Hear hear. The fear, but not the loathing, of ISIS is almost entirely unjustified.

Islam at its strongest was not able to beat Europe at its weakest, in the middle ages. Without abandoning their core tenets, they will remain with the philosophy of the illiterate robber rapist slaver paedophile murderer who inspires them, claiming God told them to do it as he did.

But the way people are going on about them, you'd think they were invading the West, rather than getting rid of a government imposed by the West after invading them on grounds - WMD - which were later shown to be lies. The western powers have killed far more Iraqis - and westerners for that matter - in Iraq than ISIS.

Yes the mass murders of Christians are dreadful - but have their precedent in early Islam surprise surprise.

However without troops on the ground, all talk of defeating ISIS militarily is pie-in-the-sky. Are we supposed to support another invasion, another occupation, and another puppet government?

Exactly Dave! Nailed it in one!
Rhrosty.

Dear Jardine,

But given the horrors that go on in northern Iraq, I do believe you would support individuals coming to the rescue, helping the Kurds with arms (bought with their own funds) and perhaps even fighting on their side. Am I wrong?

Alas, that money which could have been donated to that campaign was already taken in taxes and the Australian government would arrest anyone attempting to travel to the Middle-East in order to help the Kurds and Yazidis.

You do underestimate Islam, which formerly took most of Eastern Europe and parts of Spain and Southern France, then went as far as besieging Vienna. Mohammed was not illiterate either. In fact, the level of literacy, culture and science in the Ottoman empire was at the time much higher than in Christian Europe.

Father Dave again and how everything is the fault of the West. Conspiracies galore, but he still prefers to live here rather than in the Middle East where his heart lies. Sad.

"Mohammed was not illiterate either."

He was according to Edward Gibbon and all the other historical sources on him I have read, but maybe I was wrong. Why do you say so?

"But given the horrors that go on in northern Iraq, I do believe you would support individuals coming to the rescue, helping the Kurds with arms (bought with their own funds) and perhaps even fighting on their side. Am I wrong?"

You are right, I would support that. I think if states kept out of it, and only those personally interested in fighting or donating on either side participated
a) the problem probably wouldn't have started in the first place
b) it wouldn't have got this bad, and
c) it would be lesser and preferable.

But 'once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in again'

A well reasoned article, but we in Australia have little to fear from terrorist activities - we've all got our fridge magnets!

Dear Jardine,

About the claim that Muhammad was illiterate, see: http://radicaltruth.net/index.php/learn/muhammad/32-was-muhammad-illiterate

The "Islamic State" is not going to "dry up an wither" any more than the Taliban in poverty stricken Afghanistan is going to "dry up an wither."

The "Islamic State" now exists because there are a lot of gun toting Islamic crazies with their boots on the ground that say it exists. That just happens to be the defining definition of any "state". It exists because men with guns say it exists.

Unlike poverty stricken Afghanistan which despite it's poverty still managed to bring down the twin towers, launch an attack on the Pentagon, and nearly kill the President of the USA in his White House, these characters have a renewable money supply in a couple of oilfields. Don't give me any crap about they can not sell the oil, all of the UN sanctions could not stop Saddam Hussein from selling oil on the sly, and one reason was because UN secretary Koffee Annan's son was one of the main oil bootleggers.

The thing which strikes me most about Dave Smith's mindset, is the absolute glee he exhibits at the idea that here is something that the USA can not fix. People like Dave seem to hate the USA so much that they just love the idea of terrorists getting the better of the yanks.

Planet Earth to Dave Smith. There exists in this world a new state who's inhabitants really do want to kill you unless you bow down to their idiotic religion. And their supporters have immigrated to western countries where their populations keep growing through birth rate differentials, immigration and "refugees." You may laugh but a lot of European Jews in 1932 laughed at the idea that Hitler and his bunch of street fighting thugs were any threat to them also.

Actually in Rotherhan UK we see what their co-coreligionists actually do, and who helps them. And that's in the middle of a major Western country with districts maybe not unlike some parts of western Sydney.

Read it at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11059138/Rotherham-In-the-face-of-such-evil-who-is-the-racist-now.html

What you won't see is who is importing the mongrels - a topic that would reward some in-depth investigative journalism.

Dave you apparently did miss something. A lot of those fighting with the Islamic State hold passports that allow them should they survive there adventure to return to countries such as the UK and Australia.

I don't think anybody has definative numbers but some estimates of numbers of western fighters at http://abcnews.go.com/International/western-governments-step-efforts-block-isis-recruits/story?id=25204441 should provide some food for thought on what happens if ISIS goes broke and some if them go back to their day jobs (or whatever they do at home).

Estimates of 150 Australians over there learning some new skills on how to interact with people who don't share a belief in a particular brand of Islam.

Thats the self interst bit, now the bit about being human beings with some compassion for those suffering even when we don't feel that we have the answers.

