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Attack at a Kenyan University - 600 hostages and [147] dead

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Betty

Banned
I thought it said 600 dead, which wouldn't have surprised me, and if they're still being held hostage, they're probably going to die anyway since these attackers are usually prepared to die and eager to kill.

It's like each terrorist group is trying to out do each other. isis, al-shabab, boko haram, the taliban, it's ceaseless.
 
I hope this gets more coverage than the historic Iran nuclear deal in the media. Killing innocent, defenseless college kids. Such brave "martyrs". Fucking cowards.
 
I thought it said 600 dead, which wouldn't have surprised me, and if they're still being held hostage, they're probably going to die anyway since these attackers are usually prepared to die and eager to kill.

It's like each terrorist group is trying to out do each other. isis, al-shabab, boko haram, the taliban, it's ceaseless.

I know people hear Islamic terrorists and it sorts of fits into this narrative about crazy people doing barbaric shit, but personally the more this happens the more I become convinced there is something else at work, something driving, funding, and setting these groups loose.

It's clear there has been targeted, funded Islamic terrorism in the Middle East for many years now - there's certainly more to ISIS than meets the eye, or any of their numerous predecessors - and it's now spreading to Africa, places like Nigeria and Kenya. I think the reasons for this are geopolitically complex, and involve various greater interests and a fight for control and resources in the area, and collusion between local power brokers and interests, and international ones. Nigeria has also discovered a lot of oil recently, and it's increasingly moving towards China's sphere of influence, for example.

It's also linked to the removal of existing powers in Africa and the Middle East, like Gaddafi in Libya, and of course the ongoing situation in Syria. And Iraq, of course. Creating power vacuums that allow for greater instability and chaos, making countries and regions ripe for the picking. The reality is that Gaddafi, Assad, even Hussain - they were, in their own way, stabilising forces in the region. There are many articles linking the rise of Boko Haram to the NATO-led removal of Gaddafi, for example. Libya has now in effect become like a gigantic, country-sized terrorist safe haven and training ground.

Consequences, basically. That's what we're seeing these days. Intended or unintended? I guess your faith in world powers would dictate where you fall there.

And now I'm going to do something else, because this shit is depressing.
 

Numb

Member
As a Somalian and a muslim, the disgust and embarassment i feel right now is unimaginable. I hope each and everyone one of them pays for this.
 
Anyone who believes that a real genocide is not in process in areas of the Middle East and Africa is simply delusional at this point. Christians and other minority religions are either in mass exodus mode or facing lives lived under second-class status in best-case scenarios, or terror attacks, forced conversions/rapes/forced marriages, slavery, and death in worst-case.

"Never again" is a nice slogan, but that's all it is at this point. A slogan. Globally, government leadership is simply failing humanity. It won't be for many years until we can truly count the cost of or leaders' inability to lead.

"Never again" wasn't supposed to be a slogan though. It was supposed to be a promise.
 

Brakke

Banned
Apparently he'd rather engage in whataboutism regarding slavery which was abolished by the US over one hundred and fifty years ago.

Of course it wouldn't be a GAF thread about an Islamic terrorist attack without some whataboutism...

Nah. That's a disingenuous charge. I don't think this case is good. I don't think terrorism is good. I don't, nor do I want anyone else to, see terrorism as acceptable or permissible or anything less that horrific.

I didn't say this doesn't warrant redress. I pay my taxes gladly knowing some of them go toward anticipating and foiling this kind of violent action. We can talk about scale and degree and distribution of resourced, but it is true that jihadist violence is recognized and is being opposed.

What do you take away from that list? It doesn't say that jihadist violence is the greatest threat to human flourishing. It doesn't say that opposition to it is insufficient. It doesn't really say anything except that jihadist terrorism is a form of violence that is a thing that it exists, and it takes certain characteristics that other violence doesn't generally: moderately lethal point attacks carried out by decentralized organizations. Which, fine. That kind of violence is dominated by jihadist organizations. Therefore what?
 

Gorger

Member
I can't even comprehend the cowardice of going into a school butchering 100's of unarmed youth thinking you're doing good in the name of your god. How utterly warped, broken and wicked must your mindset and ideology be? There is just no excuse... no words...

They were the future of Africa, the brightest of Kenya and the biggest chance of making the region a better place to live. Education and knowledge will always be the biggest threat to fundamentalism which only thrives on ignorance and stupidity. This is why schools and universities gets targeted so often, and why it's so important the government installs much better security to protect the schools from attacks like this. Or else it's just going to continue to happen, unfortunately.
 
Sickening. I hope something gets done about this... who am I kidding, this will probably be forgotten in a few days' time...
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
When I read the news that the attackers were trying to avoid killing non-Muslims, my first reaction was "how do they tell? Wouldn't anyone just say they're Muslim so as to avoid getting killed?". It's not like this is a state-sponsored scenario where you'd have a census of individual people to go off of. The news articles informed me that al-Shabab has started literally asking people trivia questions about Islam at gunpoint ("What was the Prophet's mother's name?") and sparing those that get them right. The macabre conclusion to draw from this is that if you're in an area where this kind of massacre happens, a useful survival skill would be to learn at least the basics about Islam just to save your skin.

Really gruesome, really messed up.
 

Kabouter

Member
Okay

Anyway, I never understand the point in these kinds of acts. Then again, I think back to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. it led to 4 years of slaughter, millions upon millions dead (and the rise of Communism and National Socialism), but it DID eventually lead to the dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. So, maybe terrorism is pretty effective if you have that 'any means necessary' kind of attitude.

