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.

Agree with LEGO. No muslim immigration would equal no threat of muslim terrorism in our beautiful country. If 1.3 billion people choose to belong to a religion that keeps them in the 13th century then that is their problem and not ours. The prophet mohammed (lower case intended) was nothing but a barbaric, murderous paedophile (one of his wives was just six years old)and that certainly has no place in Australia. There is NO place in Australia for islam, period. Send the ragheads back to ragheadland where they belong.

What a useless bit of fluff. Peter has been pounding away on his keyboard, just for the sake of pounding. If you have something to say Peter for gods sake say it, rather than waffling on.

If you believe in appeasement, perhaps you should say so, & perhaps advise us where this has worked in the past. Appeasement is exactly what we have been practicing, called multiculturalism these days, for too long. It is just what has brought us to the point where you appear to be recommending we comply with the wishes of this scum, or we will be in trouble.

If you are not recommending we roll over & give in to this scum, please say simply, just what you do recommend as a course of action. Any fool can see the problem, & most of us can see the cause, so your telling us is a waste of time.

If you don't have something to contribute to a solution, other than give in as you appear to be saying here, don't waste time with waffle.

I was under the impression Iraq has asked for help to prevent more massacres of thousands of innocent people.
Obviously we must resist this call for aid and simply accept the inhumane death of innocents as necessary sacrifices whilst we negotiate a solution to this centuries old dilemma.

As some sage said "In the end do we seriously think that after a decade of the US fighting then advising and arming the failed Iraqi Army our participation in Iraq will make a difference?" Iraq again is an open-ended mission, there is no timeframe for how long troops would be there or a notion of what success would look like.

The simplistic racist and religious (ban all Muslims in Australia!) arguments show ignorance of war-terrorist-insurgency issues. Syria and Turkey present porous borders that will frustrate our counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq.

This article has established a clear link (thankyou ASIO, AFP and Pendennis) between Australia following the US into foreign wars and radicalisation back home.

As more Australian military are ordered to follow the US into Iraq the more Iraqi and Syrian extremists (also the Syrian Government) can depict this as another Western Invasion and Occupation". This will radicalise more moderate Muslim youth in Australia.

Abbott, our National Security Action Man, is boosting military responses to Ukraine and to Iraq to divert attention away from a failed Budget and away from Palmer's dominance in Parliament.

I like the idea of providing free one-way tickets to anyone who wants to go fight for ISIS. But let's add a secret tracking chip to their passports so once they are over there, we know where to direct the drones.

For all the idiots who want to blame Abbott, do you honestly think if Labour was in power the PM wouldn't support the USA? If Labour was in, it would probably take longer for them to make up their minds and a few 1000 could die in the interim, but they would come around, especially for Obama.

I fail to see how assisting, National Muslim Governments, defend their sovereign territory, will make things worse here, but rather, force a few militants miscreants to play a premature hand; or mistakenly read the mood of local moderate Muslims; who understand, more than anyone, that they are at the very top of Isil's mass murder hit list!
Therefore, if anyone is at greater risk here at home, because of our assistance, it has to be locally embedded Isil sympathizers!?
Besides, standing and doing nothing, in the face of this "Satanic evil," is and was, never ever an option!
Rhrosty.

I have always wondered why self-righteous right-wingers quite often use the empty phrase "self-loathing" when they put down any and everyone on the left who (quite rightly) criticize the applied politics, both past and present of the "west" in general and their country in particular.
A certain female "journalist", or more correctly propaganda hack who scribbles for the Australian frequently uses this self-loathing epithet.

It seems to me that speaking the truth to the powers that be is the right and even duty of any citizen in a relatively free democratic country. Tom Paine certainly argued for, and practiced this right/duty.

And of course our parliamentary system is based on the principle of the loyal opposition, the supposed duty of which is to criticize the governing party of the day.
Mister NO or Abbott the mad monk turned this principle into a relentless completely artless art form.

All of the countless reforms that have occurred in the quest to establish freedom of speech and expression have been accomplished when enough people become fed up with or LOATHED the accepted "thats-the-way-things-are" consensus of the day. A consensus that was quite often given respectability by appeals to some kind of traditional scriptural and religious "authority" - the "divine"-right of kings for instance.
Once upon a time here in the West one could even be executed or imprisoned for criticizing the "religious" authorities. Were the people who quite rightly brought and end to such an at the time "seemingly obvious" superstition guilty of "self-loathing".

Sorry DD, I can't agree.
Those who in our past fought and changed our society were attempting to improve things for one and all, they saw injustice and did something about it, which hardly compares with people living comfortably in the world THEY built who whine about how guilty the West and Whiteman are for the injustices still extant, and who's answer is to give in to extremists and anyone else who demands it, appeasement, as described above.
Chalk and Cheese, to my mind.
Unless the civilised world takes a stand now against those who would bring down our House we will eventually be facing the same threat made vastly stronger by our very inaction.
These current Mad Mullahs are just the latest in a long line, and each is stronger than the last, more brutal, more effective, so even when we put these down we will soon face the next, and the next after that, each worse, each harder to deal with.
The screams of their victims are the opening sonata of the Final Crusade, it has begun, though we see it not.

Well said Daffy Duck

It is easier to swallow Abbotts "humanitarian" WAR in Iraq line than to debate it.

Meanwhile terrorists are responding to Abbott's campaign in Iraq by hatching terrorist plots in Australia. Hence the phone call from the ISIL leadership to a Mr Azari in Sydney in the last few days http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/man-arrested-in-terrorist-raids-appears-in-court-20140918-10imfp.html .

Bill Shorten is failing to do his job to question and debate this latest Abbott military adventure.
--

@G'dayBruce

ISIL is intentionally using beheading tactics to draw the West into a war in the Middle East. ISIL will soon be depicting itself as "noble fighter's for Islam" against these increasing Western forces.

It is an unfortunate reality (based on Iraq 2004-2007) that soon even moderate Sunnis and Shiite-Hezbollah militia will be fighting Western forces in the Middle East - including Australian SAS.

Of course jumping in again into the Middle Eastern wars will heighten the risk of a terrorist reprisal attack somewhere in Australia. Trouble is, we keep jumping in on the wrong side. That ISIS is a brutal murderous mob who are crying out to be marginalised if not terminated seems to be self-evident. But they only grew into a deadly force because the West has enabled them to so grow in a mistaken and ill-advised emphasis on taking down the Syrian and Iranian governments.
Syria and Iran are actively battling ISIS on the ground and in the air right now. Following the leader as we have been doing for the last two decades has brought us no end of grief. Why not think about that for a change, and do battle where doing so might lead to a positive result - such as backing al-Assad in Syria and with them, Iran?

Peter, you are brave to stick your neck out on this site with such an article. If you had told me in advance what you were going to write I would have told you in advance exactly what the bigoted ignoramuses who infect this site would say in response. Sure enough, just read most of the above, Halduell and Daffy Duck honourably excepted (as well as your own responses).

You might have mentioned in your article that we loyally followed the Americans into Afghanistan in 2001 with almost identical propaganda justifications. Hunting down "the terrorists", liberating women, bringing democracy and lots more of the same BS. Conveniently overlooked was the American role in creating al qaeda in the first place (just as they created ISIS) and for the very same reasons: control of resources; geopolitical positioning; infiltration and disruption of the enemies du jour (Russia, China, Iran and now Syria).

As you rightly point out, as have several commentators past and present, "blowback" is an inevitable consequence. So what does the government do? Why, it proposes yet further draconian inroads into our civil liberties, including, most recently, exempting ASIO agents from criminal liability unless they murder, rape or cause actual bodily harm. So torture is OK? whatever Brandis says, the legislative wording speaks for itself.

But as long as only Muslims are tortured you can bet that for many of the above commenters that will be just fine. God help us!

Hi James,

I'll get in first :)

" .... as long as only Muslims are tortured ..... " Do you mean, only Muslims who refuse to go along with ISI ? As well as those ancient Christians, Assyrians and Chaldeans ? And those Yazidis ? And those Kurds, even though they are mostly Sunni ? Tortured, beheaded and enslaved ? Is that who you meant ?

It's actually going on right now. Is ASIO actually torturing anybody right now ? Beheading anybody ? Seizing women and selling them to its agents for $ 1400 ?

When that starts to happen, let us know. Otherwise why should anybody give your reactionary views the slightest attention ?

Joe

Joe, not for the first time you completely misinterpret my comment. As for my views being "reactionary", you clearly need to consult a dictionary. Or is it you are just miffed at not being excluded from the company of all the usual bigots who infest the woodwork of OLO and emerge into the light whenever an article touches one of their many raw nerves?

Multiculturalism is the the real evil. Australia never benefited from mass immigration. We had a perfectly cohesive country prior to that. Immigrants never wish to become like us. or join us, they simply wish to benefit from our success, which is due to peace, hard work and co operation. Every few days on OLO I see immigrants spewing out their views always biased towards their countries of origin, from Israel to Macedonia. We need none of these people. Deport them all and go back to a white Australia policy.

Now in the media I see all the politically correct views coming out, telling me how Australia again should not try to stereotype Muslims due to a "small number of isolated events" . I'm tied to the far left telling me to accept Multiculturalism, when anyone with half a brain can see its a failure.

National Security Action Man Abbott

...is about to turn the next Parliamentary Session into a Man's (+ Julie Bishop) debating club with Bill Shorten bleating agreement.

"Tony Abbott will deliver what he's described as a "security statement" on Monday. Should the Australian military contingent now gathering in the United Arab Emirates be sent into Iraq to tackle Islamic State extremists, Mr Abbott has promised a further statement." http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/national-security-to-dominate-parliament/story-e6frfku9-1227064432241

That's TWO security statements all youse anti-Muslims.

At Question Time when Abbott pats Shorten on the head Shorten cannot wait to agree.

Has anyone seen Joke Hokey and the barely remembered Budget lately?
---

@ozzie

I agree. Ever since those right-wing white immigrants from Britain invaded the perfectly good Aboriginal country of Australia the place has gone to the pack - excepting my Scottish ancestors of course.

Unfortunately ozzie, that is the fundamental problem with our political system. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, knows 'multiculturalism' is a failure, but the system allows politicians to continue forcing it down our throats. We need to change the system and bring back White Australia and a good dose of commonsense. I doubt if anyone could name a single benefit to Australia (except culinary) that multiculturalism has provided and as for ragheads . . . they are simply living proof the two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

So for the most part the reaction to yesterday's (non) events seems to be:
We believe everything ISIS sympathisers say.
We don't believe anything Abbott or Shorten say.
Fair enough.
People are arrested for making threats to kill on a fairly regular basis, it usually only takes a couple of constables to investigate and bring the suspect in for questioning, not an army of political police and the riot squad.

I use the term "self loathing" when referring to empty headed lefties like yourself, Daffy Duck, because it is an entirely appropriate and descriptive term. (You are Peter Coates, aren't you?) Western self loathers like yourself analyse every single human problem using an easily discernible formulae.

1. White people are always wrong. Dark skinned people are always right.
2. Anything that goes wrong in a darker skinned people’s society is always the fault of white people.
3. Not only are white people always wrong, they are especially wrong if they are Americans or Jews.
4. Whatever injustices occur in white society must be pointed out and savagely attacked, but if darker skinned societies are riven with the foulest injustices and human rights violations, it is impolite to point these out.
5. The dysfunctional cultures of dark skinned people must be protected, while the successful cultures of white westerners must be destroyed.
6. White people are always the oppressors, and dark skinned people are always the oppressed.

Once this unique way of thinking is accepted and internalised, everything makes sense to shallow thinkers such as yourself.

Thank you for confirming my theory that people like yourself see yourselves as the natural social progressives who have changed the world by opposing the status quo. The difference between real intellectuals of the past and today's and leftists, is that real intellectuals used their brains to figure out what is right and what is wrong. People like yourself simply reflexively oppose the status quo without ever bothering to think about whether the status quo was correct and or not. As Lincoln once said, "Is the majority always drunk?"

