Bishop warns of new Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia

Not at all. I'm trying to understand you.....not your post but your manner and emotions. There is so much hate there, it's concerning!

 

No, they don't, that is just you trying to defend a poorly thought out comment which was clearly nothing but an attempt to troll the thread…

Oh, did you actually go back and read the OP??? Suddenly the point becomes clear to you??? You suddenly realised the error in your harangue???

 

Owned by your trolling and now desperately trying to defend it...
Honestly this is way beyond you so come back when you can actually rise to the discussion, not drag it down to your level...

 

The biggest damage Howard caused to Australia (apart from putting us on the extremist map), is to damage our relationship with other countries in South East Asia. The irony of course now we need them more than ever, with Trumps America first policy, China militarising the SCS and ISIS broadening their presence in Asia. He did us no favours with his American lapdog foreign policy.

Bush hails 'sheriff' Australia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3196524.stm

 

Oh dear, and you started out so well. Now I am guessing that you are caught up in the trolls ideals rather then the issue at hand.
Let us look at first WHY, the consideration of blame is irrelevant. Howard voted from office 2007, year to date 2017. If you wish to consider historical blame, then you clearly need to focus on the entire situation.

Now to the point of alienation of nations, considering who did what and when in the scheme of this area you have very few who promoted Australia in the region, Howard is actually one who raised Australia's reputation and standing in the region only to be thwarted by the exact ideals I point out as the trolls. For many decades Australia was considered to be in Keating’s words "the ******** of the world" Now in this region a major player rivalled only by China. Rather a great position considering the nation is small fry compared to the rest of the region.

Now why is it irrelevant, ISIS does not care who did what and what nations did a decade ago. They are going to attack anybody who does not share their beliefs, it is that simple. While the trolls paralyse a nation with their stupid ideal of blaming people ISIS and all those terrorist groups are attacking and these clowns are wondering around trying to play partisan politics rather address the issues at hand…

 

It is either your opinion or a wrong opinion.
Time and time again.
Doesn't help to defame others. It is your reputation which is on the line, not mine.
Would have been an interesting subject to discuss, however as always you messed it up.
Before we can address what could be done, we need to know why, how and where it started.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/12/middleeast/here-is-how-isis-began/
Looking in the mirror is the first step....
Regards

 

The problem that ISIS presents is multi-faceted and requires a much deeper understanding of the Middle East than any of us are likely to have.

I honestly do not have any idea of how to solve the problem but the solution can not be the strategy of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, where thousands of troops were sent into the Middle East with no exit strategy and little planning of how to deal with the power vacuums left in the nations.

 

Garry I disagree I think you are overestimating our importance in the region, what exactly makes you think we are a major player?
China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia is ahead of us economically and Thailand not far behind. What exactly gives us the right to throw our weight around?


Defense spending we're also 4th

You make ISIS sound mindless, they are not, thinking ISIS has no agenda would be a mistake.

ISIS will be fought within countries like Thailand, Phillipines, Malaysia and Indonesia, we need to work with them because of their much larger muslim populations they are much better placed to gather human intelligence to help us monitor activity within out own borders. We need their help, we need good relationships with them for our own national security and we need to stop thinking we run the show because we never did, we were merely the lapdog of a superpower. (sorry if that sounds harsh but it's the truth)

 

Wow......talk about missing the point of your very own thread. You worry me sometimes. I thought you turned over a new leaf but seems once the emotions take over you get really offensive and nasty and then go on and on and on and on............

 

Yeah, it's all putting cart before horse mentality. Why are ISIS recruitment numbers growing?

Before the invasion of Iraq, no one knew anything about Islam.

How do we address the establishment of caliphates and "so called" Islamic terrorism in Philipines.

It's like giving someone painkillers for headaches and addressing the symptoms and not the tumour growing on their brain. Find out the source of the issues before it is too late, if not already!

 

Keating was using reverse psychology to motivate the nation to see itself differently and its place in the world.

Howard raised our ire in the region through his over inflated ego. He was battling little nation syndrome, just like little man syndrome! He would have Sh!t himself had Indonesia started flexing its muscle!

We were supposed to be the Asian superpower, which was utterly absurd based on demographics but Howard liked that!

 

WS,
we have to work with Muslims together, here and abroad.
And we need to give them the feeling to belonging in our country.
I think that is another failure of the West (P.Hanson and Trump just make matters worse).
Those living peacefully among us are a key ingredient to hopefully eradicate ISIS once and for all.
Regards

 

If I knew how to give a rep with new format I would have. You are spot on. We a vilifying Muslims. It has been said over and over again. The very people who can help put a stop to this violence are lambasted erroneously! Again, never was there an issue with Muslim terrorism until Iraq!

Muslim's are fighting against ISIS and yet we have nut jobs like Hanson saying they're all bad.

We have to change our attitudes before we can look at broader isseues and garnering their

 

There is nothing to be gained by saying its all the fault of one party, whether that be Muslims or "the West".

It is not the failure of the West, it is the failure of both "parties" to control their radical fringes and to communicate with each-other and to be flexible in their beliefs so as to accommodate or resolve differences. Islam needs to change if it is to exist peacefully in the West, just as the West must change.

 

Lt,
I partly agree.

Right now we are living in a climate which demonizes all Muslim regardless, and this is not helpful at all.
We need them as they need us. I do believe in multiculturalism and I wouldn't want to live without it....

