You p/c post run amok makes me think you have never heard of Cosa Nostra

 

 

It is not a p/c post...I just leave people be to run their course. 

 

So what about Cosa Nostra and not every Italian was involved in that, just a very small minority. My ancestry is no different. The O'Cahan clan in Northern Ireland caused a lot of trouble but again it was a very small minority that did.

 

Also I am directly related to President Zachary Taylor, another goon and slave owner, some may say the George Bush of the day...

 

My people ran its course through history so I just let other people do the same. Unless you are Native America chances are someone in your family tree was escaping some sort of war or political persecution or poverty....etc. No different today with Somalians or Afghans or anyone else, USA was founded on that.

The reason that lots of people in immigrant groups often end up being swayed by things are usually cultural and based in ignorance and poverty. There's a reason that you don't see many well fed middle class white people going overseas to die, and that includes joining the military. Yes, the Military is another example of how poor uneducated people are more likely to be sucked into doing something that more well fed or educated people generally don't.

 

So why do Somalis fall for ISIS more than the US Army? Because culturally that institution better represents their values and their origins. I'm not saying the US Army and ISIS are the same, clearly, but you also have to realize that for cultural reasons some groups will not see much difference between joining the Army and going overseas to fight for them. Just think about all the westerners that went to fight for the Spanish back in the 1930s. Another example would be Jews going overseas to fight for the new state of Israel back in the late 40s. Would that be surprising? No not really. Even more compelling would be the idea of Jewish Americans going overseas to become part of the Irgun before the creation of Israel. A headline from that time might read "Jewish American who mopped floors in the House of Representatives was killed this week after firing on British soldiers in the Protectorate of Palestine"

 

His access to airports and his sympathies really don't show any relevance ultimately other than to the fear of that association. He hadn't done anything wrong before he left to fight overseas. If he'd come back and tried to get back to the airport job I can imagine then that that'd be the real test of the current system. What exactly are they supposed to screen these people for? Being muslims, somalis, and having a sympathy that only manifests itself in the future?

 

This is a scary headline only because of how people perceive it. In actual fact there isn't much of a story. Here's the real headline "Man who died overseas fighting for ISIS had a security clearance from before he ever did anything wrong or had any reason to be in any database". The only practical solution to this is one of institutionalized racism against muslims in security intensive jobs. "You are denied security clearance because we can't be sure you're not sympathetic to a generic threat from a general area of the world".

His access to airports and his sympathies really don't show any relevance ultimately other than to the fear of that association.

 

hmmm...

 

I'm thinking back to 9/11 and al Qaeda...

 

and how the "Islamic State is widely seen as more brutal than al Qaeda"...

 

And with statements like: "A Muslim has to stand up for [what's] right," Abdirahmaan Muhumed told MPR News through a series of Facebook messages dating back to the beginning of the year. "I give up this worldly life for Allah."

 

Muhumed said in Facebook messages that ISIS is "trying to bring back the khilaafa," a reference to an Islamic empire. He also said "Allah loves those who fight for his cause."

 

And with the IS having a "convert or die" war they are waging... sry... I see a bit of relevance there.

I am not going to post quotes or anything like that....all I am going to say is it is Saturday Night in New Zealand. I am sitting here with my friend from Alabama and my friend from Australia having some beers and I showed them this thread. From outside of the USA it looks as if both Muslims and Americans can have radicalized views but thankfully the large majority of Muslims and Americans do not have radicalized views.

Italians are not Mafia Either, a very small percentage of Italians have got caught up in that stuff but it doesn't represent Italians. My Alabama friend starting talking about seeing Casino again this afternoon on his day off....great movie but yes.....the large majority of Italians are not like that.

Majority of people coming to America today just want what is best for their families and a better future for their children. Same now as it was over the centuries. Nothing is perfect but as long as the majority stay the course then don't let the minority of goofs affect the greater good.

Good night everyone. 

