So sixty thousand Syrian Kurds are now trying to flee over the Turkish border, but copping tear-gas from the border guards.

I suppose they can count their lucky stars that Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood.

Joe

Hi David G.

There are so many people needing to be deprogrammed on OLO that I can't remember your position from past posts. But scrutinising this topic, you seem to hate the USA, love peace and the environment, and hate war.

But you are openly claiming that I have been conditioned by "western propaganda" to believe that "war and killing is the answer to everything." I take exception to that.

The northern European Protestant religions stress that war is wrong unless it is just. This is because the Christian religion is essentially pacifist and the concept of a just war is the way in which we reconcile the need for military action where we feel it is necessary. Although I am not a Christian, my thinking is heavily influenced by the Christian message.

Every single person on earth has a point where he or she feels that violence is necessary. You yourself may be entirely pacifist but you may react violently if your child, mother, or wife were assaulted by a stranger.

Now, there is a new organisation which is called ISIS which has carved out a new nation from the remnants of Syria and Iraq. The people who run this organisation are religious nutcases (and you don't like them, do you?) who quite seriously believe that they are on a mission to world conquest. They have begun this mission by mass murdering minorities who live in their areas and they have captured a couple of oilfields and a lot of dangerous weaponry to aid them in their jihad.

They have no hope of matching the rest of the world militarily, but they do have a lot of potential to cause serious trouble among Muslims in the west. And they are just one of a dozen self styled groups around the world making life miserable for the local people who are not Muslims. Whereas I am even more pacifist than you, I have reached the point where I think that military action is the most appropriate action.

Got it now?

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 are godless and 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 are godless and 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!'

Hi David,

Is that the best you can do by way of analysis ?

Research the issues, don't rely on your mates for 'knowledge', don't rely on just one news-source, look and read from as many as you can, the Fairfax press, News Limited, the Guardian (my preference, up to a point) and al-Jazeera. Try to be sceptical of Conspiracy Theory, although they are fun, and Isolationism, which usually degenerates into extreme right-wing politics, and I'm sure you wouldn't want that.

Weigh all of it up and just try to think for yourself, it would make a nice change.

Just trying to help :)

Joe

Miserable sneery response, David G. Is that the best you can do? No wonder us right wingers wipe the floor with you lefties. Try thinking up a reasoned argument if you can manage it.

Try thinking up a reasoned argument if you can manage it.
LEGO,
You nasty little bugger, you know full well he can't do that. fancy cornering him like that, he's got no chance.