I don't live in Syria or Iraq so the immediate threat of ISIS is not an issue for me, I also accept that often political complexities mean that intervention is somewhat of a hit and miss affair. I also accept sometimes attempts to intervene may make things worse so I'm not a fan of military intervention. This article reeked of "not my problem" in regard to ISIS, even when I and others don't know what western countries could or should do I seriously hope most of us are not so dismissive of the plight of those caught up in the sort of nightmare facing many in the Middle East at the moment as this article seems to be.

R0bert

A simple solution to end the IS threat, tell the Gulf States and Turkey to stop funding them.

Jardine, others have given you the answers where you need correction.
However one point you made is incorrect.
Saddam Hussein was definitely working on nuclear weapons.
I saw him on a TV broadcast skiting that his scientists had been able
to bypass bans on supply of components needed for a nuclear weapon.
He held up something that seemed to be red in colour as part of the triggering system for a weapon.
There was also a report that he obtained a prototype centrifuge from
a German company. From memory I think the companies name was mentioned
in the article.
Of course there is no doubt that his other WMD sarin gas was used on the Kurds.

Now you will probably argue that he was just waffling on, but it is
a bit like someone pointing a fake gun at you, it makes not the
slightest difference.

Yuyutsu, that is argument, not evidence, that Mohammed was literate.

It's not like Mohammed said he was literate, or was ever known to write anything down, or any of the people who knew him during his life-time said he was. Not one of his family or companions or faithful ever made any mention of it.

No-one says the Koran was physically written by him. All the histories I have read on the topic say that his followers wrote down what he said. But just think: if he could write, why didn't he write it down himself? Because that website speculates so on secondary data? I don't think so.

The mere facts that he went on trading caravans, or that as an orphan his uncle raised him, as a ground for his supposed literacy, I find pretty uncompelling.

I think even if we knew no more than what the article takes only as established fact, we would be safer concluding he was not literate, than that he was.

LEGO, what did you have in mind? A re-invasion, re-occupation and re-setting up a puppet government?

Bazz I remember following the whole WMD, and it was like.. well? Where are all these WMD the Yanks were telling us are here? And then it was uncovered that they were lying through their teeth.

But really, it comes down to how best to respond to the threat they pose; and I think it is legitimate to fear them and to fight fire with fire. But only remember, how much of this would never have happened if the west hadn't just spent the last 20 years killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and funding ISIS? And now we get this assumption that the solution is more western military intervention? It's possible that once they get their homeland back they'll settle down.

Jardine said;
It's possible that once they get their homeland back they'll settle down.

No I don't think so, this war has been going on for 1400 years and it
is Allah's command to carry it forward.
Aside from turning all moslem countries into sheets of glass I just do
not see another solution than repeatably militarily putting them down.

Re Rotherham, we sent our equivalents to gaol for up to 30 years and
that might have quietened them down for a while, but are they at it again ?
Perhaps they have learnt to be more careful.
I think the lesson to be learnt from Rotherham is that the local
police and local councils also need to be put under surveillance.
Has anyone done an investigation of Bankstown & Campsie councils ?
Now there is a project for an investigatory journalist.

It has now been long enough since the Bil Al gang was gaoled for the
next generation of teenagers to 20 somethings to have forgotten the lesson.

Perhaps there are some social workers in the area who have tried to
raise the problem but have been rebuffed.

Dear Jardine,

I sincerely hope that you are right about Muhammad being illiterate and that I was wrong, because in that case he didn't write the Koran - and if the Koran, or at least the militant (Medina) parts thereof, were written by others, then it is possible that Muhammad was after all a true prophet whose teachings were hijacked by unscrupulous scribes.

I observe that many ordinary Muslims benefit from their daily practices of prayer and worship in the Islamic mode. It is unfortunate that the same books that teach them those good practices also teach violent Jihad and male-dominance. The latter should be condemned, but why throw away the baby with the bath-water?

Hi Jardine.

I was not proposing anything other than recognising that Islam is the problem. Before you can solve any problem, you first have to identify what the problem is. We in the west simply assumed that Islam was "just another religion" without understanding anything about it, and then we react with amazement when Muslims behave in extremely violent fashion towards non believers, which is exactly what their religion teaches them to do.

It is ironic that trendy lefties who want a multicultural society without racism decided to import a group of people into western societies who are entirely cultural centric and engage in violent religious racism towards people of other faiths.

The only real solution to the Muslim inspired violence in the Middle east is for western leaders to start attacking Islamic religious doctrine which is the very cause of all the problems. But at the moment western leaders are stuck in the rut of the "majority good moderate" Muslims who are getting a bad name from the "minority bad extremist" Muslims. The Americans noted that the 20 9/11 attackers were all Saudis and when they investigated why this was so, they were surprised to find how widespread hatred towards non Muslims was the official policy of the House of Saude. Saudi schoolbooks displayed such texts as "all non Muslims are your enemies." The yanks got the Saudis to tone things down a bit in their mosques but the word was that the Imams were not happy about that.