I am not going to post quotes or anything like that....all I am going to say is it is Saturday Night in New Zealand. I am sitting here with my friend from Alabama and my friend from Australia having some beers and I showed them this thread. From outside of the USA it looks as if both Muslims and Americans can have radicalized views but thankfully the large majority of Muslims and Americans do not have radicalized views.

 

Italians are not Mafia Either, a very small percentage of Italians have got caught up in that stuff but it doesn't represent Italians. My Alabama friend starting talking about seeing Casino again this afternoon on his day off....great movie but yes.....the large majority of Italians are not like that.

 

Majority of people coming to America today just want what is best for their families and a better future for their children. Same now as it was over the centuries. Nothing is perfect but as long as the majority stay the course then don't let the minority of goofs affect the greater good.

 

Good night everyone. 

 

 

I fully agree with you here, Matthew.

 

And let me add that it's never a religion that kills other people, but a dishonest and manipulative interpretation of that religion in question.

 

Back to simming now.

hmmm...

 

I'm thinking back to 9/11 and al Qaeda...

 

and how the "Islamic State is widely seen as more brutal than al Qaeda"...

 

And with statements like: "A Muslim has to stand up for [what's] right," Abdirahmaan Muhumed told MPR News through a series of Facebook messages dating back to the beginning of the year. "I give up this worldly life for Allah."

 

Muhumed said in Facebook messages that ISIS is "trying to bring back the khilaafa," a reference to an Islamic empire. He also said "Allah loves those who fight for his cause."

 

And with the IS having a "convert or die" war they are waging... sry... I see a bit of relevance there.

The relevance is in the fact that you're scared by it. But when it comes to the whole "what can we do?" part there's nothing. How is it really relevant that he worked in an airport BEFORE he went and fought for ISIS? Its only relevant because we're freaking out because of it, but in actual fact he didn't do anything when he was there, had access, and it doesn't appear that he planned to do anything or that there was any information available at the time that would suggest he would have or that he was an unsavory character or had done anything to warrant getting him out of there.

 

Therefore has the system failed by letting him work there? By any criteria I can think of no, unless you think the background check should include access to a quantum singularity that taps into government databases from the future.

 

So like I said, other than being freaked out by it what exactly went wrong with the system?

Just think about all the westerners that went to fight for the Spanish back in the 1930s. Another example would be Jews going overseas to fight for the new state of Israel back in the late 40s. Would that be surprising? No not really. Even more compelling would be the idea of Jewish Americans going overseas to become part of the Irgun before the creation of Israel. A headline from that time might read "Jewish American who mopped floors in the House of Representatives was killed this week after firing on British soldiers in the Protectorate of Palestine"

 

 

The difference is that those fighters had no intention whatsoever of bringing the fighting back to their home country. ISIS on the other hand is a terrorist organization that wants to commit terrorist attacks against the west too. 

 

ISIS fighters with western passports are a huge threat to western world, I believe it's only matter of time until they will manage to commit an attack in Europe & obviously there's a large threat against the US too. If I could choose I would simply send all badly radicalized Muslims out of Europe. 

The difference is that those fighters had no intention whatsoever of bringing the fighting back to their home country. ISIS on the other hand is a terrorist organization that wants to commit terrorist attacks against the west too. 

 

ISIS fighters with western passports are a huge threat to western world, I believe it's only matter of time until they will manage to commit an attack in Europe & obviously there's a large threat against the US too. If I could choose I would simply send all badly radicalized Muslims out of Europe. 

 

Except that this guy clearly wasn't going to be that person. Its not like he had spent 8 months in a training camp in the middle east then went back to the US and got a job in an Airport. Generally speaking once you go over there and start training its pretty hard for some intelligence to not link you. The fact that you're there at all is enough to raise the scrutiny on you. So if the system had failed to pick that up then it would be a big deal, but given these circumstances its not as if there was any indication he was a domestic threat.

