Bazz, Al Qaeda is a Sunni movement, they are deadly enemies of the Shia, Alawite and Christian minorities in Syria,Hezbollah are the main Shia resistance group in the region. The U.S only supports Sunni fighters, via it's proxies Qatar and Saudi Arabia, so all these Al Qaeda groups running around are effectively U.S "irregulars" or mercenaries.

Raw mustard,
Agreed, the U.S and Israel are not credible sources of information, they lie about everything, notice the initial alarm was raised by an Israeli "analyst", not a military official.
Did you catch 4 Corners the other week when they interviewed the U.S intelligence sources for the Iraq invasion?

SM, in your naivety, you like so many gullible people fall for the American spin. Rwanda had no strategic or economic interest for the US imperialists, unlike the Middle East witch is loaded with oil to be exploited for huge profits by the multinationals. The US military complex is only there to serve the interest of global capital. Have you watched too many reruns of 'Superman' and now truly believe Uncle Sam is in fact fighting for "Truth, Justice and the American Way."
P/S I am all in favour of the Australian drones going into Syria, yes send in Drone Abbott, Drone Hockey, Drone Howard etc, we certainly don't need them here.

Dear Shadow Minister,

What I have difficulty in grasping is - how can one
tell who the "enemy" is over there? That is, who to
tartget? I'm just as much against human lives being
lost as you are. But how can machines know who's who?
The situation is not so clear-cut. I fear running the
risk of having innocent people being killed by machines
- including Australians who are there helping out.

Actually Paul I do agree that the reluctance to intervene in Rwanda had something to do with its strategic insignificance, but also in part because it is a largely inaccessible country. So none of the imperialists such as China, Russia, Indonesia etc were interested.

Maybe we should send in our resident space kadet ol' Brown eye Bob to call in our alien buddies.

Lexi,

I missed your post.

If the drones focus mainly on heavy weapons with anti tank weapons, and use intelligence from satellites the chance of civilian casualties from drone strikes is almost zero.

Dear Shadow Minister,

If Americans decide to go ahead with this -
where does that leave Australia and our
humanitarian program? And won't this result
in more refugees running towards our shores
trying to get away from all the killing?