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Old 05-24-2017, 05:57 PM   #203
CliffFletcher
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Join Date: May 2006
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken View Post
Where is the conversation going? You say something patently false, I respond, you change the subject,
Hey, you're the one who dropped this whopper:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken View Post
In fact, it's a pretty prescient example of historical precedence, as both ages of islamic enlightenment were ended by foreign military aggression and the subsequent galvanisation of religious/ethnic into a mono-religious resistance.
So the pre-eminence of the Ottoman Empire, which encompassed modern-day Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey (not to mention most of the Balkans) was ended by foreign military aggression? You're joking, right? North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia lapsed into economic and technological decline long before any Europeans showed up to spoil the party.

And the collapse of the Ottomans after WW1 didn't galvanise the religious/ethnic into a mono-religious resistance. It led to fractious nationalism riven with tribal, ethnic, and religious antagonism.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken View Post
...we collectively abandon talking about the latest terrorist incident apparently triggered by a British National?
The common thread is religion. You know, the thing that inspires ISIS adherents to carry out atrocities against helpless civilians. Not incidentally, the same thing that has hamstrung every effort to lift countries in the region out of backwardness and poverty.

The intellectual contortions people will go through in order to not acknowledge the religious motivations of a self-professed religious movement are extraordinary.
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