What to do in-deed...let them go and revoke their Australian passports....easy come..easy go.....they were guests in the first place:)....you go....don't come back.

Planet3

Suse,

You say "I would say the same of an ex Irishman going back to fight the IRA in Belfast, as I would any ex-Syrian going back to Syria to fight."

I never heard of civilians going to Ireland to fight the IRA, but you don't comment on an Australian going to Occupied Ireland to fight the British or an Australian soldier being officially attached to a British unit to gain experience in Northern Ireland'

Do you see a difference, after all the soldier is there with his Government's permission?

I think the issue is not about 'Australians' going to Syria but 'who' these individuals really are. Should we all just assume they are former political refugees from the Middle East? Or should we assume they are third or fourth generation Aussies with British, Irish, European ancestry? Why leave these crucial blanks in the story? Let's name them and remove the doubts.

There is an angle to this that some are missing. Something that makes it a mite different to someone fighting for the IRA or George Orwell & buddies fighting for the republican forces in Spain.

Quite a number of the individuals who have return to fight for fundamentalist causes were granted asylum in Oz -ie they came to Oz professing fear that the fundamentalists were out to get me. Then, when they have secured their meal ticket, run off back to fight for the Taliban or al-Shabaab.

Talk of revoking citizen sounds good. But it ain't going to happen --in the current climate. We would be faced with a logjam of court cases and appeals from (often by government funded) rights groups.

You have all missed the point !

There is a long standing law against citizens of a country becoming
directly involved in a war in a foreign army.

This is why those going to Syria say they are going for humanitarian reasons.
It compromises the countries neutrality and that is why the law exists.
In some cases the offender could be charged with treachery.
The very least they can be denied by their country and passport and citizenship cancelled.
The latter is minimum that should be done in this case.

s Mise,
Interesting that you have some knowledge of;
" Ustashe in Australia from raising money and training in Australia; and plotting the overthrow of Tito's Yugoslavian Government"
These camps were between Berrima and Goulburn in NSW and run by ASIO.
It wasw interesting that when the first body was found in the Belanglo State Forrest the word "Ustashe" appeared twenty feet in the air on a wall beside the Shell service station in Bowral.
Since the State Forrest was used extensive;y for the training of these people it makes you wonder about Iven Milats conviction does,t it?