There is some good coming from all of this. Previously, the Muslims hid their attitudes from the stupid non believers but Islam's basic beliefs are finally getting examined by people who once might have defended Islam. And this is making the mullahs very uncomfortable. Within the Islamic empire, nobody was ever allowed to question the faith or the principles it was founded upon, so the Mullahs never had to defend them. Today, they are really beginning to squirm whenever they are confronted by people who know how bad and violence endorsing the Muslim scriptures are, and confront them about it.

Yuyutsu

The various histories I have read on the life of Mohammed all agree on this point with Gibbon, and before you raised the issue, I didn’t know any Muslims disagreed.

“[H]e sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba… The grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the supplies of commerce… “

“…In his early infancy he [Mohammed], was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grand-father; his uncles were strong and numerous; and, in the division of the inheritance, the orphans’s share was reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune.” (He took caravans to Syria for Cadijah; and she later became the first of the Muslims.)

…

“His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive…. The son of Abdallah [Mohammed] was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia…. With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach…

“(Footnote: Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are incapable of reading what is written, with another pen, in the Surats, or chapters of the Koran, vii, xxix, xcvi. These texts, and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted without doubt by [various authorities]. Mr White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory…”

“…Two short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca … nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and delirium. The *lettered* youth, before he aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy [i.e. of pretending he couldn’t read or write while dictating the Koran.]

In other words, it’s common knowledge among Muslims that Mohammed did not personally write the Koran because couldn’t read or write. And note that none of what you cite, Yuyutsu, is primary evidence: Mohammed saying he can, or any eye-witness to him doing so.

“…The word of God and of the apostle was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a domestic chest, in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker…”

Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, Chapter LI.

“The latter should be condemned, but why throw away the baby with the bath-water?”

Indeedy. And why not just be moral to our fellow human beings, and cut out the middle-man of an imaginary superbeing? But that would require a rational approach, which the religious, like the statists, find anathema.

LEGO
Yes I agree. A great website is “I Slam Islam” by Steve Omega: http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/Omega/I_slam_islam.htm.

So many facts about the life of Mohammed – for example his participation in mass murders, approving the rape of slaves, or marrying Ayesha when she was six - are never publicly mentioned in English by Muslims, and not known by the English-speaking public.

Probably the West’s best response would be no military intervention into Muslim lands and a huge worldwide publicity campaign about what Mohammed actually said and did.

Jardine, the Sarin and such was moved into Syria. This is why there is a multinational effort currently destroying the stockpile in Syria.

Yuyutsu, you confuse the Ottomans with the original Muslim conquest. Interestingly the Ottomans were the only state in history where fratricide was law. The new Caliph was, under the Ottoman law required to have all his brothers killed. Thus, one assumes removing the most likely suspects in any rebellion. it did however present a problem when the Caliph died. On one occasion the new Caliph was a mildly demented uncle found hiding in the Hareem, perfect evil grand Vazeir fodder.

When the Ottomans reached the gates of Vienna the first time, they left a deserted landscape peopled by corpses behind them. All of Southern Austria was effectively empty of any living thing. Bit of a mistake, that because when they retreated they starved in their thousands.

The defenders of Vienna heard the screams of their captives being thrown alive into the campfires the night before the Ottoman army withdrew.

The second time they reached the gates of Vienna, the city was saved after an epic seige by a European coalition led by Jan Sobieski. The celebration of this event is held on September 12th, and is a matter of great Polish pride.

Interesting story Jan.
We seem to have lost a lot of our European history.
If the sieges of Vienna were included in our school history I wonder
if there would be so many excusers of Islam.

Personally I had heard of the siege of Vienna and I thought there was
only one siege. I certainly did not have it covered in my education
and only read of it incidentally.

It certainly puts the Islamic Caliphate and its threats into context.
How many are aware that they believe that any territory that was once
conquered by moslems is always moslem. Watch out Spain. err & Lakemba.

Dear Jardine,

If Gibbons is correct, then this is fantastic, then what is known today as "Islam" are the teachings of Abubeker, having added, deleted and modified whatever he wanted, while poor Muhammad could have been a saint who never sanctioned these atrocities.

<<And why not just be moral to our fellow human beings, and cut out the middle-man of an imaginary superbeing?>>

First, because many cannot do it without that middle-man. Many wouldn't find the incentive otherwise.

Second, while achieving morality is a remarkable landmark, morality is only where religion begins, not where it ends: religion stops at nothing short of God-realisation - the direct and permanent experience of one's unity with God.

