Brussels attack

Just my speculation, but it is likely to be the case that ISIS is behind this - be it an official, directed attack from the group or from rogue believers acting on their own.

How much longer are we waiting to go on a full scale war against terrorists? Sounds juvenile, but hard to believe that those fucktards would stand a chance against the collective force of US, UK, France et al.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/people-injured-after-explosion-at-brussels-…

 

The thing is they can withstand any modern army, most of them are pussies hiding in caves in the mountains. No army can find them, drones can't see through 300 feet of rock. It also doesn't help that every time one of these guys kills himself or gets killed, his friends treat him like a martyr and get even more pissed at the West. The West needs to kill an ideology, not people, if they want to solve this problem.

 

Lordbendter hit the nail on the head. This is effectively an evolution of guerilla warfare which the US has found challenging to crush since employing it themselves against the British. The grandest militaries on the planet, with their enormous aircraft carriers and billion dollar fighter jets, aren't all that useful against a bunch of guys hiding in a house with home made bombs and basic weapons. You have to crush a mentality that's as resilient as a cockroach where killing them only seem to strengthen their resolve. What needs to happen is Muslims across the world have to stand up and say fck these guys, we want nothing to do with them and they don't represent us. They need to alienate the terrorists which will choke off their moral support. The west can't do this, it has to come from Muslims.

 

This will end when the US finally stands up to the country funding and supporting this radical ideology - Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are exporting terrorist ideology all over the world and everyone just turns a blind eye. Even 9/11 wasn't enough for the US to go after Saudi Arabia - instead they went after Iraq! What a complete fucking idiotic mess.

 

The way to solve the middle eastern debacle is through massive infusions of capital. A buddy and I sometimes joke that the best strategy to defeat radical Islam is to airdrop a metric fuckton of iphones in their villages so the Neanderthals can join the 21st century with the rest of us.

The problem with radical Islam is that their blind supporters simply can't conceive how well the civilized Western world lives. Meanwhile in the middle east, their quality of life is literally stuck in the middle ages. If their societies were exposed to the technologies and wealth that Europe and the U.S. have, there would no longer be an incentive for them to fuck camels and blow themselves up.

 

People need to stop protecting Islam. Not every Islamic is an extremist, but the religion is built on the tenants that there is no better thing than to die for your religion. Add that to an intolerant, oppressive rhetoric, glorification of jihad, demonization of outside cultures, and you have a breeding ground that fosters violence.

Islamic ideologies needs to fundamentally change in the same way that Christianity had to change after the crusades. I don't know if the best way to do this is to work with Islamic leaders, deny immigration from these extremist cultures, or something else, but something needs to be done.

 

This:

The Real Max:

People need to stop protecting Islam.

Well put. In addition, and this may not be a popular nor a PC opinion, I believe that it is borderline irresponsible for moderate Muslims to turn a blind eye to what's going on. Yes, the .1% minority does not represent or speak for the whole religion, but the 99.9% (whether the Saudi government, Islamic leaders, political groups / grassroot movements, etc.) most certainly have some voice and ability to make an effort to impart change.

There have even been polls showing that some 20% of Muslims sympathize with these terrorist attacks. The accuracy of this number notwithstanding, this is a complex and difficult attitude to measure, and perhaps the true number is between the aforementioned .1% and the 20%; or, maybe even the 20% is understated as this is only the reported number and may hide true attitudes. Whatever the true number may be, there is no doubt that a substantial amount of "turning a blind eye" exists, and just because one is not an overt extremist, it doesn't make one a moderate either.

I hate to question another's religion as I have my own and believe that freedom of religion is essential, but how do these abhorrent acts not work to undermine one's belief system, even a little bit? You can't ignore that there's an aspect of Islam that is stubborn and unyielding. Yes, these words form the very basis of what "faith" is, but I think it certainly would make me question why these violent interpretations even exist in the first place, contemplate its relevance and place in the current world, raise a sense of moral responsibility, etc. In the end it's a difficult topic to tackle, and we are not in the shoes of the people that get radicalized to judge, but I feel like such conversation needs to take place (and carpet bombing is not the answer).

 
jb0938:

This:

The Real Max:

People need to stop protecting Islam.