 

The airport job is just a coincidence. The whole American passport thing is totally separate from this story. Thats something thats as much a talking point if he was a burger flipper at McDonald's. 

 

How do you know if someone is radicalized? We don't know, so far we thankfully live in countries that don't judge you on your general bias or vague beliefs. Like I said, we can't make airport clearance checks based on ethnicity and religion. Its also generally a fact though that when someone is trying to do some dastardly stuff to a Western nation there's an indication, some intel trail. If the system can't catch him on his way BACK from an ISIS training camp then we have problems, but until he actually leaves the country to become radicalized how do you screen for that? You don't.

 

As far as I can tell this whole thing about the airport job is coincidental. It was just a job to the guy. There's no real indication that he was radicalized in a way that held any malice towards America either. You can't just say ISIS is this and say case closed. Any movement or institution contains various types of people of various biases. Not every person who supported the IRA believed in everything they did or wanted to see happen. No organization is that homogeneous. There are ISIS supporters who will go to fight for some abstract goal over there and there are ones who'll come over here and fight for some goal to be achieved here. They are not the same people. I'm sure there are scores of ISIS members who don't want to do anything bad to America because the very nature of that organization and the way its picking up broad support in the Middle East is going to mean there's more moderate members too.

 

They are fighting for a lot of things, appealing to a lot of ideas. Some people will be drawn just by the idea of setting up something in an area they see as being muslim and deserving independence from western influence. That does not automatically lead to direct terrorist action on American soil, not for every person in that group. I think in many ways its much less likely that you'll find a violent terrorist whose origins are in America simply because the ones with passports have family here, have a life here and are going to be less willing to attack that. So far the people who have executed attacks on western soil have been foreigners and there's a good reason for that.

 

I'm not saying its not a threat, I'm just saying there's a lot more nuance to the case of radicalized Americans than just saying "they are this group now ergo they are uniformly to be expected to be like this". Whats more any excessive response to the perceived threat of these radicals with American passports can lead to institutional actions against them that could greatly increase the likelihood of them becoming upset and disenfranchised from their home ie. America. Then it can be easy for the radicals over there to say to them "you see, you're not really one of them, look how they treat you, look how they treat your family, we must change that".

 

The nature of the threat can be greatly exaggerated by the incorrect response. Its as dangerous to overreact as it is to be unprepared. We should be both very vigilant and prepared but also thoughtful in how we approach the perceived threat. Its much more productive to treat that immigrant community as a resource in fighting than an enemy in the making. You'll get to those youths who can be swayed to the ISIS message much more easily through their communities, through their mosques than through some aggressive state enforcement and paranoia campaign.

@P*Funk - well stated.

 

I'm hoping we can keep this topic on subject. Thanks!

 

Best regards,

How do you know if someone is radicalized? We don't know, so far we thankfully live in countries that don't judge you on your general bias or vague beliefs.

 

Well people with radicalized belief often visit sites linked to radical ideas, you can be sure that at the moment various intelligence agencies both in Europe & North America are monitoring those sites and suspicious individuals with links to them. 

 

Here in Finland our Muslim immigrant population is rather tiny, yet even from here around 30 people have left to fight in Syria / Iraq, that's about 0.007% of our Muslim population. If same percentage left from the US that would be around 1800 people. 

 

Many of these individuals appeared to be just ordinary people who became radicalized for some reason and left to fight for ISIS and other such groups, often against will of their families.

 

 

 

Its much more productive to treat that immigrant community as a resource in fighting than an enemy in the making.

 

I agree, of course the best thing to do would be trying to find ways to stop people from becoming radicalized in the first place. I think this phenomenon of radicalization is very much linked to feelings of alienation and marginalization that many immigrants might feel. Unemployment, lack of education and other social issues related to them are a serious problem here within many immigrants communities of African / Middle Eastern origin. Unemployed young people who feel foreign in their own country are easy prey for all kinds of extremist movements. 

