From a world awash with weapons of war, this event is a small price to pay for the profits achieved to the weapons industry.

It'll be shrugged-off as collateral damage; unofficially of course!

It would be an interesting but I think despairing exercise to find out where the weapons came from.

Last time I looked, the U.S didn't make kalashnikovs! Enough with the blame shifting already! Let these monsters own their own behavior and a mad desire to control the world! We've seen this;particular madness before, then it was sieg hiel, now it's Allahu ackbar and the inhuman monstrosity far worse!
Rhrosty.

The weapons used were Israeli manufactured.

The entire attack was just another "false-flag" attack, how convenient when you want to close your borders against a refugee onslaught, watch as other countries follow suit.

How convenient to find a pristine passport, just like in Charlie Hedbo case and at ground zero after 9/11.

Come on folks, look a little deeper. The MSM won't give you the answers.

Try this for size: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/15/profile-of-a-false-flag-by-stephen-lendman/
Governments will just continue the hegemonic ambitions of the U.S. Government being the vassals they already are, this includes Australia.

I don't know if anyone has noticed but any attacks on Syria are illegal under international law, the only ones whom should be defending Syria is SAA and the Russians, there by invitation of Assad.

The rest are there attempting to illegally instigate regime change!

Any blowback in Europe should be put squarely at the neocons in the U.S. Government and their Pro Zionist supports in the U.S. And Israel. The evidence is there for all to see.

". The phenomenon of terrorism remains uncomfortably lodged in Paris' DNA."

What a stupid, ignorant comment from someone posing as an academic. The phenomenon of terrorism is lodged in Islam

Ahhh Bimoy.

The purpose of the muslim thugs in Paris was to kill innocent people ... at the Footy, a rock concert, dinner and god forbid, the muslim god anyway, drinking alcohol.

Saying it was about creating terror... is a way of excusing deliberate murder. Terror resulted from the murders.

It's like saying carpet bombing and the atomic bomb resulted in peace. They creating terror amongst the populations supporting the Nazis and the Japanese God and his military. Terror flowed from the killing of civilians. No excuses it was blatant murder.

If the muslim pool in France is seething ... why do they stay there? No one's stopping the seething muslims from leaving or involving themselves in the politics and changing the cause of their seething or even having a little religious reformation. That's the freedom of the west.

The muslim state is intent on killing westerners and others who don't subscribe to their religion of peace. period. Islamic religious intolerance is the cause of the brutality in Syria as it has for 1700 years. Why are you blind to history?

I think you've missed the point of westernism. When you think, 'Fear is the poison that paralyses the respiratory system of democracy. It gnaws at the vitals of government accountability. It creates conditions ripe for demagogic relief.'

Haven't you looked at our history? We have had fear in the past. It didn't paralysis us, nor destroy our governmental systems, nor creat conditions for demagogic relief, whatever that means.

We know how to beat fear. Cowards don't.

Fear hardens us and sends us to war to defend our democracies. And when fighting for freedom and with a primary aim to survive rather than a primary aim to destroy and control ... well history should tell you something.

Watch what we do to both the murderous, evil muslims of this world, and at the end of the day, to the religion of peace. Both will be tossed on the trash heap of the middle east... as the end times forecast.

lol Your blaming us is laughable really isn't it?

Apologists are desperately working their spin to blame the victims and to make the offenders, the terrorists, the victims instead.

The author is careful not to mention that ISIS has declared war on the non-Islamic world in accord with the Koran. France is just one of the countries targeted.

The Australian government should pay heed to surveys of Muslims living in France, where it is alleged that in excess of a third of Muslims who have been given claimed asylum and citizenship believe that suicide bombing is justified and OK.

Proof that the second and later generations of migrants can become even more fundamentalist than their parents is in the far greater numbers of young Muslims who believe that suicide bombing is justified.

What is it about Islam that there are so many psychopaths?

France, 14/11/15
"On Saturday, the owner of the Comptoir Voltaire told L’Express that the terrorist had come into the café calmly. He sat and he took in the scene at 253 Boulevard Voltaire, the sipping and chattering clientele. He waited to order before he detonated his suicide belt."
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/fait-divers/a-nation-le-kamikaze-s-est-fait-sauter-en-passant-la-commande_1735885.html

diver dan, possibly true elsewhwere, but not in the land of OZ where over 50% of the population have had enough of multi-CULT-uralism & are taking this issue a lot more seriously.

Cobber the hound, your joking surely, or are you really that stupid?

Rhosty, the wisdom of white men over 50 again, sounds good to me.

Geoff of Perth, i hear where you are coming from, the 1% ruling, left wing elites & international banksters will do anything to take over the world. Having said all that, islam is 100% evil & has been for 1,400 years. There are better ways to deal with it than another nasty war though.

ttbn, too true.

imajulianutter, hear, hear.

