Four soldiers and a journalist killed

[ToadBrother]

I say again... Perhaps the reason moderates are not speaking out more loudly against extremism is that they don't see any meaningful acknowledgement from the west for the west's mistakes. I don't think this will be as effective at defusing extremists as much as it might prevent more people from becoming extremists. Perhaps if moderates could see meaningful attempts by the west to apologise and make reparations they might be able to counter the claims that extremists make.

How do we go about making reparations for the first few Crusades?

[Wilber]

Moderates often do not speak out due to fear of extremists. Far more moderate Muslims are killed by Muslim extremists than by non Muslims. Those who seek vengeance are not moderates regardless of their reasons.

[eyeball]

How do we go about making reparations for the first few Crusades?

You're right, this way madness lies. By the same token why should we be the least bit concerned about consequences in the future? Live and die in the now, that's my motto too.

[eyeball]

Moderates often do not speak out due to fear of extremists.

Yeah, I guess I really should keep my thoughts to myself eh?

[ToadBrother]

You're right, this way madness lies. By the same token why should we be the least bit concerned about consequences in the future? Live and die in the now, that's my motto too.

First you would have to determine which grievances were even legitimate, and then which grievances you could hope to amend. We're not going to drive Israel into the sea just to please the Palestinians, Syrians and Iranians, and yet that seems to be the underlying demand. I guess the US could vacate Saudi Arabia, but considering its importance to the global economy, I'm not sure how slitting our wrists, or worse, putting a hangman's noose in the hands of people who think strapping dynamite to their chests is a beneficial form of political expression, is going to make things peaceable.

In the long term, oil will fade in importance, places like Iran will find their economies plummeting (and just look at Iran and Dubai, absolute economic disaster zones through no fault of ours, it's not like we haven't been dumping billions upon billions of dollars into their laps).

So I'm not sure what it is at the end of the day we could do. Wring our hands, declare our guilt, ask for forgiveness, and...?

[Argus]

How do we go about making reparations for the first few Crusades?

Perhaps we could demand reparations from the Muslim world for their invasions of Europe, then give them a portion back?

[ToadBrother]

Perhaps we could demand reparations from the Muslim world for their invasions of Europe, then give them a portion back?

But then things get tricky. A lot of what angers Islamists was in fact the product of the Ottomans. The Palestinians didn't own Palestine, it was the Ottomans, and Turkish absentee landlords, and it was the Ottomans who lost WWI and thus lost the region. Perhaps we should force Turkey to start apologizing for conquering all those Christian lands and converting most folks to Islam.

It would be pretty f***ing hard to figure out who was supposed to apologize to who. Should the Germans apologize from the Ostrogoth seizures of North Africa, or should the Arabs apologize to the Germans for kicking the Ostrogoths out. What about the Berbers, who had been their since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks. Should the Arabs apologize to them, or should the Italians, Spaniards and French?

Perhaps we could set up some sort of Council of Blame, and at long last the Celts could wreak their vengeance on those miserable Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and if anyone can find any Etruscans around, they can beat on the odd Italian. I mean, the possibilities are endless. The Bantu peoples in South Africa get to beat some more on the Whites, and then maybe the Khoisan and other bushmen can beat on the Bantus. We can go to Taiwan, where the Nationalist Chinese can give a few boots in the ass to the Communist Chinese, and then the native peoples of Taiwan (who are more closely related to the Polynesians) can get medieval on all those damned Han Chinese who invaded their island.

[eyeball]

How do we go about making reparations for the first few Crusades?

We live in an age when 4000 to 10000 year old land claims are being settled.

Don't tell me something can't be done when there are people actually doing it. Take Israel for example.

[eyeball]

It would be pretty f***ing hard to figure out who was supposed to apologize to who.

It's not as hard as imagining how we're supposed to keep going the way we are and get there in one piece.

[ToadBrother]

We live in an age when 4000 to 10000 year old land claims are being settled.

Don't tell me something can't be done when there are people actually doing it. Take Israel for example.

So please do tell me in, say the Palestinian question, who apologizes to who? After all, much of the land that makes up Israel and the Palestinian Authority was, prior to 1919, part of the Ottoman Empire and in fact owned by absentee Ottoman landlords. Britain received it as a Mandate because, well, the Ottomans were on the losing side and their empire was dismantled. In fact, the area's history is rife with invasions and conquests (and I'm not going in any particular order here); the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks even did a bit of colonization, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turkish Ottomans, the Crusaders, the British Mandate, and Israel.

So I want you to detail out who exactly would be apologizing to, say, the Palestinians.

[ToadBrother]

It's not as hard as imagining how we're supposed to keep going the way we are and get there in one piece.

I think it's impossible to imagine. If, as you say, we've got land claims going back 10,000 years (which is stretch, I think it would be all but impossible to link any modern native population to Paleo-Indians at the end of the Ice Age), then can the Welsh and Cornish, and Brythonic Celts who fled to what would become Brittany in France be able to go after the Anglo-Saxons for damages, and would Anglo-Saxon families be able to go after the descendants of the Normans for dispossessing them and killing the rightful king of England? I mean, are you seriously advocating that the descendants of Acadia living in Louisiana get a lawyer and sue the British and Canadians for the forced eviction of their Acadian ancestors?

The problems here abound. In the case of native land claims, to the very large part, the descendants of those dispossessed still live on the remnants of their old territories. In fact, the chief reason why any of these land claims have any standing in law at all is because of the Royal Proclamation of 1763.