Quote Originally Posted by pathetic sheep View Post
I am confident there will be extremists in the future. Is harder to say if most of the extremists will be religious or if more will be focused on something else. Historically religion has generated large numbers of people willing to die. Attempts by empires to crush religious movements frequently made them grow.
Interesting question: Does religion *generate* people willing to die for a cause? Or does it merely attract unstable people who are looking to die for a cause? (Or, more likely, some combination of the two?)

Consider the 'lone wolf' attacks we've seen in Canada and the US by ISIL sympathizers. To the best of my knowledge, none of these attacks actually had any meaningful contact with ISIL itself - ISIL isn't actively involved in staging attacks in North America, but is actually putting more effort into *recruiting* people from North America to travel *to* the middle east. The folks who have launched attacks in ISIL's name are usually home grown, frequently Muslim converts (i.e. raised with little or no connection to the Muslim faith), and often have a criminal record and/or history of mental health issues. There are even cases where Muslim communities (mosques or other organizations) have kicked these converts out because of their extremist views.

These people aren't being indoctrinated. These are people just looking for a justification to commit suicide by cop.

Similarly, extremism even within the middle east is often at *least* as political as it is religious. Religion is used as the catalyst, the justification, for abhorrent acts of violence, but the goals are often political in nature. When a guy straps a bomb to himself and blows himself up to oppose American interests or a west-supported government, could it have something to do with the probability that a family member of his has been killed by an American drone strike? Palestinian Muslims join Hamas to fight against Israel...really think it's religious indoctrination? Or could it be a fight against Israeli occupation of their homes?

Religion isn't largely the reason for these conflicts. Religion is a tool that political actors use to help motivate and justify their side's militant acts.

Quote Originally Posted by octobrev View Post
This is what happens when you engage in regime change in countries you don't belong in. How can you attack a region then get upset when the losing party retaliates? They've been nothing but righteous in their dealings in spite of their strange religious fervor.

Maybe it's time to recognize them as a legitimate state (which was so arrogantly taken away from them under Saddam) and provide financing/reparations to rebuild. I'm sure they would also appreciate an apology and admission of guilt from the US and their allies.

There is no security without peace.
Octo, while I recognize your point about the US interfering with the internal matters of other groups (and often quite violently), and I would absolutely agree that killing Saddam was a huge mistake, ISIL is a pretty brutal group in its local dealings, too. Most of us know ISIL because, as middle east terror groups go, they have a pretty good social media presence - no, I'm not kidding, they're playing western media like a finely tuned fiddle, feeding news outlets with great 'shock value' footage and headlines. ISIL declaring war on America? Come on, seriously? ISIL is a local group of guerrilla fighters, which gets attention because of its brutal tactics and shocking actions, but it has fewer fighters and *significantly* less money and hardware than the *Canadian* military, and we're widely known for our military being a joke. ISIL doesn't have the resources or even much desire to wage a fight against the United States. They'd rather secure themselves into power in their own geographical area.

But does that mean that we should recognize them as a state? Or not fight them? Considering their actions and rhetoric, we're perfectly justified in condemning and fighting them, though there's a legitimate question as to what we would hope to accomplish - noting that the last time we (as in, the west) tried to change a regime in Iraq, it took over a trillion dollars, a decade, thousands of lost troops, and merely resulted in the rise of something worse than the regime we sought to change. But they're barely more than a band of marauders right now. Palem's right - if they start acting like a government, instead of a paramilitary organization, then that could raise additional questions: If they start actually *governing* the people within their territorial control, and manage to retain that control with a degree of stability for a period of time, then maybe we start asking questions about whether or not statehood is appropriate. (Of course, there are other political concerns, too. That region gets really complicated. They want parts of different countries, and different proposed countries. It's going to be a real mess for a long time, and ISIL is just complicating it more.)