[Decky]

They were winning in Afghanistan before your neocon friends started arming the right wing religious loons. Of wait I forgot that you are not a Bliarite anymore. What will you go for next I wonder? Anarchism maybe; you haven't done that yet. You remind me of Sir Oswald or of Winston Churchill, changing parties like changing clothes.

[Dave]

[Zag Edit: Rule 2]

[Bridgeburner]

Hindu paramilitaries are fucking useless and the Indian state is an incompetent retarded baby which styles itself as the saviour of South Asia while it sucks on the teat of America and has endless losing '''battles''' against its own television and online media.

Yeah, as opposed to the rest of (East) Asia which has been "sucking on the teat of America" for either capital or defense, since 1945

lol@ thinking the twitterati or media matter in any country

It's amazing how ineffective Indian COIN has been in Kashmir, in the NorthEast, and Punjab etc etc hasn't it. So many crushing defeats. It's done such a terrible job of keeping a modern-day Austria-Hungary patched together. /s

It's not like it's recreating the Rhodesian bush war against the Naxals with units like the Greyhound force mimicking the Selous Scouts. That's not effective at all. /s

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act and kinetic approach to COIN taken utterly ignores the misguided "hearts and minds" approach, and it's working. Brutality and attrition worked in all the other insurgencies and it will work in this one too, time tells.

When it comes to battles that are actually fought with blood and bullets, it's doing well. We've seen steady year on year reductions in Naxal violence, and as more capital is flooded into the country it's only going to tighten the noose. After all, defections like this are the hallmark of an irrelevant movement.

I don't disagree that the state is not violent enough, but Muslims will solve that problem sooner rather than later when one slips through the security net.

Your animus against Maoism makes no sense at all given that you just re-explained to TIG a mere two posts ago just how insanely strong a socialist government's security apparatus is once it actually gets control of a country. Maybe Maoism should control all of India. Maybe insurgency should bring that about in as many Indian states as possible.

Yeah, gee, if Maoists could fight Muslims we'd be seeing meaningful Maoist resistance movements in Bangladesh and Pakistan, except the strongest "insurgencies" in those respective countries are movements like the TTP and the amazing Bangladeshi hack-a-thons. So, surprise surprise, the Maoists only cause issues for the sane states in the region, which again, happen to be Hindu-majority. Show me leftists who act against Muslims like the USSR and they'll have my support.

It's surprising how similar the left is throughout the world. In the West, they are too chickenshit to have ideological consistency and go after Muslims, and in South Asia, the situation is the same and rather than, you know, dealing with "ultra-reactionary" Islam, the solution is to make common-cause with Muslims and go after Hindus and Buddhists, who present easier targets. 400 million Muslims aren't a theoretical "threat" that can be handwaved by a Peoples war executed by people who can't even go after Islam. Maoists have no traction in the Islamic world.

Also, your defence of King Gyanendra's Nepal is absolutely laughable, given that peasants in Nepal were paying up to 100% tax on all crop yields (this is called 'confiscation' in reality) and bands of men were roving around raping women everywhere. And then Maoists rose up and waged a People's War and slaughtered all of the rapist reactionaries, which did a great deal to strengthen the position of the country. Thank goodness for Maoists, they literally saved Nepal.

Don't know enough about Nepal to comment on it. All I care about is about non-Islamic South Asia being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century to finally be in a position to undo centuries of Islamic aggression.

Any disruption to that development is a threat. Maoist insurgencies in South Asia aren't really a positive for anyone but Muslims.

[Bridgeburner]

My response to all that is going to be to literally reiterate what I said before, so I'll save us both the time and effort and remind you again that India is literally unsustainable shithole of undevelopment.

The fact that Muslims are retarded does not invalidate that assessment.

Yeah, don't think Japanese or Taiwanese investors got your memo on "unsustainable undevelopment"

[Contrapunctus]

Maoists, Terrorists, and Gays, oh my! Y'all are all over the place.

I don't know where this thread is going, but I decided to jump back on the forum for a little catharsis. It's amazing how quickly this wholesale slaughter of innocent people has been so quickly politicized by every faction in American, and mostly likely, global politics. It's being used to wag the fingers at Muslims, gun owners, and "proponents of the gay agenda."

It's an event that has left me feeling sad and gawking at the absurdity of it all and the politics surrounding it. ISIS is to blame, gun store owners are to blame, the gays are to blame for evoking the wrath of the almighty.