EVERYBODY,

Q, the first time this happened to France was? A, Battle of Tours, also called Battle of Poitiers , Tours, (October 732), victory won by Charles Martel, the de facto ruler of the Frankish kingdoms, over Muslim invaders from Spain. The battlefield cannot be exactly located, but it was fought somewhere between Tours and Poitiers, in what is now west-central France.

http://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours has anything changed much? NO

36,000,000 results to a standard Google search.
https://www.google.com.au/webhp?ei=SVRJVq2QFeGhmQW6xbWwAw&ved=0CAUQqS4oAw#q=the+battle+of+tours

Q 1, has islam been reformed before? A, YES on more than one occasion & each time it got more extreme.

Q 2, can we learn lessons from the Christian reformation? A, YES, the Bible did not need to be rewritten or reinterpreted. Corrupt senior management in the Catholic church 500 years ago were not following the morals, ethics or principles of Jesus that are clearly written in the Bible. Judeo/Christian theology also teaches us that corrupt individuals have been with us for thousands of years & eternal vigilance is the key to being happier, healthier & wealthier.

Paris is obviously a terrorist magnate, for its increasing military adventures in Syria.

Likewise other western countries face the same risks.

Muslim extremism is only going to increase as western influence increases.

Unfortunately there are many costs associated with this scenario.

Increasingly in the US and UK in particular, and other western democracies, we are seeing an ever increasing corporatising of governments, the radical increase of the surveillance state (spying and monitoring of everyone, not just the bad guys), a hollowing out of the middle class, with higher and higher taxes going to pay for these foreign war related antics.

More and more people join the ranks of the working poor, that is if they have a job. Real US unemployment is at around 25% and growing.

All of these people are becoming disenfranchised, it's not just Muslims.

Here in Australia, the "right" to own a home is becoming a pipe dream for many, debt peonage for a majority.

As time progresses it won't be just Muslims who go off the rails, it will be the common man who also has nothing to lose.

Socially, politically, and economically things are slowly but surely going to hell in a hand basket, hold on tight, the ride is only going to get rougher,

With multiculturalism falling down around his ears, Binoy Kampmark had to dream up another apology for Islamic terrorism, and try to think up some sort of spin to reassure the True Believers and the dhimmie wits. But Binoy did a particularly bad job of it this time.

His premise is to say, well gee, it was just another terrorist incident in Paris. It is perfectly normal. Happens all the time. So what the heck? And those accursed media outlets just keep repeating the scenes of Parisian terrorism on TV, which just makes the public thing that there is a problem.

Naah, that won't wash, Binoy. Although, I have to admit that you did have a real challenge this time.

The biggest problem you have about this incident, Binoy, was that the stupid Muslim schmucks deliberately targeted the young, trendy lefties, the very ones most enamoured of multiculturalism. It was a bad enough shock to the trendies when the left wing icon "Charlie Hedbo" was hit by Muslim terrorists, but when lefties themselves get personally targeted by Muslims, the times may well be a changin'.

The Muslims struck at locations in Paris that equated to Newtown or Glebe in Sydney, the very "progressive" areas most favoured by idealistic people who vote for the multiculturalism endorsing, and Muslim sucking, Greens Party. Idealism is a wonderful thing, but the most reliable indicator of what people will so, is their search for safety.

It has been noted previously, that those who most approve of multiculturalism are the ones who live the fartherest from it's consequences. Not any more. My prediction, is that the coming French election will see the National Front win government in a landslide. The "progressives" are now the conservatives they once condemned.

Keep on thinking up excuses and spin about how wonderful multiculturalism is, Binoy. Because your job depends on it. But people are starting to get frightened. And we only have to look at how bad it has become in Europe to realise that Australia at least can still do something about it.

The tragedy in France should serve to really focus the debate on Australia's role in the conflict. That our involvement puts Australian civilians at risk here at home is a given. Once you cut through all the religious posturing the statement from ISIS claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks was pretty clear, Paris was targeted because;

“as long as they boast about their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets, which were of no avail to them in the filthy streets and alleys of Paris”

France was the first of the Allies to start bombing along side the US in Syria and Iraq. That is why the French pronouncement that they were now at war with ISIS is a touch disingenuous. What else do you call the earlier months of French bombing?

The list of countries conducting air-strikes also include Canada, the UK, Russia, Turkey and Jordan. Many of these countries have had recent calculated terrorism incidents like the downing of the Russian airliner or the massive bomb in Turkey killing 90.

There are estimated to be 6 ex-Saddam Sunni generals in the ISIS organisation. If you go dropping bombs on these people's heads you really shouldn't be surprised at a sophisticated response. These guys are not there primarily because they are religious fanatics but rather because was ISIS really is the only game in town in Northern Iraq, one that helped protect them from Iraqi government death squads and one that allows them to take the fight up to incursions from the Kurds and Assad forces.