Thus you man the barricades and formulate the slogans for every "progressive" cause imaginable, in the firm belief that you are a shining example of the descendents of Jefferson, Voltaire and Thomas Paine. Although what these gentlemen would think of a person like you who goes into bat for the most backward and violent religion on Earth while always putting the boot into your own democracies is something I would love to know.

Jay of Melbourne, agree, a storm in a teacup again, still it makes Abbott look good again in the eyes of the gullible, let's have him return to the budget he created, but then the war machine is more his Christian forte, that is killing ordinary people somewhere in the world. When are we ever going to get the truth from Government and the media, how many stooges do we have overseas ringing someone whose views may be suspect? There are thousands of suspect viewpoints on a daily basis, Asio and the police Weill be exceedingly busy. David G couldn't agree more, get rid of stupid religions that seem to create stupid people with their stupid beliefs and that goes for all of them.

Well said Lego!
You put that far better than I did, onya!
I think there's still a little of the sixties floating around, "Love will solve everything" etc, I'd really like to see these "people" sit down with ISIS for a rousing rendition of Kumbayah around the campfire, I'm sure they'd immediately see the error of their ways and throw their guns away in apologetic shame! Yeah, ri-i-i-i-ight!
C'mon all you luvey lefties, get a peace delegation together and go tell ISIS you "feel their pain", that you love them as brothers, that it's all the Wests fault and you're sorry about that, want to bet what THEIR reaction will be?
You'll soon be feeling positively "light-headed", I'm sure!

Hi James O'Neill.

I am one of the "shining ignoramouses who infect OLO", and I am proud of it

I see that you are another one who wants to blame the USA for everything that went wrong with the Islamic world, instead of focussing on why every Muslim country on Earth is an economic basket case unless it is either floating on an ocean of oil, or has a bunch or Chinese running the economy. A little hint might come from the self evident fact that the more Islamic a society is, the more of a social and economic craphole it is.

The USA supported the Afghans when they were invaded by the USSR. My own take is that it was entirely the correct thing to do. Especially since the Afghan debacle was directly related to the breakup of the USSR, and the freeing of hundreds of millions of east Europeans. As a westerner, I would have thought that the Afghans would be grateful for that and consider the USA as their protectors. But these people are Muslims and virtues like gratitude apparently don't have much meaning for them. I don't see where Muslim ingratitude is the USA 's fault.

The attack on Afghanistan was directly related to the 9/11 incident in which the Taliban was an active participant. What did you expect the world's greatest military might to do, sit on their hands and cry, then do nothing? That late unlamented ABC journo Richard Carlton confidently predicted that it was "impossible" for the USA to invade Afghanistan, and like most lefties, he got it wrong. It was not a US affair, it was a NATO and SEATO affair where America's allies clearly recognised that the USA had been attacked and they had treaty obligations to uphold. And that even included former Warsaw Pact nations like Poland and Czechoslovakia, where fashionable western leftist anti American views are seen as absolute insanity. For these nations who lived under the USSR heel, the USA was always their only hope.

James,

From your arguments, you appear to oppose any resistance to the most reactionary force in the world today. What is anybody supposed to conclude from that ?

Joe

So far:

THOSE WRONG - G'dayBruce, Loudmouth, ozzie, Cody, rehctub, SILLER, Hasbeen, ConservativeHippie,

EITHER WAY - David G, Shadow Minister, Big Nana, Rhrosty

RIGHT-ON Jay Of Melbourne, Daffy Duck, Ojnab, halduell and quite a bit James O'Neill.

Number of police + ASIO in the Sydney and Bris raids yesterday: 1,000+

Number of “terrorists” imprisoned following yesterdays raids: 1 (only 1)

Numbers of Australians in Middle East by this time next week 1,100 due to:

- 400 new RAAF in addition to 450 who have been there for more than a year

- 200 new SAS in addition to the 50 already there.

Again and again a reminder - Be alert not alarmed. Call the hot line if you see anyone, even if they are white and dressed as the new Archbishop of Sydney, doing suspicious things.

Instead of Invasion of Iraq then Syria how about:

- Making sure Bali and Jakarta are not asleep at the counter-terrorist wheel again.

- our direct support for a more inclusive (Sunni and Shiite and Kurdish) government in Baghdad.

- cutting the flow of financing to ISIL from oil rich Gulf States.

- applying pressure on Turkey to close the border to flows of foreign fighters.

- active support to regional actors to starve ISIL of weapons and funds.

Thanks, Plantagenet,

"Instead of Invasion of Iraq then Syria how about:

- Making sure Bali and Jakarta are not asleep at the counter-terrorist wheel again.

- our direct support for a more inclusive (Sunni and Shiite and Kurdish) government in Baghdad.

- cutting the flow of financing to ISIL from oil rich Gulf States.

- applying pressure on Turkey to close the border to flows of foreign fighters.

- active support to regional actors to starve ISIL of weapons and funds."

Thanks for advising our government how to suck eggs. What, in that list, has our government neglected, as much as would be in its power to do ? AS WELL AS to advise us all to stay alert, not alarmed (Abbott, today); to undertake to send humanitarian aid; and to make a quite proper military contribution. What else is on your wish-list ?

Whether Australia's contribution is open-ended depends very much on whether ISIS can be beaten back. If the piss-weak Saudis et al. do nothing, and if the arm of the US et al. is tied behind its back by not being able, politically, to launch attacks on ISIS in Syria, it's unknowable how of this will turn out in the near future, let alone the more distant future. And this, being ideological, not just military, will go on for a hell of a long time yet. I don't expect an end in my lifetime.

Which is even more reason, not less, why the US and a coalition, including Australia, has to get involved quickly NOW, to prevent the dispute getting any wider, and to cripple ISIS in Iraq. The Greens' kindergarten kids don't have the wits to realise the dangers of letting ISIS get to Baghdad and to the Iranian border, or to be able to push back the Kurds. Or to grasp the complexity of the issues hampering the efforts of the US in combatting the most reactionary force in the world today.

Joe

Thanks Planta's, you do me honour.
I'll proudly hold myself a realist any day, I'm always more comfortable with both feet on THIS planet, lol.

Joe,

"AS WELL AS to advise us all to stay alert, not alarmed (Abbott, today);"

What Stuntboy meant was:

"Be alarmed...and Stay alarmed...and certainly don't give any thought to the b-b-budget or the dud government"

plantagenet,

"Number of police + ASIO in the Sydney and Bris raids yesterday: 1,000+

Number of “terrorists” imprisoned following yesterdays raids: 1 (only 1)"

Number of media organisations helping to push the notion of "threat"?

All of 'em!

So let's see how it falls so far:
ban all religions
return to a white Australia policy
deport all Muslims
heighten security checks wherever people gather or travel
and hassle, hassle and humbug
and? and?
where was it we were going with all this?
freedom fries, and maybe Damascus and Tehran
Moscow under your starboard wing
Bush the Lesser would have been a good man to watch a baseball game with while sharing a long-neck or three
Tony, too
but what was the Cosmic Pigeon thinking when he gave them power?

Well said, Lego

Poirot,
The alleged "mastermind" is also, unsurprisingly an actor, what's the bet he's safely tucked up in an apartment in Beirut with two mobile phones, one to talk to the crazies in Fairfied and one with ASIO on speed dial.

Jay, if you are referring to al Bagdadi, is it not passing strange that his particular bunch of fanatics have yet to express support for the Palestinians, nor attack any Israeli targets. Could it be, as some French reports suggest, that his real name is Shimon Elliott and that he is linked to Mossad?

In this crazy world of shifting alliances and patently false flag operations, not to mention the ambitions of the deep state in all this, nothing surprises me any more.

Poirot and Halduell: spot on.

Peter: liked your preliminary classification, but you missed out Lego. Easy to ignore I suppose because he has yet to ever say anything worth a mention.

Ah, the chattering classes are well represented on OLO as are the Corporate, Corpulent Crooks.

I suppose that means that OLO is representative but it also means that it never achieves anything. The debates flow back and forth and, in most instances, nobody gives any ground. As well, the same arguments are floated over and over lest anyone be seriously challenged by something new or controversial.

Take the idea of beheading all gods for instance, getting rid of all religions.

What? Take 'Big Daddy Up There' out of the human equation? Humans, with their pedestrian small minds, just can't handle such an idea and those who flog religion or use religion to control the masses don't want folks to seriously question anything.

Debate is a good thing but not when no conclusions are ever reached!

Why expect anyone to change their opinions here, it's not what this place is about, surely?
I see this as an exchange of opinions, a discussion board, not a formal debate with winners and losers, though in truth we do have the odd one of those, don't we?
I feel we have four distinct groups here, overlapping a bit.
Left and Right of politics of course, and then we have the divide between those who would live in an Ideal world with love and feelies all round, and those who , like me, can admire Ideals but live with our feet firmly planted on the planet, we see the world for what it IS, not what we wish it was. Rose-coloured glasses are a fashion accessory, NOT a valid lifestyle!
We need our dreamers of course but that doesn't mean that all dreamers are automatically on the right course, far from it I'm afraid.

Ah, Bruce, are you honestly saying that our world is fine as it is, that the threat of nuclear war doesn't exist, that those who run the world (the Oligarchs, the billionaires, the corporations) are doing an acceptable job?

I don't know which world you live in, Bruce but it certainly doesn't accord with my experience of it. Our world is a cruel parody of what it could be and humans are to blame!

He who would denigrate the dreamers is no asset to the world, brings no alternatives or positives, and stands in the road of evolution.

Do you think we humans should always be little more than greedy, brutish beasts?

"Do you think we humans should always be little more than greedy, brutish beasts?"

Ah...but we have a sophisticated brain...and sophisticate methods of delivering our brutishness.

We're impressed by our sophistication...

Which is why the govt said nothing when Israel was recently blowing babies apart with gay abandon in Gaza...with sophisticated methods of delivering the slaughter.

Bu when dark ages beheadings of Westerners are splashed over the screen, we see human brutality in the raw.

Not sophisticated at all.

It revolts us to our core...but why is slaughter of innocents seemingly okay in one theatre and not in another?

Ah yes David G. enough love will fix anything.
Albeit, those who don't ever feel it, have it wasted on them, in a vain attempt to change outcomes.
Those who get the greatest addictive pleasure from pure evil, and complete domination in all areas, will never give it up, it's far too addictive for those who have already sold their souls to the devil, and now do his work here!
They are like a highly malignant cancer that must be removed, with extreme prejudice. Least it grows and infects/destroys the rest of the body/humankind!
Real love, as opposed to the airy fairy/cowards lament stuff, you seem to be promoting/advocating; includes the ultimate sacrifice of a comparative few, who gave all there was, so the rest of us could live in comparative freedom.
No greater love hath a man than he would lay down his life for another.
Never in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few.
These indeed were our finest hours, and best examples of unconditional love!
Conversely, no amount of unconditional love, would have prevented the equally evil Nazi, from murdering six million non combatant Jews, Men, women and children!
Do you think maybe, those terrified women and children; some clutching tiny suckling infants to their breasts; could have prevented the genocide?
By dancing and singing, Har na nagila, or, Oh Lord Kumbyyar, as they entered the gas chambers, or perhaps, love is all you need; or, love is in the air, everywhere I look around?
What do you think, has turning the other cheek ever done anything but hasten the intended destruction?
Handed virtual carte blanche permission to the oppressor, sick evil doer?
Who always sees silence as consent! And all manner of extreme/unimaginable violence as (sick) entertainment!
Save the BS for those still fooled by it!
Rhrosty.

Rusty, you are a lost cause and, as I said elsewhere, an impediment to human evolution. Your programming is perfect.

Parrot-like, you repeat the Western Capitalistic Mantra over and over. There is never the slightest hint of originality or deep thought.

Your mind, always in neutral, never lets in any light!

Being born on the extreme left (and named after one of its gods, well, its only god at the time), and being naïve and unworldly, I'm puzzled why commentators here and elsewhere who claim to be sort of to the Left, support, or go into bat for, what could be called fascism.

Whatever vast corpus of sins the US may have committed (and various other imperialist powers throughout history: how come nobody ever mentions the Sumerians ? Yeah, why not ?), for a host of reasons (Sunni vs Shia, nationalist dictatorship vs. religious fanaticism, old scores, ethnic differences, etc.) the current struggle in the Middle East is by far the most critical. For the life of me, I can't see anything, not one iota, good or even mild about ISIS, that any 'Left' may wish to defend.