I don't even know what stance to take on it. From what I have gathered, this man clearly had some a schism between his faith and his lifestyle in the worst way possible. Many of my gay peers have been quick to blame "American Culture" in its innate violence for causing this. I reject that notion, as the fact that this club even exists is a testament to the LGBT struggle for the last 50 years, and the flexibility of social liberal ideals. If the current evidence is to be believed, I blame it on the fact that he couldn't reconcile his lifestyle and his faith and it caused him to snap. His psychological issues are no excuse, and I frankly believe he deserved to be gunned down like that evil bastard that he was.

Now America has to move forward, and there are two courses of action that are being weighed. The first one involves gun control, and the second involves regulating Muslim immigration in America. The first decision is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" issue that has been argued ad infinitum and will likely be argued, for as long as America exists, with no logical conclusion. Personally I don't care if people own guns. However, I will say that purchasing body armor, and large quantities of ammunition, should be a red flag worth looking in to, especially if you were on some sort of terrorist watch list at some point in the past. I still stand by the fact that you can be a Muslim and not have the compulsion to commit heinous acts such as what occurred in Orlando. I'm not up to speed on the statistics of Muslims immigrating from Syria, but it's an issue that should be evaluated, both for security and humanitarian issues.

[The Immortal Goon]

I'm happy to give credit where credit is due, the Soviets really refined targeted ethnic liquidation in Central Asia. If Marxists showed consistency and applied it to Islam as the USSR did, maybe we'd have some common ground. At least Stalinists don't cry about oppression when they acknowledge they are happy to see it used to further their political goals.

All Marxists, not just Stalinists, that use oppression to further our political goals:

The French Reign of Terror is spoken of with horror and execration by the people who talk in joyful praise about the mad adventure of the Dardanelles. And yet in any one day of battle at the Dardanelles there were more lives lost than in all the nine months of the Reign of Terror.

Should the day ever come when revolutionary leaders are prepared to sacrifice the lives of those under them as recklessly as the ruling class do in every war, there will not be a throne or despotic government left in the world. Our rulers reign by virtue of their readiness to destroy human life in order to reign; their reign will end on the day their discontented subjects care as little for the destruction of human life as they do.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified. From the Marxist point of view, which expresses the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the power of man over man.

“We are to understand then that in achieving this end anything is permissible?” sarcastically demands the Philistine, demonstrating that he understood nothing. That is permissible, we answer, which really leads to the liberation of mankind. Since this end can be achieved only through revolution, the liberating morality of the proletariat of necessity is endowed with a revolutionary character. It irreconcilably counteracts not only religious dogma but every kind of idealistic fetish, these philosophic gendarmes of the ruling class. It deduces a rule for conduct from the laws of the development of society, thus primarily from the class struggle, this law of all laws.

“Just the same,” the moralist continues to insist, “does it mean that in the class struggle against capitalists all means are permissible: lying, frame-up, betrayal, murder, and so on?” Permissible and obligatory are those and only those means, we answer, which unite the revolutionary proletariat, fill their hearts with irreconcilable hostility to oppression, teach them contempt for official morality and its democratic echoers, imbue them with consciousness of their own historic mission, raise their courage and spirit of self-sacrifice in the struggle.

a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. [4] A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the people in their millions to become a powerful force. All the actions mentioned here which have been labeled as "going too far" flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action.

with the savage warfare of Versailles outside, and its attempts at corruption and conspiracy inside Paris – would the Commune not have shamefully betrayed its trust by affecting to keep all the decencies and appearances of liberalism as in a time of profound peace?

The reason you attempted to make this argument in the first place is clearly two-fold:

First, your knowledge of communist history was given to you by a liberal wet-nurse telling you ghost stories with the face of Stalin. In real life, Stalin was seen as the centrist and moderate by your state security apparatus as Trotsky had built and led the Red Army.

Of course, since the liberals use ideas to dictate reality instead of the opposite, Stalin suddenly became an insane madman that victimized the good people inside the Soviet Union.

Second, you make the argument because you hope to mask your own failings into a referendum of Marxism instead of the foot in your mouth.

Very well then, let us proceed.

Ah yes, only ebil right wingers ever used state security apparatus. Pity that the Soviets system perfected it, it worked terrifically. A Marxist complaining about the use of state terror and violence, that's golden. Implying the situation wouldn't be the same if the situation was reversed is farcical.

Since we were specifically discussing the west, and I went to pains to show the history of the development of the liberal state security apparatus that you yourself had brought up as something that should be supported, I'm not sure why you are getting confused.

Did you think that I was discussing Vietnam in 1980 when I was talking about the Alien and Sedition Acts? Obviously not. You were clear about the state security apparatus you were discussing, I was clear about talking about its development, and when these facts became inconvenient, you now feign confusion as to the subject you yourself brought up.