Well put. In addition, and this may not be a popular nor a PC opinion, I believe that it is borderline irresponsible for moderate Muslims to turn a blind eye to what's going on. Yes, the .1% minority does not represent or speak for the whole religion, but the 99.9% (whether the Saudi government, Islamic leaders, political groups / grassroot movements, etc.) most certainly have some voice and ability to make an effort to impart change.

Being PC is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether something is factually true or false.

The Saudi government is the biggest sponsor of terrorism throughout the world. If these guys weren't funding and promoting extreme groups and ideologies, then we wouldn't have the problem we do today.

Unfortunately, I do not see this changing anytime soon. Hopefully the shift to renewables and away from Saudi oil can have some affect.

 
Best Response

I'm not persuaded by any of the comments above, and I think the discussion is very telling. If I'm not mistaken, the Middle East only accounts for 20% of the world's Muslim population, though we seldom hear of radical Islam outside the Middle East and Africa. As others have stated this is an ideological issue, but in my opinion—you’re still missing the mark. Take a look at Yemen, for example, the unemployment rate, poverty and starvation in that country are out of control. Is it any wonder that a radical ideology gains traction in a place like that? Radical ideologies thrive in environments like that, look at Trump’s popularity, his leading demographic is blue collar white men; look at the conditions in Germany when Hitler rose to power. When shit hits the fan, people want someone/something with all the answers, and someone to blame.

If we learned anything from Iraq—banning the Ba’ath party, specifically the military—the solution is having a native ground component that can eventually hold power. Unfortunately, that’s the problem—there isn’t one. Putting boots on the ground would be like pouring gasoline on the fire, it fits exactly into their rhetoric of the West vs Islam. I don’t see any good options outside what we’re already doing.

As a side note, it’s very predictable that the discussion above devolved into justifying not being “PC”, and largely a discussion from an emotional truth.

 
ArcherVice:

I'm not persuaded by any of the comments above, and I think the discussion is very telling. If I'm not mistaken, the Middle East only accounts for 20% of the world's Muslim population, though we seldom hear of radical Islam outside the Middle East and Africa. As others have stated this is an ideological issue, but in my opinion--you're still missing the mark. Take a look at Yemen, for example, the unemployment rate, poverty and starvation in that country are out of control. Is it any wonder that a radical ideology gains traction in a place like that? Radical ideologies thrive in environments like that, look at Trump's popularity, his leading demographic is blue collar white men; look at the conditions in Germany when Hitler rose to power. When shit hits the fan, people want someone/something with all the answers, and someone to blame.

If we learned anything from Iraq--banning the Ba'ath party, specifically the military--the solution is having a native ground component that can eventually hold power. Unfortunately, that's the problem--there isn't one. Putting boots on the ground would be like pouring gasoline on the fire, it fits exactly into their rhetoric of the West vs Islam. I don't see any good options outside what we're already doing.

As a side note, it's very predictable that the discussion above devolved into justifying not being "PC", and largely a discussion from an emotional truth.

I think you made some good points.

 

You're wrong. Radical Islam isn't isolated to the middle east. Even in exceptionally developed countries like Britain, there is support for killings and violence against opponents of Islam. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11433776/Quarter-of-British-Mu…

Islam as a whole is based on an ideological ideal that isn't cohesive with modern, rational society. We definitely shouldn't be putting boots on the ground or kicking Islamic people out of the country, but people need to look towards solutions that can bring Islam out of the stone age.

 

“You’re wrong.”

Really? Ok, since we’re nitpicking, I specifically stated “seldom” not “never,” but none of this undermines my contention: radical ideologies thrive in communities & countries lacking opportunity. Had you done even a modicum of research, or reading for that matter, you would’ve concluded this is a true statement even among the immigrant Muslim population of Belgium.

I’m not at all defending the polling answer (agree or disagree) to: “I have some sympathy for the motives behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks.” In contrast to your interpretation that they sympathize with the attacks themselves, but when asked: “Organizations’ which publish images of the Prophet Mohammed deserved to be attacked.” 85% of respondents disagreed (3% didn’t know). Interestingly, 46% of those polled British Muslims agreed that: “Prejudice against Islam makes it ‘very difficult’ to be a Muslim in this country.” Can you imagine feeling persecuted for practicing your religion? Further, those same Muslims (95%) stated they feel loyalty to Britain. In a population that feels persecuted for their religious beliefs, you find it enough to label an entire religion as incompatible with Western society? This ignores that the resounding majority in those polls agree with the “right” answer to all of those questions. I wonder whether the good ol’ Bible belt Christians, the ones that generally support more xenophobic (racist) policies/views, would sympathize with the motives behind a radical Christian if they too felt persecuted for their religious beliefs. None of this is meant to defend or justify their views, I’m merely pointing out that once again, you’re missing the mark by ignoring most of the details in your own cited reference.

