My position is straight forward.

Syria is not Australia. Syria's problems are not Australian concerns.

Loss of lives, religious fanaticism or social upheaval are not sufficient reason to make this war an Australian concern.

We should stay well out of it. This includes not standing on the sidelines and cheering one side or another.

Humanitarian aid? Certainly. Compassion? Certainly. But there it should stop.

BTW, the ASIO Director-General's concern that Australian citizens are becoming involved is entirely appropriate - as is all advice offered to Australians travelling abroad to respect local laws and behave themselves.

JB,

From 1939 what Chamberlain could have said:

My position is straight forward.

Poland is not England. Poland's problems are not British concerns.

Loss of lives, religious fanaticism or social upheaval are not sufficient reason to make this war a British concern.

We should stay well out of it. This includes not standing on the sidelines and cheering one side or another.

Humanitarian aid? Certainly. Compassion? Certainly. But there it should stop.

Where would we be now?

For evil to succeed, it is sufficient for good to do nothing.

This would have to rate as one of the worst items published by OLO on foreign affairs. The author clearly knows little about what is actually going on in Syria. He appears to know even less about just who the so-called "rebels" are and who their main financial and arms supporters are. He is profoundly ignorant about the role the US is playing, the template for which can be found in Seymour Hersh's article in The New Yorker several years ago. He blithely advocates a no-fly zone without obviously the least amount of knowledge of international law. He is similarly blind to the recent acts of war committed by the State of Israel, about which there is a stunning silence from our government and opposition. And to cap it all he seems unaware of the recent UN report that attributed the use of sarin gas to the "rebel" forces.

A good start would be for the Gulf states and their American and British and Turkish allies to stop financing and arming the "rebels" most of whom are foreign sourced jihadis fresh from acting on behalf of the Americans in Libya, Chechnya and elsewhere.

The UN report in fact states the evidence it has gathered provides it with "concrete suspicions" but not "Incontrovertible evidence" that sarin gas was used by rebel forces. It has no evidence of gas being used by the Assad regime. This development is obviously behind President Obama's decision not to declare "the line has been crossed" over the regime's use of gas.

James O'Neill,

Are the facts getting in the way of your prejudice?

Looking at BH's credentials and contacts one is forced to conclude that he probably knows a hell of a lot more about what is going on in Syria than you do.

This echos the concerns of many.

Refer to the thread I started recently.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5757

SM: You are the last person on this forum to accuse me of prejudice. Your grasp of history is so tenuous you equate Poland 1939 with the Middle East 2013.

It is possible that BP knows more about Syria than I do, but I doubt it. My point however was that such knowledge as you think he might have was not evident in the article he wrote. Every point I made was based on facts readily ascertainable.

Point me to a single factual error I made in my first post. No, didn't think you could. Hence your customary fallback of accusing those you don't agree with as (in this case) prejudiced.