Sharkfin, it is not supremist thinking at all. The terrorists see taking innocent lives as acceptable, I dont (and the philosophy of our country and most of the West has always been this). America's approach for a long long time has been "protect ourselves and damn the consequences to anyone else", which is why I am not a big fan of the US.

Look, I am not saying that we shouldnt defend ourselves to the best of our abilities, but in no circumstance is the taking of the life of a non-combatant justified. If we take that approach then we are no better than the terrorists - scum. I would like to think more highly of myself and those around me. If you want to be a murderer (which is effectively what you are condoning), go live somewhere else because all you will do is invite even more attacks.

c gal, maybe we are in for a long spate of 'asymmetric warfare', where one side doesn't wear uniforms. hard to sort out the noncombatants then. only solution is to get out of their country, but as one yank put it- "it's a shame our oil is under their country."

then there's the problem of rich non-combatants hiring soldiers to do their killing for them. should they be untouchable?

So Sharkfin wants us to kill women and children now? Am i reading this post correctly?
At any rate the whole 'Make a war on Terror so we can get away with stuff' thing has been done before, i don’t know why the public can fall for it again. Regan had his War on Terror years ago against countries in Central and South America, and consequentially the International Courts found the United States guilty of terrorism.
The only way to win the stupidly named war on terror is to change the brain chemistry of every human so we no longer fear. Failing that, why not stop screwing around with other countries just to benefit yourselves, seems simple to me. Most of these terrorist attacks were perpetrated by countries that aggravated people. Though their actions may be extreme, their causes cannot be denied, nor responsibility for the ignored.

The so called “WAR ON TERROR” was the excuse by the federal government to purportedly fight a war but it was as to employ the High Court of Australia 1943 judgment that it could then suspend civil rights in time of war.

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Hermann Goering, Hitlers' Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg trials after WW2.

Sure, the High Court of Australia had it wrong as the Framers of the Constitution made clear that the Commonwealth of Australia had no powers to deal with “civil rights” as that was left to the States, but who cares really? The Judges aren’t going to take on the Federal Government.
The “WAR AGAINST TERROR” is against any INDIVIDUAL the Government pretends might be a terrorist, regardless if the person actually is or isn’t.
As such, it is against any individual. Hence, the individuals, such as in the Bali incident in their view consider it legitimate to kill Australians as after all they are in a WAR declared by this Australian Government.
I do not support any kind of killing, but one can hardly blame just those committing bombings where the Federal Government declared a war onto them. In that regard they respond in kind!
As such, it is the Federal Government that is the real culprit! Its declaration of war served for it to grab more power but as result has needlesly cost many Australian lives!

Alanpoi, " to have a war you need at least 2 armies, a patch of dirt to fight over,someone to negotiate a peace with and a defined result i.e. one side are all dead, they can see they are beaten or they run out of dirt,you can't do any of these things with "

Perhaps the framework for the war on terror is closer to the war on drugs rather than conventional war.

Then again we don't seem to be doing very well with that war either.

R0bert