It’s this sort of misunderstanding (intentional?) that often exacerbates the underlying issues or causes decisions and actions to be taken for the sake of taking action, for example, the idea that patrolling—alienating—Muslim neighborhoods would make us safer. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I’d be very cautious about expanding military action without a viable ground component, and even more so about making convenient (lazy) conclusions about the problem at hand.

 
ArcherVice:

I'm not persuaded by any of the comments above, and I think the discussion is very telling. If I'm not mistaken, the Middle East only accounts for 20% of the world's Muslim population, though we seldom hear of radical Islam outside the Middle East and Africa. As others have stated this is an ideological issue, but in my opinion--you're still missing the mark. Take a look at Yemen, for example, the unemployment rate, poverty and starvation in that country are out of control. Is it any wonder that a radical ideology gains traction in a place like that? Radical ideologies thrive in environments like that, look at Trump's popularity, his leading demographic is blue collar white men; look at the conditions in Germany when Hitler rose to power. When shit hits the fan, people want someone/something with all the answers, and someone to blame.

If we learned anything from Iraq--banning the Ba'ath party, specifically the military--the solution is having a native ground component that can eventually hold power. Unfortunately, that's the problem--there isn't one. Putting boots on the ground would be like pouring gasoline on the fire, it fits exactly into their rhetoric of the West vs Islam. I don't see any good options outside what we're already doing.

As a side note, it's very predictable that the discussion above devolved into justifying not being "PC", and largely a discussion from an emotional truth.

Some good points. It's also worth noting that in Europe between the IRA, RIRA and ETA shots and bombs have been going off for a few decades in broadly civilized and advanced countries over religious / territorial disputes. This, again, is a problem with an extremist ideology - not a whole religion (though I wouldn't argue that there are some inherent traits of Islam that are hard to jive with Western Liberal values).

It's also pretty telling of the above discussion that no one mentioned any of the five bombs in Turkey's two main cities since last October. Whilst mainly targeted at tourist groups these people showed no qualms about blowing up other Muslims in their own country. So whilst it's convenient to frame this as a 'Them V. Us' it's also lazy and belies the fact that this is another example of extremists devoid of the values they claim.

 

I agree with a majority of your points; however, I don't feel that attributing at least a strong portion of this issue to radical Islam ideology is missing the mark.

Did the San Bernardino terrorists have income issues? It sounds like they shot up a very nice corporate holiday party . . .

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter."
 

I agree; there is a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a tiny faction within the Muslim community that is our enemy. In my opinion, the Muslim community as a whole needs to challenge their own interpretation of Islam. Having said so, a lot of the rhetoric I've been seeing/reading, has been based on a hasty and convenient interpretation of the problem. In my opinion, the decision making process behind our role in this fight needs to be sound, patient and deliberate. Otherwise, that's how we end up adding fuel to the fire, by taking action for the sake of action, or trying to fight the symptoms rather than the disease. ISIL is looking for their "Rome", and I think committing troops to the region or alienating the Muslim community plays into their rhetoric. If you look at how their "caliphate" is sustaining itself economically--it isn't sustainable--and their "governance" won't last if they cannot continuously expand.

 

While I completely agree that economic conditions oft act as a catalyst for radical social change; tying poor economic conditions to attacks in Brussels is albeit like comparing apples and oranges. The fundamental problem is the exportation of vile philosophy which is radical Islam, and its impact on third parties.

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist Russia were all born out of economic depravity, but it is only when they started exporting this ideology (forcefully) upon others that it became a global concern. One could draw parallels to radical Islam. If we had put "boots on the ground" and violated Germany's national sovereignty in 1935, would've we been able to preclude at least a portion of 60 million senseless deaths? Quite possibly. Should we let certain countries that serve as festering grounds for this hateful ideology continue with business as usual and then only worry when we are directly impacted ( Pearl Harbor v 9/11)?

