4 ms·

>ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are not "regimes" and I'd like to caution you away from normalizing terrorist groups as political entities. It has been known t

>ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are not "regimes" and I'd like to caution you away from normalizing terrorist groups as political entities. It has been known to vendors that operate in those areas who terrorists are and what tactics they employ. There is no "neutrality" to these groups Oh piss off with the rhetoric. The Taliban did and does run Afghanistan. For a brief moment Isis was running parts of Iraq and Syria. Both are trying to perform typical state administrative functions (courts and rule of law, taxes, defense, controlling borders, etc). One way just way more violent and way less successful than the other. Neutrality is not a foriegn concept in the middle east. They just have way different concepts of "non-neutrality by association, group membership and history" than most of the west does. Edit: What constitutes a state or government of a state doesn't change because we don't like the specific policy decisions of said state or government or because said government maintains power through a level of violence we consider unacceptable.

kodah 5y ago
This is an odd take. I was in Afghanistan for a total of a year. The Taliban courts that you're talking about executed a woman for having two forced relationships between two rival men, they would extract young men from their homes and make them into forced fighters, they enslaved local populaces for poppy season, just to name a few. Kidnapping and ransom is like a side business to them.
- logifail 5y ago
  > they would extract young men from their homes and make them into forced fighters Yesterday a senior German politician floated the idea of reintroducing (or, more accurately, "reactivating") compulsory military service. It previously ran from 1956 until 2011.[0] As someone else has already pointed out, pretty much all of this stuff can be viewed as shades of grey. Apart from the facts that war is awful, and that that despite that, certain people are happy to get rich from it. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/killing-time-for-conscripts-german-military-service-is-battle-against-boredom-a-702665.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/killing-time-fo... see also https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-military-and-political-disaster-the-calamitous-errors-of-germany-s-russia-policy-a-c8b9818e-4bc2-4eb2-ac55-39e5790b29b2 https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-military-and-...
  - treis 5y ago
    Please explain the shades of grey in executing a woman for getting raped by two men
  - kodah 5y ago
    "Compulsory military service" is not even in the same vicinity as being dragged out of your home at gunpoint and being told to fight or your family dies. Also worth pointing out what the Taliban has been condemned for in the last decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Condemned_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Condemned_practices I forgot they also conscript children.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  These are terrible things being conducted by the state. There still very much was/is a Taliban regime, even if you consider them a terrorist group. I believe the US would refer to them as a "rogue state."
toss1 5y ago
NO It does not matter that they are 'merely performing "typical state administrative functions". The great accolade for Mussolini was that he kept the trains running on time. Dealing with such people is a losing game - they always deceive and always take more until stopped. The only proper response to authoritarians, despots, fascists etc. was provided by the Snake Island garrison to the Russian destroyer: "Go F*k Yourselves". And the same goes for apologist-type responses like yours. If you have not figured this out from this week's events, you need to seriously rethink your life.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Just for reference... Mussolini did not keep the trains running on time, he made it dangerous to complain about the trains not running on time. Not even close to the same.
  - toss1 5y ago
    Perhaps true, but quite offtopic The POINT was that "merely performing typical state administrative functions" somehow makes them a legitimate government. That is beyond absurd Whether or not Mussollini made or failed to make the trains run on time, these administrative functions, whether performed well or poorly does not make any difference - they make them no less a criminal or despot. EVERY warlord needs to perform some admin functions, and it does NOT in any way confer legitimacy if they do so. Mafia dons contribute to hospitals and festivals, but it does not make them less criminals.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Legitimacy is not a matter of opinion. Either they control the territory and the people in it, or they don't. FARC, for example, never tried administering anything. But the Taliban has actual courts where they enforce actual written and published laws. We don't like the laws they enforce, but nobody says they are not doing it. (By all accounts, their enforcement is much less corrupt than what they supplanted.) That doesn't make it good government, but it certainly is government.

kodah 5y ago

This is an odd take. I was in Afghanistan for a total of a year. The Taliban courts that you're talking about executed a woman for having two forced relationships between two rival men, they would extract young men from their homes and make them into forced fighters, they enslaved local populaces for poppy season, just to name a few. Kidnapping and ransom is like a side business to them.

logifail 5y ago
> they would extract young men from their homes and make them into forced fighters Yesterday a senior German politician floated the idea of reintroducing (or, more accurately, "reactivating") compulsory military service. It previously ran from 1956 until 2011.[0] As someone else has already pointed out, pretty much all of this stuff can be viewed as shades of grey. Apart from the facts that war is awful, and that that despite that, certain people are happy to get rich from it. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/killing-time-for-conscripts-german-military-service-is-battle-against-boredom-a-702665.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/killing-time-fo... see also https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-military-and-political-disaster-the-calamitous-errors-of-germany-s-russia-policy-a-c8b9818e-4bc2-4eb2-ac55-39e5790b29b2 https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-military-and-...
- treis 5y ago
  Please explain the shades of grey in executing a woman for getting raped by two men
- kodah 5y ago
  "Compulsory military service" is not even in the same vicinity as being dragged out of your home at gunpoint and being told to fight or your family dies. Also worth pointing out what the Taliban has been condemned for in the last decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Condemned_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Condemned_practices I forgot they also conscript children.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
These are terrible things being conducted by the state. There still very much was/is a Taliban regime, even if you consider them a terrorist group. I believe the US would refer to them as a "rogue state."

toss1 5y ago

NO It does not matter that they are 'merely performing "typical state administrative functions". The great accolade for Mussolini was that he kept the trains running on time. Dealing with such people is a losing game - they always deceive and always take more until stopped. The only proper response to authoritarians, despots, fascists etc. was provided by the Snake Island garrison to the Russian destroyer: "Go F*k Yourselves". And the same goes for apologist-type responses like yours. If you have not figured this out from this week's events, you need to seriously rethink your life.

ncmncm 5y ago
Just for reference... Mussolini did not keep the trains running on time, he made it dangerous to complain about the trains not running on time. Not even close to the same.
- toss1 5y ago
  Perhaps true, but quite offtopic The POINT was that "merely performing typical state administrative functions" somehow makes them a legitimate government. That is beyond absurd Whether or not Mussollini made or failed to make the trains run on time, these administrative functions, whether performed well or poorly does not make any difference - they make them no less a criminal or despot. EVERY warlord needs to perform some admin functions, and it does NOT in any way confer legitimacy if they do so. Mafia dons contribute to hospitals and festivals, but it does not make them less criminals.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Legitimacy is not a matter of opinion. Either they control the territory and the people in it, or they don't. FARC, for example, never tried administering anything. But the Taliban has actual courts where they enforce actual written and published laws. We don't like the laws they enforce, but nobody says they are not doing it. (By all accounts, their enforcement is much less corrupt than what they supplanted.) That doesn't make it good government, but it certainly is government.