 

However we should be very careful with those who already went to fight and then return back.

However we should be very careful with those who already went to fight and then return back.

 

 

Exactly... that is the real concern.

I agree, of course the best thing to do would be trying to find ways to stop people from becoming radicalized in the first place. I think this phenomenon of radicalization is very much linked to feelings of alienation and marginalization that many immigrants might feel. Unemployment, lack of education and other social issues related to them are a serious problem here within many immigrants communities of African / Middle Eastern origin. Unemployed young people who feel foreign in their own country are easy prey for all kinds of extremist movements. 

 

However we should be very careful with those who already went to fight and then return back.

I still think the best way to do that is to have a very progressive and integrated relationship with their communities. Its the same thing with things like stopping gang affiliation. The same principles of marginalization apply. Without that it just becomes another case of having cops infiltrating mosques rather than working with the elders. The muslim leaders will be just as unhappy about radicalization as the rest of us because their communities suffer for it.

 

Exactly... that is the real concern.

Indeed, but that is thankfully not the issue posed by this story. Basically thats my whole point. There is a huge gap between the guys who go to fight some romantic war overseas to liberate the homeland or whatever and the guys who'll come back here to blow stuff up. Its necessary that we not conflate the two because there will always be countless more doing the former rather than the latter.

 

I think this story is therefore misleading us with the wrong perspective because the system didn't fail by having him with a clearance there, unless there was some previous information that wasn't accounted for. I think the more interesting fact is that he was openly unhappy with the difficulties in finding work to support his family, a cornestone of the disenfranchisement that can lead people to reach for radical ideas to satisfy themselves. This of course is very relevant even to Western value systems as evidenced by places like Greece seeing the rise of more traditionally Western radical ideas such as Neo-Naziism in the wake of the economic recession and the application of harsh austerity measures.

 

I think we really need to look inward for our solution and ask if we are doing everything we can to help avoid this from more than just an executive branch enforcement strategy. The real solution long term to avoiding this issue exists in more social avenues. The greatest danger is our own paranoia being stoked by irresponsible propaganda that puts us into an "us vs. them" mentality when we should be looking at any person with native citizenship as one of us regardless of how different their origin culture is. More than anything the fact that they live here and are having children here says they want to be one of us, so thats where the real strength in our fight against radicalism should begin.

 

In the mean time I have yet to see a real sign that the improvements in our security infrastructure across most Western nations since 9/11 are not sufficient. 

There is a huge gap between the guys who go to fight some romantic war overseas to liberate the homeland or whatever and the guys who'll come back here to blow stuff up.

 

Well, I tend to think all ISIS fighters belong to the latter group. There are groups like FSA ( Free Syrian Army) which simply aim to overthrow current Syrian regime and replace it with a new one, I don't think they pose any real threat to the west.

Then there's ISIS which aims to create an entirely new state in the area currently ruled by several others, a state ruled by extreme Islamic law. They don't tolerate religious minorities and are actually committing full scale genocide. 

 

We never treated those who joined Taliban or Al Qaeda as freedom fighters or liberators, those who joined ISIS don't deserve that either as their actions conflict with most basic human rights and freedoms. 

Well, I tend to think all ISIS fighters belong to the latter group. There are groups like FSA ( Free Syrian Army) which simply aim to overthrow current Syrian regime and replace it with a new one, I don't think they pose any real threat to the west.

Then there's ISIS which aims to create an entirely new state in the area currently ruled by several others, a state ruled by extreme Islamic law. They don't tolerate religious minorities and are actually committing full scale genocide. 

 

We never treated those who joined Taliban or Al Qaeda as freedom fighters or liberators, those who joined ISIS don't deserve that either as their actions conflict with most basic human rights and freedoms. 

