Drowsy Emperor

Ah yes, we are so morally superior because we... subvert our supposed core beliefs to justify whatever temporal needs we may have at a given time. Hmm. Personally, I'm Orthodox Christian and we've never had anything of the kind. Or a history of colonialism and such. But that's entirely besides the point I'm making. Ideas tend to shape society even if day to day interests are its primary drivers. The idea behind Islam is a combative one and one of exclusivity, seeing as how it was created as tool for a particular time and place, with conquest of all its opponents in mind. That's the mindset it promotes. Christianity doesn't. Anyone who does so is essentially abandoning the tenets of their religion. Five times per day, every single day of the year, Imams speak in front of full mosques and their words are carried by radio and many TV channels. What they say is usually mundane, but they do preach Jihad, killing of unbelievers, and cement the differences between muslims and non muslims merely by reading their holy book. Muhammad did it, therefore its morally just. You'd have to be entirely stupid to think that this daily reinforcement of these ideas would be without effect and that it would lead to the same conclusions as Christianity. Ultimately, you just have to look at the geographic realities. In central africa, Islam is in a semi permanent war with animists and christian blacks. It waxes and wanes but its there. In SE asia, Buddhists have trouble with them - like in Thailand. The Chinese are taking serious measures to combat muslim Uyghurs, including wholesale transfers of Han chinese to Uyghur lands to dilute their influence. Russians fought a long war with the Chechens before bringing them to a tenuous peace. What the Hindu think of muslims you don't even have to ask, if Pakistan wasn't given nukes to keep India in check they'd have already obliterated it from the planet. Everywhere where there is a sizeable muslim minority there is trouble, war and terror particularly if its (the religion) tied to a separate ethnic identity. Mind you, this is almost exclusively sunni muslims supported by SA and the gulf states. Iran is much more moderate by comparison and seemingly proves that its possible to reign in Islam if that's the state policy. But its a very lonely example and Iran is in a precarious position, surrounded by very powerful states, that would probably not tolerate KSA style support of terrorism.

That's totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that Muhammad is much closer to Lenin, Stalin or Pol Pot than he is to Jesus or Buddha. Worshiping a merciless military/religious leader is not going to lead to the same conclusions and attitudes as worshiping a pacifist. Even when the christian states of the middle ages and onward were warring among themselves, they knew it was wrong and unjustifiable according to the teachings of Christianity. So much so, that the catholic church had to develop entire doctrines on what constitutes a just war, bending religion over backwards to support the politics of the day. In Islam however, war and violence is justified against everyone who is not a muslim, which is openly stated in the Quran many times (referencing in particular the pagans of that time, but also explicitly Jews and Christians - in other words everyone else who existed at the time). A person may or may not ignore these instructions, but they're there nonetheless, repeated enough times until there can be no debate about their meaning. How is this even open to debate?

So do you, and you are neither English nor American.

European culture is far from what it once was and in a steady decline, although there's no one but the European elites to blame for that. Winning the cultural war with Coca Cola, instagram and pride parades, is like winning a nuclear war.

No, bro. In fact, it's you who has to prove how fulfilling your ****ing obligations with regards to basic international law (cf. Geneva Convention on Refugees), not to mention showing a modicum of humanity is going to "radically change the entire demographics in Europe", let alone the rest of the tripe about the end of Yurop, Allahu Akbars taking over the world and so on, that you have been spouting lately. Take your time, I'll be here. My screen is fine, by the way. You sure it's not your own bile? I'm surprised that you of all people would be pushing the party line. Most of these immigrants aren't refugees. That has been established at this point. Those that are were already taken care of in countries around Syria and merely decided to move to countries where they believe they'll have access to jobs or welfare. What is a Pakistani fleeing from? Back in the day I watched streams of refugees come into Belgrade when Croatia ethnically cleansed Serbs from Krajina. Endless lines of people with utter desperation and fear on their faces, eyes dead and empty, their old rickety cars and tractors filled to the brim with what belongings they could gather before they had to flee. It was mentally scarring to watch, let alone be a part of that. Coincidentally, these "Syrian refugees" of today are coming en masse through Belgrade on their way to the Hungarian border so I don't have to go more than a few streets to actually see them as they've been given tents and set up in the very center of the city. It looks nothing like what I saw back in the day, no fear or desperation, no belongings with them (meaning they've been left somewhere safe) - more like organized tourism on mass scale. They are not fleeing from anywhere now if (some of them) ever were, merely relocating. The pathetic pictures in the media are exceptions (they really love small children, even though there are very few of them, compared to the overwhelming numbers of healthy 20-30 years old men) picked to provoke a certain response from the public. As for a concrete solution to the Syrian crisis that doesn't involve relocating the ME to Europe - its simply the opposite of what the west has been doing. Stop trying to destroy Assad merely because he's an independent leader, stop supporting ISIS and other rebel groups, get the SA to behave and help Assad take back control of Syria. This refugee problem is the result of a few EU countries kowtowing to the US's endless interventionism. The local (ME) factors won't take a **** without the US saying they can, so even though they're a part of the problem - its because they've been allowed to do so. The entirety of Europe should not have to suffer consequences because a few unaccountable **** in Brussels thought it would be appropriate to topple yet another ruler of a foreign country.