If people are blind to the dangers posed by ISIS, and its fifth-column such as Hizbt-ut-Tahrir in Australia, and can only see the awful dreadfulness of the US (and the possibility that it may, in the future, torture, behead, enslave and forcibly convert others to its capitalist creed), then I can only suggest, most respectfully, that you pull your heads out of your @rses and take a good look around.

Joe

Very interesting to think that the Caliph al Bagdadi is a Mossad agent named Shimon Elliott. While not firmly confirmed one way or another, there is quite a bit suggesting that is the case to be found thru a simple Google search.
Of course with Edward Snowdon and Iran both mentioned as sources, good luck making that stick. But in support it would go some way to explaining how the ISIS brigades could cross miles of desert in northern Syria and Iraq remaining undetected even while driving rather pristine looking white Toyotas and all decked out in the latest jihadi black complete with black flags flying to suddenly appear in Mosul and scare away the Iraqi army. Can anyone imagine al-Assad marching his army across Syria and into Mosul without an eye in the sky spotting them?
Once in Mosul, ISIS managed to capture quite a bit of armour and even more dollars.
Then a couple of beheadings conveniently uploaded onto social media, and hey presto! back we go into Iraq and, finally, Syria.
If this works, I think al-Assad might finally be done for. And then the House of Saud? Or Lebanon? Turkey? Iran will come later, but first this scam has to hold together. Tony seems to have bought in, as has grim-visaged Cameron. but there are the sounds of wheels coming off, a bit like that Malaysian airliner.

James O'Neill, Halduell
I was actually referring to Mohammad Baryalei, the alleged "mastermind" of this week's plot to carry out "demonstration killings' in Sydney.
Otherwise there's considerable speculation about ISIS and their video releases in particular, here's some more fuel for the fire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgOm1JTNSPY&list=UU4unV5BVmWubfAF0Al_AVdw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrSgJWKtQY

If one believes in evolution then it must follow they accept the survival of the fittest component.

If we were all in Iraq facing an impending attack from ISIL, I would put my money on Rhosty having a better chance of surviving (and hence contributing to evolution) than I would on David G and the others who would be running out into the streets with flowers in the hair to greet the invaders.

Who will win the toilet brush prize for this weeks Crazy Left wing Conspiracy Theory?

First off the mark is Poirot, who is implying that Tony Abbott ordered this weeks raids because he wants Australia to become a police state with overwhelming secret police state powers. Nice try, Poirot. But it sounds like you refuse to admit that the Muslims that people like yourself insisted we import are a problem everywhere, and that increasing our Federal Police Powers to combat them was predictable and the entire problem avoidable if we had kept them out.

Next comes Plantagenet with a creative interpretation. Abbott is doing it to distract attention to his budget woes, and it is only going to make the young Muslims in Australia madder. Well Plantagenet, it is certainly making the Australian people madder. How about looking at the problem from the point of view of your own people for once instead of always taking our enemies position? Of course, I am a bit prejudiced. One reason for that was until recently, I walked through Martin Place every morning at 6.05m AM to get to work. And I don't fancy becoming the next star in the Australian version of an ISIS snuff movie.

James O'Neill makes a strong break for the coveted toilet brush with his masterful idea, that the idea to get the local Muslims to behead an Aussie was probably a Mossad plot. He thinks that this is a real possibility, because those Mossad creeps are known to be very sneaky and some Frog media said it must be so. Last I heard, James, the Frogs were bombing ISIS too.

DavidG thinks that the world is being ruined by "oligarchs, billionaries and corporations. The only thing wrong with that, is that David wants to live in the western world full of oligarchs, billionaries and corporations.

Drum roll.

I think the toilet brush goes to Plantagenet. Good work, Planny. You really deserve this prize. I am sure your reflexive anti Americanism was a great help to your attaining the winners laurals.

For those interested in an insightful analysis of the theatricals being played out this week by Abbott, the "security" services and the increasingly militarised version of the Police, I commend Richard Ackland's piece in today's Guardian Australia on line.

More common sense there in a short article than reams of fantasy about our imminent demise at the hands of a very small handful of alleged local fanatics. Ackland quotes the late Aneurin Bevan on why it wasn't necessary to censor the local press: "one has no need to muzzle sheep".

The frantic flailing and wailing of some of the above commentators here on OLO makes sheep a very good metaphor, or perhaps Bjelke Peterson's headless chooks.

Halduell/Arjay/Waleed,

" .... a couple of beheadings" ? Is that all you can go on about ? Not the thousands of Iraqi prisoners murdered ? Not the thousands of Yazidis butchered ? The children beheaded ? The women enslaved ? The ancient Christians, who have never butchered anyone ? The hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis, Turkmens and Kurds driven out of their homes ?

So where have the US butchered and enslaved and driven out thousands of innocent people in this conflict ?

What a bunch of contemptible opportunists some of you have become. Left and extreme Right, it's hard to tell the difference these days.

And then scraping the bottom of some sh!tty barrel, in order to wriggle out of your apologies for ISIS, some of you on the once-Left, come up with the notion that al-Baghdadi is actually a Jew. So the Jews are to blame for all those massacres !

You turn my stomach.

Joe

Hi Joe-Loudmouth

Much of what you say is true. My main concern with Western “boots…” is that wherever the US goes and Australia follows, previously non-aligned Muslims join the radicals and oppose Western forces. The fighting lasts for years until the West has the sense to withdraw - as it previously did in Iraq, is doing in Afghanistan – even earlier did in Vietnam. The alternative is to fight forever.

Also Western "boots..." encourages the Iraqi and Afghan armies to give up, surrender or just sit around. No amount of Western arms or training seems to work.

I agree that its true that the US has many sins but even truer that ISIL (which is not a US creation) is far worse.

Claims that ISIL’s boss is Jewish are bizarre. The ISIL rank and file would dislike Jews even more than Christians or Shiites. Noting that Israel has backed the Kurds (now ISIL's main local enemy in Iraq) since 2003 .
---

G'dayBruce

No worries mate. You may be WRONG but you’ve been given a Mentioned in Dispatches and two minties.
--

Hi halduell

Yes Abbott’s more ambitious military ideas (particularly in Ukraine) have actually been held back by Obama’s comparative moderation. Abbott is clearly frustrated that Obama is not a Bush dynasty Republican.
--

Hi James O'Neill

Yep there’s much in Ackland’s article which is http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/19/sydney-dawn-counter-terrorism-raids-why-now-and-why-so-few-answers

ISIL’s Boss man seems much into carving out a viable economic state (paid for by oil and protection money) to fund territorial expansion and terrorism. More like a young Gaddafi or Saddam than a bin Laden.

DG, I don't know how you came by the assumption that I'm in the least happy with the world the way it is, no realist could be.
I simply don't delude myself that feelgoody lovehugs among the privileged West will ever achieve anything concrete.
Meetings and street-marches may in time achieve change locally, maybe, but they have never and will never dissuade the nasty people with the guns to change their ways.
Put bleakly, far too many of our supposed intelligentsia seem to have their heads so full of Heaven they're no Earthly use!

Pete,
Ackland's article is on the money, the fraud squad and ATO could have handled the money exchange and the Middle Eastern crime squad the threats to kill, quietly and discretely like they usually do.
The only thing is that it's difficult to be discrete in those areas, as soon as Police enter their neighbourhoods the inhabitants start firing off text messages to all the local hotheads and a simple arrest warrant turns into a public order issue where the riot squad have to deal with dozens of bystanders and protestors trying to intimidate and obstruct the Police.
Unless you're going to have plain clothes officers in white vans pouncing on people when the opportunity arises and then speeding away before anyone notices the troops and the helicopters are what's needed, these aren't normal suburban streets where people are content to peep through the curtains or stand at their gate in their dressing gowns and watch the drama.

Welcome to this rushed and unplanned mass immigration boost and “multicultural policies”, fronted and sold to public as a world changing egalitarian and human rights project but actually motivated almost entirely by big business and vulgar levels of greed and selfish disregard for the world’s future generations [since they will not be around to suffer any consequences].

I like the notion that all people are worth equal and should be given maximum chances to live in dignity and freedom. However this does not as some rule embedded in the physics of the universe mean that ANY road that looks like it will lead to this utopia [e.g. our current migration and multicultural plans] is genuine or even honest, and especially it does not mean that no attempt like these should be challenged.

What’s next?
If Australia ands up at war with India to attempt to force India to stop enslaving hundreds of millions of people and to start being serious about rights and morals, will our Indian community vote to vetoe our national voice because they hold a truer allegiance to some place they may have never been to?
Racism and tribalism is the ingredient in the muslim extremist thing and will be in many more to come from numerous different tribes and cultures that may still have a bigoted and racist supremacist outlook.

Get this you morons.Most wars are bankers wars,since wars make the profits that enable the most power for their elite fascists.

Who created Saddham ? It was the USA but Saddham got too ambitious and started trading oil in EUROS, thus undermining the US $.Henry Kissenger in 1971 who came up with the idea of the Petro $ thus eliminating gold as the backing for money. This was the beginning of huge inflation.
A little while ago both China and Russia were part of this concept of a New World Order, however the USA went into over drive on money printing trying to reduce their debt to the rest of the world but mostly to China.

China has used US $ to buy lots of gold to off set this US debt of $3 trillion. This is why China and Russia are now being demonised. They want their own BRICS development bank ,free of Western debt slavery.

Matthew S,
The problem is that we have a situation where every ethnic group is recognised and attended to by the state except for the native born White majority, you can't expect such a society to succeed.
Where are our councils of elders?
Where are the pro White advocates on the multicultural bodies?
Where are the explicitly White cultural groups at the multicultural festivals?
Talk to people of other ethnic groups and they are mystified by the way Whites are forced by social convention and ultimately the law to deny or deprecate their own way of life and traditions in their own country

We are a distinct ethnic group of the southern hemisphere, if a White Uruguayan or Argentine or a Boer person emigrates here they are recognised under multiculturalism but we're not, that to me is a broken system and anyone who supports it has a broken brain.

Hi Jay Of Melbourne

Your 5.58 comment was really onto something which hadn't occured to me. That is a large scale simultaneous policing sweep a la Syd and Bris (if it could remain secure) was the best way to go.

As a Scotsman dunno worry bout the Arjay-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_banking_family_of_England point of view. He be in the banking buzinezz :)

While I've first thought 800 police + Xnumber others was excessive it makes mass sweep sense even if 1 or 2 were only charged. All those making up their minds were sent a rather definite message.

Regarding your 7.44 comment - the white tribe are not forsaken. Looking at Parliament, the Police force and Judiciary what do you see?

All in all its better that hard inoculation go on with few arrests rather than a clean-up with many arrests after bombs and several beheadings go on.

Its all in pro-active policing.

Nighty Nite

Pete your plantagenets ie{platitudes)are falling on deaf ears. People are awakening.

JoM, you are aware aren't you, that White skin' isn't a culture, religion or race as such, it is just one of many skin colours in humans?

I think you will find like-minded white-loving people in either the Nazi party or the Ku Klux Klan in either Germany or America (possibly elsewhere as well).
Why not give us all a break and pop over and join those good ol' boys?

Jim Rickards author of 'The Death of Money' is saying like many others the next economic collapse will be nothing like ever before in our history. When the US $ collapses war will be their solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYW5OGWfqJc

Hey Arjay, you are absolutely right!

Here is another little tale for you to ad to your US conspiracy theories.

The Indian Ocean tsunami killed 1.7 million Muslims and devastated many Muslim countries causing billions of dollars in damage. BUT IT DID NOT AFFECT THE US BASE OF DIEGO GARCIA. The only possible explanation for that, is that the USA must have detonated a hydrogen bomb in the Indian Ocean to create the tsunami after first making Diego Garcia tsunami proof.

The reason why the US must have done it was to kill as many Muslims as possible and take over their lands.

Onya Arjay, I am glad you are on the US haters side and not ours.