Who cares how we treat them? You're making the fatal flaw of defining them based on your own limited perception of their nature. You can't define an entire movement by the propaganda and abstract goals of the select few at the very top. Whether they like it or not those people who act confident and want to do all kinds of absolute things will find interesting issues in executing that, as will any group. Lets not forget that at one point Al Qaeda Iraq fell out with the rest of Al Qaeda over major differences. These are not homogeneous groups. The words of the leaders are not automatically equal to the will of every person who'll willing to throw on the garb of that army.

 

You can't seriously believe that 100% of those people fighting for ISIS in the middle east are wiling to come over to the West to wage a hopeless and mostly symbolic terrorist war right? Its just not rational or logical and there is no evidence that at any point in time any group has ever functioned like that. Whether we like it or not ISIS is a popular front in the middle east. It is gaining lots of traction with people but this isn't something as simple as the Taliban. The Taliban are largely Afghan-centric in nature, but what parts of their organization operate from Pakistan are not identical. Their goals and the individuals they recruit are more easily focused on a single entity which allows for a more straight forward governance of its activities. ISIS is linking popular support from all over the place, across multiple borders. This means that you will start to see much more disparate personalities getting involved and varied levels of interest in different goals. They have a lot of big goals but they're quite diverse so its not logical to believe that all of their members can be expected to enthusiastically embrace it uniformly. Honestly if this were true then ISIS must be doing something right that every other movement in history never managed to do. Such uniformity of support is a fantasy.

 

This doesn't change the threat posed by those few movers and shakers at the top, but it also doesn't mean we can just say "he's an ISIS fighter ergo he is this" because thats foolish. If ISIS really had that kind of support from their members, that kind of resolve to destroy the West regardless of where they come from, then we would be in much worse trouble than we actually are.

 

Lets not let the propaganda and the kind of fear mongering that politicians will feed us with cloud the sober rational risk assessments that someone in an intelligence agency would probably give us. Its well known that what has been said pretty much since the beginning of the War on Terror by politicians and intelligence operatives like in the CIA are often at odds when some revelations are made. There are videos of CIA analysts testifying to congress arguing with politicians about the nature of terrorist groups because the politicians wants to defend his nonsense talking point that is far too simplistic for the likes of legitimate intel work.

 

Basically if the neat and tidy explanation of how things work that's used on the campaign trail were tried in the actual prosecution of the war against these entities then we'd be cocking it up far worse than we already have. I often wonder if CIA agents laugh at the absurdity of what they hear some politicians try to sell when they know the true, and confusingly indistinct, nature of how the game is actually played.

You can't seriously believe that 100% of those people fighting for ISIS in the middle east are wiling to come over to the West to wage a hopeless and mostly symbolic terrorist war right? Its just not rational or logical and there is no evidence that at any point in time any group has ever functioned like that.

 

Not 100% but many are. While some people fighting for ISIS might be simply looking for an adventure, wealth or acceptance, many are simply driven there by religious brainwashing. People who genuinely believe there's a God who will award them in heaven if they die as martyrs can do do pretty much anything, they aren't acting rationally. 

 

 

 

Whether we like it or not ISIS is a popular front in the middle east.

 

Yes, among conservative Sunni Muslims. However everyone else is an enemy to ISIS.

 

 

 

"he's an ISIS fighter ergo he is this" because thats foolish

 

Our actions and groups we belong to most certainly do define and label us something, that's simply the way it is. I don't expect a neo ###### (those national socialist guys) to be a good, law abiding citizen. Neither do I expect an ISIS fighter to be one.

 

 

 

If ISIS really had that kind of support from their members, that kind of resolve to destroy the West regardless of where they come from, then we would be in much worse trouble than we actually are.

 

ISIS is still very busy advancing their goals in the Middle East. Just because nothing has happened in the west yet doesn't mean we aren't going to be in deep trouble when the fighting there starts to decelerate. Personally I have no doubt ISIS will try its best to commit massive terrorist attacks against the west sooner or later, it's only matter of time.