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