Lego, when you are holding the dying, badly burned body of one of your children or grandchildren, I hope you will remember the endless comments you have made praising the U.S. in its objective of gaining control of the world.

Yes, the dying child did not ask for what has happened to him or her but left it in the hands of the adults who, like you, applauded the Americans at every turn, even when it was obvious that they were getting ready to confront Russia militarily, then China.

Try to see yourself lowering the shuddering body to the ground, laying it gently on the blackened soil. You will be crying, Lego, and gone will be your endless apologies for U.S. imperialism.

"God damn, they tricked me," you'll whisper softly. "God damn them! I'm sorry my child," you'll say but it'll be too late.

And then you'll ask, "How could I be so blind?"

No one will answer you, Lego.

suse,
Who said anything about skin colour? Not me, I'm talking about may ethnic group, people like you used to say exactly the same things about Aboriginals "Well they don't really have a culture worth talking about, they're a dying people, they don't have the written word or organised religion so they're not really a society in their own right".
If I say White Australian everyone knows I'm talking about my ethnic group, you just choose to be anti White because you're a coward...or nuts..or something.

Pete,
When I look at the Police and the Parliament I see a bunch of people bound by obligations to two masters, one a rich old lady who lives in London while the other goes by the collective name "Knesset".
The Australian politician doesn't even wait for the Zionists to tell him to jump much less ask "How high", he just starts leaping up and down as soon as they enter the room and tries to outdo his fellow bouncing fools in height and technique until asked to sit down.
Cory Bernardi and Christopher Pyne in particular must have steel springs in their shins.

LEGO,James Rickards in an insider who works with the CIA ,Pentagon and advises the Central Bankers.

I think he knows a tad more than you. If you have to flaunt your ignorance at least try backing them up with a modicum of logic and facts. Read his book called,' The Death of Money.'

David,

I hope that ISIS gives people in Iraq - the kafirs - that moment with their child before they saw off its head, and then shoot the father and grandmother, before taking off the mother into sex slavery for the boys in Syria.

Usefuls are really so contemptible.

Joe

JoM "Who said anything about skin colour? Not me,"

Lol!
You talk about nothing else than 'white' in almost every one of your posts JoM.
If, as you say, you are talking about your ethnic group, then many people of different skin colours can also have close relatives or ancestors from that ethnic group.
Will you include them in your special ethnic group?

As far as I am concerned, anyone who chooses to kill a group of others is a terrorist, and I would be just as terrified for my life if a white-skinned person ran towards me with a machine gun, as I would with any other skin colour or 'ethnic group'...

A brilliant observation, Suse. A trained killer, whether white or brindle, is a terrorist who should be feared.

Australians in Hornets are also terrorists as are Yanks in Tanks, Brits in Warships, and Men who fire depleted uranium Munitions!

Yes indeed DavidG.
The Russian separatists (no doubt mainly 'white'!) who shot down the Malaysia airlines plane earlier this year spring immediately to mind....

Is the Government exploiting Thursday's terrorism raids by placing terrorism legislation before Parliament this week? Beagle Bobbing Shorten is likely to yes-boss all of these new laws. Excerpts of what has been reported on SBS today:

“police could - without a warrant - arrest someone simply on suspicion of committing a terrorism offense.

The changes will also make it easier for police to apply control orders to limit the movement and activities of people suspected of being involved in terrorism.

But…Brandis says the new legislation will be measured and that there will be safeguards to ensure the laws will not target any particular group.

[Brandis said] "I will expect that Labor will support this provision. [Brandis] lashed out at "red herring" claims that the new laws would allow for torture.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/09/21/backlash-over-plan-strengthen-terrorism-law

Can we bring this post back to the original article and the serious questions that were posed. Unfortunately it has provided yet another opportunity for the seriously bigoted and ignorant to indulge in one of their all too common and predictable rants.

Are our historical memories so short? There was no ISIL or al Qaeda in Iraq or Syria before we joined the US in an illegal invasion based on a whole series of self serving lies. Saddam may have been a bastard, but there was no sectarian warfare, no suicide bombers, no depleted uranium, and no foreign troops despoiling one of the world's most ancient civilisations. All that changed in 2003.

Nine years of occupation were not exactly covered in glory and the place was an even bigger mess when we left. Some might argue that was the intention in the first place, given the expanded role of western oil companies, the threat to the dollar safely diminished, and the Yinon plan of breaking up the Middle East into small warring factions well on its way to completion.

Now we are going back in, yet again at the behest of the Americans who caused the mess in the first place. What sane person would seriously expect a better result this time? Even if Obama's ostensible mission to "degrade and destroy" ISIS is achieved, what is to prevent yet another bunch of fanatics popping up and pointing, with more than a little justification, at the Crusaders doing their imperialist thing again for nobody's benefit than their own.

When one adds to the mix the fact that ISIS and many like groups before it are creations in one form or another of the Americans, timely resurrections are almost guaranteed. In the meantime Australia introduces yet more repressive laws, all justified under the mantra of "keeping us safe from terrorism".

A number of posters pose the question of what else can one do than what we are doing. Well, there are a lot of options. Stop repeating the mistakes of the past would be a very good start.

James O'Neill first sniffs that the people he doesn't like are causing OLO posts to go off topic, and then he goes off topic himself with his own particular "hate the USA" rants.

The USA had just as much right to invade Iraq as it did to invade Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. You ask if we are unable to remember the mistakes of the past, and I say that is exactly what we have done. We are not going to sit by and let military dictators with embark on wars of conquest without nipping their aspirations in the bud. Saddam Hussein had become a threat to world peace and a threat to the vital oil supplies from the middle east to the rest of the world.

My take is, that the whole world secretly applauded the yanks while keeping their distance when it came to helping them, because they did not want to get their hands dirty doing what needed to be done.

Al Qaida and ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, and Jemiah Islamiah are not inventions of the USA. They are manifestations of Muslim militancy and religious bigotry. They are the result of a proud but failing religious civilisation which can not understand why it's God has forsaken them and allowed them to become the most poverty stricken civilisation on Earth. Instead of reforming their religion, the stupid bastards think that Allah has abandoned them because THEY ARE NOT RELIGIOUS ENOUGH.

That is why the whole Islamic world is becoming fundamentalist, and the fundamentals of Islam are a real problem. Because it is the most violence endorsing and intolerant religion around.

The western intellectuals who consider themselves to be the children of Voltaire and Thomas Paine should by rights be cheering on the USA and watching in glee at the death throws of Islam. But today's crop of psuedo-intellectuals are not real smart and rather incredibly, go into bat for religious stupidity while sneering at the USA, the leader of the secular western democracies. It is enough to make Voltaire turn in his grave.

Jay of Melbourne - the topic of this thread heading was "Are Australia's actions in Iraq boosting revenge terrorism?"

I'm baffled how it evolved, for you, into a discussion of how hard done by the white people are in Australia.

"Where are the pro White advocates on the multicultural bodies?
Where are the explicitly White cultural groups at the multicultural festivals?"

And then this gem - We are a distinct ethnic group of the southern hemisphere. Can you please define what qualifies one to be included in you concept of the white ethnic group. I've got white skin, my ancestry is Scottish, English and possibly a dab of French but I was borne outside of Australia. Do I qualify?

I wonder if perhap you mistakenly identifying the Australian bogan as a distinct ethnic group to which you belong?

Australian action in creating terrorists, or should I say Abbott and Shorten is a definate YES, also Gillard,we must not let her off the hook, It is not the Australian people, only the Government, we did not give Abbott a pre election mandate to go to war with anyone.
Abbott is a warmonger, no soonere had flight MH17 hit the ground than Russia was the culprit, do not open your big mouth until you are a 100% sure, we must remember although not hi-lited in the West a fighter jet was in the vicinity at that time with a machine gun (Malaysian post), China is also on his hit list, of course with the other warmongering country the US.
Religion is the cause of nearly all strife in this world, it is created by indoctrination from adult to child, hate creates more hate in the gullible. Two adopted pre muslim children living nearby do not recognise that religion because their new parents are not of that faith, so adults create the problem in the first place.
Demonstrations will soon become illegal under the Abbott Government, as this type of getting your views across could be harbouring all sorts of terrorists, big brother will now be watching your every move, of course torture will be the order of the day although denied by Government.
When in Morocco a few years back the US was hated by them, Australia was a loved country, but I daresay owing to the last two Governments and crawling up the US backside we have now joined the US.
Yes! Abbott has created a country for terrorism and we are now I daresay on their hit list, but terrorists don't use the ordinary Australian people to prove a point, get to the ones who have created the problem.

David G - you really are confused: "Australians in Hornets are also terrorists as are Yanks in Tanks, Brits in Warships, and Men who fire depleted uranium Munitions!"

But assuming you are correct then what's the problem, it's just a bunch of terrorist fighting each other. Hopefully in the process ISIL will get eliminated.

What's your take on the War Against Fascism, commonly referred to as World War II? Was it just a bunch of greedy Imperialists picking on Germany, or was there a just cause worth fighting for?

Theories are ludicrous and pernicious that ISIL is led by a Jewish person or that the West created al Qaeda and ISIL. Extremist Muslims make their own vicious groups like AQ and ISIL.

My main concern with Western “boots on the ground" is that wherever the US goes and Australia follows, previously moderate Muslims join the extremists and then oppose Western forces. Insurgent warfare lasts for years until the West has the sense to withdraw - as it previously did in Iraq, is doing in Afghanistan – even earlier did in Vietnam. The alternative is to fight forever.

Also Western "boots..." encourages Iraqi and Afghan leaders to live on a Western gravy-train with escape to the West and live in luxury when the s--t hits the fan. Meanwhile Western backed Iraqi and Afghan armies sit around and, left to themselves, surrender to ISIL and the Taliban. No amount of Western arms and training seems to work on unmotivated Iraqi and Afghan Army and police.

Conservative hippie,
Ha! In the 1940's David would have been interned whichever side he was on, if he'd been born German he'd have supported the Bolsheviks, if he'd been born in the U.S he'd have supported the Japanese.
David and Suse and the others are just butthurt because their way of life has come to an end, their ideologies have failed and they have nothing to contribute to society these days.
Here's a little snapshot of what multiculturalism looks like in 2014, note the very multicultural,conservative anti Mosque group facing off against what appears to be a bunch of White women who don't seem to see the irony in singing along with "I am, you are,we are Australian", it's just too funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrQ0AHsoaZU
They flooded the country with people from conservative, religious societies and expected that they'd all turn into obedient Liberal minded consumers but to the surprise of no-one most of them turned out to be...drum roll..conservative and religious.

I don't consider myself a member of Action Man Abbott's Team Australia but Team America http://youtu.be/TmoeZHnOJKA?list=PLE689ECC5876D5566 .

An inspriring clip of our SAS in the Middle East http://youtu.be/U8XrE0FSQv4?list=PLE689ECC5876D5566

If every able person in the Middle East had a job and $100 a day take home pay, there would be no unrest, no rebels and no fighting.

plantagenet, "An inspriring(sic) clip of our SAS in the Middle East [cut]"

That video was unnecessary to the rather shabby political point you were scoring.

Doubtless in certain quarters it is de rigueur to show elitist contempt and ridicule the men and women who volunteer and serve.

Grubby.

Suse,CH,
This "confusion" about who's White and who isn't is a false contradiction which only exists on the internet, these conversations don't happen in the real world.
You've constructed this silly counter argument to an observation about multiculturalism merely because talking about race makes you uncomfortable.
White is an ethnic identity, White Nationalism is an identitarian movement, the only test is in if you sincerely claim that identity, clearly you don't so no, you're not White. What proportion of Australians are White by that definition I wonder? Not many and that's our challenge, identity first, politics comes much later, if at all.
In the real world there's no confusion around race, bi racial or mixed race people identify as such and nobody pretends to be something they're not.
We White Nationalists don't question anyone else's ethnic identity, why do you feel the need to do so?

@onthebeach

Time to get a sense of humour like people in the SAS.

Naughty
---

On Thursday it appears police tipped off the media immediately beforehand, allowing the media to be on the scene for the "perp[etrator] walk", where an arrested suspect is paraded to the waiting media to allow photographs and video to be taken.