I accept the argument that when we were asked by the US to be part of a coalition outside of a UN mandate we felt we had to support them. Having a big friend is pretty important in the grand scheme of things and the US is the biggest. We are counting on their help if needed so this is part of the bargain.

Cont...

Cont...

But it is pretty obvious that if ISIS hasn't any other means of striking our forces militarily (when we are bombing from 40,000ft) then the option to attack soft targets becomes far more attractive. We would be very foolish to think are not in their sights.

The new Canadian government has not made up its mind if it will continue bombing ISIS targets. However they probably do not feel the need to unquestioning support of the US like we do. My instinct is that they will deem the risk to their civilians as too great and return to assisting nonmilitarily.

Hear is my contention. One can only imagine the impotent rage the air-strikes spur in ISIS so if we are committed to armed conflict with ISIS, and everyone agrees that air-strikes alone will not defeat them, then Australia needs to put boots on the ground. Yes to put our troops in harms way. If they are in the reach of ISIS retaliatory strikes then the likelihood of them planning an operation in Australia like the one in Paris should be diminished.

Geoff of Perth, actually http://www.lonelyplanet.com/france/provence/marseille is worse than Paris & has become a symbol of everything that is bad or wrong about France & western society today, it is multi CULT-i hell. They don't even know what the Muslim population is any more. The figure is probably 50% but could be as low as 40% or high as 60%. Sad when you look backwards at French history to the importance of this city to the French soul. One of my friends is half French & served with the foreign legion, where else but in Northern Africa against islamic terrorism.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/paris-attacks-la-marseillaise-national-anthem-to-be-displayed-on-wembley-screens-so-english-fans-can-a6735546.html

Another thoughtful accurate comment Geoff.

LEGO, another great comment Sir. One of these days we will have to ask the question, are their any other racial, religious or ethnic migrant groups who also do not assimilate well & have been a consistent problem?

SteeleRedux, another typically evasive & deceptive pro communism rant. Blame conservatives for the terrorism problem that communists caused by deliberately importing known terrorists into our once fair land. There is another way to solve this problem you communist fool. Have no Muslims on Australian soil for any reasons other than Embassy staff & tourists on guided tour holy-days.

Rhrosty when the US provide small arms to fighters it is generally AK-47's that they give out.

Geoff of Perth,

"The weapons used were Israeli manufactured.

The entire attack was just another "false-flag" attack, how convenient when you want to close your borders against a refugee onslaught, watch as other countries follow suit."

How do you know that the weapons were of Israeli manufacture?

Still it's nice to know that we have a new conspiracy theorist in our midst,humour has been a bit wanting of late.

Geoff of Perth is one of the few who recognise the truth. It was another Israel/CIA false flag event. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/16/washington-refines-its-false-flag-operations-paul-craig-roberts/

Dear imacentristmoderate,

Communist?

As usual the vitriol comes when you have nothing but me thinks this time you are showing your age. That is almost quaint.

Lol.

On a light note -

I note at Wembley game the words to France National Anthem will go up on the screen for all to join in - showing "unity".

I hope the English crowd will also sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" - have heard it sang on so many occasions throughout their club games, also think it most appropriate for this game.

Michael Rivero gives the best summary of international power plays I've yet to hear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltYhHSTeIUo

Dear SAINTS,

This was pretty powerful, albeit in a quiet way;

http://youtu.be/jb_5QlLQQH8

SteeleRedux

Thank you for sharing - very special.

Dad's message to his son - "the flowers and candles" will protect us against the guns. Loved the little boy's "cheeky smile" at the end.

Dad is always right.

Hey Arjay,
Yeah Rivero's show was excellent today, I watch it most mornings.
I called false flag on it on Sunday, (after not paying attention to it for 2 days) but have been expecting something for 6 weeks, since the Russians stymied US plans in Syria.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7076&page=0#216929

I hear rumours the US is about to launch full scale war against IS, and I also heard Rivero say Putin is considering sending in those 150,000 troops he recently called up.

Not quite sure where its going to go from here at this point

Armchair the West have been pushing for war with Russia and China but have come to realise that spending lots on weapons does not produce a good end result.Russia has superior weapons and China has the numbers.

China has been invited to join the IMF special drawing rights or SDRs. This is a capitulation by the West because the SDR was to be the new currency to replace the US $ when it collapses.I think China has threatened to go it alone with a gold backed Yuan and are now winning. The Central Bankers do not want a gold backed currency because this stops their money printing. The Global currency reset will be the SDR but this will not be good news for us as they will repeat the debt slavery with a new name

Well I read the article by Paul Craig Roberts linked by Arjay, and what a hoot.