Not all religious icons are equal. Mohammed's life is much better known and he was a warlord in his time. Much of what ISIS is doing, is exactly what Mohammad was doing in his time - including decapitations, destruction of anything "pagan" etc. Liberals need to outgrow the childish manner of treating all religions as the same thing as a way of taking the moral high ground. Most religious texts are open ended and can be interpreted in many different ways, but the Quran, and Islam in general is an extremely militant religion, has been since its creation. It was stopped by endless wars at the gates of Europe, and the downfall of its empires - not because anything about it changed, or because it was internally pushed aside by new ideologies like Christianity in Europe. Europeans may like to think they've outgrown religion, but muslims don't and treat that very idea as an insult. The only thing worse to a muslim believer than a Christian is an atheist and there is no way any of them can, in good conscience, like that sort of liberal, sex drenched,"gay rights" pride parade society. I'm not even much of a believer and I don't like where Europe is heading, so I can only imagine what they think. This leads to the creation of a parallel society where the entire immigrant class socializes internally and is closed off to the rest of the society and vice versa. When they're a few hundred thousand in a society of millions, you can say that's irrelevent, but when there are millions of them living an entirely separate existence it doesn't take a genius to see that that can't lead anywhere good.

Its a sad state of affairs when the only reasonable man in Europe is the Hungarian PM.

It happened for similar reasons as it has always has, because people have fears (justifiable or unjustified don't matter) and some politician have seen their opportunity to get power in exploiting those fears by promising to solve them. But as we see currently in Finland such promises are much easier to give than keep when it comes to facing realities of world. I am currently quite curios to see if True Finns are capable to keep their support in next elections (of course current crises are well timed for them as they are beginning of current parliament election cycle), but four years is short time when it comes to crises that currently face us. True Finns are just the same manifestiation of the problem as SD in Sweden, Front National in France and so on, which goes back to your original point about politicians prolificating from fears: Are they actually all cynical oppurtunists? That's quite the claim to make. With the same logic, occupy Wall Street was about exploiting the rage of indebted people. Is it not cynical opportunism to endlessly parrot whatever the dogma of the day is: multiculturalism, female empowerment, gay rights or whatever? Where's the brave struggle there, to stand behind something more or less the entire media machinery and elite stand behind in the first place, where you'll get social strokes just for repeating ad nauseam the same things everyone else is saying, regardless of whether they believe it or not. More than a few people make their livelihoods this way. For anyone in the current political establishment to accuse the rightist parties of opportunism is cheese of the highest order. If the "populist rhetoric" of the right is working, its because your system ****ing isn't, not because they're being crafty and exploiting the situation. That's just closet elitism, treating common people like fools who can't see the forest from the trees, and worst of all dare to be displeased with how the powers that be are "handling" the situation.