In its coverage of the event, one Sydney tabloid newspaper seemed little concerned about the notions of the presumption of innocence and natural justice, describing the suspects as "bloodthirsty fanatics … planning multiple beheadings of innocent Australians". Fair trial possible?

see http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-editorial/sledgehammer-no-way-to-respond-to-terror-threats-20140919-10ja6a.html

Sick'em, Jay. Pacifying pacifists is my favourite sport, too.

To Plantagenet.

The USA is friendly with all the "moderate" Gulf States, especially Kuwait, who see the USA as their protectors. The Kurds also seem to be very friendly with the yanks. The Shiites in Iraq are in an odd position. However much they despise all westerners, they have to admit that the USA toppled Saddam who had been oppressing them and using them as cannon fodder for decades. That did not stop the Shiite militias from shooting at the USA when they had the chance. But then they are Muslims and not real smart. They believed their stupid Mullah's who told them the yanks were conquerors who wanted to steal their oil. If they had held their fire and supported the yanks, they would have become the new leaders of Iraq through the general election a lot faster.

Now the Shiites have got a problem. They refused to listen to American advice and instead decided to oppress the Sunnis. ISIS is a Sunni religious nutcase organisation which is taking over Sunni areas in Iraq and claiming to be the protectors of all Sunnis. To what extent the local Sunnis support them, I just don't know. But I suspect that a few months of real Sharia is making the somewhat westernised Sunni populations feeling like Christian scientists with appendicitis.

Western bombers flying in support of the Kurds, the Shiite militias and the Iraqi Army could well send the lot of them fleeing back to Syria. The Kurds fight well, the Shiite militias fight very well, (ask the yanks from Fallujah) and the Iraqi Army can be trained to fight well. At the moment, the Iraqi Army is little more than a job centre for unemployed and unemployable Iraqi males.

Hopefully, the stupid Shiite government of Iraq will see the light and now rule Iraq for the benefit of all Iraqis instead of encouraging rebellion by sticking it to the Sunnis.

plantagenet,

It is such a cop-out for you to say dismissively that the SAS should have a sense of humour.

The issue however is your contempt and disrespect for serving SAS servicemen and servicewomen, now overseas and in harms way. They volunteer, but they risk their lives serving where they are ordered by government. They are real, flesh and blood, and their loved ones to whom they may never return are real and have feelings too.

It was your choice to include that video which was irrelevant and quite unnecessary. Why? What was your point?

Jay of Melb - there is no confusion what colour my skin is and what race that makes me. I don't need you and your White Supremist buddies defining whether or not I'm white because I might have an occasion to express compassion for people of another colour or culture.

Your problem is you obviously don't know or don't agree with the accepted definition of ethnic: "relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition."

Ethnicity has nothing to do with skin colour.

By your narrow minded view, if a white 3rd generation Australian marries another 3rd generation Australian who happens to be Chinese, Italian, or Indian has children, the children will not be true Australians as their skin will be tinted, or tainted in your world.

The white chooks are running around the hen house crying out, 'The terrible black chooks are coming to take our perches and our food and mount our females! They must be killed!'

In another place the black chooks are shrieking, 'The white chooks are taking over. They want to enslave us, steal and plunder what we have, do obscene things to our hens! They must be killed!'

If there was a god, he would look down from on high and say, 'Such profound stupidity. I'll send a flood and drown all those silly, foolish chooks, then I'll create something with brains who will create a paradise on Earth!'

"Now the Shiites have got a problem. They refused to listen to American advice and instead decided to oppress the Sunnis...."

WELL...golly gee...isn't that a surprise!

(My cat, Molly, even predicted that outcome in 2003)

Btw, stuntboy Abbott has been waxing lyrical about "humanitarian" missions, big noting the govt's ideals and such like. That is a good thing, in general...except he appears to only be interested in such missions if he can milk them to the max:

http://newmatilda.com/2014/09/18/tony-abbott-ended-aid-iraq-months-calling-humanitarian-intervention

"Australia's 'humanitarian mission' in Iraq includes troops and Super Hornets. It comes just months after our aid budget to the troubled nation was cut to zero."

"In a move at odds with the Coalition’s newfound concern for the people of Iraq, Australia’s development aid to the country wound down to zero this year, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has confirmed.

“In line with the Australian Government’s refocusing of the aid program to the Indo-Pacific region, Australia has now ended its development aid program in Iraq,” a DFAT spokesperson said."

"After assuming office, the Coalition took the unusual step of implementing its aid cuts immediately, stripping $650 million from the budget handed down by Labor and reducing the amount assigned to Iraq from $16 million to just $3.7 million.

At this year’s Budget, that amount was reduced to zero."

So the govt apparently couldn't have given a toss about Iraq's situation....until this current debacle presented them with a 24 carat diversion.

Slow clap.....

Australian and other international action, and also inaction to solve fundamental causes of unrest, is boosting terrorism into a state of war.
Where is debate about alternative and peaceful solutions?

The neo-con war-hawks in Washington, Canberra, Britain, France, etc, don't care about alternatives to war and/or peace.

They want a world where war rages seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day.

War shows which nations have big gonads, hairy chests, no brains, and a deep love of killing, destroying and plundering!

ASIO and USA security best understand war mongering these days will impact everybody.
All troubled people need to see hope ahead.
If no hope can be seen the hopelessness could lead to stupidity such such as wiping ebola virus around an airport terminal where aircraft are already departing for whatever country.
The G20 should immediately call for economic solutions that will lead to peace and prosperity.
This is not the world it used to be.
From my point of view the whole world ocean is now virtually empty of accessible/available seafood. River fish supply is also devastated.
Food shortages and food riots and unrest and immune system dysfunction with a world population of over 7 billion, is unprecedented.
If WW3 begins and food transport and health breaks down then the war mongers and members of their families will also be seriously or fatally impacted.
Best strive for peace and prosperity immediately and via the G20.

Hi JF Aus

Re your "Where is debate about alternative and peaceful solutions?"

David G's is a good response. Also politicians who are Real Men (Johnny Howard in 2003 and now Abbott) prefer warlike prescriptions.
---

Regarding non-warlike measures:

Instead of Invasion of Iraq then Syria how about:

- Making sure Bali and Jakarta are not asleep at the counter-terrorist wheel again.

- our direct support for a more inclusive (Sunni and Shiite and Kurdish) government in Baghdad.

- cutting the flow of financing to ISIL from oil rich Gulf States.

- applying pressure on Turkey to close the border to flows of foreign fighters.

- working with to regional actors to starve ISIL of more weapons.
--

@onthebeach

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." said Winston Churchill.

Pete,
I was thinking about the Sydney and Brisbane raids at work today and came to the conclusion that, insofar as it affects us at all shouldn't the focus in the fight against domestic terrorism be on better parental supervision of their teenagers internet usage?
Most of the guys scooped up in the raids were very young, I heard several were 15-17 years old, the fact that they're looking to join a gang is unsurprising and I don't see it as going much deeper than that.
As a White Nationalist I'm only too aware of the way the darker elements moving about the internet work in flipping off the circuit breakers in the minds of the young, the lonely and the feeble minded and how easily they can be goaded into committing crimes.
How about some other proposals:
Parenting classes and lessons in how to use the internet for migrant adults whose teens have been identified as at risk from online contact with the Jihadi underground.
A re structuring of the Australian media content rules to 90% local content on TV and radio and futher, more generous tax incentives for local content producers and public access.
An end to the indulgence by educators and youth workers of the "Gangsta" style and format in outreach work, no more grafitti walls and hip hop workshops.

Hi JF Aus,

You might be onto something. Perhaps the Greens et al. could send a Peace Contingent to the ISIS-held areas, to try to talk them to see the value of resolving disputes peacefully and living in harmony with other people.

Good luck ! You might need a sort of two-stage coffin, though.

Meanwhile, down here on Earth, some of us realise that adherents to a vile ideology of death and destruction, using or misusing a religious text written in the seventh and eight centuries, with later bits tacked on, are killing and enslaving tens of thousands at this very moment.

Whether or not their beliefs are in accord with Shari'a is irrelevant to an extent: they are playing out a fantasy in which inhuman practices are employed deliberately, as if they will find favour with their god.

If they are right about the agreement of their barbarous beliefs with Shari'a, then Shari'a is vile, a blight on modern society. If they aren't, then 'moderate' Muslims, if such exist, have a heavy responsibility to oppose it, from within. There's not a hell of a lot non-Muslims can do, except give them every encouragement we can. Apart from the military option, of course, to hold the worst excesses in Iraq and Syria (and Nigeria and Somalia and Yemen and Libya and Mali and Afghanistan) back as much as possible.

It's up to 'moderates', if they exist, to prove that Islam can be a religion of peace.

Joe

One only hopes that when a nuclear war breaks out, which is in the making , it will get rid of the warmongering monied upper class and especially Governments that create wars. Having spoken to many people today they all agreed that Abbott now has created terrorism in Australia and it will get worse from now on, by following the USA into Iraq

Let's say we put the blame on the Silver Budgie, for back in 1983 an Attack Class Patrol Boat skipper off the coast of WA let his Buffer rip off a few belts of .50 cal into the hull of a (as we now call them) - 'SIEV'. Said skipper was keel hauled and de-moted to serve his penances at RAN shore establishments for a number of years.

Would an ongoing policy of deterring SIEVS, by sinking them back then, have had any bearing on today's problems in Australia ?

Hi Joe,
I was thinking more of a G20 approach to stimulating economies worldwide through development of new industry business and employment to regenerate biodiversity associated with the water ecosystems on this planet.
Green politics should be into that already but they have their radical stop this stop that stop everything approach.

A new industry regenerating biodiversity and associated new fiscal policy would be virtually opposite to present policy of creating GDP and GNP from exploiting and destroying natural resources.
For example sanitation and proper sewage treatment is needed to reduce the nutrient loading feeding algae that is destroying ocean food web nurseries. `
It's already possible to use nutrients from sewage to produce algae for biofuel for jet aircraft and vessels.

There is massive unemployment in the Middle East and indeed worldwide.
Hard times cause unrest. Hunger irritates people.
Suicide bombers are not old people, usually they are the discouraged desperate youth.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/egm-adolescents/roudi.pdf

The open ocean is not presently managed, nor are the ecosystems on which ocean life depends. There is a need to rehabilitate nature on this planet, is there not? The task is presently not impossible, though war would stop it happening.

Think about productive infrastructure.
Independent evidence of substance from my point of view indicates possibility and opportunity to develop a northern Qld wet season water harvesting system with aqueduct to upper catchment of the Darling River that already runs to the water-starved Coorong ecosystem in SA.
The Middle East and most countries have similar water management and employment needs.
Think of food and fibre production and water for wetlands along the way, instead of stopping everything or starting war.
I have suggested the project to the Abbott Hockey camp via my local MP.
I will be watching to see wt the 2014 Brisbane G20 achieves.

Is all that too much to comprehend as a way of trying to generate employment and income instead of having to cope with revenge and worsening terrorism?

No it was not a surprise, Poirot.

Muslims are not noted for any tolerance of minorities and Iraq and Indonesia re at this moment the only Muslim democracies in extant.

I suppose the Americans were just as foolish as you in thinking that the Muslim Iraqis have the maturity to rule themselves as a nation without collapsing into anarchy. You only have to look at how they behave in Australia to figure out that these people could not run a lamington stall at the local school fete without sticking AK 47's into somebodies faces and acting macho.

Both Bush and Obama have both made statements claiming that terrorism is not related to Islam. Perhaps they should ask the boys in ISIS about that quaint bit of logic bgecause I am sure that the ISIS Jihadis would think that idea to be insane.

As a matter of fact, the poor old ISIS characters must be wondering what else they have to do to make the infidels realise that terrorism and Islam are linked? How many times does some terrorist loony have to shout "Alahu Akhabar!" as he cuts off some poor slobs head or guns down US soldiers in US bases in America to get their point across?