Most Muslims are amazing, peaceful, smart, family-loving people. This radicalization not only affects them the most emotionally, but also physically, as they are the largest victims of this violence. Something has to be done. What is it? Personally I think some form of economic aid is in order. At least I believe that would be a better approach than our current policy of drone strikes, economic sanctions, or doing nothing.

 
ArcherVice:

I'm not persuaded by any of the comments above, and I think the discussion is very telling. If I'm not mistaken, the Middle East only accounts for 20% of the world's Muslim population, though we seldom hear of radical Islam outside the Middle East and Africa.

Actually, Islamic extremism is a pretty decent problem in Eastern Europe/Eurasia and Southeast Asia, too. And it's of course a problem in Western Europe and North America. Not sure how you could overlook that, but OK...
Array
 
ArcherVice:

Take a look at Yemen, for example, the unemployment rate, poverty and starvation in that country are out of control. Is it any wonder that a radical ideology gains traction in a place like that? Radical ideologies thrive in environments like that, look at Trump's popularity, his leading demographic is blue collar white men; look at the conditions in Germany when Hitler rose to power.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but the implication I'm getting from the above excerpt of your post is that tyranny/terrorism is bred in impoverished & hopeless settings which I think is not 100% correct.

"Look at the conditions in Germany when Hitler rose to power" - The United States, Britain, and other nations all had Depressions just as bad, if not worse, than Germany did and national socialism did not emerge there. Instead you had mass efforts to boost jobs participation through infrastructure/labor programs, social security reform, etc.

My point is not that State involvement is the answer. My point is that when you have nations who face the problem of mass poverty, unemployment, lack of infrastructure such as what we see in Yemen, Iraq and the rest of the Middle-East the choice of the public ultimately boils down to two things: 1) pick up a gun and start shooting those who are "responsible" for it and fight, and 2) put your head down and work harder at improving your own life through education, working a job, whatever you can find.

The OVERWHELMING PROBLEM in the nations that seem to breed terrorism is that they DESPERATELY lack the infrastructure necessary to make the second option seem more attractive than the first.

History has shown that when faced with those two choices above, most will go with the second. For example, between ~1920 - ~1945 Iraq was ruled by Great Britain as a colony with all the fixings you'd expect as far as military control over the region. While yes, there were isolated incidents of revolt against the British, the British also implemented the infrastructure necessary for the population to succeed. Over that time period Iraq was one of the highest GDP producing regions of the Middle East because it was more economical for the population to work and become educated than it was to pick up a gun and fight like they do not.

I don't have any solutions for the world, but getting the infrastructure of these nations up to par is a very necessary thing in my opinion. The attitudes of the public who silently condone terrorism will change once those who become terrorists are making a very obvious choice to kill people rather than enrich themselves through school and work.

 

Its no secret that for the last century or so, Western nations (lets include our Soviet buddies to make this simple) have muddled in a world region that has literally never known long-standing peace. All we have really done is see how the redrawing of boundary lines and mashing of SEVERELY INCOMPATIBLE ethnic groups has played out; oh and all the while picking who is going to be in power by giving them guns, oil extraction technology, or loose promises of regime support. Artificially propped up regimes tend to not met out equality and justice at laudable rates, leading to severely oppressed (legit oppressed, not USA millennial oppressed) ethnic/religious minorities that see West-backed despots enrich themselves and their families/sects/etc. OK so a century of economic, cultural, and religious suppression.... throw in some direct Western military intervention and WHAMMY - you've got a generation of young, uneducated, impoverished, suppressed, and most of all, angry young men with nowhere to go except to radical Islam that plays to all their hate.

I think it has been mentioned before, but the systemic issue here is not just a lack of money or a religion that is clearly aiding violent extremism, or a geographical region. Rather, its a group that is taking in some of the most marginalized, disenfranchised, and desperate people, and training them to spread their ideological poison to people that either are in the same dire straits or generally sympathize with regional/ethnic/religious strife. Fixing this problem can't happen with bombs- the more death and destruction only furthers the inability of the region to make enough economic progress that people can stop herding goats and spend more time in school and less time building IEDs. It sounds like an illogical process but it really comes down to killing them with kindness.

