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.