The countries that have the largest population I believe, as a percentage of total pop, are Sweden (5%) and France, (5-10%). In the case of France this is a huge number, estimating from 5-7 million, depending on who you read. A minority stats wise, but potentially a huge powder keg. Things have become so bad that France's Jewish population is packing and leaving due to constant harassment and violence by the muslims (the standard excuse being the Israel-Palestine issue), and jewish schools and synagogues are, from what I read, now constantly guarded by the french army/police. While this is one minority terrorizing another minority, that same violence could just as easily be aimed anywhere else. The muslim issue, is not yet a true problem, but will peak towards the middle of the century at the current birth rates + immigration. What is a problem right now, is the creeping influence they're exerting on the political system. Politicians being scum with no principles, means that an organized minority (that can guarantee votes) can exert much more leverage than numbers suggest, particularly when you factor in the politically disinterested native population. That sort of influence is already apparent in the way western european media are hesitant to speak ill of anything relating to Islam unless they absolutely have to (aka a bomb explodes in London or Paris). The USA does not really have a problem, statistically speaking.

Comparable how? Or are you counting your native population birth rate as a collective or your genuine native population. Because last time I looked, the only reason most European countries have a positive birth:death ratio, is because the immigrants have several children and make the overall stats look better. And where did you get 850 million, EU has about 500.

^ Looks like a real, intimidating, uncompromising, butcher of civilians. Lolzies Stalin is not impressed

Now that's what I call progress!

I don't. Because they know they're not going to be treated the same way as at home, aka shot. During the Arab spring period, there was serious unrest in Bahrein that threatened to topple the reigning monarchy. Without any sort of discussion in the mechanisms of collective security, and with little mention in the media, the Saudi army intervened and shot everyone they found rioting and that was that. No one knows how many people were killed. In this case, they know European police is not going to be anywhere near as brutal as the one at home, so hey why not take a rock out of that nice pavement and chuck it at them. This is how France and Sweden lost territorial sovereignty in their own country and gave up enclaves to immigrant (mostly muslim) gangs, enclaves where the police simply no longer go. I was flabbergasted to find that no-go zones are a thing in Europe in 2015, but hey, live and learn.

Poor Greeks, this is the last thing they need at this time. Frankly, it all comes back to Sweden and Germany (and looking further back, France, they are so guilty for the whole muslim invasion of Europe through trying to keep their colonial empire going past its time). If they didn't proclaim that Syrian refugees would be given asylum en masse, we wouldn't be in this situation. No one wakes up and spontaneously decides to go halfway across the world on a whim. Now the Balkans and Italy have to eat **** and get trampled over until Germany and Sweden finally decide to stop relocating the ME to the heart of Europe. By the way, do you know the sole reason why they're rioting?

The key sentence being: "The minister conceded that he had no firm information on terrorist infiltration of refugees, but said his "gut feeling" told him it was happening." Colour me unimpressed. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into Europe, they'd simply come by plane, and not in a 9/11 way. There's a enough of them with valid European passports. ISIS themselves claim about 4000 warriors. But no one can truly know since refugees tend to tear their passports at the Serbian/Hungarian border. A lot don't do that any more- one of the consequences of Merkel's stupidity is that as well as paying people smugglers to smuggle them they're now also paying forgers to make fake Syrian identity papers. There have been more than a few reports of Urdu or Pashtu speaking refugees carrying Syrian ID papers, quite apart from all those who are just claiming to be Syrians with no papers. The German (shorthand, since there have been equally dumb responses from elsewhere) reaction has been just about the single worst reaction possible as it actively exacerbates the problem by encouraging more people to arrive; and I can only conclude that it has been deliberately so or that Merkel et al have not even the most basic grip on reality and how people's minds work. That they are now seeking to strongarm others into accepting their approach and bailing them out of their stupidity only compounds it. It's particularly ironic given their response to Greece, Germany seeking a no harm no foul refugee bail out from their culpable stupidity from everyone else. One rule for the vassals, another for the liege... Apparently the major force pressuring for immigration in Germany are businessmen, in order to keep pressure on the wages and job market. It makes sense considering that most businessmen don't give a rats ass for their respective countries and long term political thinking. Its not like they'll have to rub shoulders with these people anyway.

I'd love to see the shipping details of that container. Up until now I wasn't really considering that the migrants would be used for armed insurrection at this point, but reality always seems to be worse than expected.