 
Walker Texas Banker:

Its no secret that for the last century or so, Western nations (lets include our Soviet buddies to make this simple) have muddled in a world region that has literally never known long-standing peace. All we have really done is see how the redrawing of boundary lines and mashing of SEVERELY INCOMPATIBLE ethnic groups has played out; oh and all the while picking who is going to be in power by giving them guns, oil extraction technology, or loose promises of regime support. Artificially propped up regimes tend to not met out equality and justice at laudable rates, leading to severely oppressed (legit oppressed, not USA millennial oppressed) ethnic/religious minorities that see West-backed despots enrich themselves and their families/sects/etc. OK so a century of economic, cultural, and religious suppression.... throw in some direct Western military intervention and WHAMMY - you've got a generation of young, uneducated, impoverished, suppressed, and most of all, angry young men with nowhere to go except to radical Islam that plays to all their hate.

I think it has been mentioned before, but the systemic issue here is not just a lack of money or a religion that is clearly aiding violent extremism, or a geographical region. Rather, its a group that is taking in some of the most marginalized, disenfranchised, and desperate people, and training them to spread their ideological poison to people that either are in the same dire straits or generally sympathize with regional/ethnic/religious strife. Fixing this problem can't happen with bombs- the more death and destruction only furthers the inability of the region to make enough economic progress that people can stop herding goats and spend more time in school and less time building IEDs. It sounds like an illogical process but it really comes down to killing them with kindness.

How do you FIGURATIVELY kill someone with kindness who wants to LITERALLY kill you? At what point do you let your guard down, just to get stabbed in the back? Are you Jesus or something? We are talking about a continental land mass the size of Europe, where literally like 90% of the inhabitants (probably closer to 100%) have no concept of human rights, are bereft of education, and have little to no infrastructure. We are talking about massive nations who have no traces of modern civilization. These are nations that have no secular institutions and where poverty is an omnipresent pandemic. People there have been embroiled for millennia in interminable ethnic, national, sectarian or religious war, scarcely showing any desire to stop and reflect retrospectively-- "how can we better ourselves as people and societies, and stop flinging shit at each other and generally fucking shit up"? Show me a people who have no trace of self-awareness and no desire to self-reflect and improve, and I will show you a people doomed to live in eternal chaos and misery.

 

Its funny.... here I was getting worried, a few weeks out from shipping to flight school, that i was going to be like the guy from Jar head. Spend years training just to never pull the trigger. Then this happened.

 

Make no mistake, this recent attack in Brussels and the Paris massacre are absolutely not the work of homegrown, lone-wolf terrorist copy cats trying to impress daesch back in Syria / Iraq. Both of these attacks were well coordinated, thoroughly planned and coordinated operations. They've demonstrated advanced level trade craft employing encrypted communication methods, strict operational security protocols, battleground strategies, explosives, surveillance techniques and counter surveillance.

They've successfully avoided detection and defeated two Western, UN member states security measures' in the span of six months. You don't just wake up, get out of bed one day after watching a bunch of ISIS propaganda videos and pull all this off. These assholes have been trained well and are operating off of a game-plan.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/23/is-trains-400-fighters-to-attac…

Ace all your PE interview questions with the WSO Private Equity Prep Pack: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/guide/private-equity-interview-prep-questions
 

Poverty and a history of super powers meddling in your affairs doesn't mean terrorism until you add a dash of Islam into the mix.

Let's be real. Even moderate Muslims hold beliefs that the majority of the world abhors. Islamic nations have absolute abhorred practices surrounding gay rights, womens rights, child marriage, rape, etc. And while not every single muslim is bad, the fact is islam is the basis for terrorism all over this world, countries in the middle east, rich and poor, routinely execute, cut off hands, silence freedoms we take for granted and fail to respect even basic womens rights. It blows my mind how Europe can ban fascist hate speech but tolerate and welcome muslims who outright condemn jews, gays and women.

Additionally, a little walk down memory lane, but when we fire bombed Dresden in WWII we killed a lot of German civilians. The reasoning was while civilians are not on the front lines, the support the leadership, build the bombs and supply the troops. When you support evil you become evil. Same thing with "moderate" muslims. Forget terrorist attacks for a minute. When you allow Islam and Islamic leaders to operate barbarically, to hide or look the other way when radicals commit crimes, you become an accomplice.

Islam can straight up fuck itself. The western world needs to become energy independent and remove all troops from the Middle East. Expel them from Western nations and just bomb them whenever they become truculent. We made the biggest mistake in the world getting rid of Quaddafi, Sadam, etc. These barbaric people need a strong man to keep their shit in line. They do not respect or value the freedoms the western world does. If there ever was a case for forced atheism, this is it.

