Oh Gawd, another self righteous, moralising sermon by another western self loather who does not have a clue what is at stake here.

Dear Mr Coates. There exists in this world a very violent religion called Islam which advocates world conquest through force of arms. It is a religion where the most devout and most respected by other Muslims are those who take up arms to advance Islam through violence. There are no "Islamists" and "moderate" Muslims, there are only those devout Muslims who do exactly what Mohammad commanded (and did himself) and those more meek who do not want to be jihadis and fight for Islam, but who greatly respect those jihadis who do. As Mao would say, "they are the sea in which the insurgents swim."

We must have been absolutely crazy to import this religion into Australia. But specimens like yourself can only see world conflict in terms of somebody oppressing somebody else. And since Muslims are poor and the west is rich, then it must be our fault that the Muslims are violent. What do you use for a brain?

Sure we could do nothing in the middle east and let a bunch of religious morons with world conquest in mind to take over all of the oilfields in the Middle East, and let them get a free kick by ruining our economies. But fortunately, our politicians are not as stupid as you are. There are now 30 countries, including Asian ones, who can see what you refuse to see, and are prepared to do something to help the yanks hold back the medieval religious nutcase hordes.

Of course this will increase terrorism in Australia. But we were only delaying this increase anyway because with Muslim numbers in Australia increasing, it was only a matter of time before they felt strong enough to openly defy Australian government authority and demand Sharia Law. The sooner we confront Islam and realise that this religion is hostile to everything we believe in, the better. And "liberals" like yourself are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

I lay the blame on our leaders of the past few decades who allowed these types to immigrate here in the first place. It's home grown terrorism brought on by ourselves.

From another point of view, perhaps we should put the recent events into proper perspective: there are some five or six million people in Brisbane and Sydney, so even if, let's say, six random bystanders had been beheaded, that's barely one in a million, leaving almost five million completely un-beheaded. People die every day of natural causes, so what's six more ?

And obviously, since they stand to gain from it in their constant propaganda war, the US would be to blame for provoking some young people, out of desperation for their voices to be heard, to take such action. Clearly then, the US has forced young Muslims to contemplate striking a blow, as they may see it, for a cause. The US has caused all this and they'll use it for all its worth.

And anyway, they didn't actually behead anybody, so why are they even in custody ? Because, on the instructions of the US, Abbott is conniving to turn Australia into a police state, and this is just a test run.

Well, that's a point of view. A bit psychotic, but I'm sure the Greens and Walid Aly will come up with a version of it soon :)

Joe

If I was in charge I would offer free one way air tickets to the Middle East for all jihadists and sympathisers of ISIS. Maybe we could run a recruitment campaign “Join your brothers in the great Islamic Caliphate fly out now free to your paradise”
I think it is a mistake to try and retain these generally unstable people in Australia. If they are in the Middle East we have more options to deal with them. We can kill them or refuse re-entry to Australia. If we keep them in Australia we need to expend resources monitoring them and it will reduce the load on Centrelink.

Religion is truly the major divisive force in our world. And it is obvious to anyone who thinks, that Christian nations are just as barbaric and brain-dead as Muslim nations.

Given the complete lack of evidence for the existence of any of the thousands of gods which are said to exist in our world, it all seems to be 'Much Ado About Nothing' yet millions are being killed as religions collide.

Looking at film from the Muslim protests in Sydney last night, I can hardly believe these strangely dressed people waving placards actually live in Australia. Methinks multi-culturism has gone way too far.

The answer of course is to ban all religions, destroy all evidence of them, get theology out of our heads so we can think rationally for a change otherwise we are doomed to infinite conflict and war of the nuclear variety!

Religion is the opiate of the people, a destructive, mind-numbing opiate that sets human against human and nation against nation.

If you want peace then religion MUST be destroyed no ifs or buts!

Is there a chance that Australia's involvement in bombing ISIS will provoke an attack, sure. However, an ISIS with territory and ability to recruit, train and co ordinate attacks is certain to provoke an attack.

Which is likely to lessen the risk overall? I would put my money on eliminating ISIS.