Islam is the problem, Poiriot, not America. The Americans are not shooting schoolgirls in the face to stop them going to school. The Americans are not demanding that a million Iraqi women in ISIS controlled areas must report to have their genitals removed. The USA is not ethnically cleansing anyone. The USA is not putting bombs on airliners or flying airliners into buildings. The USA is not killing Olympians at the Olympic Games. The Americans are not running down British Soldiers and cutting off their heads. The Americans did not invent the suicide bomber.

The Muslims do that. And all you can do is be an apologist for their behaviour and blame everything that goes wrong in the dysfunctional Islamic world on the Americans.

Thanks JF Aus,

Yes, you're right, I might have jumped the gun a bit. The attraction of fun-brutal, exciting-yet-holy, causes has to be counteracted in every way possible, militarily, ideologically AND economically, as you suggest. But I wonder if any initiative to improve employment prospects in the Middle east may need to, literally, wait for the dust to settle ?

And come to think of it, why aren't the Oil states, the Saudis especially, doing anything along those lines ? Instead of idiotic 600-metre buildings, and snow-fields in the desert, and obscene island-building for the ultra-rich, why not pump funds into village and town and urban enterprises across the Middle East ? Okay, into institutes for training people to initiate and work in enterprises across the Middle East ?

People in that region are as intelligent as anybody else - well, apart from a preference for beheadings and a bit of slavery here and there. But surely there must be enterprising people there - some of them have migrated to Australia, to our great benefit.

So why isn't huge pressure being put on some of the richer countries in the Middle east, especially Saudi Arabia, not only to contribute militarily to defeat ISIS but to help build the Middle East ? Is it a lost cause ? Are they as backward as ISIS ? Then we're in for a long war.

Joe

Hi Jay Of Melbourne

Interesting ideas. But parents would have their work cut out even monitoring daily hopping across 100s of innocuous titled websites by an almost-adult-teenager on PC or laptop - let alone iPhone use. Due to the very specific nature of what might be considered harmful security-wise in teenager's internet usage security services are rightly doing much of the targeted monitoring.

Perhaps there is some security thinking behind some community programs already. I don't think average "educators and youth workers" can be blamed for not being security minded.

Unfortunately people like Murdoch effectively dictate local content rules because Abbott relies on Murdoch's support during Re-Election Time.
---

@Albie Manton in Darwin

WTF are U talking about? Hawkey may have been a true rootrat but I think it was more Keating who populated Western Sydney.

Looks like the OLO article has triggered something:

Not only Bobble Head* Bill Shorten's laboured statement in Parliament today that there's no Australia in Iraq - terrorism at home link.

But also Crikey and the Guardian reporting today http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/sep/22/tony-abbott-to-deliver-a-national-security-update-politics-live :

"2.02pm AEST
One more worthy offering in the mix today which I neglected in the post before last, Crikey’s Bernard Keane is reporting that the AFP has been “gagged by the government from commenting on the link between prime minister Tony Abbott’s decision to return to war in Iraq and the increased terrorism threat.” Keane says the AFP has declined to answer specific questions on this subject, referring inquiries to Brandis’ department. That piece is paywalled.

"The context is Asio has said recently that Australia’s involvement in Iraq doesn’t increase the domestic national security threat risk. Experience from 2003 suggests otherwise. Former AFP head Mick Keelty dared to suggest a link between the two things in 2004 and was soundly slapped by the Howard government for his pains."

Note the similarity of the last para above with the OLO article.

* Bobble Head is where Abbott drives the car while Bobble Head Bill Shorten is that funny doll looking through the back window http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/One-Puppy-Dog-Beagle-Dog-Bobbing-Bobble-Head-Doll-Toy-/171091074309 .

OLO’s anti-Muslims

If reports are true that New Zealand might adopt the Silver Fern Flag its time to be alert - maybe even alarmed. The flag is black with a silver fern that is shaped like a knife http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fern_flag .

Even more alarming would be the version designed by one Cameron Sanders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fern_flag#mediaviewer/File:Silver_Fern_flag.svg

Will new New Zealand be known as Kiwistan?

To OLO's Muslim apologists.

The subject of this topic is "will terrorism in Australia increase because of Australian intervention in Iraq?"

The answer is "yes."

The reason why terrorism in Australia will increase is because the overwhelming majority of the Muslims in Australia support one form of Muslim terror group or another. All Muslims must agree that Jihad is the way to go to attain a worldwide Muslim caliphate or else they are not really Muslims at all. It would be like a Ku Klux Klansmen saying that negroes were equal to whites, or Nazis saying that Jews are not an inferior race.

Now, either we all buy prayer mats and face Mecca we had better start realising that Islam is the problem. We were absolutely stupid to allow our enemies to cross our moat and set up bases in our own keeps. At present Muslims are very over represented in serious crime against our people and while living on our welfare system, which appears to me to underline their contempt for us.

There is some stupid idea that Tony Abbott is trying to implement a police state in Australia. This is total loony tunes but it just goes to show how far Muslim apologists will go to dream up fanciful scenarios to support their dreamtime multiculturalism instead of coming to terms with the reality they do not want to see. It equates in total stupidity to the tale recounted by some sporting shooters who claimed that john Howard who used an SAS type to kill 35 people at Port Arthur so that he could disarm the Australian population. Loony tunes.

Australia is now at war with a terrorist organisation which has it's declared intention to destroy the western world and put in it's place a religious dictatorship. I find it amazing that tiose who consider themselves the children of Voltaire and Thomas Paine are lining up with the terrosits and making excuses for them, while simultaneously denouncing as a police state their own democratically elected secular government that has declared it will fight the terrorists.

Hi LEGO,

Yes, the war against ISIS terrorists has to be fought on (at least) three fronts -

* militarily, by the US and the coalition, with countries in the Middle East 'persuaded' to play much larger roles than they currently do;

* ideologically, in two ways -

** within Islam, between those (usually termed 'moderate' Muslims) who try to live by and promote the pre-Medina verses of the Koran (when Muhammad was militarily weak), and those supporting terrorism one way or another who use the post-Medina verses to justify butchery and the extermination of non-Muslims and non-the-right-sort-of-Muslims (when Muhammad was militarily dominant);

and

** ultimately, between the range of 'Western' or post-Enlightenment values, including socialism, and the core values of the Koran.

Yes, this is going to be a very long struggle, perhaps throughout this century. Very depressing.

Joe

A few well aimed thermo nuclear weapons would considerably shorten the war I do think. That and the mass deportation of the existing migrants from countries who hold that barbaric so called 'religion' so dear. At least once a week I use a paper torn from the koran for its own truly useful purpose. Wiping my bottom. I hope that offends any raghead reading this.

Middle East people are interesting with their ancient history background. I am looking for one of those teapots you rub and a Major Nelson type genie pops out!

Only a few radicals are doing the senseless bloody murders and that should not get decent Muslims a bad name. Nor should it generate bad attitude from other people or faiths.

Look beyond the bloodshed.
Think about likely causes for such rebellion.
Think about solutions and opportunities.

Patience and understanding might go a long way toward good solutions instead of war and catastrophic spread of ebola and other disease.

Hi Pete, I was putting up an actual event and surmising what differences there would be today, if Hawkey had condoned, and reinforced the actions of the said patrol boat skipper and his buffer/crew. It may sound a bit 'Queen Annes Revenge' I will admit, but in the 20/20 hindsight that time allows, it may have provided enough deterrent to make the People Smugglers/SIEV's/foreign incursions etc think twice.

NORFORCE at present, and for the past 7 yrs that I have been involved with them, are seriously underfunded/undermanned and resourced for the tasks they perform. When Minister B-Rough & Herr Fuhrer Howard declared that "Little Children Were Sacred" aka 'Operation Reach-Around' and marched in the troops to the accompaniment of brass bands, a phalanx of university undergraduates funded by Liberal Party think tanks doing research, DEEWR lackeys, & anthropologists, doctors, basket weavers - ad nauseum... a gravy train of epic proportions ensued.

Territory Alliance (to name one), and scores of other building companies, consultancies, and quasi government organisations set up by bureaucrats given the nod to "take leave entitlements accrued" prior to the declaration by the Fuhrer announcing the Intervention. These parasites then set up shops in Darwin, Katherine, Alice Springs and outlying Island communities - in anticipation of the Gravy Trains.

This was where the resources of NOFARCE were then diverted, into the PR exercise of 'community engagement'. Continuing from there, when the government changed with KRudds cabinet, the Liberal Party grads & research fellows were booted out of their cosy little offices and rat holes at Charles Darwin Uni to be replaced with those of a more Socialist flavour, funded by...you guessed it Labor Party think tanks, but the DEEWR lackeys, QANGO's & other parasites remained until they milked the host dry, fell off, or had been given the nod to return shortly after the mandatory 2 yrs elapsed (after getting lovely redundancies) as advisers to government agencies.

If any government was fair dinkum about Border Protection, it would (or should have done) have put the dollars into boosting the roles of the various squadrons across the Top End.

Yes LEGO, there is a boogeyman, the 2 SASR "shooters" at Port Arthur were silenced shortly after in the Townsville Blackhawk Disaster so that they would never ever get diagnosed with PTSD, get drunk and tell stories, or murder/ suicide their families years down the track.

Martin Bryant was seen there, yes, by many witnesses. Read "The Queen v Martin Bryant" the actual court transcript - if you can still get it that is. The gun shop owner Terry Hill, who sold the weapons to Bryant was told to concoct 'evidence' about previous ammunition/weapon sales to Bryant by the police, or he would "...go inside for a very very long time..." One of the weapons that Bryant was supposed to have fired (the M16) did not have its firing pin functional (it had 3.5 mm ground off).

Bryant himself could not hit a sparrow at 10 paces with an air rifle let alone effect a "shots fired to kill ratio" of better than 96%.

That kind of shooting skill is entirely in the realm of special forces/highly trained persons who fire in excess of 2,500 rounds per day in training scenarios - week in and week out, at ranges I personally attended as an armourer!

Dr Rebecca Peters was the architect of the event. Howard was just another lackey.

As a law student in 2004, I was denied access to; all evidence but for the final judgments of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, a most peculiar event in itself. Most of what I received was heavily redacted.

Yes Lego, there are some folk who have actually gone behind the B-S & supposed conspiracy theories. So can anyone explain the video camera frame at 2:45:22 through to 2:45:29 PM on the 28th April 1996 which shows a person remarkably similar in description to Martin Bryant, going towards a hovering Tasmanian Police Air Wing helicopter ?

Yes Lego, I am on a watch list monitored by ASIO, ASIS and Federal Agencies because I don't happen to swallow the Crown Government B-S.

Hi Albie Manton in Darwin

Granted. When the Muslim-Christian-Buddhist-Hindu Indonesians paddle across the Timor Sea in their outrigger canoes NORFORCE will be more than ready to give them a beer or 2.

Pete, I am NOT suffering from PTSD...more like PMSL....thanks you for the last comment...Cheers

Albie.

Dear Albie

People are much larger than sparrows and firearms are completely different to air rifles. Most specialist shooters would have difficulty hitting a sparrow at ten paces with an air rifle. A person, on the other hand, is another story, especially when targeted with a firearm, which an air rifle is not. It was generally accepted by military strategists prior to WWII that a standing person could easily be hit by a bullet with open sights at 600 metres. Bryant was much closer to his targets than that, and how do you explain the stories of those who survived?

It appears that Abbott's couple of months of National Security crisis creation is not winning sufficient popularity.

Abbott's only option is to make sure Australian Super Hornets are not left out in the new bombing of Syria. An important looking speech to the UN in New York, USA, may or may not help. Also reintroducing the DEATH PENALTY (see last paragraph) would be a crowd pleaser.

Note http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5824-morgan-poll-federal-voting-intention-september-22-2014-201409220753 below:

"In mid-September ALP support rose to 54.5% (up 0.5%) increasing their lead over the L-NP 45.5% (down 0.5%) on a two-party preferred basis."

“Tony Abbott’s decision to commit 600 Australian troops to Iraq has failed to boost the Government in today’s Morgan Poll. This is unusual as the Morgan Poll has shown on past occasions that external security threats usually favour the incumbent Government. This was the case in early 2003 in the run-up to Iraq War and also in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."

