This is totally misleading. If it had not been armed by the "West",IS would be a fanatical, impotent, splinter group.

It's very difficult to know whether ISIS is the real deal, I'd say that like most organisations the rank and file are honest about their motivations while the commanders are corrupt.
This article misses the point that western liberalism invites men to stand for nothing while ISIS invites men to stand for something, all the west can offer is abstract ideas whereas Jihad is real.
If this gets any bigger we might also see numbers of young western men who were not raised Muslim joining the fight to secure the Caliphate against NATO "oppression".
After all, why would we men of the west lift a finger to defend societies whose greatest achievement is allowing a man to marry another man? Tearing around the desert in a ute with a band of desperados at your side and an AK-47 on your shoulder is a lot more attractive than sitting at home watching X-factor with your mum and working part time at McDonalds.

This article swings between superficial and ignorant.

The article negatively talks of:

- "Brigitte" - which turned out to be an example of successful liaison with the French security services, and

- Haneef - which turned out to be a politically inspired - pre-election - cause of the Federal Government. A cause forced on the AFP.

This article carefully excludes examples of Australian security services successes including:

- Operation Pendennis http://www.cdpp.gov.au/case-reports/operation-pendennis/ - which headed off terrorist acts by two cells - one in Melbourne and the other in Sydney, and

- The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holsworthy_Barracks_terror_plot where a terrorist cell in Melbourne was proactively arrested.

The author is obviously ignorant of how the security system works in Australia, including intensive monitoring. The lack of a terrorist bomb going off since 1978 (Hilton bombing) shows success.

I believe there is a very real credible risk here, and indeed, activists who provide the problem, all while religiously denying there is one, after all, it's okay to lie to infidels?
Some people tell us, just by the vehemence of their endless denials/contradiction/patently pretended offence, that we do have a problem and it really needs to be dealt with!
First and foremost, by forced repatriation whenever and wherever possible.
Or cancelling passports and visas for overseas activists, while over there; who then would become stateless as far as we are concerned, for the rest of their natural.
Let them make a home with those who reflect their beliefs and bellicose belligerence, rather than be allowed to return and spread the rot to the rest of the barrel.
And it's an expression not to be taken literally.
Moderate Muslims must be made to understand, they are the first Target of radicalized Islam, which is the best oxymoron ever created, given it has nothing whatsoever in common with traditional Islam!
I don't know where these people think home is.
But if it's not here and with us, then shove off to where it is, and good riddance!
Rhrosty.

Thoughtful article about a phenomenon with parallels in the West.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
And I have wandered around many European churches and wondered at the emphasis on suffering, death and mourning, with images of saints and their trademark manner of death—St Paul with his sword, Sebastian with his arrows, Laurence with his barbecue etc

Personally If I was running the place any civilian who leaves Australia to fight in another country, would lose their citizenship and their right to return to Australia. I would make no exceptions; I don’t care whether it is to fight in the Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Iraq, the Balkans, or anywhere else.

Tearing around in a ute, accompanied by people who think killing is fun, is the strangest fantasy I've heard thus far.
It is not a computer game, but rather, where targets shoot back with interest.
The desert is not a pleasant place.
During the day the heat can traverse 50C!
The flies are bad enough to all but blind you, particularly when you're pinned down and can't move, all while high powered rifle fire cracks around you.
Thankfully you rarely hear the one that kills you!
But if you do, the heat and the flies can seal you fate and introduce blood poising or gangrene!
And during the night the cold can be almost enough to freeze the unmentionables off a brass monkey.
And if one of your number is shot, in say the Guts, maybe the liver, the screams for mama will be enough, to make some wish they could turn their weapon on their own!
Fear will rise like bile or a gorge in your throat, and legs could turn to water, at the very time you need to run for your very life.
And if you are captured by people less civilized than you, you could wish for death as a welcome release!
It takes years of training to condition the average grunt, and those, who think they're made of the right stuff hardly ever are, when live fire is returned!
Will they send your remains back for a decent burial?
Or just bury you like a common mongrel dog, where you fell?
Maybe that's all you might then deserve, but in the face of that very real possibility, mum and the x factor, looks like the most exciting prospect, in any fair comparison.
Who knows what the future holds for those who resist Satan's terrible murderous temptations, (look it'll be fun) but a wife and kids comes as close to heaven on earth, for those able to resist!
Rhrosty.

Jesus, David. I read your post and you kept hinting that "the problem is Islam itself", but you never quite got around to saying it. You kept implying it, but never went out on a limb and spat it out. Are you afraid of 18C?

Islam itself is a death cult, David. It is a dangerous religion which authorises it's followers to use violence to spread it and kill anyone who refuses to kneel to it. Boko Haram, ISIL and Jemaah Islamiah are doing exactly what Mohammad did himself, and what he ordered his followers to do. The terrorists are not "radicals" or "fundamentalists", they are the most devout Muslims who other Muslims must respect for their commitment to Islam.