Even today? Syria has been ruled by muslims for 1300 years, Iraq for the same and up until recently they had more religious minorities than any western country, certainly including Serbia. Point is, it is the 'today' part that has changed, not the historical part. The good news about that is if it has changed one way it can change back. But, the today part has changed largely due to KSA sitting on a huge ocean of oil and having a backwards interpretation of islam which they are utterly evangelical- or pathological- about infecting every muslim country with. It doesn't help that due to their top down power structures most muslim countries can be infected easily by bribing those in charge and claiming to be helping the poor and downtrodden, eg Pakistan. Truth is, their brand of islam doesn't give a flying asterisk about anything that isn't their brand of islam, hence why they're perfectly happy to destroy sufi muslim tombs and the like in Timbuktu as well as the Temple of Bel. Which lasted twice as long under muslim rule as under pagan and christian rule combined, mind you. And I see that having complained about them vandalising Mecca part of the Grand Mosque has collapsed. There is no denying that things have progressively gotten worse and that SA is at the center of it all, although Egypt, Turkey or Iran would probably all vie for the same position given the chance. But the outlook for the House of Saud going on the dung heap of history where they belong is slim for as long as the US is propping them up. As for the west "failing", I don't see that the US interests have been severely hampered. For all the media blather, the Syrian situation is not really affecting the US. It keeps the regional powers occupied and wasting resources, the ME unstable, weakens the EU. They may not have gotten a marionette in Syria, but they didn't lose anything - and comparatively speaking, others lost more and still have a problem they have to deal with. I think the US planners know this well, which is why all the anti ISIS bombing runs are just a token show of support, without any real involvement. As for the European governments, ever since they let themselves get into an economic war with Russia over Ukraine no less, tells you as much as you need to know about who is calling the shots. I prefer to think that they're not deciding anything as the alternative is too embarrassing.

A bit of drama. Nevertheless, asians are rioting on the streets of Frankfurt, waving Turkish flags like its Ankara and despoiling a beautiful city with their exported grievances while the country is taking in more of these same people as if they can handle the ones they've already got. Sensationalism aside, the truth in itself is terrible enough.

LOOOOOOOOOOL https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/video-imported-war-migrant-turks-and-kurds-battle-on-frankfurt-streets-german-army-called-in/ If only Bismarck could see this I wonder who is running Germany these days

Yep, that was the point. Esp. in context, with his earlier posts, it was "simplified" to the point of being wrong. "Our atmosphere consists of CO2" is also "simplified". It contains CO2 which even plays an important role, but... you get the idea. And I would still dispute that Western intervention in any meaningful sense caused the uprising against Assad. Popular unrest in the Arab states - usually against dictators supported by the West - is nothing new. Even in Syria, slaughtering the populace for rebelling is a good Assad family tradition. In 2011, after Ben Ali surprised everyone by chickening out of Tunisia, and the reform movement in Egypt gained ground, people in other Arab states followed suit. What the West did until that point, apart from supporting a few human rights organisations, was basically just existing, with the clear message "we're rich and democratic and you can, too!" The Arab peoples rose against their leaders *in spite* of Western meddling like the Iraq war, or the support of Israel.Things like sanctions and a few attempts at supporting the opposition mostly came after Assad started shooting people and torturing children. Sure, the situation now is a lot worse. But I'm not convinced that we should therefore just let dictators do their stuff because there might be even bigger idiots around (and I'm not even talking about military intervention, just sanctions and things like that). And I certainly disagree with the line of thought that because our feeble attempts at punishing Assad contributed to preventing him from crushing the rebellion, we're somehow "responsible" for the situation in Syria, and the refugees (yay, topic! ) No. Just, no. Organizations for the destabilization of the Syrian regime were set up in Europe and the US (Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel too), key figures were bought off and selected to be the new leadership and Al Quaeda elements were funded and equipped to start an armed rebellion. No one knew where Syria was or who Assad was until CNN proclaimed him the new butcher of the Balkans, or the middle east, in this case. There was no real intervention, but the entire "uprising" was manufactured by the US and its vassal states. Anyway, no rebellion can survive, or has ever been achieved without outside support - logistics and supplies have to be managed, funding has to be sought out. What do you think, that bullets, kevlar and medical supplies grow on trees? Have you any idea how much ammunition armies can burn through in a day? Do you think they're making them there in the dunes of Raqqa? How do you think they gained so much ground on the well equipped and reasonably well trained Syrian Army so quickly? (I'll tell you, US gave them satellite imagery and more or less grounded the Syrian air force in a deal with the Israelis and Turks). Every aspect of this crisis was created and sustained from the outside, with the help of the other regional powers. The syrian army can't decisively win against the rebels, or ISIS simply because they can always retreat to Turkey and Iraq to arm up and regroup, where SA can't follow under threat of war. If it were not for the unconditional support of many powerful states, the "rebels" would have been wiped off the face of the earth in a month, or more likely - never existed in the first place. At this point only a madman or someone very uninformed would believe that the West had no role in the rebellion.

