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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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Oh dear. IS hit a speed hump. Whoops.
Quote: | REPULSED attacks. Twitter trolls silenced. Rumbles of discontent. Has ‘unstoppable’ ISIS reached peak terror?
The cracks are showing: The much-touted Western converts to the Islamic State’s cause seem to be finding the going tough. Some, wanting to go home, have met a brutal end.
The plight of the Yazidi people is over: On Friday, the extended siege of Mount Sinjar in Iraq’s north was broken as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters — backed by US ‘advisers’ and allied air strikes — swept through the Sunni jihadist forces.
The siege of Kobane was supposed to be the Islamic State’s crowning moment: The last stronghold of the Kurdish people in Syria buckling before their relentless advance. After some 90 days of slaughter, this defiant city no longer features in the jihadist organisation’s glossy propaganda productions.
These defeats have been the first real test of the jihadists’ morale and resolve. |
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/setbacks-put-isis-under-pressure-will-the-islamic-state-fight-back/story-fni0xs61-1227164050148
Long and interesting article, including references by some german journo who spent authorised time with IS.
Bonafide fkn nutjobs. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Bonafide dead fkn nutjobs now. Some of 'em, anyway. _________________ �Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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Right now? What do you look like? |
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Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010 Location: Ponsford End
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ISIS' big mistake with Kobane is its inability to transition itself from a guerrilla force to a conventional force and it has no idea or tactics on how to seize Kobane from the Syrian Kurdish forces! The Kurdish forces have been well-prepared and know the town of Kobane inside and out as opposed to ISIS who are aimlessly trying to seize the town with real no thought or tactics behind it. That's why they've been trying to get senior commanders into Kobane in recent times.
ISIS' biggest strengths are seizing towns in Sunni-based areas in Iraq and Syria alongside smaller Sunni militia groups who have backing from the locals in these towns. That's why towns like Mosul and Tikrit were seized with relative ease by ISIS. That's why I could see them having some kind of success in Egypt and Libya where there's much political instability and sectarian tension.
Wokko wrote: | Yet again I shake my head in wonder that the feminist left are so ready to defend Islam or ignore its many crimes against women, especially Muslim women. Who's riding with them? |
It staggers me as well Wokko!
Where's Germaine Greer when you need her to condemn these actions? _________________ | 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Jezza wrote: | Wokko wrote: | Yet again I shake my head in wonder that the feminist left are so ready to defend Islam or ignore its many crimes against women, especially Muslim women. Who's riding with them? |
It staggers me as well Wokko! |
I have difficulty in believing that there is any truth to these silly-sounding charges. Do you have any evidence? Any evidence at all? Sounds like complete 100% crap to me, but I'll retain an open mind pending something to back up your claim. _________________ �Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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What does complete 100% crap to him or her sound like? |
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Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010 Location: Ponsford End
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Tannin wrote: | Jezza wrote: | Wokko wrote: | Yet again I shake my head in wonder that the feminist left are so ready to defend Islam or ignore its many crimes against women, especially Muslim women. Who's riding with them? |
It staggers me as well Wokko! |
I have difficulty in believing that there is any truth to these silly-sounding charges. Do you have any evidence? Any evidence at all? Sounds like complete 100% crap to me, but I'll retain an open mind pending something to back up your claim. |
It's not so much about feminists defending the religion, but their lack of communication about the issue of women in Islamic countries and societies is staggering.
Women in Iraq are executed for rejecting the advances of ISIS' soldiers on the weekend and women from Christian and Yazidi backgrounds are being used as sex slaves by ISIS in Iraq and Syria and yet I haven't heard any condemnation and comments from feminists who preach the very things that protect women from such practices in the first place.
It's the lack of disapproval from these same feminists that frustrates the likes of myself and Wokko who see these people condemn superficial inequalities amongst western societies in comparison to Islamic societies where women are treated like second-class citizens.
Has someone like prominent Australian feminist Germaine Greer condemned the atrocities that ISIS members commit on women? I'll be surprised if you find any evidence that suggests that she has very strongly disapproved of their actions publicly speaking. _________________ | 1902 | 1903 | 1910 | 1917 | 1919 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1935 | 1936 | 1953 | 1958 | 1990 | 2010 | 2023 | |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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To be fair on Germaine I'd suggest she'd be one of the more likely to do so.
