Just saw this on the BBC. What's the scene on the ground, Wusti?

"The question is when will the Islamic community start taking responsibility for their own and sort this bullshit out?"

Probably shortly after Western Civilization takes responsibility for and stops all the raping, pillaging, slaughtering, and plundering of the Islamic world they've been doing for the last 100 years.

"when will the Islamic community start taking responsibility for their own and sort this bullshit out"

...

...

...

...

sorry man that was supposed to be on the agenda last meeting and we just totes forgot

I don't generally agree with Tolstoy, but that was damn good. +1 to the end of time.

Let me correct that:

"The question is when will people start taking responsibility for their own and sort this bullshit out?"

Stay safe, Sydney.

ISIL flag showing no casualties made public yet. Tolstoy's argument may hold water if any single other ethnic group acted in the way the Islamic community does, and rails against the West when its in fact their own governments that keep them in poverty.

Their own government? That's a pretty new concept for the area.

Correction - not ISIL - Islamic Shahada... or was that the Judean People;s Front, or the People's Front of Judea?

Shahadah is not the name of a terrorist group, it is one of the five pillars of islam and appears on almost every islamic flag.

That joke doesn't work. Islamic Shahada isn't a group. Shahada is a phrase that is basic testament to the religion. It's written out on the flags of several Muslim countries.

Damn, Leon beat me to it.

Yeah well I wonder if you lot will be splitting hairs when this happens in your home towns.

I can't tell whether you're deeply uninformed, or just obviously trolling. While I hope it's the latter, neither is an appropriate reaction to the situation.

I won't be splitting hairs about Islam in general because I'm actually well associated with the Muslim community enough to know what it is, and enough to know that these sorts of people are frowned upon by most Muslims.

Large groups of people realistically can't "take responsibility for their own" or what have you for a variety of reasons. For one why would you take responsibility for the actions of someone else that you don't endorse? For another, see this post: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapons/

Guys, there is a point to be made here. Yes, the West is at fault for raping, pillaging and plundering the Islamic world for the past 100 years. But the west did that to the *entire world* Why aren't we seeing this in Vietnam and SE Asia? Or what about Africa? or Latin America? In all those regions we have done just as much stealing, invading, and political manipulation as has been done in the Middle East. The fact of the matter is the West fucked everybody, yet only one group targets the West in retaliation. The rest resent us for our past but are moving on into the future.

How many of those places does the West still occupy and still rape, pillage, and plunder? Only the Islamic World.

The tension and supporting ideologies that encourage religiously-manipulated terrorist actions in the Mid-East predates any Western Imperialism - no matter how fashionable it is currently to blame that as the root cause.
But when the west did really screw the sheep is when "Dubbya" in a fit of glory-boy decided (he is the decider) to finish what his Daddy did not finish in Iraq, no matter how full of bullshit the idea was. Bush Sr. knew enough to allow stability to persist in areas that are filled with warring clans/factions. Dubbya did not have a clue what to do when he declared "Mission Accomplished", and that day instead marked the beginning of a massive unraveling of an already frayed tappestry of relationships in the mid-east. Gawd, I have studied this stuff for a decade now and am certain I know nothing - so many moving parts and passions involved.
What I will say is that Merika's ongoing policy of drone bombing has given the power of grieving mother and children to those that declare they will seek and deliver righteous revenge. We reap what we sow.
It is hard to get radical moderates to counteract the extremists - the problem is that they are just so ... moderate.

In the past thirty years the United States has invaded or assisted government military operations in more Latin American countries than Islamic countries. Go back farther in history and the difference between the two increases dramatically. Going back to the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, we had just recently killed millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia. Did we see an explosion of anger there against Americans, where they stormed embassies and hijacked planes?

TrPrado - you are the deluded fool in this argument. The West still oppress the Middle East? Get off your hash pipes buddy - their own leaders take the oil spoils and then divert attention to the West, because we are easy targets.