What is pathetic is Europe allows these people to flood into the country under the auspice of "helping Syrian's" when in reality the vast majority of these invaders are not even from Syria. Furthermore, we have zero obligation to help anyone. Suffer and die. Stay and fight. Don't roll up into beautiful Europe with your clown ass medieval beliefs. Go worship clown sky monkey in your sand pit.

More terrorist attacks will happen. I think the only good thing that might come from all of this is the reemergence of the fascist right wing. Weak liberals brought this scourge to Europe and the people are finally waking up to this.

 
IslamBullshit:

Poverty and a history of super powers meddling in your affairs doesn't mean terrorism until you add a dash of Islam into the mix.

Let's be real. Even moderate Muslims hold beliefs that the majority of the world abhors. Islamic nations have absolute abhorred practices surrounding gay rights, womens rights, child marriage, rape, etc. And while not every single muslim is bad, the fact is islam is the basis for terrorism all over this world, countries in the middle east, rich and poor, routinely execute, cut off hands, silence freedoms we take for granted and fail to respect even basic womens rights. It blows my mind how Europe can ban fascist hate speech but tolerate and welcome muslims who outright condemn jews, gays and women.

Additionally, a little walk down memory lane, but when we fire bombed Dresden in WWII we killed a lot of German civilians. The reasoning was while civilians are not on the front lines, the support the leadership, build the bombs and supply the troops. When you support evil you become evil. Same thing with "moderate" muslims. Forget terrorist attacks for a minute. When you allow Islam and Islamic leaders to operate barbarically, to hide or look the other way when radicals commit crimes, you become an accomplice.

Islam can straight up fuck itself. The western world needs to become energy independent and remove all troops from the Middle East. Expel them from Western nations and just bomb them whenever they become truculent. We made the biggest mistake in the world getting rid of Quaddafi, Sadam, etc. These barbaric people need a strong man to keep their shit in line. They do not respect or value the freedoms the western world does. If there ever was a case for forced atheism, this is it.

What is pathetic is Europe allows these people to flood into the country under the auspice of "helping Syrian's" when in reality the vast majority of these invaders are not even from Syria. Furthermore, we have zero obligation to help anyone. Suffer and die. Stay and fight. Don't roll up into beautiful Europe with your clown ass medieval beliefs. Go worship clown sky monkey in your sand pit.

More terrorist attacks will happen. I think the only good thing that might come from all of this is the reemergence of the fascist right wing. Weak liberals brought this scourge to Europe and the people are finally waking up to this.

This. This so fucking much. Here you go man, take this SB.

 

Gulf War I - Justified. It was about oil, yes, but it was a war of aggression and could not be tolerated. Should it have been the MIddle East helping out? Yes. But end of the day we, along with our allies, liberated an invaded country and stopped at the borders of Iraq.

Everything after that was bullshit. We have no need to "liberate" any country in the Middle East. One could argue, and rightfully so, that the misery our "liberation" brought about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc, all outweighs the misery of living in these nations. Oh, btw, the misery WE CAUSED through sanctions.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan they had nearly no opium output. Place sucked ass, but it sucks even more now. Afghanistan is "liberated" and those fools vote for people only slightly less repugnant as the losers who used to rule.

Iraq - total disaster. Saddam kept the religious nuts in place. He was cruel and tortured people and then the angelic liberation army of the american nation of jesus came in and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths directly or indirectly. We now have an endless drone army blowing up any "military aged males" aka 16 year old kids. Bullshit.

Libya - Quaddafi gave up all of his weapons of mass destruction. Brother Leader was fighting a civil war and we crippled him. Now the place is a waste land. Tripoli used to be amazing. Now it is ruined. God bless you America.

This goes on and on. All for oil. Actually no since we now produce more oil than we us. Thank you fracking. Imagine if we spent 1% of what we spend on military, war and political aid to the middle east. We would have ZERO need for any foreign oil. We would have wind turbines and solar fields shitting out so much energy we could live in a national las vegas of neon and never run out of power.

So in summary - America is a cock. But that isn't the issue. The issue is we liberated people from horrible dictators and they turn around and elect religious assholes. See Egypt and the muslim brotherhood. It is sad that I am condemning the USA for removing Saddam, Quadaffi, Mubarak, et al because the only way to keep these stoneage savages in line is with barbaric behavior.