Not a single verifiable fact in it to support the repeated assertions that this is all a vast conspiracy. The word 'obviously' is used repeated to avoid the need to provide proof. When you assert that such-and-such is OBVIOUSLY true then you don't need to offer proof. Its obvious, obviously.

Well its obvious to those who don't need evidence since they just want it to be true.

These type of assertions are essentially racist. According to these dills, the only way ISIL could have out-smarted the French authorities was if they had support and control from Washington or Elysee (or Area 51?). Because, obviously, those muslims are too dumb to out-smart westerners all by themselves. And of coarse they are so dumb that they allow their cause, their religion and their communities to be hijacked by those evil [insert your favourite western bogey-man].

Strangely for people like Paul Craig Roberts, a few testable predictions are made in the article and we might come back to this in a few months to see how he fared. But I suspect that for the Arjays of this world, the failure of his predictions will just be further proof of the vastness of the conspiracy.

Ya gotta laugh.

mhaze you are a Zionist troll. The truth is emerging.

Well Arjay,

I figured you'd respond to my post but I didn't expect such an eloquent, carefully-argued, fact-ladened fisking of all my arguments.

Kudos.

So, to summarise the article, France has a history of terrorism and has brought these on itself. Perhaps we can extend this logic to leftism. Leftism has a history of terrorism and murder so any retaliation against leftism has been brought on itself.

//mhaze you are a Zionist troll. The truth is emerging.//

Why don't you just say what you really think, Arjay/Armchair Critic/Whatever sock puppet you choose to don? We all know that you use 'Zionist' as a polite euphemism for 'Jew', because expressing negative prejudices against Jews has been socially unacceptable since the end of WWII. But you are anonymous on this forum, so the worst that will happen is that somebody will compare you to a Nazi. And employing a euphemism when everybody knows exactly what you mean anyway is rather pointless. Think of all the typing time you could save by writing Jew instead of Zionist.

Just go ahead and say what you really feel, dude. Half the posters have worked themselves into such a lather over Islam that a few more offensive stereotypes won't raise any eyebrows. Be proud of your anti-semitism. And if you can't be proud of it, maybe you should be asking yourself why.

//Perhaps we can extend this logic to leftism. Leftism has a history of terrorism and murder so any retaliation against leftism has been brought on itself.//

If we can extend it that far then we can also extend it to rightism, which has its own history of terrorism and murder - are the cowardly attacks in Paris just retaliation against rightism? Have the right brought this upon themselves, with innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire? No, of course not. And furthermore, what the hell is wrong with you Aristrocrat? 132 people have died. 132. And all you care about is scoring cheap points against those dreadful lefties.

Lavis, Kampmark is playing politics. I am playing as well - I don't deny this. Kampmark is trying to disregard the attacks because "France has a history of it and has meddled in other nations' affairs". Well, let's turn Kampmark's reasoning on lefties like himself. How many have lefties killed in the socialist revolutions? Millions. According to Kampmark, it should be okay to murder millions of lefties because "they have a history of terrorism and have meddled in others' affairs".

Hi Mhaze, welcome to OLO

We keep telling Arjay and Steelredux that their arguments are a real help to their opponents, because their premises are so over the top that only an Arab could believe them. We have tried to advise them to tone it down a bit, if only for the sake that we would prefer to have opponents who are obviously not just raving lunatics. Fortunately, they have not taken our advice, and they remain our greatest assets.

Please don't be too hard on them.

Vladmir Putin has revealed that 40 countries including the G20 have financed ISIS to over throw Syria and bring chaos to the West. They need more repressive laws to keep us in line when our economies collapse and they start more wars.

Arjay,

Zionist troll here !


Do you actually read the stuff you refer to here.

Putin said that money came FROM 40 countries including SOME G20 countries. But the money wasn't coming from governments of those countries but from private individuals in those countries - the famous moderate muslims presumably.

So the rest of your polemic is rubbish based on a misunderstanding of the facts

Dear LEGO,

Quite to the contrary my friend. As Waleed Ali has so eloquently pointed out it is you and your ilk who are so determinedly following the ISIS game plan and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
http://youtu.be/nxNJLkIkYQM

They want to divide this into them and us, to create division and distrust which is exactly your shtick as well.

LEGO - 5th columnist for ISIS

Well it does have a ring to it which I'm sure you will continue to live up to.

Meanwhile the French President has reaffirmed France's agreement to accept further Syrians fleeing the war in their country. “30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years. Our country has the duty to respect this commitment,”

Makes Morrison's wanting 'majority Christians' when 98% are Muslim look so petty.

Re Steeledux,

I'm always fascinated , when we see someone bang on about being united or decrying divisiveness.
It seems to me what they really want is a unified front where everyone just agrees with them. "You're being divisive" translates to "just agree with me" or worse "just do as I say".