Obviously there is no such super-being in existence, but as human mind is frail and has no capacity to grasp God, if the best one can do is to imagine God as a super-being, such as Allah, then at least they have taken a step forward, embarking on a journey that will, by submission to this [imaginary] Allah and practising their devotion in the prescribed manner, chip away their ego, bit by bit. If they persist, then as their ego shrinks, which stands in the way to God-realisation, this brings them a step closer to God.

“If Gibbons is correct, then this is fantastic, then what is known today as "Islam" are the teachings of Abubeker, having added, deleted and modified whatever he wanted, while poor Muhammad could have been a saint who never sanctioned these atrocities.”

Could be.

But as I understand it, there is universal agreement that the text is a good rendition of what Mohammed actually said: far more contemporaneousl and accurate, e.g., than the Gospels.

“First, because many cannot do it without that middle-man. Many wouldn't find the incentive otherwise.

Second, while achieving morality is a remarkable landmark, morality is only where religion begins, not where it ends: religion stops at nothing short of God-realisation - the direct and permanent experience of one's unity with God.”

Well that assumes the religious perspective is right.

But if we assume there is no God, then some other theory must explain religion.

The best one I have heard is from evolutionary theory. Religion is an evolved adaptation because it’s good at getting genes into the next generation, either by aiding survival, or by aiding reproduction.

Since religion doesn’t have any obvious survival value – and often counts against it, e.g. martyrdom – we should inquire how it aids in *reproductive* success.

We can immediately see lots of ways that it can do, and has done this. Off the top of the head, three:
1. The greater sexual and reproductive opportunities for the charismatic leaders, for example, Moses and the patriarchs with their wives and concubines, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, even Knox and Calvin. Even Jesus had plenty of opportunities, whether or not he took advantage of them.

2. The greater sexual and reproductive opportunities for religious functionaries in all cultures, e.g. Hindu priests charged with the holy defloration of temple virgins, the Inca and Aztec priests, African holy men, the Australian Aboriginal custodians of religious knowledge. Again even in sex-negative Christianity, the sexual privileges of clergy through the ages are notorious.

3. The greater marriage-marketability of an ordinary guy able to present himself as religious: faithful, with dutiful belief in paternal investment etc.

What about that?

Dear Jardine,

You provided several evolutionary advantages for faking religion, which is sadly therefore commonplace, but none for actually being religious.

Indeed, religion has no survival or reproductive value: the more one is absorbed in God, the less one wants anything to do with the world.

Overall I thought this was a thoughtful and reasoned argument in favour of a more moderate response to the hysteria regarding ISIS and the Muslim threat generally. The following quote from HL Mencken is apposite here.

On different tack, I couldn't help but notice that one poster is up to his/her old tricks, and yes LEGO, I'm referring to you and your ilk. As far as your comments go on this and other posts where you have made your presence felt, they have about as much integrity and utility as a model aeroplane built from the same product you disguise your true identity with, accompanied by the same level of intellectual sophistication, mental acuity and emotional maturity one might expect from that same brand's target market. Whenever reasoned and reasonable people witness the immovable object of ignorance meeting the irresistible force of arrogance, we will no doubt find folk of your ilk loitering anonymously with mean spirited, malicious intent. If you feel that strongly that your POV is of any value and feel that it is worth putting it out there, might I respectfully suggest you submit your own article, with supporting evidence, documentation, references, links etc. and sans the splenetic vitriol - and put your real name to the piece. That to me is the true test of people who have the courage of their convictions - enough to put their backside on the line in public - and the integrity that goes with the territory.

Otherwise you are just a 'trolling' spoiler with nothing better to do to do with your time. In short, any critique you offer from what I have seen is completely undermined by your compulsive-obsessive need to spray your bile all over the place under the convenient cover of a pseudonym. Then, and only then, would I - and I suspect many others on this and any other post you deem fit to pollute with your half-baked insights and venomous sarcasm - be interested in taking you seriously much less engaging in any kind of discourse with you on any level.

[Sock puppet]

Yes John, good points.
A more fundamental point is that Islam allows the marrying of cousins.
True the British Royal Family did that also.
However the world knows better now, but as Mohammad told moslems that
Allah said it was OK, it now cannot be changed.
Strange as Arabs being then an agricultural people.
It does explain much of their aberrant behaviour.

So that is a classical example as to how Islam is stuck in the 7th
century and destined to stay there forever.

"Islam allows the marrying of cousins"

So does Australia. There's no law against marrying your cousin, only siblings or direct ancestors and direct offspring.

Yes could be so, but it is not customary in western societies.
The British government was going to introduce a law against it after
a report to the Commons by the Midland Health Service in the UK.
I have a feeling nothing was done. The same here after a report by
the NSW Health Dept to the NSW Parliament after an enquirey into
Auburn hospital, some years ago now.

Yeah. Darwin married his first cousin, and they were actually even closer related, because there were prior inter-family marriages in their recent ancestry.