May the bullet that reportedly paralysed the perpetrator paralyse the insidious side of all men's religions.

Whistler I truly fail to understand you.
Like runner you in habit a world that seems not to exist.
Steven, well I would do well not to say this but I too am not unaware of the worst in Islam.
For that part of it I feel no different than you, about every religion too.
But every one of them, no exceptions, has good mixed with the evil.
This murderer was Muslim, but had only just started to attend his place of worship.
He was evil gutless and maybe insane too, maybe brain washed as well.
I am not looking to his religion for retribution.
But America and the west must tell us, is it worth while?
Can we change that part of the world?
Are deaths of young men worth the hatred?
Yes I understand the training grounds for terrorism side but if the west treated life with as little regard as some Islamists we could bomb rather than support the criminal corruption governing these lands.
Humanity always runs last when nations compete in the name of self interest.

The first post of this thread is deeply disturbing on so many levels.

Using the author's twisted logic the Tamils are mostly Hindu which according to the Muslim extremists are almost as bad. We would thus be importing allies not potential enemies.

Secondly the man that did the shooting was experiencing harassment due to his religion, and was to be deployed against his will to an area where he would be outcast both from the people in the area and his supposed colleagues, and completely alone.

The problems we are having is because the Muslims are feeling outcast and second class citizens, and the solution is integration not further isolation.

Runner, the worst atrocities in recorded history were done in the name of Christianity.

Belly asks:

"Can we change that part of the world?"

The answer:

NO!

And even if we could it would not be worth the cost in lives and money.

When it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan we should withdraw IMMEDIATELY. Let the various Iraqi / Afghan groups get on with the business of killing each other; or not; as THEY choose.

A withdrawal would be a catastrophe for Afghan women but that is NOT our problem and we should not let it become our problem.

Not that women in Afghanistan have it easy even now. See:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/14/afghanistan-womens-rights-rape

The argument that we can somehow fight terrorism by occupying Iraq and Afghanistan at great cost to Australian / American / UK lives is pure drivel. Nor can we "win" there.

In fact what would victory look like? The only way to "win" in Afghanistan is to do to that country what the Romans did to Carthage. However Carthage posed a threat to Rome. Afghanistan does not pose that sort of threat to us. Al Qaeda may have been based in Afghanistan but the actual plotting of 9 / 11 took place in Germany. The Bali bombers originated in Indonesia. London's 7 /7 bombers were all UK born. Parts of Pakistan seem to be "Muslim terrorist farms".

Shadow Minister

I wish I shared your optimism about the possibility of integrating Muslims

Shadow Minister,

Most of the support for the LTTE has come from the Tamil Diaspora. I read Canadian diaspora alone funded 200 million per year to the terrorist cause. I do not see them automatically as allies. Terrorists are terrorists and they target civilians to fight their wars. I read that some Tamils in Sri Lanka were very angry to keep the war going as it was not them suffering. There is no justification to support terrorism, ever.

To isolate one example of a violent act by a Muslim as being a warning bell for immigration is a bit thin.

If we were to use this person's logic we would not allow any Christians, or Irish, or German - in fact any group that has a violent past. There are Christians committing indecent acts against others all the time - even Bush invaded Iraq apparently on the word of his God, nutter Christians in the mid-west are still taking on child brides and getting away with pedophilia.

I am not having a go at Christians, as most Christians are decent living people, just making the obvious point that one cannot discriminate against a whole group of people on the basis of one violent act. Particularly when there appears to be other issues in this case.

It really is stating the bleedin' obvious but apparently not so obvious for some.