But divisiveness is who we are. That's what our society is all about. The society ISIL wants to create bans divisiveness and disagreement.

ISIL aren't trying to forment division in our society. They don't give a damn whether we're united or not. The only separation they're interested in a separating our heads from our torsos, or separating our men from their soon-to-be sex slaves.

The likes of Aly use ISIL as a bogey-man to try to enforce their own prejudices. ISIL is a threat to our way of life and so is attempted uniformity of thought.

"Makes Morrison's wanting 'majority Christians' when 98% are Muslim look so petty." Yes 98% are muslim. Also 98% or so of the terrorists in their midst are also muslim. Taking Christians seems the prudent thing to do. Bringing in more potential suicide bombers, not so much.

LEGO,

Thanks for the welcome. But I have actual been on OLO for over a decade now and prior to that I was on its original discussion group using Yahoo groups as the base.

But I'm not a regular. I come back regularly to see how its going here, post for a while, get bored with dealing with the morons (no names mind you :) ) and move on. But OLO has a special place and I admire what GrahamY has done.

My main aim is to test my own views. You read, you study you ponder and then you form an opinion. But the best way to test the validity of your conclusions is to put them out there and see what holes others can punch in your ideas. (Screaming "zionist troll" doesn't count - sorry Arjay). So we rely on the rest of the cohort being reasonably intelligent and analytic. My guess is that there were more such people in the past. You'd assume they've gone elsewhere but I don't know where - every been to The Conversation?, sheesh.

My rough idea is that we, as a society, have become more entrenched in our individual views partly because the stakes are now much greater. The heyday of the Howard golden years allowed for less stridency in views, and its a shame that has, apparently, gone.

Still, thanks for the welcome, anyway.

Dear mhaze,

It appears my sabbatical from here happened not long after yours but was admittedly substantially shorter. I personally felt it was the Abbott era that changed this place with the equivalent of 3 word sloganeering becoming the norm and finding myself not immune from the attraction. Anyway who knows what the future will bring.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask why you think we are a divisive society? Of course we are diverse even disparate in some things but divisive? The old saying that we have more things that bind us rather than divide us would seem truer in this country than most.

You wrote;

“It seems to me what they really want is a unified front where everyone just agrees with them.”

Perhaps in some instances this would seem to be the aim, certainly the recent SJW issues at Yale would speak to that contention.

But I'm not sure it is is applicable on this issue for the following reason – the divisiveness is we are discussing here potentially extends all the way to the total exclusion of a race of people based primarily on religious grounds. Even in the last 30 years we have seen those fault lines, when unchecked, lead to Sri Lankan, Balkan and Rwandan tragedies. People are right to be wary of them, to strive to defuse, to expose and to stymie them.

You wrote;

“The only separation they're interested in a separating our heads from our torsos, or separating our men from their soon-to-be sex slaves.”

Well no, the real separation they are after is our bombs from their heads, and the rest right at this point in time is just floss. Australia is one of a very small group of nations bombing the hell out of ISIS and three of those nations have suffered major losses of civilian lives in the past 6 weeks.

Cont..

cont..
And it is here that I feel Waleed has wimped it. The Grand Mufti tried when he talked of “causative factors” but got quickly cut down by the government and the media. To borrow a line from Mr Gore as I have done in another place, this for the Australian government is an 'inconvenient truth' which to their shame they don't feel they can trust the Australian public with. Waleed would most certainly have copped some flak for raising it but I just feel a person of his profile, intelligence and articulation could have managed it. It was disappointing not to see him try.

You wrote;

“Taking Christians seems the prudent thing to do. Bringing in more potential suicide bombers, not so much.”

How would you think than then reflects on the Muslims already here? How would that sentiment play out in the trains and trams, in the school yards, in the work places? Particularly amongst those who have arrived with very little and are making the difficult journey of being able to make a go of it in this country?

My father-in-law immigrated from Germany in the early 50s. He speaks of very little prejudice even though his people had perpetrated arguably the greatest humanitarian crime of the century. I would hate to see a generation of refugees being hit with an environment that virtually guarantees a section of them will fail.

you really have to laugh steelee

what was it? Working Families Working Families Working Families .... ad nauseum... ?

Did you forget? Wasn't that in an election sometime ago? Who was ithat? Lol your mates Kevvey the revvy and julie dumbly?

Lol you really know how to make a man laugh. lol

But back to the future.

You gotta laugh at he medieval warriors from the medieval religion attacking with auto rifles and suicide vests.Don't they realise they are a bit overwhelmed compared to the impact of carpet bombing and the nukes possessed by their enemies who will have no compunction to use them when they need to.

You really gotta laugh at the inanity of it all.
se
What are you going to do about these bombings and nuke events to come?

