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[return to "Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say"]
1. hardca+72[view] [source] 2015-11-14 00:51:10
>>franzb+(OP)
"Evil thrives when good men do nothing" gotta put a stop to this
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2. user_0+Y2[view] [source] 2015-11-14 01:00:31
>>hardca+72
What should be done?

Bomb the hell out of the Syrians? Surely they have suffered enough.

Iraq III? Maybe this time.... maybe....

Send the ground troops into Saudi? Quatar?

Acknowledging that some of ISIS / Al-Qaeda gripes do have some merit, stop interfering in other countries affairs, stop propping up dictators because they are "our" dictator.

Something else?

Unfortunately for the Syrians, my money is on bomb the hell out of them, trying to limit the number of "collataral damage" of dead women and kids, but hey, not our fault.

And so we go round the merry go round again.

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3. asasas+c4[view] [source] 2015-11-14 01:13:14
>>user_0+Y2
What if we were to remove our dependence on foreign oil?

Though fusion is a long way out, hypothetically, if we didn't have any reason to interfere and could just leave the Middle East to figure out its own problems, they wouldn't have a reason to see us as the enemy.

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4. intopi+t7[view] [source] 2015-11-14 01:57:38
>>asasas+c4
In 2014, net imports accounted for 27% of the petroleum consumed in the United States. 37% of that comes from Canada, followed by 13% from Saudi Arabia. [0]

Our dependence on foreign oil is no longer an excuse for our meddling in the Middle East.

[0] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6

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5. zaroth+Sa[view] [source] 2015-11-14 02:59:48
>>intopi+t7
I think our significantly decreasing reliance on foreign energy has put the writing on the wall. Middle East countries used to pushing hundreds of billions in oil welfare and running surpluses will be in serious deficit and facing a decimated budget which will tank their economies. Perhaps the thinking is to revolt now before the money is all gone? With such a strikingly oil-centric economy, oil crashed from its high, steady technological progress making their fields increasingly irrelevant over time... Cities built on $140 oil will sink back into the sand. Seems to me massacring innocent French civilians only makes it happen faster.

We meddle a lot less overall in the Middle East the last 8 years than the prior 8, right? If we don't then Russia steps up to do it themselves (for better or worse US has no leadership there anymore so maybe why not Russia give it a shot?)

In the end I personally don't believe the massacre is in any way "caused" by US or other foreign involvement in the Middle East. This is not the first caliphate, nor will it be the last, and it's not about righting wrongs or a struggle for independence, it's literally about inflicting mass casualties on the infidels in as an atrocious and terrifying (i.e beheadings) manor as possible.

Over 100 murdered is a mind boggling atrocity but also a terrible security failure. Not just in failing to catch and prevent it, but failure to take out the shooters at the concert sooner. (I haven't read a detailed account of how the shooters were stopped if there is one)

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6. intopi+Ti[view] [source] 2015-11-14 06:15:34
>>zaroth+Sa
Whether you believe it personally or not, the US involvement in the Middle East - namely, support for Israel, funding of the Saudi regime since 1945 and the arming of Wahhabis during the first gulf war - is the reason ISIS and similar groups have flourished.
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7. zaroth+ij1[view] [source] 2015-11-15 05:19:05
>>intopi+Ti
You wouldn't need to provide much evidence to convince someone that the US certainly makes a great excuse or scapegoat. However, to simply state the US involvement in the Middle East is the reason ISIS and similar groups have flourished doesn't merely strain credulity, it ignores practically a millennium of history, extremely complex political, social, cultural and religious dynamics, and not to mention US support for Israel and funding of the Saudi regime is at an all-time low, and at least as much if not more weapons came from USSR/Russia than the USA. So I assume you're just trolling.

The reality, I believe, is much closer to the same reason it always comes down to when men commit acts of brutality in order to subjugate or terrorize a population. They do it because of ego, pride, opportunity, and a desire for establishing their own power, not because someone else made them do it or in seeking justice in face of tyranny.

If anything, I think it's more likely the premature US withdraw from the Middle East and a lack of stronger support for Israel which has contributed to ISIS flourishing. A perceived faltering of support between two allies is the best invitation for increased pressure and targeted attacks (physical, political, clandestine, and otherwise) against the bonds between those allies. It doesn't surprise me at all that countries and religious fanatics with the stated goal of the destruction of Israel would work tirelessly to popularize the notion that if only not for the US "supporting Israel" the Middle East would somehow be more stable.

Mostly I pin the blame for the flourishing of ISIS collectively on the Middle Eastern countries which themselves have epically failed to confront the rising threat of ISIS on their own turf, while doing seemingly everything possible in their own domestic policies to in fact encourage ISIS recruitment. Assad'd deployment of chemical weapons is mirrored in Egypt's own treatment of citizens in Sinai, and over and over again throughout the Middle East, we see effectively a ceaseless and brutal civil war stretching back, what, 1400 years, only interrupted by periods of apparent calm when one tyrant or another manages to temporarily cement themselves so far above reproach that their own raping and plundering goes uncontested for a relatively short while.

The Middle East has been facing endemic war between Islamic sects basically for the entire history of Islam itself. The "holy wars" (call it barbarism or medievalism) being carried out in the name of Islam (by so-called "Islamic terrorists") is evidence enough that this is not actually problem of foreign policy, but a deep seated and historically pervasive domestic problem.

The inescapable "defunding" of the Middle East over the next few decades is unsurprisingly leading to a surge of sound and fury, signifying little, and ultimately will disappear in a whimper. These are countries which by and large by their own actions and circumstances have squandered a most incredible glut of natural resources (as is human nature) and as that era comes to a close in relatively short order, will bring with it a humanitarian crisis throughout the region, which frankly, neither the US or any other World power, is either responsible for, nor has the political will, nor even the available resources, systems, or infrastructure to adequately address.

The massacre in France is abhorrently evil and sensationally shocking. Statistically, it is a drop in the bucket. I can't even comprehend, for example, the scale of horror and violence which is being inflicted daily against disenfranchised Muslim women and girls who are married into bondage, raped, and brutalized, as a token reward / enticement for ISIS recruits, even wrapping this torture in a veil of propriety and calling it Sharia.... A sickness like that, to me, can only be understood, explained, spread, and ultimately eradicated domestically.

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