In any case, I'm not sure what tangent you are going off on here, because I don't really care about the poor widdle oppressed left experiencing persecution,

Then why grovel for their help?

according to you the security apparatus has done its job and the modern ""left wing"" is reduced to decrepit professors ensconced in universities dreaming of a class uprising and upper middle class trust fund kids role-playing as being the proletariat/campaigning for bourgeois special interest groups like homosexuals. If it worked so fantastically there, lets apply it to Islam.

The state security apparatus that you celebrate has been applied to Islam. And it did so by finding the most radical forms of Islam to give aid and comfort to in fighting the left.

Even that narrative is laughable considering that the working class is sold out by the people who allegedly represent them. Not surprising in the slightest. Maybe a bit of soul searching is due before the evil state is blamed.

The state isn't necessarily evil, but it's constructed to do what a state does: it represents the tyranny of one class over another. It is telling that you cannot address any of the history that was laid out in front of you, but only get emotional and try to apply moral attributes on systems that are inherently amoral. Further, you seek to remedy this by, "soul searching," whatever that means. As if thoughts themselves could change the nature of the state or reverse history itself!

Perhaps if more self-styled revolutionary vanguard "leftist intellectuals" worked in working class conditions, lived working class lives, we'd see a meaningful left that would tackle mass-migration that directly affects the lives of workers in ones own country.

Indeed. The intellectual class of Europe does stem from something else and is moving slower to the end game that the right is pushing it into with rhetoric about facts not mattering as much as feelings and whatever else you're peddling. Partially because of your counter-Enlightenment, (now) more than 80% of college professors in the United States do not receive benefits, work multiple low playing jobs along with teaching, and often are homeless. If you don't like that source, then the communists at Forbes write about the same thing but as it affects the economy of course.

The digression aside, whatever your personal feelings are, this does not change reality. No matter how much you try to believe harder...

Great, lets extend that to Islam now. All that's lacking it the political will from left-liberals

Yes, yes. If left liberals just had clapped their hands and believed hard enough, I'm sure everything would turn around for you. They just don't have the will, which is surely more important than the arms, the funds, the training, and the manpower that the state security apparatus currently has. If everyone just believed enough, I'm sure it would make all the difference!

In reality, the state apparatus has an almost limitless amount of actual power. The problem is that they created the radical interpretation of Islam that you want them to fight. Do you not ever wonder why Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are never breached? What happened to Afghanistan and Iran that turned them from some of the more progressive places to the least?

Ah yes, the brilliant ""secular"" Ottomans who liquefied millions of Christian Armenians. A real tragedy that it collapsed. Ignoring that Arabs deserved independence from an imperial backwater like that, how reactionary of you.

First, it is disingenuous of you to quote, "secular," without mentioning that it was, "relatively secular," that was written. But you have yet to present a fact, merely your feels.

Second, I in no way failed to endorse Arab independence. I simply think they should have received independence instead of put under the House of Saud at gunpoint and under other tin-plate dictators that the all-knowing state security apparatus you celebrate put them under.

Why did they do so? In part, because the alternative was what I wanted:

And when they talk of handing out mandates for colonies, we know very well that it means handing out mandates for spoliation and plunder-handing out to an insignificant section of the world’s population the right to exploit the majority of the population of the globe. That majority, which up till then had been completely outside the orbit of historical progress, because it could not constitute an independent revolutionary force, ceased, as we know, to play such a passive role at the beginning of the twentieth century...

...Most of the Eastern peoples are in a worse position than the most backward country in Europe-Russia. But in our struggle against feudal survivals and capitalism, we succeeded in uniting the peasants and workers of Russia; and it was because the peasants and workers united against capitalism and feudalism that our victory was so easy. Here contact with the peoples of the East is particularly important, because the majority of the Eastern peoples are typical representatives of the working people-not workers who have passed through the school of capitalist factories, but typical representatives of the working and exploited peasant masses who are victims of medieval oppression. The Russian revolution showed how the proletarians, after defeating capitalism and uniting with the vast diffuse mass of working peasants, rose up victoriously against medieval oppression. Our Soviet Republic must now muster all the awakening peoples of the East and, together with them, wage a struggle against international imperialism.

In this respect you are confronted with a task which has not previously confronted the Communists of the world: relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism. That is a difficult and specific task, but a very thankful one, because masses that have taken no part in the struggle up to now are being drawn into it, and also because the organisation of communist cells in the East gives you an opportunity to maintain the closest contact with the Third International.