Spin? ... like a kiddies top. They all peter out, just like religion is currently. Islam, like all religions, is in its death throes and the secular west will just keep growing and developing.

You need to commit to being aboard the western secular train.
It's moving more rapidly than ever before and you keep harking back to beliefs and ideologies that most people in the west abandoned... long ago.

If you do't you won't survive you'll become irrelevant and spend an inordinate of time arguing an irrelevance... change is occurring too fast to do that.

Steeledux,

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask why you think we are a divisive society?

The word 'divisive' is itself divisive having been expropriated to mean something bad....divisive = bad, diversity = good.

I was using the term in the context of it being an adjective derived from division. We are a divided society. We want to be a divided society because that's how democracy works. That's the reason for democracy - to arbitrate between the divisions. From its first iteration at Athens, democracy has engendered factions and division. A society without division is not democratic. Thus we encourage and need divisiveness.

" the divisiveness is we are discussing here potentially extends all the way to the total exclusion of a race of people based primarily on religious grounds."

Islam or mohammedanism isn't a race. The difference is both pedantic and essential. I don't want to banning of races. I want the discontinuation of the importing of muslimswherever they're from. But I don't want to ban the religion here. It'd be impossible and it would be highly undemocratic.
What I want is recognition that Islam is not compatible with our culture. We can live with that up to a point. What we see in Europe is that, once the religion gets to a certain threshold in terms of numbers, then the ability for a society to live with this incompatible culture is compromised. We aren't there yet and I don't want toget there.

"Australia is one of a very small group of nations bombing the hell out of ISIS and three of those nations have suffered major losses of civilian lives in the past 6 weeks."

Yes we are and I guess its arguable that that makes us more vulnerable although I'd point out that terrorists attacks here have pre-dated our assault on Daesh. Quesrtion....
The US and Aust basically stayed out of the ISIL issue (at least militarily) up until the Yazidi crisis arose where an entire culture was slated to be wiped out by having the men killed and the women raped, enslaved, on-sold, force-converted and

impregnated. (10 yr old girls cost a mere $124 and are, by the grace of Allah, of an age to be used).

So, was the West wrong to use military force to try to save these people?

"How would you think than then reflects on the Muslims here?"
I note that you don't deny that importing muslims means importing potential suicide bombers.
The muslims already here are a difficult problem but it in their hands to resolve it. I accept that pretty much all of those who come here are not immediately seeking to install sharia. But they do tend to create an atmosphere where the extremist can grow. Its primarily the second generation that is the problem. Given our multicultural fetishes, its not possible for us to approach that second generation and instill in them the belief that the new culture is preferable to the old. Its up to the first generation and their religious leaders. And here they are failing for want of trying. But that's built into the religion anyway.

"My father-in-law immigrated from Germany in the early 50s. "
I wonder what would have happened had they immigrated and then set up little German enclaves where a (small) number began to assert that Nazism was actually the better way to go and they intended to work toward that. I wonder how unprejudiced we would have been then, especially after it was found that some of them were stock-piling Zyklon B.

Australia has a pretty good record at taking people from diverse backgrounds and cultures and melding them into a society. I'm no fan of multiculturalism but I'm happy with s being multicultural. However, Islam is a different conundrum. We've taken people from places which were compatible with our culture (Europeans) or whose beliefs were not antithetical ours (south Asians). But this culture, this religion, at least in one reading of it, is supremacist, extremist and unamenable to joining the family of cultures we have here. We made a terrible mistake letting it in over the past quarter century. But we don't need to compound that mistake.

Dear mhaze,

Your descriptive use of divisive is perhaps one I might have not employed but I accept the context in which it is given.

You distinction of race and religion is also in practice a little fraught. For instance both Christian and Muslim girls are circumcised in Nigeria. If FGM is one of your concerns then religion is not the most accurate determination for their suitability as immigrants.

You asked;

“So, was the West wrong to use military force to try to save these people?”

No, just as it wasn't wrong when it used military force against Christians raping and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bosnia-war-crimes-the-rapes-went-on-day-and-night-robert-fisk-in-mostar-gathers-detailed-evidence-of-1471656.html

This however was done under the auspices of the UN Secretary General and the Security Council and safe havens were attempted on the ground.

The current bombing is done by a small group of primarily Western nations without UN backing. Australia is one of those nations.

I do have concerns about Australia's capacity to meld substantive numbers into our society. We now have one of the highest percentage of our students attending private religious based schools in the world. These institutions have been the beneficiaries of enormous increases in government funding over the decades. The downside of course is the melting pot of the public school which was so formative in shaping young attitudes toward 'others' has been greatly diminished.

I disagree with the statement that Islam is incompatible with out culture because it patently isn't true I take issue with extreme forms of any religion. I wouldn't have a problem with a mosque being built in my town unless it was Wahhabi (or similar) funded and operated. If I had my way this country would have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia, a backward nation using petrodollars to fund terrorism and an evil form of Islamic extremism throughout the world.

