Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

They're only having a war over there where they cut people's heads off--- much safer than the sea between Scotland and Ireland, eh?

As for that so-called Caliphate it does need feet on the ground and Turkey has an army of over 500,000 for a start. Time America got it's allies in the ME to do some marching. Well that is when the same allies are not supplying terror groups themselves.

Hhhm. Trouble is Smiley that your lot are as bad when one thinks bad to Bush senior produced a numpty dopehead as his Vice-President so it seems to be a standard. Poor you lot!

In the case of Syria, the master narrative is that the conflict pits Sunni Muslims ­– whether those desiring liberal governance like the Syrian National Council or those championing religious rule like the Islamic State – against a government controlled by one particular religious minority, the Alawites. If this master narrative was operating on the ground, we would expect to see all Sunni Muslim groups fighting together against the Alawite government (and, potentially, its allies in the country’s other minority groups).

The cracks in the master narrative are manifest. For one thing, the Islamic State has come into conflict with virtually all of the largely Sunni Muslim groups fighting the Syrian government, including the Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. In addition, there can be little question of the endogenous character of events in Syria’s northeast. The Islamic State itself emerged from elements of rebel groups fighting the Syrian government and groups coming from abroad. Neither the identities of, nor the alliances between groups fighting the government, could have been imagined before the beginning of the uprising, as none of them existed in Syria until fighting commenced.

Also emergent in the conflict are several new actors formed in response to weakened state control over much of the northeast. First, the most powerful Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) has set up its own army, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Syrian government withdrew from most of the Kurdish areas of the country in July 2012, which allowed the PYD to control the territory. Members of the other principal non-Arab ethnic group in the northeast, Syriac Christians, have set up a security organization called Sutoro. Far smaller than the Kurdish forces ­– unsurprising given the relatively smaller size of the Syriac population and its lack of a political apparatus equivalent to the PYD ­– Sutoro coordinates its activity closely with the PYD.

Who's going to be the Calif in the place of the Calif...

  how can they be stopped??

Upon the request of Muslim students at Miami University, Walmart recently made the decision to provide halal-certified meat at the
Oxford location.

Store manager Elijah Woodard made a formal announcement on Oct. 21 that the store would be accomodating these requests.

“I appreciated the students bringing this interest to our attention,” Woodard said. “I am pleased to announce that we have set a halal meat section in the store.”

According to Woodard, the order for the halal meat was made immediately and would only take a few days for the first shipment to arrive.

In Arabic, the word “halal” means permissible. Halal meat is meat that has been slaughtered according to Islamic law, as laid out in the Qu’ran. This particular type of slaughter is called dhabiha and requires that an animal’s throat be slit swiftly with a sharp blade to ensure as little pain and suffering as possible. While this is being done, the person with the blade says a prayer to Allah, or at the very least invokes the name of Allah to bless the animal and give thanks for the food.

According to visiting assistant professor Tareq Hasan Khan, there has never been a location in Oxford that sold this type of meat.

“For halal meat, we needed to drive from Oxford to Cincinnati, around 40 miles one way, almost every week,” Khan said. “This long drive is very tiresome and takes about two hours only to go to Cincinnati and return back.”

Between Khan and members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), efforts were made to convince Walmart to provide the Halal meat. Many students reached out directly to the management at Walmart. In addition, a petition was passed around on the Internet. The petition acquired nearly 50 signatures and was directed at all Oxford grocers including MOON co-op and Kroger. Thus far, Walmart is the only provider who has responded to the requests of the Muslim students.

“It is already hard to live in the United States as a Muslim, sophomore Rami Abu-Attiyeh said. “I would like to see halal food offered to students making it more convenient for them to have more options when it comes to eating at Miami University.”

According to Khan, the number of Muslim students and staff who come to Oxford to attend Miami University increases every year. Many of these people also have families with children to provide for, which is hard to do when meat is so unavailable. For Muslim students living on campus, many have found it to be increasingly difficult to find halal options.

Senior Saara Khalid said that as a Muslim, it is hard to find halal options on campus, especially for those students who do not wish to be vegetarians.

In addition, students requested specific brands of halal meat to be provided in Oxford grocery stores.

“Since the Halal chicken and meat has to be certified, we strongly recommend the local stores to sell chicken products from Crescent Foods and beef products from Midamar,” Khan said.

Both of these brands are popular choices among the Muslim community.

Sophomore Trevor Snyder was more than happy to sign the petition that would make life easier for Muslim students on Miami’s campus.

“I signed because buying food should be convenient for everyone,” Snyder said.

Halal Options

Man Dehydrates After Discovering Water Is Halal Certified

Quote from: jax on 2014-11-12, 22:21:35

Man Dehydrates After Discovering Water Is Halal Certified

Water is always Halal, that's why I only drink alcohol.
Not to confuse with alcalal.

China has offered to help Iraq defeat Sunni extremists with support for air strikes, according to Ibrahim Jafari, Iraq’s foreign minister. Wang Yi, Mr Jafari’s Chinese counterpart, made the offer to help defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, when the two men met in New York at September’s UN antiterrorism meeting, Mr Jafari said.

Any Chinese assistance would be outside the US-led coalition. “[Mr Wang] said, our policy does not allow us to get involved in the international coalition,” Mr Jafari told the Financial Times in Tehran, where he was attending an anti-extremism conference this week. “I welcomed this initiative. I told him . . . we are ready to deal with the coalition and also co-operate with countries outside this coalition.”

China’s official policy is of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. Although it does sell weapons to many other countries since abandoning the Maoist goal of “exporting revolution” decades ago China has avoided direct military involvement beyond its borders.
Growing economic and strategic interests have tested that policy. China’s navy began escorting ship convoys around the Horn of Africa after Somali piracy threatened oil and ore cargoes. Last year for the first time it contributed troops to a UN peacekeeping operation in Mali. A battalion of 700 Chinese troops is now joining UN Peacekeepers in South Sudan, with a mandate to guard Chinese-invested oilfields there.