Of course the "moderate" Muslim leaders protest at Australia's new terrorism laws, they know that these laws will be used to combat the efforts of the highest class of Muslim. The trick is to pretend that you are part of "Team Australia" while admiring the Muslims who want to destroy secular government and introduce Sharia.

Here is a test, David. Just ask those "moderate" Muslim leaders if they would like Australia to live under Sharia. Then ask them if Muslim apostates should be murdered. Then ask them if critics of Islam should be murdered. I double dog dare you. Find out for yourself how "moderate" those so called "moderate" Muslim leaders really are.

...Society is disassociated from society, has nobody noticed? The description of the disassociated disorder is " multiculturalism"!

...One of the great wonders of multicultural society , is it's ready availability and willingness to accept (at a price), plunder! An exploitation which cannot possibly divide disparate groups further than they already are, from the totally disjointed position currently occupied by ethnic groups; in this case Muslims.

...How soon before Abbott realises the great political advantage in interning all Muslims in Australia. And in full bloom in yonder suburbs, a willing contingent of trained Jewish guards :The stage is set!

Dan,

Any evidence of any of that ? He who asserts must prove, or at least provide some evidence.

Maybe I misunderstood what you were writing, maybe it's just too clever and convoluted for me, but my first impression was that it was written by a moron.

On second reading, my impression was that it was indeed written by a moron.

Joe

Lego:
Older more original, least revised versions of the Koran, say none of the things you say they say.
Suggest you investigate the oldest least revision Muslim religion, the Sofie tradition. Brought here to Australia by Afghan Camel drivers! When the first telegraph line was being laid out!
If only to understand, it is the constant spreading of quite blatant misinformation, that allows some of the horse turds to be promulgated as you just have with your horse manure, and shoveled by the ship load.
A Jihad, is a purely internal struggle it says.
Take a single drop of innocent blood, it says, and the gates of paradise slam shut and forever.
Every word in every holy book was written by a man, who allegedly heard God speaking to him!?
Some of who learned to meditate, but did not hear anybody; yet like all who learn to meditate deeply, somehow accessed ancient wisdom as old as time itself.
Because the criminally insane can't actually meditate, we have these nuts and cranks, who think they speak for God/and or, hugely revised versions of so called holy books.
In today's culture, they would at least be medicated, or, Hannibal Lecter like, permanently incarcerated.
Some totally insane people are also very clever, and extremely good with words, but particularly when speaking to sad sack morons.
Interestingly, those Muslims who practice daily meditation, are invariably peace loving, able to peacefully cohabitate/live beside in perfect harmony, with all other cultures.
Have no desire to pick up the sword, and yet, as peace lovers, and do unto others as you would be done unto practitioners, have been far and away, the most successful in spreading Islam!
You'll have a nice day now y'hear.
Rhrosty.

Hi Rhosty,

So ..... there are many, incompatible versions of the Koran ? So which is the genuine one ? Who says so ?

Or are you referring to when the various parts of it were written, pre-Medina, post-Medina, apocryphally by a 'Muhammed', and later by others ?

Yes, all 'holy books' are written by people, usually with a very definite ideology to justify. So all those hadiths about beheading and the cutting off of fingers - they don't really belong in the Koran ? All those strictures against women ? And beetles ? And cheese ?

Hard to take it seriously, really.

Joe

To Rhosty. En guard.

You are right, I am not a expert on the Koran. But from what I understand from reading books by former Muslims who have left Islam, the Koran is pretty much the same document it was 1400 years ago. Unlike the Bible, which has been subject to revisions, translations, and different versions, the holy Koran is considered the literal written word of Allah, and it can never be changed. Muslims are so particular about that, that they claim that the Koran must be read in Arabic because that was how Allah wrote it. Even Koran's which have been translated into foreign languages like English are considered invalid, because they can not be literally translated and therefore must contain subtle differences in Allah's meaning.

Now you are saying that the Sufi Muslims are nice guys. OK, if they don't believe in Jihad, Sharia Law, women as chattels, stoning people to death, punishing women who get raped, beating their wives, killing critics of Sufism, killing apostates, killing blasphemers, and not killing infidels, then it sounds like they may be integratable Bring the buggers in. But wait, wasn't it a couple of nice, former camel drivers who went on an "internal" Jihad and opened fire with rifles on the Broken Hill picnic train to the Menindee Lakes in 1915, and killed a couple of Aussie women? How do you reconcile that with your ideas about nice Sufi camel drivers.?

I thought we were on the same side, Rhosty? Now I am shocked, and deeply hurt. Thank God for SPQR and Shockie.