Blanket stereotyping advances nothing. We need our own well thought out strategies for dealing with these issues that honour what we are as a nation and if they end up upsetting countries the US so be it.

A bit of a "Yes/No" answer there Steeledux. Yes we should help Yazidi not suffer genocide but (no) it was done the wrong way. I don't think there is aright and wrong way to stop genocide.

I understand, and fully agree with, the arguments that the problem muhammadans are but a small fraction of the total numbers. Nonetheless they are a much much larger fraction than, say, the problem buddhists within their community. The two major problems are that the troubles tend to start with the second generation and they are relatively easily radicalised because their sacred texts lend themselves to murder, terrorism and rejection of our values.

" If FGM is one of your concerns"
Well I haven't mentioned it so I'm a little confused by the segue. But it ought to be everyone's concern. I recognise that the abomination is more cultural than religious so, as with all things cultural should be left at home by refugees we take. Otherwise the full force of the law should be applied. But we have several thousand 'procedures' done each year with very few prosecutions...well a good multicultural society needs to be 'sensitive' on such issues. </sarc>

" I take issue with extreme forms of any religion."
Well I don't see the type of religion practiced by ISIL as being the extreme form of Islam. It is Islam. It is taking the full body of the sacred texts and applying them. The moderates are turning there gaze away from the Medina Koran and looking only at the Meccan texts. And that's good. But its also fraught and its why the sons of moderates, when exposed to the Medinan texts by radicalising elements are, seemingly, easily turned. It will always be thus, until such time as Islam finds a way to its own reformation.

Due to Germany's and other Eurpean countries' wrongheaded invitation for 100,000s of "Syrian" refugees to crowd into Europe Australia agreed to take 12,000.

A big debate is going on that most into Australia should be the most oppressed minority Christians, Yazidis, Zoroastrians and Jews from Syria. Other liberal wets (like Turnbull) say Muslims should form a large proportion.

Australian government assurances that all Muslim refugees will be security checked [ http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/paris-attacks-stringent-checks-on-would-be-refugees/story-fni0cx12-1227610082698 ] before entry are rubbish.

Its the young Muslim refugee sons under 10 (who are too young to be security checked) who form the greatest security threat. By the time they are 16 they are easy meat for ISIS recruitment - mainly stabbing or shooting policemen in Australia...

Dear mhaze,

The initial action may well have been justified but this has now turned into 14 months of bombing from the air in a manner not designed to permanently destroy ISIS but to corral them into fighting Assad's forces – a tactic basically admitted to by the US. That protracted period of dropping bombs from 40,000 feet by a small group of Western nations likely led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians in France, Turkey and on-board that Russian flight. That is a wrong way.

When you write;

“Well I don't see the type of religion practiced by ISIL as being the extreme form of Islam.” it surely allows the retort 'Well I don't see the pogrom practiced in the name of Jesus by Hitler as extreme'. If you accept them both then I have little to argue with you.

"'Well I don't see the pogrom practiced in the name of Jesus by Hitler as extreme'."

You 'think' Hitler acted in the name of Jesus? Now THAT'S extreme.

Dear mhaze,

Well thankfully my friend this is quite easily resolvable.

I shall put forward my evidence and you can put forward yours and we will see where we land.

This is what Jesus thought of the Jewish leadership;

From Matthew;

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.”

“You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?”

“Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city”

When the Jews took Jesus to Pilate they said; “His blood be on us, and on our children.”

From John;

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

Even Paul got into the act;

“You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”

So what did Hitler think? Well these are his own words;

““And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his
estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove
those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God.”
Mein Kampf pp.174

Cont...

Cont..

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of
the Almighty Creator.”
Mein Kampf_, pp. 46

And this from his Munich speech in 1922

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a
fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded
by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and
summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest
not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian
and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord
at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the
Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight
against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with
deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact
that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As
a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have
the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is
anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is
the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty
to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and
work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only
for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning
and see these men standing in their queues and look into their
pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very
devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two
thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people
are plundered and exposed.”

These are my reasons for 'thinking' he felt he was acting in Jesus' name. I await your evidence to the contrary.

Steeledux,

1. The Bible quotes you list are not Jesus condemning all Jews to whatever fate you imagine. It is Jesus taking on the church hierarchy who he considers to be corrupt. I see Jesus as a political resistance leader and thus opinion that he saw the Romanising pharisees as Quislings. Either way its only this group he attacks. For example your John 8:44 quote. If you read the full chapter (and I wonder if you did or if you just found a verse that seemed to support your position), you'll see that its the Pharisees who he addresses as they try to trip him up over theological issues.