“The extensive raids carried out last week against potential terrorists in Australia have had a strong impact on the electorate

- with a separate special snap SMS Morgan Poll last week showing a narrow majority of Australians (52.5%) support the death penalty being imposed for people convicted of a terrorist act in Australia that kills someone compared to 47.5% that are opposed. This is the first time a majority of Australians have favoured the death penalty being imposed for any crime since 1995 when 53% of Australians supported the death penalty for convicted murderers.”

Pete,

$ 100 says that Abbott will not listen to the majority and will NOT introduce the death penalty, and good on him.

If I'm not mistaken, ISIS has taken the advice of the worst bits of the Koran and 'introduced' the death penalty for not being the right sort of Sunni, or Arab. Also slavery - I don't think Abbott will introduce that either. Or the beheading of children. No, I don't think he will try that.

But you can still have a go at him for lesser crimes, that's your right, to express your opinion without any real fear, not even of flogging or jailing :)

Joe

G'day Joe

I don't think I'll put up $100 - not because Abbott wouldn't think hangin wasn't a dandy idea but because Brandis probably couldn't push it through.

Re "flogging" - as a good Jesuit I flog myself every day :)

Pete

If you really believe that, Albie Manton of Darwin, I would say that you are probably on the Mental Health Watch List, too.

You just shot your credibility to pieces with me.

Stop smoking that stuff, Albie. It progressively destroys your brain.

Lego...who then is telling us the truth ? Or did we get sold a truth ?

Albie do not worry, Lego is smoking that stuff also.

Darwin is known for the legal liquid that does that damage.

Hi Pete,

As an atheist, I don't have that luxury :(

Police Commissioner Lay in Victoria has reassured us that the incident in Melbourne yesterday has nothing to do with faith. Boy, that's a relief. Islam, after all, is a religion of peace, so the incident has nothing to do with the 'peace' bits of the Koran. Maybe just the other bits.

And it was just an isolated individual. Presumably, the 'community' will condemn his actions as not representative, taken out of context.

Hi Joe

No question about the Melbourne outrage. Only comfort that there've been few.

Equally Christianity, Judaism (Gaza), Hinduism or the fighting Buddhists of Burma and Tibet. Now Christianity is too often the faith of the pedophiles.

Religion, it keeps on giving.

Hi Pete,

You're right, we've had only about one incident each week for the last three weeks. That doesn't begin to compare to the daily bombings in that stretch of country from West Africa to Western China, and from Chechnya to the Yemen and Pakistan.

Hmmmmm ....... I wonder what the common factor is. It can't be Islam, because Islam is a religion of peace. Or at least, some of the early bits of the Koran are (let's overlook the later bits).

And anyway, look at what the Hebrews were doing three and four thousand years ago, smiting and pillaging and enslaving, so their book says. So it's not quite true to suggest that Islam is more than three and four thousand years behind the times. Not quite.

Joe

Joe you criticised me for going back in time regarding the Aboriginal beheadings in 1838 now you are going back three or four thousand years in your post, perhaps you know not what you are saying, but I will forgive you.

Hi Onjab,

Yes, I apologise: I wasn't sure how far back in history, even into pre-history, to go to find something which matched the brutality and utter contempt for humanity of ISIS.

I suppose four thousand years is far back enough.

The statement by Australia's Grand Mufti condemning ISIS should be supported. He cited an early hadith which states " ..... that whoever kills a person it is as if he has killed all of humanity. And whoever saves the life of a person is as if he save all of humanity.”

He certainly should be commended for that. I respectfully hope that he can subject other parts of the Koran to scrutiny.

Joe

Abbreviated Wikipedia

A group of eleven stockmen, consisting of assigned convicts and former convicts, ten of them men of European extraction and one African (John Johnstone), led by a squatter, John Fleming from Mungie Bundie Run near Moree, arrived at Henry Dangar's Myall Creek station on 10 June 1838. They rode up to the station huts beside which were camped a group of approximately thirty-five Aboriginal people. They were part of the Wirrayaraay (alternative spelling: Weraerai) group who belonged to the Kamilaroi people. They had been camped at the station for a few weeks after being invited by one of the convict stockmen, Charles Kilmeister (or Kilminister), to come to their station for their safety and protection from the gangs of marauding stockmen who were roaming the district slaughtering any Aboriginal people they could find.

....The stockmen then entered the hut, tied them to a long tether rope and led them away. They took them to a gully on the side of the ridge about 800 metres to the west of the station huts. There they slaughtered them all except for one woman who they kept with them for the next couple of days. The approximately 28 people they murdered were largely women, children and old men.

....The trial continued until 2 am on 30 November, when the seven men were found guilty. On 5 December they were sentenced to execution by hanging. Those executed, on 18 December 1838, were: Charles Kilmeister, James Oates, Edward Foley, John Russell, John Johnstone, William Hawkins and James Parry. The four remaining accused, Blake, Toulouse, Palliser and Lamb, were remanded until the next session to allow time for the main witness against them, an Aboriginal boy named Davey, to be prepared in order to take a Bible oath. According to the missionary, Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, Dangar had arranged for Davey to be put out of the way and he was never seen again. With Davey unable to be located, the four were discharged in February 1839.[2]

We of English blood arrived and terrorised the indigenous people and in turn the indigenous people terrorised the settlers and bloodshed and death and murder occurred on both sides.
Can that be compared to radicals purposely going into the US to attack and kill innocent people on 9/11?
Nevertheless, I send my apologies to Australian indigenous people that suffered and I hope they will continue to rest in peace.

Moving forward perhaps toward solutions, does anyone know the true fundamental reason causing people to join with present day terrorists?

Loudmouth,

Humans can be extremely savage (as you are aware)....and they can be just as savage with modern weapons.

"Yes, I apologise: I wasn't sure how far back in history, even into pre-history, to go to find something which matched the brutality and utter contempt for humanity of ISIS."

Oh I don't know, the NAZIs displayed utter contempt for Jewish life on that scale. Pol Pot displayed utter contempt for life as well..

And you might recall the spectacle several weeks ago of Gazans being chased up and down their penned ghetto being bombed to oblivion with advanced weaponry. Picture upon picture of children blown to smithereens, schools, hospitals, designated UN safe areas bombed with gay abandon. Nothing displays the utter barbarity of that episode more blatantly than the father who walked up to journalist with a plastic bag full of meat - the remains of his two year-old son.

That well and truly matches your definition of "brutality and utter contempt for humanity".

"Hmmmmm ....... I wonder what the common factor is. It can't be Islam, because Islam is a religion of peace..."

You've got a particularly myopic view.

Myopic or not, I think it excellent to look closely as long as the close up view is not blurred or twisted so as to incite revenge.
Looking closely is a way of possibly seeing where the fundamental flaw is located. Then is can be possible to find and overcome what may be causing the actual problem.
I think if we look into pockets and purses of a majority of people on this planet, it can be seen there is little or no cash money to afford food and other needs.
And let's not forget it is consumerism that is supposed to drive entire economies.
As said earlier, if all able people in the Middle East had employment and US$100 a day take home pay there would likely be no unrest or rebels and terrorism

Going back to the original intent of the thread, ie: Are Australia's actions in Iraq boosting revenge terrorism? The latest events have answered this definitively.

With the air forces of the US, several EU countries, Australia, and several Arab countries, ISIL cannot seriously target everyone whilst having the crap knocked out of them on the ground. The latest strikes are taking out the financial backbone of this bunch of lunatics and while it won't destroy them, will severely cripple them.

The fear campaign being run by the greens is just that, all noise and no substance.

Hi Poirot,

Yes, you're right - ISIS can be compared to the Nazis and to Pol Pot's regime. And to the inhumanity of Stalin's regime and probably Mao's as well. All vile, brutal and despicable regimes.

Currently, however, the issue concerns ISIS and its drive for a world-wide caliphate through extreme violence. It has to be combatted with as much vigour as the allies combatted and defeated the Nazis.

Thanks for that insight.

Cheers,

Joe

Yes no doubt about it, all vile, brutal despicable.
But what drove good people to initially support those regimes?
Apart from mental problems affecting just a few, and religion, what is driving numerous good people to support ISIS?
I think therein are clues to solutions.
For example, kick start a decent properly paid economy so people want to get to work and get paid and keep their job, instead of sitting around discussing unrest and terror.

JF,

Want 'good' people ? What are you on ?

Joe

Joe,

"Currently, however, the issue concerns ISIS and its drive for a world-wide caliphate through extreme violence. It has to be combatted with as much vigour as the allies combatted and defeated the Nazis."

While ISIS are a diabolical insurgency, one that I'm happy for Oz to contribute to the demise of....comparing the rag tag elements of the movement with the might of the NAZI war machine is a tad "generous".

Notwithstanding that US/Oz actions contributed to their formation.

Notwithstanding that prior to the current confected domestic "crisis", the Abbott govt couldn't have given a brass razoo for Iraqis, as is evidenced by completely cutting off Iraqi aid in the budget.

Notwithstanding that Abbott & Co have ramped up the "threat" to Australians way beyond reasonable anticipation - and have now introduced laws curtailing our freedoms. (sounds a bit fascist to me:)

Would also like to remark that the Ebola crisis is just as serious - and yet our govt is pretty much mute on the subject...and again has actually cut funding in the budget to Australian scientists who were researching the Ebola virus.

Not much diversionary mileage in confronting a virus, methinks.

Poirot,

"Notwithstanding that Abbott & Co have ramped up the "threat" to Australians way beyond reasonable anticipation - and have now introduced laws curtailing our freedoms. (sounds a bit fascist to me:)"

No doubt the stabbing of the policemen in Melbourne is an example of Abbott's ramped up "Threat"; or do you have another explanation?

Having thought about it some more:

Maybe its better to fight IS in the Middle East with accurate airstrikes - rather than fighting IS on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney?

As to new terrorism laws and civil liberties - there's a definite correlation between those charged and what extremist style they adopt.

I'm still waiting to see the offering of a practical and workable alternative solution for dealing with ISIS from Poirot, David J, Peter Coates, Christine Milne and all the others who are so openly critical of the Government's approach. Come on give us more than change the foreign policy or getting the Iraqis working.

There are no 'good people' in ISIS. Good people would not stay affiliated with a group who is chopping heads, crucifying people, gunning down hand-cuffed hostages, and/or selling women off to slavery.

Whoever is buying all the women slaves also needs to be taken out.

J F Aus the economy is a big problem throughout the whole world, the US has many millions on the poverty line, do they see the current invasion of Syria & Iraq costing millions, is going to help them at all, the UAE having visited recently I was appalled at the exceedingly rich Sheiks who control the Emirates who could not care a toss about the ordinary people, Indians who work there erecting their skyscrapers were paid next to nothing in wages, say something bad about the ruler and your head may be next on the chopping block, perhaps the billions that these Sheiks own through oil should be spent wisely on its own people and nearby countries, but then pigs might fly

Onjab, I agree with you there completely.
I think the forthcoming G20 meeting in Brisbane should be addressing such issues and all other G whatever meetings should be doing the same.

Poirot,

ISIS has just, among many other things, tortured and murdered a civil rights lawyer in Mosul, a brave woman who questioned her religion and 'therefore' was an apostate. Like I probably would be, and probably you too. Could that happen here in Australia, under Abbott ? I don't think so.

Meanwhile, more than a hundred thousand have fled from ISIS over the Turkish border. Many others over the Lebanese border.

I'm not sure what your point is about what the US was doing against the Russians more than 25 years ago, by collaborating with anti-Russian groups which later evolved into Islamist groups. Maybe we're all responsible for crimes committed by someone we knew 25 years ago ? The logic of a small child, Poirot :)

Anything positive to add ? or is it just snipe, snipe, snipe ?

Joe

ConservativeHippie

As one should adjust strategy to changing conditions Peter Coates has advised that now Australia has military forces in the Middle East - poised to fight in/over Iraq and Syria - these forces may as well fight IS in its lair.

Put another way it is now better to make IS defend its soil and interests in the Middle East which should gradually reduce IS's ability to cause havoc in Australia.

Still its important to keep track of would-be revenge terrorists in Australia - proactively foiling their plans.