You should know by now that any rightist party that isn't thrilled with multiculturalism and immigration is automatically branded neo-nazi. Even so that's some loaded coverage right there, being so brazen to outright call them neo-nazi. That some of the membership consists of far right skinhead types is certain, but that the entire party is neo-nazi is bull**** of the greatest magnitude. Slander of the worst sort. I'll have to look into whose tv station that is*, I don't think even Al Jazeera would call FN nazis. *Lol, its Iranian. 'nuff said. Instead of talking **** about Europe they could take in a million or so of their sunni "brothers". Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood after all.

That bit of Syria has been muslim ruled since... probably Khalid ibn Walid as iirc neither the Crusaders nor the Byzants ever got to it/ got it back in the intervening time. Excluding a decade or so of Froggy rule that's 1300+ years of muslim rule where it was fine. ISIS are just a bunch of religious dingbats who are jealous that the Vandals got a term named after them. Ironically, the current muslim sect closest to what ISIS claims as their philosophy is the Ibadi sect of Oman, one of the most tolerant muslim countries anywhere, if not the most tolerant. Though there is some exquisite irony in Saudi Arabia- actual philosophical and religious antecedent sponsor of what became both Al Qaeda and ISIS- wanting to sponsor a bunch of loony toons extremist mosques in Germany to 'help' people running away from the consequences of their loony toons religious extremism in Syria. I doubt I'd be able to avoid laughing in their faces at that 'offer'. Plus of course, Saudi has vandalised Mecca pretty extensively themselves, with nary a squeak in the west. Fine for whom? A basic lack of religious tolerance is endemic to most Islamic states. Prosecution of Christians and other minorities are a daily thing, even today - and reaches absurd levels, like that girl that go 0's on every exam in Egypt the other day just because she's a christian. The orthodox patriarchate in Istanbul in "tolerant" Turkey is built like a fortress, walls and fences galore.

Honestly forget the Arabs if they cant protect there own historical sites. I am happy with how Western countries manage these types of sites Well Khaled al-Asaad did try. And that more or less illustrates the difference between the older generation of muslims, those that grew up during the cold war and unaligned movement that sought to be more or less secular and more or less European in their outlook and the newer generation that has no other ideology than derivatives of the radical Saudi Wahhabism, for whom Bin Laden is what Che Guevara was to leftists. Speaking in the broadest terms, the US is the most to blame for this transformation, having bred fundamentalists as allies against the Soviets for decades now. The flip side is that the unaligned and socialism collapsed and fundies stepped in as the new religion (which can also be traced back to the US). Nevertheless it can still be stopped at the source, aka Saudi Arabia, if the US is ever to climb out of the Saudi king's ass.

Its world heritage, not for them to destroy. At least not without serious repercussions, imo. I can't stand unnecessary destruction of beautiful things. That's the problem with Islam, even in the 21st century it doesn't even have the basest level of tolerance for anything other than itself. Even the savage looting of south america, or the world in general during colonialism didn't leave such a wasteland. Hell, even the militant communism of the Soviet Union didn't wipe out all, or even most of the churches of the former Russian empire - or even the products of the "bourgeois" in general.

This makes me so sad: stood for 2000 years and it had to be leveled in the 21st century. https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/the-only-thing-left-of-the-2000-year-old-temple-at-palmyra-the-ancient-temple-of-bel/ ****ing savages. and the lols: https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/saudi-arabia-refuse-to-take-in-refugees-instead-offer-to-build-200-mosques-in-germany/