Yes, fanatics in many cases will happily take a very long term perspective, and are deeply convinced that in the end, their ideology will win out. Sadly, such is the case right now all across the world with Muslim extremists. It's really hard to see what can be done to stop the global torrent of Islamic extremism :/, nothing seems to help, it only ever seems to be getting worse.
 

benjipwns

Banned
The news articles informed me that al-Shabab has started literally asking people trivia questions about Islam at gunpoint ("What was the Prophet's mother's name?") and sparing those that get them right. The macabre conclusion to draw from this is that if you're in an area where this kind of massacre happens, a useful survival skill would be to learn at least the basics about Islam just to save your skin
Is the prophet's mothers name a "basic"? What if they actually were wrong about something and you could pull out your pocket Koran and show them the correct answer do they behead themselves or is it like just a draw thing and they all leave? What if you use some kind of Kirk vs. computer voodoo logic?

I'm not sure a lot of thinking has gone into this plan.
 

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
147!? Last I heard yesterday it was two
an absolute tragedy
 

Jackpot

Banned
As soon as I heard that they were separating hostages I knew it was going to be a slaughter :(

What's made it worse is that there were multiple warnings last week about a planned attack, including an attack on this university, and the president got defensive instead saying Kenya was as safe as any country.
 

DrFurbs

Member
I hate all religion... But these guys interpretation of Islam is just nothing short of pure retardation.

Yes Allah wanted you to kill innocents.

Fuck me.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
All i can think about right now is John Lennon's words. I'm so sick to my stomach, how can a human being perform such heinous acts? What the fuck is wrong with you in order to make you capable of performing such acts? These kinds of people are a shitstain on the human race.
 

Ushay

Member
Is it a pride thing?

That's dumb

Do some reading into Kenyan/Somalian history you'll see that they've had a 'heated' border exchanges for many years now. While I think attacking students is inexcusable in every way, I'm sure there have been a few tragedies on the other side that could have triggered. Unfortunately it's an endless circle of hatred the way things are looking. Everyone is to blame I guess.
 

raindoc

Member
Its a fucking university.

Why would you kill kids who are trying to learn?


God the ignorance

Ever heard of Boko Haram?

Boko Haram ("Western education is forbidden"), officially called Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (Arabic: جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد‎, Jamā‘at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da‘wah wa’l-Jihād, "Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad"), or Wilāyat al Sūdān al Gharbī (Arabic: ولاية السودان الغربي‎, "West Africa (Black people's land) Province") as a province of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is an Islamist terrorist movement based in north-east Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram
 

News Bot

Banned
All i can think about right now is John Lennon's words. I'm so sick to my stomach, how can a human being perform such heinous acts? What the fuck is wrong with you in order to make you capable of performing such acts? These kinds of people are a shitstain on the human race.

It's not like they're an exception. You give any sizeable group of people some guns anywhere and see how that turns out. A large percentage of people are generally kind of shitty, all they really need is the circumstances.
 
Yes, fanatics in many cases will happily take a very long term perspective, and are deeply convinced that in the end, their ideology will win out. Sadly, such is the case right now all across the world with Muslim extremists. It's really hard to see what can be done to stop the global torrent of Islamic extremism :/, nothing seems to help, it only ever seems to be getting worse.

For starters, start taking serious action against Saudi wahhabism, which is the biggest spreader and funder of Islamic terrorism. To describe their influence in the region as toxic is like the understatement of the century. Yet, somehow, the West continues to see them as an ally. Funny that. Almost like their aims are the West's aims.
 

DonasaurusRex

Online Ho Champ
Just awful.



Ehh. Put American Slavery on the list--and why wouldn't you?--and it shatters the whole thing. How is the Holocaust *not* terrorism? Action by Mexican or Colombian drug cartels aren't on that list at all. "Terrorism" is a word we generally apply to violence carried out by state-less Jihadists.

I dunno. What do you think I should take away from that list?

I think that lists is for single events and what was claimed. T

the holocaust and slavery and communist dictators were decades upon decades of evil. The problem with slavery is why would one only count American Slavery? Why not the slavery started on the eastern coasts of Africa that predates american slavery by centuries at the hands of arab invaders? Why not the slavery prevalent throughout the Arab world so much so that the Pilgrims that landed on Plymouth Rock were delayed because half of them had to get bought out of slavery a year prior? Native Americans are just gone from Nova Scotia to Mexico they are just a remnant of their former selves.....Arabia was constantly undersiege by Babylon and Assyria See how it would just keep going back and back and back till record is lost. I don't think those kind of things can go on the list about a singular attack with a defined target.

Nothing would approach the body count of communist dictatorships against their own countries/territories during peace time. The drug trade wouldn't be there because its still going on for the same reason right now. Those things would be a totally different list some of them on going so no real count besides some projections.
 
When I read the news that the attackers were trying to avoid killing non-Muslims, my first reaction was "how do they tell? Wouldn't anyone just say they're Muslim so as to avoid getting killed?". It's not like this is a state-sponsored scenario where you'd have a census of individual people to go off of. The news articles informed me that al-Shabab has started literally asking people trivia questions about Islam at gunpoint ("What was the Prophet's mother's name?") and sparing those that get them right. The macabre conclusion to draw from this is that if you're in an area where this kind of massacre happens, a useful survival skill would be to learn at least the basics about Islam just to save your skin.

Really gruesome, really messed up.

They don't always as questions. Sometimes they'll simply base whether you're a Muslim or not off of looks. In terms of questioning people about Islamic facts, it's a dumb and stupid way of trying to find actual Muslim believers. In a stressful situation like this, who's to say that even a Muslim would get the answers right under pressure?
 

lefox360

Banned
there are no words. what hope is left for the people that survive? nothing seems to ever change and this acts of barbarism keep on going.
 
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