But you are certainly right in saying that all religion (you named Islam) should and must progress.
Yes it is our destiny as human beings, to learn and to move forward.
I personally miss this questioning and evolution process a bit (from many Muslim) when it comes to their faith.
However that in itself doesn't make them bad people, but it would be helpful in a society with so many different faces and believes to find a common truth.......

Regards

 

What gets me Latherty is that Islam was never an issue for the world prior to the invasion of Iraq. I've stated it many times that 99.9% of western world were ignorant of Islam due to the religion not posing a threat to the world as we believe it is today. I don't think the issue is Islam in so much that it is extreme elements who are taking advantage of radicalising marginalised young people devastated by war and the consequence of unnecessary intervention by USA and its allies.

I had heard of Muhammad but thought he was a God. I didn't know what a Muslim was and its association with Islam. I had never heard of a Jihad or Mecca. I had no idea what Allah meant and furthermore, Allah Akbar! Hell, what on earth did a caliphate mean or a Imam. Never knew these people didn't eat pork or what Halal food was. Sharia Law never entered my vocabulary until after the invasion of Iraq.

Common, you can't tell me that I'm the only one who was oblivious to Islam, it's terms and practices, so what on earth does this suggest?

It's not saying that Islam can't make some changes but the same goes for everyone else who follows a religion or secular.

 

I think you raise a very good point; our view of Islam comes from a post 9/11 understanding and that understanding will be shaped, in part, by radical Islamic groups. For example, the Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups of Northern Ireland did not shape our views of these religions as much as we, in the west, had a deeper understanding of these religions and their theologies.

I think that US intervention in the Middle East helped the rise of these groups, however, I think we must also endeavour to have a greater gasp on the historical interventions of the west, internal politics within the region and within nations, and the schisms, history, and politics between the respective branches of Islam.

I also think that if Islam is to be accepted in the west then it needs to reform and support the secular society and institutions of the west.

ISIS needs to be attacked militarily in the Middle East, but these attacks must be led by Middle Eastern forces (with western support), and attacked at home with deradicalisation based of evidence based practices, inclusion of those those Muslims who accept western values, and a zero tolerance approach to any sort of religious extremism.

 

What you say is so true. And of course you're not the only one. I remember feeling blown away when I found out that Coptic Christians prayed to Allah, and so I found out that Allah was just Arabic for God, so Allah was God. Whoa! That wasn't that long ago either. 20 years max.

I would suggest that today's radical Islam was mostly a reaction to Zionism, which itself was a reaction to Nazism. At the same time Zionism was hitting, the fall of the Ottoman empire and the development of oil resources enriched the Muslim world like never before, and some countries advanced technologically without advancing socially. Meanwhile, the global economic growth was tied to the Middle East energy supply like never before so there was a Western (US-lead) pressure to contain secular democratisation in favour of benevolent "owned" autocrats (Saddam Hussein, Shah of Iran, Saudi Royal Family, House of Sabah in Kuwait, Hashemite Jordan, House of Khalifa in Bahrain, the Emiri sheikhs etc etc), which conflicted with the aims of the energy-independent USSR in the cold war.

So that's how the USA ended up backing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and radical Islam works as both a reaction against US-lead anti-freedom pressures and a rallying point for various nationalisms, especially Arab.

Unfortunately, Islam doesn't have a church-style hierarchy, so I don't think it can be "changed", but Muslims living outside an Islamic Republic can choose their personal interpretation more freely than Christians. In both directions, of course, which is part of the problem with Islamic radicalisation.

And so what I mean when I say "Islam must adapt", is that Muslim people must adapt their interpretation of their faith to accommodate themselves into Western society.

 

Thanks Witty. There are so many facets, twist & turns, manipulation, political manuvering, innuendo etc on this situation that it's easy to get caught up in one part of the equation and pass judgement. I certainly don't profess to know it all.

What I was essentially suggesting was that we had no immediate cause for alarm. Ultimately, if Islamic countries posed no threat to us then we should never have intervened. We should never have to be accepting of them and they don't need to be accepting of us.

I agree that Ideally we should be supporting those countries and peoples with offensives against ISIS/ISIL but I get the sense that it is not as easy as that!

 

It isn't as easy as I said but I, like everyone else, commenting on this forum is coming from a limited understanding of the problem.

 

Again, thanks Latherty for perspective. It makes me think about Christianity. Have they adapted or just dominated. I say a mixture of both. In any instance I still believe it is the extreme elements in every religious association that are the problem for society and not the religion itself. Again Muslims have lived in Australia successfully for over a century. Yeah there was the odd conflict but again not a jihad attempt at imposing Sharia law!

 

You've got good reasoning and that's important. It is all thought provoking stuff.

 

Good comments on this thread, no bogans around lately....
Cheers

 

Sorry I've been busy

Agreed but that has been the case in most countries, and we are genuinely seeing a rise recently across the West of fundamentalist Islam, particularly (and interestingly) from the second-generation immigrants and converts.
It would be a mistake not to acknowledge the problem for two reasons:
1. Failure to acknowledge is almost indistinguishable from complicity, so it empowers the far right against "the establishment".
2. It does nothing to address the underlying issue

Fundamentalist Islam is totally anti-liberal. It is not the liberal stance to support strict religious teaching of any sort, including especially the tenements of radical Islam.

 

I think the liberal stance is more about fairness, so if it is okay for Christianity and its many denominations to practice their dogma, then it should be okay for other religions to practice theirs.

My question is why are we seeing a rise in fundamentalist Islam, especially 2nd generation Muslims?