Here we go again. The UK has now voted to join the fray, promising weeks and months and possibly years of war, ever more war. But no shock and awe this time. It will be surgical strikes with smart bombs and targeted kills only. And like us here in Oz, the overwhelming vote in favour was guaranteed after an agreement with the Labour leader Ed Miliband. Here is was Shorten who signed on.
None of them, neither those in Government nor those in Opposition, can see any other way to combat a group of killer thugs, and what does that tell you about their level of intelligence and imagination?

Abject apologies Suse, sorry if I just lumped you in with the mob that enjoys the comfort of opinion, without the discomfort of thought!
Yes, and as someone bearing the scars of shrapnel and bullet wounds, I too abhor war.
It our soldiers who are always asked to fight them!
Never disapproving stay at home pacifists Suse!
It be great if we could just wag a disapproving finger, at the likes of Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Herr Hitler, Stalin and his modern day Nemesis, a sabre rattling Putin, to end the atrocities that appear on the nightly news.
Unfortunately, and throughout the entire length and breadth of human history, no amount of appeasement or pleading has ever once deterred the warmongering dictator, just emboldened them to even worse excesses!
And nowhere is this been more obvious that in the M.E., and the Arab tin pot potentates.
Our common silence has only been seen as permission for more of the same, or even worse excesses!
And nowhere more obvious or pertinent, than in the battered wife syndrome!
Isil in my humble view, are far worse in their criminal activities, and in lack of respect for innocent women and children!
And therefore standing Idly by, merely wagging a disapproving control freak/professional pacifist finger, is simply not an option.
But a time for men to step up, and stop this cancer here and now, least it affects the rest of humanity.
One wonders, how many millions of lives could have been spared or saved, if the world just had the testicular fortitude to take on Mr Hitler, when he first annexed Austria, instead of waiting until he tried to do the same with Poland, and in so doing, started WW11!
Rhrosty.

Hi David,

ISIL.

"Only primitive barbarians applaud and condone violence and killing."

Is that who you meant ? ISIL/ISIS, enslaving women and beheading children ? Shooting thousands of men and dumping their bodies in ditches ? Driving [this week] 140,000 Kurds out of their homes ?

Is that what you mean by 'barbarians' ?

Then it appears that we agree :)

Thank you.

Joe

Rhrosty,
I guarantee that as in all wars 99% of the victims of ISIS are men and boys, Chivalry is the biggest sucker deal going around and everyone from the consevative Muftis to the Huffington post is beating up the women and children angle.
This morning I received by email yet another slew of atrocity photos taken in Syria in recent days and in these, as with all the hundreds of gross images I've seen over the last three years not one featured a woman or a girl.
We've seen these lies about rape and sexual servitude before and the tired old "rape as a weapon of war" and "femicide" nonsense yet in a few months or years we know that such claims will be disproven and no longer spoken of.
Rape and the abuse of women is not normally a feature of warfighting and insurgency except in sub Saharan Africa where it's endemic even in times of peace, you'll notice Boko Haram publicise and boast of their capture and conversion of women yet there's not a shred of evidence of ISIL bothering the women in the areas they control save for executing their menfolk?
The aircraft and special forces are being sent to assist the men of Iraq and Syria in defending themselves against a violent transnational gang, the allied commanders have been very clear on that point. Asking the Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight an effective, well armed and entrenched fighting group like ISIL without air support is asking too much, the Iraqis and Peshmerga are brave but they're not suicidal.
As for your other comments, they're nonsense, there's no relation between the events of 1938-39 and today, most people who talk about National Socialism and WW2 in this context typically know nothing about either. Germany didn't start WW2, Britain, France and Poland did and the Hitler regime was both lawful and wildly popular both at home and abroad, there's no comparison to the collection of Arab bandits and deluded Liberal educated adventurers who make up the core of ISIS.

Jay of M,

Wow. I think you have displaced Arjay in the Conspiracy Stakes. That post was amazingly lunatic. I don't think Arjay can beat that :(

Joe

Joe,
How so?
Chivalry is a stupid justification for military intervention, we all now know the lies told about the atrocities in Belgium in 1914.
http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/historiography-atrocities-the-long-shadow
It's immoral to justify war in such a way,men and boys are overwhelmingly the victims in Iraq and Syria, they see their women, children and old people to a place of safety then return to fight for their villages and shrines.
The Generals are being honest about their role, the media and politicians are not, it's right to support the men who are taking a stand but as all of us know Western society doesn't value men and boys so they have to shame us all into supporting the intervention by over hyping the impact of ISIS upon the weaker sex.

Then there's the other stupid, unnecessary justification for war which is used every single time, "Because Hitler".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408405/Assad-joined-Hitler-Hussein-John-Kerry-says-Syrian-president-used-deadly-sarin-nerve-gas-Damascus-attack.html
Saddam=Hitler
Ghadaffi=Hitler
Assad=Hitler.
Putin=Hitler
Muslim Brotherhood=Nazis
Taliban=Nazis
ISIS=Nazis
Islamism=Islamofascism

I'm OK with the idea of Australia's fighting men going to support Iraqi and Kurdish fighting men simply because to render aid to those brave enough to take a stand is the honourable, manly thing to do, if you guys have to come up with all these bogus justifications for action it hints at an insecurity within yourselves.