Obviously your state security apparatus could have none of this. So, for the last century, it specifically backed the, "medieval survivals," that Lenin (and most of the Arab muslims) tried to destroy.

Now you turn around and ask that we support the same state security apparatus that created the very forces they pretend to oppose.

Borderless socialism is going to find no takers amongst a domestic populace which will have to put up with decades of assault, terrorism, rape and pedophilia at the hands of self-styled Islamic conquerors.

Oh, don't worry. Before there's borderless socialism, imperialism and the people in charge of it will have long since been hanged

The "security apparatus" is a tool, wielded by whoever is in charge. Up until recently, it hasn't been politicised.

Of course it has! Do you honestly think that the Alien and Sedition Acts were not political? Do you really think that the Terror or Thermidor were not political?

Don't be so naive.

Those in charge for the last few generations are misguided liberals who have made a deal with the Saudi devil, not the populist right. A populist right wouldn't hamstring our occupation forces in the ME with pesky rules of engagement or even bother with the onerous task of "nation building" (i.e supporting the global opium industry). I'm sure you'll find widespread distaste for the ANA and Saudis amongst the personnel who staff "Western security apparatus".

Yes, I'm quite positive the "populist right," would have happily allowed the communists to liberate the Middle East. Maybe if I just believe it enough, then it I can make it have been so!

As for your feeling that the security apparatus might have feelings about the Saudis and ANA, I must ask, "So?" Feelings don't accomplish anything. Of course, liberals like yourself can never learn that. Which is why you will eventually lose.

Islamist zealots were always going to react against the Western World, regardless of the tangential Afghan war connection, Qutbism far predates any terrible casual link you are trying to establish between Islam and American liberals, globalization and Westernisation was always going to spark off the reaction of the Islamic world.

Sure. There might always be ultra-religious fools. But if the United States government found the Branch Davidians and proclaimed that David Koresh did have legitimate grounds to stand on, then used the CIA to find and create groups that might be sympathetic with the Davidians, then armed them and gave them training and tactical information to take by nearby communities where they would learn the true meaning of Christ through David Koresh over decades by professional teachers in professional ways before being sent out with the new form of Christianity...Can't you see how that, essentially how the US, UK, and France used Islam, would be effective?

It took far less than that for a radical sect of Hindus to take over part of my state.

The fact is that the imperialists used the most radical forms of Islam for its own purposes. This is not even hidden information that is ever denied.

Really, you should take a page out of the history books and support security apparatus more, we aren't living in an age where the civilian populace is as rugged, hardy or capable of lifting rifles to go off to war, we live in an age of chronic obesity, laziness, pornography and comfort, violence is outsourced to a Praetorian guard of men who are increasingly disconnected from their civilian society. But if you want to antagonise them, sure,be my guest and continue the slide into political irrelevance.

Claptrap about an amazing golden past and feelings. Nothing that needs to be responded to here.

[Rei Murasame]

Yeah, don't think Japanese or Taiwanese investors got your memo on "unsustainable undevelopment"

You're talking past me on all of these points, because I genuinely do not care. I'm an 'ally' of 'Hindu nationalists' only if and when it suits me (eg, if they are fuelling centrifugal forces that bring about the dismembering of Pakistan then I'll give that a wink and a nod). But, the idea that entering into deals with Monsanto that lead to farmers committing mass suicide, and somehow managing to raise fuel prices throughout the entire period that the price of oil was falling into a floor, is somehow 'sustainable India', is ridiculous.

The Indian state is an absolute joke, my tolerance for the joke that it is has run out, I refuse to actually support its existence in its present form in the long term. It too must be overthrown.

Yeah, gee, if Maoists could fight Muslims we'd be seeing meaningful Maoist resistance movements in Bangladesh and Pakistan, except the strongest "insurgencies" in those respective countries are movements like the TTP and the amazing Bangladeshi hack-a-thons.

Then I guess someone needs to engage in some socialist party building, don't they?

Oh, looks like some people are doing that.

None of this exists though, apparently, according to the right.

400 million Muslims aren't a theoretical "threat" that can be handwaved by a Peoples war executed by people who can't even go after Islam.

If push comes to shove, China can fix it by sabotage methods that I cannot be bothered to describe at this point (the long game endpoint of China-Pak engagement which is outside the scope of this topic).

Don't know enough about Nepal to comment on it.

And if you did know enough, perhaps you'd stop relying on 'Hindu Nationalism' immediately, because it's nonsense. You'll eventually realise it's nonsense as well, and become just as cynical as me, everyone does in the end.