Insufferably arrogant trolls are about the only ones capable of defending these goat fuckers in today's world.

Saying that none of those people had in any way rebelled against the West is historically ignorant. What about all the wars of independence that it took for several African countries to be free of the West? What about several attempted socialist uprisings in Latin America, including the ongoing conflict in Peru? Or when Puerto Rico tried to become independent? Or when China deposed the government that was heavily supported by the West?

Their people don't give a flying fuck about oil! That's not what this is about! That is so insanely ignorant about everything going on in the area. You have literally no fucking clue what you're talking about. Can I redirect you to "Merika's ongoing policy of drone bombing has given the power of grieving mother and children to those that declare they will seek and deliver righteous revenge."? We systematically bomb them on a daily basis. How is that not oppression?

TrPrado - there's a difference that you don't seem to be getting here. Where is the general region-wide outrage? The US has never bombed or invaded Saudi Arabia, yet Saudis flock to jihad. Same with Qatar, UAE, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, etc etc. But the same has not happened in Latin America. You counter-examples are fine (except for the China one) but in none of those instances have they tried to attack the United States directly or launch an attack indiscriminately against other Western nations.

As Benjamin Franklin said - there's something culturally ingrained in the Middle East that predates Western Imperialism. If Western Imperialism was the only factor, we would see groups other than Muslims committing these acts.

let's get this clear: the islamic group is wrong for holding hostages in that cafe and anyone who wants to argue that needs to PM so i can put you in your fucking place.

next on the agenda: the west's control on the middle east. let's not play dumb, when we say the west we mean the U.S. and to some extent that is true. we are on of the most free trading countries in the world, given stats recently oz is actually above us, but we trade in much higher volume. the majority of hate against us is that no matter how hard many people may work, the profits get sucked off to some some fat cat on wall street, meanwhile our populous make bitchy things like 'occupy wall st' but never accomplishes ANYTHING. then there are a large percentage of people in the middle east who think, the US's gov is corrupt, corporations are taking our money and labor, and their people aren't doing shit. that is why they are pissed, coupled with past tensions, anti-christian and other religions and also; our alliance with israel

onto israel: why do we ally ourselves with them? they are a parliamentary government which is as close as we see to democracy in that part of the world. the US likes their way of doing things and in a few simple steps we are on their side 100%. although hamas and palestinian governments may be more radical they are not always in the wrong, the problem is the government's foreign policy has this stick-up-their-ass people's choice shit policy that doesnt always work and generally yields corruption.

trprado and wusti you are both correct in some extent, trprado is correct in saying thta they are oppressed but wusti is also correct in saying they have turned into a society of radicals that, if, they blamed their own government as much as they blamed ours, they might see progress

the west hates corruption and protests it while reaping the benefits while the middle east blames the west for every last thing in their lives and believes all their actions are justified.

But TrPrado is right - it isn't about the oil. Otherwise they'd be launching attacks on China and Malaysia - countries that have a larger share of Iraqi oil fields than pretty much every Western nation.

eh, personally the idea of a tax that was created before i was born which will haunt me the entirety of my life, plaguing my labor for benefits which i will never see doesn't really appeal to me. I am by far luckier in quality of life than most in poorer parts of the world, yet i still am a firm believer their is a utopia that humanity to strive for.

the next logical step is taking hostages in a cafe in sydney!

*there bleh

James:
a) Dear God, use your grammar.
b) "but wusti is also correct in saying they have turned into a society of radicals that, if, they blamed their own government as much as they blamed ours, they might see progress" They do blame their own governments. The radicals are at war with most of those governments. Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (among others, of course) have very anti-terrorist governments.
goldie: Another difference could be that the militants from my examples didn't have access to those sorts of things.
Everyone: The Islamic World stretches farther than the Middle East. Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country, and that's in Southeast Asia.

And we've had our taste of that too in the Bali bombings