him. To fail to do so because he is an American or a Christian would make me part of his crime by tolerating him by remaining silent.
The historical fact is that extremist ideologies occur periodically in the region. However the moderates have, over and over, stamped it out themselves. The radical interpretation of Islam proposed by these extremists were (are) considered heretical by the majority. Moderates used to preach against these heresies. Moderates used to stop these extremists. They need to do so again.
You forgot the part where the Shia dominated government pissed off the Sunni's to the point of revolt.
That is related to the complete US withdrawal. With US influence in the country the Shia government is more likely to be moderated or reigned in. Its the total US abandonment of Iraq that made the Sunnis desperate enough to rethink their relationship with ISIS.
Either way there's no such thing as a flawless war. Bush probably screwed up disbanding ISIS but the alternative might have been a Shia revolt or a military coup by the Sunni army.
A re-organizing of the Iraqi Army under temporary US command would probably have involve some tribal and religious considerations. Predominantly sunni troops in the sunni heartland, shia troops in the shia heartland, etc. The generals were aware of the complications, T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and such being required reading in all the military academies.
And if the US stayed in Iraq (after convincing the Iraqi's to let them) things might be better, or they might be in an '06 level surge of violence with ISIS spreading to Lebanon, Jordan, or Turkey instead.
Doubtful. ISIS only became a powerful and news-headlining force in the absence of US power. Their early incarnation was marginalized by US and tribal forces. Their heavy weapons and power only permitted to exist in lawless areas such as civil war burdened Syria. Jordan and Turkey, like the US, possess air power that would not allow ISIS to roll down the highway with heavy weapons and get a foothold, outgun Kurds and other locals, etc. ISIS absolutely needs the power vacuum to get beyond being a marginal player.
The big one is a peaceful resolution to Israel/Palestine.
Not really. Most countries in the region don't truly care about the Palestinians. They do care about the existence of Israel but the suffering of the Palestinians is a tool to support an agenda, not a problem be solved.
What if they invaded France for no good reason and sparked civil unrest killing 100,000+?
That is quite twisted logic and wording. The factions involved need little excuse to fight and mistrust each other. Start from there and give one faction brutal dictatorial power that repressed and subjugated the other for decades. That brutal dictatorship is what caused the fighting and ethnic cleansing type behavior.
Muslim's aren't dumb, they notice the freakout the west has whenever they hear the word Islam, if you're treating someone like your enemy they're likely to do the same in reverse.
It goes both ways. You can't protect or refuse to criticize muslim extremists merely because they share your faith. When non-muslims have legitimate grievances against muslim extremists then moderate muslims need to side with the non-muslims.
Like invading countries and launching drone strikes until ISIS popped up?
Actually ISIS (although going by a different name at the time) popped up during the US occupation and was put down by US and Iraqi troops (tribally organized not central gov't mostly) during the Anbar Awakening. An excellent example of the fundamental mistake being fools in Washington who insisted that the Iraqi Army be entirely disbanded. Yeah, get rid of the high ranking officers and the republican guard, but the jr officers and the majority of the enlisted troops should have been left in service and answering to US officers. As we did at the end of WW2 with German and Japanese troops.
ISIS filled the vacuum created by a premature withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, before a credible Iraqi security force was in place, without any US stabilization force that could have been called in for assistance. For example had the US actually tried to get a status of forces agreement (it didn't, it made superficial gestures with no desire or intent to actually reach such an agreement -- taking initial rejection of an offer as a firm no and failing to sweeten the deal to get to yes as was required every other time in the past to get immunity etc) the existing Iraqi forces could have called in US air support. Its doubtful US ground forces would have been needed to assist. ISIS would not have been able to roll down the highway in their Toyotas with their heavy weapons from town to town with US air support around. ISIS only gained ground because Iraqi army units felt abandoned by the Iraqi gov't and the US.
So ISIS was initially a creation of the Bush administration's foolish disbanding of the Iraqi army, but they corrected/reversed that to a degree creating the tribal security forces that fought along side the US.
And then ISIS was resurrected by the Obama administration's foolish desire to be entirely rid of Iraq, and is now in the processes of reluctantly correcting/reversing that to a degree.
Those are Old Testament rules, not Christian rules. Jesus and the New Testament changed the rules. Jesus actively interfered with enforcing such rules, ex. "cast the first stone".
When was the last time you heard of such rules being enforced? Modern "honor killings" come time mind, and those practicing honor killings don't seem to be misguided heretics of the Christian variety.