Message to the Arab world. Stop acting like 1200 AD Christians. Religion is believable only if you close your eyes, hold your nose and ignore like 99% of the bullshit written. Oh, also ignore the fact that every human civilization creates a similar god concept. Maybe the Abrahamic religions actually happened and maybe, just like the all the other civilizations in the past, humans look to create a god creature to explain the randomness of the world. But naaaaa, Muhammed really existed and did all these amazing freaky miracles that haven't happened again in recent times and not eating pork and praying multiple times a day will keep the bogey man in check.

Religion is largely noxious, but at least Christians and Jews keep is largely real. Muslims have the perfect combination of virulently barbaric beliefs combined with pure intolerance of the ability to attempt to look at things critically. But lets keep blaming the west or something that happened 1,000 years ago. Let's not blame the people who actually believe we should stone people or that rape didn't happen unless two male relatives witness it. Or that women can't drive, need to wear ghost costumes, that we should cut hands off of thieves ( this is actually a good idea), that honor kills are cool, that you get 72 virgins when you die (obviously they have never had a toothy blow job from an inexperienced girl before).

Islam - it is 2016. At least get your beliefs in line with the 1850's for spaghetti monster sake.

 

Most American/western atheists have this weird pro-Islam tint to their language. You're a rarity, like Bill Maher, who is anti-religion but actually realizes that there is a fundamental difference between 2016 Judaism/Christianity and 2016 Islam. Even though I disagree with much of what you're saying about religion, I find it refreshing that you're not a vile hypocrite on the topic.

Array
 
IslamBullshit:

Gulf War I - Justified. It was about oil, yes, but it was a war of aggression and could not be tolerated. Should it have been the MIddle East helping out? Yes. But end of the day we, along with our allies, liberated an invaded country and stopped at the borders of Iraq.

Everything after that was bullshit. We have no need to "liberate" any country in the Middle East. One could argue, and rightfully so, that the misery our "liberation" brought about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc, all outweighs the misery of living in these nations. Oh, btw, the misery WE CAUSED through sanctions.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan they had nearly no opium output. Place sucked ass, but it sucks even more now. Afghanistan is "liberated" and those fools vote for people only slightly less repugnant as the losers who used to rule.

Iraq - total disaster. Saddam kept the religious nuts in place. He was cruel and tortured people and then the angelic liberation army of the american nation of jesus came in and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths directly or indirectly. We now have an endless drone army blowing up any "military aged males" aka 16 year old kids. Bullshit.

Libya - Quaddafi gave up all of his weapons of mass destruction. Brother Leader was fighting a civil war and we crippled him. Now the place is a waste land. Tripoli used to be amazing. Now it is ruined. God bless you America.

This goes on and on. All for oil. Actually no since we now produce more oil than we us. Thank you fracking. Imagine if we spent 1% of what we spend on military, war and political aid to the middle east. We would have ZERO need for any foreign oil. We would have wind turbines and solar fields shitting out so much energy we could live in a national las vegas of neon and never run out of power.

So in summary - America is a cock. But that isn't the issue. The issue is we liberated people from horrible dictators and they turn around and elect religious assholes. See Egypt and the muslim brotherhood. It is sad that I am condemning the USA for removing Saddam, Quadaffi, Mubarak, et al because the only way to keep these stoneage savages in line is with barbaric behavior.

Message to the Arab world. Stop acting like 1200 AD Christians. Religion is believable only if you close your eyes, hold your nose and ignore like 99% of the bullshit written. Oh, also ignore the fact that every human civilization creates a similar god concept. Maybe the Abrahamic religions actually happened and maybe, just like the all the other civilizations in the past, humans look to create a god creature to explain the randomness of the world. But naaaaa, Muhammed really existed and did all these amazing freaky miracles that haven't happened again in recent times and not eating pork and praying multiple times a day will keep the bogey man in check.

Religion is largely noxious, but at least Christians and Jews keep is largely real. Muslims have the perfect combination of virulently barbaric beliefs combined with pure intolerance of the ability to attempt to look at things critically. But lets keep blaming the west or something that happened 1,000 years ago. Let's not blame the people who actually believe we should stone people or that rape didn't happen unless two male relatives witness it. Or that women can't drive, need to wear ghost costumes, that we should cut hands off of thieves ( this is actually a good idea), that honor kills are cool, that you get 72 virgins when you die (obviously they have never had a toothy blow job from an inexperienced girl before).

