Originally Posted by markjmd

You're probably right of course, but at the same time there are definitely some posters here who seem to take a suspiciously enthusiastic pleasure in playing Devil's Advocate whenever the subject of "what drives IS?" comes up, to the point where it's genuinely difficult to tell whether they understand that arguing from the theoretical position of such people doesn't mean you have to agree with that position. With some in fact, I'd even go so far as to say that they're so keen to jump on the anti-Western, anti-American bandwagon that they really have managed to convince themselves that there's some merit to IS's beliefs.

Originally Posted by JTaylor

Quite. There's a difference between understanding a thing and justifying it.

Originally Posted by neil-h

Someone has to provide a bit of balance (and try and make people think) otherwise these threads just turn into the same sort of nonsense that brought us the non-stop laugh a minute joy of Brexit.

Originally Posted by neil-h

Someone has to provide a bit of balance (and try and make people think) otherwise these threads just turn into the same sort of nonsense that brought us the non-stop laugh a minute joy of Brexit.

Originally Posted by JGlanzaV

exactly. Or we can all be morally outraged and just shout and scream and stomp our feet....



Seems like the majority here are unable of independant thought...

Originally Posted by markjmd

Right, so your favourite mantra of "IS wouldn't exist if it wasn't for bla, bla, bla" isn't some off-the-peg nonsense that's been repeated who knows how many times by a lot of people who just want to make themselves look clever by taking a contrary stance? As if.

Originally Posted by markjmd

I'd love to know what kind of scales you're using, if you think there's anything in Germany's recent history that might be balanced-out by what happened in Berlin two nights ago.

Originally Posted by markjmd

Right, so your favourite mantra of "IS wouldn't exist if it wasn't for bla, bla, bla" isn't some off-the-peg nonsense that's been repeated who knows how many times by a lot of people who just want to make themselves look clever by taking a contrary stance? As if.

Originally Posted by neil-h

Originally Posted by The Trooper 1815

Bader Meinhoff, Red Army Faction to name just two.

Originally Posted by markjmd

And the connection to IS is what exactly?

Originally Posted by The Trooper 1815

A twisted ideology using terrorism in Germany to further it's raison d'etre.

Originally Posted by markjmd

If 70+ years ago is your idea of recent history, I'm not even going to bother asking how you think that involves Syria or Iraq.