More modern day feminist icons are more likely to have made an angry tumblr blog post about a video game than any pressing mortal issue real women may be facing. Of course the problem with that is acknowledging that the only people who can protect these women are men with guns willing to die to offer that protection Much like the 'patriarchy' has always protected women within their own societies (the point of a patriarchal society is to protect women from harm, no matter how misguided that becomes when a society is 'safe'). |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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Hurrah! I assume you mean our current problem. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
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Wokko wrote: | Of course the problem with that is acknowledging that the only people who can protect these women are men with guns willing to die to offer that protection |
"Men with guns"?
http://m.france24.com/en/focus/20141119-exclusive-iran-iraq-kurdish-komala-is-islamic-state-leftist/
Patriarchies don't keep women safe, they keep them vulnerable and subjugated. In a society with true gender equality—not mainstream Kurdish society, obviously, but one that subscribes to the Marxist ideology that these fighters hold—scenarios like the above would be the norm. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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Nice anecdote David, but men have protected the women in their societies since day 1. The motivation is never to keep women 'subjagated and vulnerable', in a violent, shit hitting the fan scenario women ARE vulnerable and men have always been the ones fighting and dying to protect them. Stable, safe societies then tend towards more freedom and 'rights' for women. Even now it would be almost 100% men fighting and dying against (and for) ISIS. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
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But when asserting the way things "are", you have to be careful not to presume essentialism. This is the problem I have with a lot of conservative discourse: it dismisses social construction out of hand (to be fair, some leftist academic theory goes too far in the other direction, but even a radical cultural approach at least accepts the fluidity of human behaviour and roles).
What I mean by all that is that you can't simply state that protective men and vulnerable women is the natural order of things. Beyond childbearing, the only difference between a society of weak, helpless flowers and a tribe of Amazons is culture. There are no other biological factors preventing women from being self-sufficient fighters. A cursory look at the animal kingdom should demonstrate that. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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David wrote: | Beyond childbearing, the only difference between a society of weak, helpless flowers and a tribe of Amazons is culture. There are no other biological factors preventing women from being self-sufficient fighters. A cursory look at the animal kingdom should demonstrate that. |
Except those non existent biological factors like smaller size, lower strength, lower endurance and far less aggression. Genetic outliers aside there has never been human females who could defend themselves against outgroup male aggressors until technology superceded physicality (female pilots for example and I would somewhat include the use of firearms). Modern militaries that are open to and actively seeking female frontline troops get very few applicants, fewer recruits and tiny numbers of combat troops. There is more to this than 'culture'.
Also AKAIK even the Amazons are and were a myth, the closest in reality are the Dahomey Amazons, a group of female warriors from Africa. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
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My point is that a woman who works out at the gym daily and/or is adept at martial arts and/or has a machine gun and knows how to use it doesn't need a man to protect her. I can easily imagine a society in which this was the norm (say, a modern Sparta where boys and girls are trained as warriors from birth). The mere possibility of that demonstrates that we are talking about culture: that is, women will be weak and subservient in a culture that raises them to be weak and subservient.
I wager that an individual woman in danger (if not burdened by pregnancy or children, but perhaps even then) would have been a much more fearsome proposition in prehistorical times than in a modern patriarchy. _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere
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I'm pretty fit mate, but there's not many men I could take down. I'd probably out run a lot! And I have zero agression I'd hold out forever before I hit someone. Give me a gun, I'd throw it away, unless of course, I was directly threatened, and then I'd probably only protect my kids. I'm not weak or subservient, but I know my limits.
And most woman I know, don't come close to my strength, or aggression. Your dreaming, it could never be equal, and it's not meant to be.
Guns make up for some of it, and good hides holes. I take my hat off to the woman fighting ISIS. but there aren't enough of them, and they can't win. They can defend themselves to a point, but if they become more than an itch, they will get blown off the planet. _________________ You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either!
Last edited by think positive on Sat Dec 27, 2014 8:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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