Pete

Please advise me what happened to the girls who were kidnapped some months ago in Africa? I seem to have lost track of what happened to them, did the USA send in troops to rescue them, but perhaps because there was no oil they couldn't be bothered and were really not interested in what happened to them, war for oil but not for perhaps abused and raped girls.

Onjab,

What a despicable thing to say. Do you have the slightest idea of the complications in such a situation ? And all you can bitch about is the bloody oil. As if the Yanks can't just buy the stuff cheap.

Moron.

No, those girls, most of them, are still being held by Boko Haram, some may have been sold as slaves.

Cheers,

Joe

Moron the Yanks are very much in debt to the Chinese of a few trillion dollars
so may not be able to buy oil

Thanks Joe for the information

Joe,

"..... And all you can bitch about is the bloody oil. As if the Yanks can't just buy the stuff cheap."

Lol!....that's a completely simplistic and ignorant comment.

It's always resources - don't you get it?

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/09/the-secret-way-to-war/

"By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had decided to invade and occupy Iraq.

Bush had decided to “justify” the war “by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”

Already “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

"....WMD threat was indeed the Bush Admin's main thrust in formulating an invasion - an invasion which had already been decided upon even as Bush was delivering ultimatums to avert invasion.

"...Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy..."

In Iraq's case, it was unfettered access they were after - and which they achieved.

It's why they don't bother with equivalent skirmishes and atrocities in African countries like in the Central African Republic and Zimbabwe.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29354134

"ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said there had been "endless" instances of rape, murder, forced displacement, persecution and pillaging since 2012.

She said both sides had committed atrocities in what has become a religious conflict between mainly Muslim rebels and Christian militias.

Almost a quarter of the 4.6 million population have fled their homes."

The post limit on OLO is sometimes a problem.

Good people supporting ISIS are in my opinion people who have no alternative, such as some of the kidnapped school girls.
There are also many many good people who just don't know of the bad stuff due to politics involving gagging and suppression of information, for example, Australian's in general lack information about malnutrition and associated disease and early death that is worsening among our Pacific islands neighbors.

What does it matter if you die from beheading due to radical mentality, or from gunshot due to farmer stress and suicide, or from stillbirth and blood poisoning due protein deficiency malnutrition? Dead anyway.

Did good people know about the brutality of Hitler when they were tricked into voting him into power? No. The majority of German's are good people, same as most Australian's are.

Did good politicians and good reporters know Julia Gillard would introduce a tax that would cripple and destroy many businesses and livelihood leading to stress, hopelessness and sometimes suicide?

We owe our freedom to America. Go look at the WWII wreckage at Guadalcanal that is closer to out shores than Brisbane is to Perth.

I hope China and Russia and all other nations can join as allies and work together to build prosperity and peace right now and into the future.

Still on topic, from my point of view empirical evidence categorically indicates unrest and terrorism is on the increase due to chronic economic hardship, not due to Australia's actions to combat the terrorism.

"I hope China and Russia and all other nations can join as allies and work together to build prosperity and peace right now and into the future," says JF AUS.

I agree but there is one problem. The U.S. doesn't want peace until it and its Capitalist Allies control the whole world. It sees Russia and China as its sworn enemies who threaten its imperial obsession and economic domination.

On OLO, the numbers of folks who clearly see what the U.S. is up to are few. And of course, there are the American Apologists who would applaud should the U.S. begin a nuclear war to ensure its domination fantasies are realized.

The U.S. is no-one's friend. It is the enemy of peace and cooperation!

David G, "The U.S. is no-one's friend. It is the enemy of peace and cooperation!"

A world with an isolationist US is your choice? Think again!

OTB,

I must be getting old. I can't easily tell the difference between gutless-Left and extreme-Right-isolationist any more. Conspiracy theorists, okay, anybody can see them coming, but the common anti-Americanism of pseudo-Left and semi-fascist- and fascist-Right is getting more blurry every day. Ergo, their apologies for the Islamo-fascism of ISIS.

David,

The US is trying to take over the world ? Well, they've had plenty of time to do it since 1945. And if so, why did they pull out of Iraq, particularly because of their secret obsession with controlling oil ?

Leave such theories to Arjay. Or ......... you're not Arjay, are you ?!

Wounded Goose,

I'll give the distillation of your wisdom the respect and time it deserves: ...........................

Joe

On The Beach asks if I would like a world where the U.S. was isolationist. Yeah, brother!

People, at least those with brains, have been praying for this eventuality while the U.S. has been, for three centuries, preying on nations around the world.

They are even preying on Australia and have their dirty, bloody fingers in our country and, it seems, in most every pie of every nation on Earth.

Yeah, an Isolationist America. Hooray! Go home, Yanks!

"..... And if so, why did they pull out of Iraq, particularly because of their secret obsession with controlling oil ?"

Well...hello!

They'd already done the job. They had a friendly regime and unfettered access to the oil. That's all they really wanted.

And domestic pressure led to the US pulling out of Iraq...once it became public knowledge how they were funding the war -

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/us-public-defrauded-hidden-cost-iraq-war

"The most striking fact about the cost of the war in Iraq has been the extent to which it has been kept "off the books" of the government's ledgers and hidden from the American people. This was done by design. A fundamental assumption of the Bush administration's approach to the war was that it was only politically sustainable if it was portrayed as near-costless to the American public and to key constituencies in Washington. The dirty little secret of the Iraq war – one that both Bush and the war hawks in the Democratic party knew, but would never admit – was that the American people would only support a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein if they could be assured that they would pay almost nothing for it."

"The most obvious way in which the true cost of this war was kept hidden was with the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the occupation. By one estimate, 70% of the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008 were funded with supplemental or emergency appropriations approved outside the Pentagon's annual budget. These appropriations allowed the Bush administration to shield the Pentagon's budget from the cuts otherwise needed to finance the war, to keep the Pentagon's pet programs intact and to escape the scrutiny that Congress gives to its normal annual regular appropriations."

Much of that money was funnelled straight from American taxpayers into the pockets of private contractors

"What is it that the Crash of ʼ08, Global Warming, and Iraqistan and the rest of the sick, criminal bloodbaths America has created have in common? What is the single, indisputable force behind the perpetration of these horrors? It is not poor people, not bogus science, not bad religions, and not mysterious and unfathomable forces beyond human control.

It is Predatory Capitalism. And it must be eradicated and replaced by a system that nurtures, nourishes, and supports humanity and all life."

Paul Edwards wrote an article on ICH today. Above is a short excerpt which seems to support Poirot.

Predatory Capitalism is a blight on the world!

Yes we live in a septic tank.

But would China's more extreme version of Capitalism and Russia's Putinism be preferred alternatives?

People seem as though they want to be controlled, to bow down to someone who is superior when they are not, from my observation with Royalty past and present, the poor people doff their hats to people and want to wave to them, for goodness sake these people have penises, fannies, the same hole in their bum which farts daily as the poor people, Yes David G if only we could have a society where equality meant just that, all equal, but religion, wealth, superiority all crave to the tune of I am better, perhaps I have my God's blessing for being so superior, my position means I can conquer you in war, that then makes me even more superior, I want to dominate, wave to me, bow to me, I make the rules , I create unrest, have my blessing in war, I am a Christian you peasants, does that sound like Emperor Abbott., who walks as though he has just pooed himself, life gets stranger by the minute.

Hi Onjab,

So, are you suggesting that the royal family is behind ISIL ? That they want to dominate any way they can ? That they are secret Islamists ?

I'd leave that line of thought to Arjay if I were you :)

But thanks, it's interesting to see how your mind works.

Now how do you see ISIL and how their minds work ? And what should we do about them, if anything ?

i.e., BTT :)

Joe

Ojnab, you never speak with a forked tongue like many do on this forum.

Your words carry truth whereas so many voices found here are duplicitous and shallow and self-serving.

The meek will never inherit the Earth, not while the shysters and the neo-conmen are running the tragi-comedy that is Earth!

Ojnab-Nutjob?

Don't get your hopes up. Shakespeare you're not.

With your statement:

"for goodness sake these people have penises, fannies, the same hole in their bum which farts daily as the poor people,"

David G is treating your rather sad claims to the English language kindly :)

Hi David,

So you have nothing but ad hominem ? Invective ? Insults ? Nothing to back up you claims that "so many voices found here are duplicitous and shallow and self-serving" ? Any chance of somehow drifting back to topic ?

When/if you get to Year 11, hopefully your remedial teacher will have shown you how to carry on a simple discussion. I live in hope :)

Good luck !

Joe

"Any chance of somehow drifting back to topic ?"

....says Joe.

As he submits an entire post "off topic"....

"So you have nothing but ad hominem ? Invective ? Insults"

....says Joe.

As he posts this:

"When/if you get to Year 11, hopefully your remedial teacher will have shown you how to carry on a simple discussion..."

Cheers.

Hi Wounded Goose,

Just trying to give David some advice on how to conduct himself on OLO. Do you require the same advice ? [1]

Now, back to topic :)

So, what should the Australian government do about the spread of violent and reactionary ideas such as these:

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” said al-Adnani.

“Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers.”

Any suggestions, Sweetie ? [2]

Joe

Now that Abbott has flown the RAAF and SAS elements to the Middle East he's trying to have us believe that he hasn't decided whether they should actually fight over-in Iraq.

Have us believe he didn't rush us into war.

Doh!!

I'm sure he's miffed that Obama didn't bless-im with a manly seal-the-deal handshake photo opportunity in NYC or Washington

I can feel another Action Man Abbott speech coming on. Question is whether it'll be on Monday or Tues.

But remember - be Alert not Alarmed in Abbott's anxious Australia.

Oh - and go about your business - stupids.

A bit ad hominem, Pete :)

I'm hoping that Australia will become MORE involved in fighting ISIL, and perhaps for years to come, until they and similar reactionary forces are defeated.

It's going to a long war, and a very long ideological struggle against backward and fascist ideas :(

Joe

Hi Joe

Politicians embody policies - ripe for ad hominem commentary. Being tough and manly is the way Abbott acts and walks - in case you haven't noticed. The manly approach also typifies his manly Cabinet selection.

I don't think ideology in the usual sense is a factor - but if religion - blissful afterlife following suicide tactics - is an ideology - I'd agree with you.

Regards

Pete

The following should be for compulsory reading and study for everybody, as some people surely already know.
I wonder if it's printed in Arabic.

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~gongsu/desiderata_textonly.html

It's sad the way that these important debates begin with enthusiasm and usually end in trivia and infantile insults.

This thread is no exception.

Oh, I don't know, David, yours was not the last word: it hasn't ended yet.

Topic: does standing up to a bully encourage him ? Does it provoke further attacks ? Should we roll over on our belies and open our legs for him ?

I say no. You may say yes. Discuss.

Joe

Well Brother Joe

Agree its not the last word.

Depends what you call "bully". If its a small target in some aircraft cross-hairs it may be just a major irritant.

It may not provoke further attacks if its busy defending its little home.

Targeting from a great height may preclude the requirement for leg opening.

If one's leader claims its a threat, but its only an on-balance fib, what should one do - if anything?

Pete

Will all you people who believe in killing for killing sakes,, get out your uniforms and head for Syria or Iraq, but please take Abbott with you, beheadings are not nice but then slashing a stomach and chucking the entrails on the gound as I was taught some years ago with a bayonet, the person will be screaming as you plunge deeper and deeper and you also will be screaming in delight at your actions, that is what you were taught, how criminal when looking back on that time
So get over there gentlemen.

Ojnab, I loved your comment.

All the armchair warriors on OLO, they talk the (war) talk but they don't do the walk.

They are cowards all, brave behind their keyboards, too scared even to march, to ring their local member, to put their money where their mouth is.

Pathetic!

Coalition airstrikes don't seem to be slowing down IS's steady expansion in Iraq and Syria. It seems Western regular army boots on the ground will need to supplement Western Special Forces boots already on the ground.

If so Australia will be there.

“Militants of the Islamic State group were closing in Monday on a Kurdish area of Syria on the border with Turkey — an advance unhindered so far by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes”.

Islamic State fighters pounded the city of Kobani with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within three miles (five kilometers) of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official."

see http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-led-airstrikes-hit-syrian-provinces-2582886