I agree with Abbott: baddies fighting baddies. We want no truck with Syria. As soon as Australia gets involved in backward countries with Islamic problems, we either get another batch of illegal immigrants or the Loony Left calling for us to take in more "refugees" from some camp in Sandsville. No thanks. Let Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis sort out their own problems. Another bombing in Iraq yesterday - after all the money, blood sweat and tears put into that hole by the West.

Yeah ttbn; and made even worse by Turkey's patently duplicitous role here; and just for the purpose of domestic election outcomes?

It's not all bad?

Assard it being driven back into the sea, and given when he is no more many of these problems will evaporate with him?
Rhrosty.

Rhostry,

If Assad falls, there will be one more extreme Islamic state. Whatever happens, I think we should stay well out of it; as we should have stayed out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm all for knocking off Islamic terrorists, but ones that are threatening us, not those operating in their own environment. Our resources should be for protecting Australia. Our interference always ends up with "refugees" unsuited to our culture. We have nothing to do with them normally, and they are not even in our region. And, our interference has achieved nothing so far, anywhere.

The claim that "the US has become a de facto ally of Assad" is idiotic.

Since March 2011 the United States has been supplying arms and money to hordes of foreign terrorists waging a war against the people of Syria, including Syrian Christians (who speak the same language spoken by Jesus Christ) and even the small Syrian Judaic community. So far, as of August 2015, that war has const the lives of more than 220,000 Syrians by one estimate.

On one previous occasion, in July 2014, those attempting to demonise Syria's popularly elected President Bashar al-Assad as well as to portray the terrorist war against his government as some kind of popular uprising, seemed to have lost their voices when confronted with evidence and logic. I don't suppose that anyone here, would care to show other site visitors why BiancaDog is wrong at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16435#287856?

If you would like an alternate view on the shenanigans going on in Syria and surrounds, try this one for a start: http://www.vineyardsaker.co.nz/2015/08/09/clinton-juppe-erdogan-daesh-and-the-pkk-by-thierry-meyssan/
Geoff

Malthustia,

The U.S has a record of supporting some really rotten people all around the globe; then the the really rotten people, usually victorious, thanks to the Yanks, morph into groups like the Taliban. Given Obama's love of Islam, it is idiotic for people to think he is mates with Assad who, while probably not the finest of men, doesn't kill people in the name of Allah.

Secondly, as Islamic lunatics from Australia are eager to go to fight against the Syrian government, it is not hard to work out which side is the least bad of the two groups of baddies.