Islam - it is 2016. At least get your beliefs in line with the 1850's for spaghetti monster sake.

I agree with much of your post. I especially agree with the section regarding Islamic Nations' need for strong, authoritarian leaders. Without vile human beings like Saddam and Quadaffi to keep religious people some-what civilised, their society turns into complete chaos. The same argument can be made for the less-developed African nations.

Virginia Tech 4ever:

Most American/western atheists have this weird pro-Islam tint to their language. You're a rarity, like Bill Maher, who is anti-religion but actually realizes that there is a fundamental difference between 2016 Judaism/Christianity and 2016 Islam. Even though I disagree with much of what you're saying about religion, I find it refreshing that you're not a vile hypocrite on the topic.

We atheists are anti-religion, plain and simple. It doesn't matter whether you call it Thor, Zeus, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Scientology, Hades, The Flying Teapot or anything else.

With that said, it is imperative to practice nuance and distinguish between a religious ideology (Islam) and the human beings themselves (muslims). It is accurate to say that all religious Ideology, whether it be Islam, Christianity or Judaism, is disgusting, vile, immoral and false. However, it would be equally as vile for someone to suggest that any human being that identifies as muslim, christian or jewish is disgusting, simply because that is how they identify themselves.

The truth is, any intelligent human being is a closet-atheist. Instead of just coming out and saying it, they prefer to say that there has been a 'reformation'. In other words, they have redefined an ideology to suit themselves, by selectively throwing out the bad parts and keeping the good - "God's word" be damned. The issue here, is that nearly all of the muslims population in the middle-east has not done this. These people are still true religious believers of bronze-age wizards and their bronze-age books. This is obviously not the case for all muslims - plenty of them are civilised and have done as christian, jews and others have, by throwing out the bad parts and keeping the good. Unfortunately, the middle-east is significantly lagging behind the rest of the world with this regard, due to a large number of factors that have been mentioned by previous posters.

We need to focus on denouncing an ideology, rather than denouncing the human beings themselves. No one should be defending Islamic ideology, but neither should anyone be attacking muslims.

 
QGKZ:
Virginia Tech 4ever:

If radical Islam were born of poverty caused by American colonialism, you might have a point. But many Islamic extremists are middle class and higher, and their cause is being financed by Islam's wealthiest people. The reality is, Muslims are at war with their neighbors in essentially every region that they exist in the world, from Asia to SE Asia, the Middle East to Eurasia, Europe to North America, and North Arica to Central Africa. There is a fundamental problem with Islam and it's not American colonialism. Let's just be intellectually honest here.With regard to the United States, Jews have faced a lot more discrimination than Muslims have ever faced and they haven't shot up workplaces in response. The reality is, Islam, from it's very foundation from Muhammad, has been a totalitarian and supremacist religion. If you live by the code of Muhammad then you should be at war with non-Muslims.

And if you live by the code of Jesus Christ, you should be doing things that are just as disgusting as those prescribed by Muhammad. Let's not pretend that one voodoo cult is inherently less crazy than the other. As per usual, you're the one who is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Funnily enough, Jewish scripture is the most vile and extreme of the three religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism). Yet, Jews are probably the most secular and peaceful of the three.

This isn't because one voodoo cult is inherently less crazy than the other. Rather, as other posters have said, it's due to the long-term amalgamation of numerous factors, in certain regions of the world, where Islam happens to be historically concentrated.

There's no doubt that this has made Islam the most violent religion today. But if we're looking at why that's the case, so that we can fix the problem, then we need to be honest.

QGKZ what the fuck are you rambling on about? Did you miss that portion of your secondary education where they teach how to formulate coherent, intelligible written arguments? F-

 

I find it funny just the general lack to shit's given about the bombing in Pakistan over the weekend, by the media specifically. It's like everyone has a the biggest bleeding heart for people from principally Muslim countries as long as it's somehow beneficial to their own political narrative.

UPDATE: not sure why I caught some monkey shit for comment, was attempting to be sympathetic to folks from / with ties to Pakistan who were affected by the attack. My close friend at work is from Karachi / has family there still and I feel terrible for him.

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