Today's Wild Geese: Foreign Fighters in the GWOT

**davidbfpo** · 03-27-2015

Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

But her book carries a massive statement centered on the Muslim community as a whole.

There has been coming out of Sisi in Egypt a similar plea lately.

Outlaw09,

Calls for Islam to be reformed from outside maybe listened to by some within. I doubt many will listen to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and a good number will regard General Sisi's statements as self-serving, as he tries to reduce the impact "political Islam" has on Egyptians.

**davidbfpo** · 05-17-2015

Medhi Hassan has a long commentary on this call, in part raised by non-Muslims, notably the atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (cited before):http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...luther-europe?

Here are two passages:

Don’t get me wrong. Reforms are of course needed across the crisis-ridden Muslim-majority world: political, socio-economic and, yes, religious too. Muslims need to rediscover their own heritage of pluralism, tolerance and mutual respect – embodied in, say, the Prophet’s letter to the monks of St Catherine’s monastery....

What they don’t need are lazy calls for an Islamic reformation from non-Muslims and ex-Muslims, the repetition of which merely illustrates how shallow and simplistic, how ahistorical and even anti-historical, some of the west’s leading commentators are on this issue. It is much easier for them, it seems, to reduce the complex debate over violent extremism to a series of cliches, slogans and soundbites, rather than examining root causes or historical trends; easier still to champion the most extreme and bigoted critics of Islam while ignoring the voices of mainstream Muslim scholars, academics and activists.

**davidbfpo** · 06-16-2015

A short detailed rebuttal of the arguments of Ayaan Hirsi Ali from Will McCants @ Brookings, which IMHO is devasting. Here is his opening paragraph:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is correct that darker passages of Islamic Scripture endorse violence and prescribe harsh punishments for moral or theological infractions. And she is right that in many Muslim countries, too many citizens still think it is a good idea to kill people for apostasy, stone them for adultery, and beat women for disobedience just because Scripture says so. But Hirsi Ali is profoundly wrong when she argues that Islamic Scripture causes Muslim terrorism and thus that the U.S. government should fund Muslim dissidents to reform Islam.

Link and not behind a paywall:https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...re-not-problem

**davidbfpo** · 06-18-2016

In part prompted by recent "lone wolf" and other terrorist attacks, this wide-ranging thought piece by Raffaello Pantucci is worth a read:https://raffaellopantucci.com/2016/0...om-by-the-day/

**Azor** · 06-19-2016

I am responding to your 2 most recent posts from this week...

I broadly agree that the solution to Islamic terrorism is not a Western-originated top-down reform of Islamic texts and practices. Certainly there are texts in Judaism and Christianity that can be used to justify aggressive violence against non-Christians and Christians deemed heretical. Moreover, the Christian Reformation and Counter-Reformation were not struggles for tolerance and peace, but violent struggles driven by fanatics.

Yet we must also acknowledge that people identifying as Muslims and acting on behalf of Islam are committing atrocities in Western countries against non-Muslims. Taken into a global context, the statistics indicate that wherever Muslims and non-Muslims exist in the same country, there is inter-communal violence. Nor do non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority countries ever not face oppression, whether in the 8th Century or 21st Century.

In the United States, since 9/11, Muslim terrorists have killed 105 people and wounded hundreds. Yet Muslim Americans constitute only 1% of the population. In comparison, anti-Muslim attacks have killed 17, of which 10 were non-Muslims mistakenly identified. We hear about Islamophobia, but if non-Muslim and Muslim Americans had the same propensity toward violence toward one another, we would see either much greater anti-Muslim killings or far less killings by Muslims.

We are told that diversity enriches Western countries, yet I fail to see what good Islam gives us that cannot be gained from other non-Muslim immigrants. As for the bad, well, that is what keeps the FBI, MI5, et al, up at night.

The problem is Islamic Supremacism. It does not matter whether it is endorsed in the Quran or by the local Imam, or not. Individuals and groups of individuals are drawn to it either due to their cultural backgrounds or because of its anti-Western revolutionary counter-culture "credentials", as it seems to have supplanted the lure of Fascism and Revolutionary Socialism.

Unlike in Northern Ireland, where the political solution involved the deconstruction of Loyalist Protestant supremacy, and equality rather than independence or union with Ireland, I fail to see what political solution is possible for Islamic Supremacism.

Supposedly Muslims are entitled to freedom of religion, but what about freedom of ideology, which is all religion is? We don't allow "practising Nazis", now do we?

**slapout9** · 06-19-2016

Originally Posted by Azor

I am responding to your 2 most recent posts from this week...

I broadly agree that the solution to Islamic terrorism is not a Western-originated top-down reform of Islamic texts and practices. Certainly there are texts in Judaism and Christianity that can be used to justify aggressive violence against non-Christians and Christians deemed heretical. Moreover, the Christian Reformation and Counter-Reformation were not struggles for tolerance and peace, but violent struggles driven by fanatics.

Yet we must also acknowledge that people identifying as Muslims and acting on behalf of Islam are committing atrocities in Western countries against non-Muslims. Taken into a global context, the statistics indicate that wherever Muslims and non-Muslims exist in the same country, there is inter-communal violence. Nor do non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority countries ever not face oppression, whether in the 8th Century or 21st Century.

In the United States, since 9/11, Muslim terrorists have killed 105 people and wounded hundreds. Yet Muslim Americans constitute only 1% of the population. In comparison, anti-Muslim attacks have killed 17, of which 10 were non-Muslims mistakenly identified. We hear about Islamophobia, but if non-Muslim and Muslim Americans had the same propensity toward violence toward one another, we would see either much greater anti-Muslim killings or far less killings by Muslims.

We are told that diversity enriches Western countries, yet I fail to see what good Islam gives us that cannot be gained from other non-Muslim immigrants. As for the bad, well, that is what keeps the FBI, MI5, et al, up at night.

The problem is Islamic Supremacism. It does not matter whether it is endorsed in the Quran or by the local Imam, or not. Individuals and groups of individuals are drawn to it either due to their cultural backgrounds or because of its anti-Western revolutionary counter-culture "credentials", as it seems to have supplanted the lure of Fascism and Revolutionary Socialism.

Unlike in Northern Ireland, where the political solution involved the deconstruction of Loyalist Protestant supremacy, and equality rather than independence or union with Ireland, I fail to see what political solution is possible for Islamic Supremacism.

Supposedly Muslims are entitled to freedom of religion, but what about freedom of ideology, which is all religion is? We don't allow "practising Nazis", now do we?

Well said!