Still, I guess its possible to assume that Hitler made your mistake about Jesus so...

2. I note, as I'm sure you did, that you can only find quotes from Hitler supportive of Christianity from his early days. I'll help you out by offering that you could also find some such quotes from the mid to late 30s as well. But they are all in regards to public utterances. Germany in those days was still 90% Christian and Hitler, publicly, saw no good reason to gratuitously piss them off by attacking their faith.

But in private....read Speer's "Inside the Third Reich", (" "Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church") or Goebel's diary. Read the Table Talk. Or read the Nuremberg Project's information about the future plans to destroy the Christian church post-war.

In the end, for your hypothesis to offer even a passing nod at believability, you'd need to find some evidence of the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular, saying that their actions during Kristallnacht or the final solution were in response to their desire to honour Jesus.

Good luck with that.

Dear mhaze,

Attempting obfuscation so quickly? Come on, I could easily offer a counter to my own point without trying to twist the argument.

Let me bring you back to what you said;

“You 'think' Hitler acted in the name of Jesus? Now THAT'S extreme.”

Note I did not say he acted in the name of the Church or indeed of Christianity as a religion. Rather that Hitler acted for and evoked the name of Jesus which patently he did.

Your first argument was;

“1. The Bible quotes you list are not Jesus condemning all Jews to whatever fate you imagine. It is Jesus taking on the church hierarchy who he considers to be corrupt.”

Which was exactly the reason I said “This is what Jesus thought of the Jewish leadership;”. Yet you chose to ignore it.

Your second was;

“2. I note, as I'm sure you did, that you can only find quotes from Hitler supportive of Christianity from his early days.”

I repeat I made no claim about Hitler's support of Christianity and it is disingenuous of you to try and claim I did. Rather it was Jesus himself whom Hitler constantly references. You raise Table Talk in evidence but this is what Hitler supposedly said;

“When one thinks of the opinions held concerning Christianity by our best minds a hundred, two hundred years ago, one is ashamed to realise how little we have since evolved. I didn't know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgement with such clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians... the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry... and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore—of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul... Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely."

Cont..

Cont..

While decidedly critical of the Church and the religion of Christianity the reverence Hitler held for Jesus was still as evident as ever. Note this was in late 1941.

Then you conclude with this;

“In the end, for your hypothesis to offer even a passing nod at believability, you'd need to find some evidence of the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular, saying that their actions during Kristallnacht or the final solution were in response to their desire to honour Jesus.”

Bulldust! You are doing it again. My hypothesis was that Hitler acted in the name of Jesus and I made no submission about the Nazis at all. More obfuscation. How about just this once you try and address my argument without resorting to it.

Steeledux,

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But instead you're making the claim and asking me to disprove it. Well you can't prove a negative.

For your claim to work you need to:

1. Show that Jesus wanted to or condemned Jews to some sort of retribution for their 'evil' and that he fought during his lifetime to do so.

OR

that Hitler at least thought that Jesus wanted to visit disaster on the Jews and that Jesus encouraged his followers to take up that cudgel.

2. Show that Hitler specifically said that his pogrom against the Jew was done at the instigation of Jesus or in response to Jesus's call through the ages for such a pogrom. It might also be of some value to demonstrate that Hitler sought to implement other calls to action made by Jesus so as to avoid the suspicion that he was simply using this one part of the Jesus story to give some cover for what he wanted to do anyway.

Simply saying that Jesus hated some Jews and Hitler made some nice comments about Jesus' hatred of some Jews, doesn't, I'm afraid, cut the mustard.

Dear mhaze;

You wrote;

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But instead you're making the claim and asking me to disprove it. Well you can't prove a negative.”

It is just that this is not an extraordinary claim at all. I just took Hitler's own words both and made a self-evident observation. You had two choices, either to show my evidence was false/incorrect or to produce an alternative argument, both of which you have failed to do. This does not mean I am asking you to prove a negative at all rather to attempt to disprove a positive.

You insisted that for my claim to work I had to;

“1. Show that Jesus wanted to or condemned Jews to some sort of retribution for their 'evil' and that he fought during his lifetime to do so.

Well no I don't, all I had to show is that Hitler thought that was what Jesus sought to do and it is very clear from the evidence I have presented this was exactly how he was thinking. There are many interpretations of the bible and of Jesus' message held by innumerable denominations of the Christian faith. Those that Hitler held were very much in vogue in Europe especially during the early part of the 21st century, especially within the Catholic church.

You second requirement was;

“2. Show that Hitler specifically said that his pogrom against the Jew was done at the instigation of Jesus or in response to Jesus's call through the ages for such a pogrom.”

Here it is from his own pen;

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Mein Kampf.

I'm not sure if there could be anything more explicit yet I'm sure it will not suffice to shake your determination not to accept any evidence that I present.