The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting
link that should be of interest at least to
those posters who don't conflate Islam and
terrorism:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/asio-needs-more-muslim-recruits-20140826-108m8f.html

"Among the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world,
only the wildest fringes engage in mayhem. Those who
invoke passages in the Koran to justify carnage are
vastly outnumberes by Muslims who do not practice or
condone violence."

"Demonising Islam only serves to encourage some Muslims
to feel victimised, marginalised and drawn towards the
allure of defending the honour of Muslims through
violence."

"Last week, the head of ASIO, David Irvine, set the right
tone, when he said, "We are not fighting Islam, we are
fighting terrorism. And they're two very, very, different
things. It just doesn't make sense and frankly, it's an
outrage to my sense of being an Australian that we would
claim to be fighting Islam."

"...I would actually like more members of the Australian
Muslim Community working with ASIO. That would help us
understand better ... this is an organisation that is
designed to protect you and you should be part of it."

"Irvine's message was repeated by Prime Minister, Tony
Abbott in his meetings with Muslim leaders last week...
It cannot be said often enough that Islam is not
synonymous with terrorism and Muslims should not be
tarred by terrorists acting out their own psychoses."

Unfortunately FOXY, that's one of the main criticisms levelled at the more peaceful, more moderate Muslims whose only wish is to reside harmoniously amongst us, in the suburbs of our big cities ? Very few of them will actually overtly condemn the practices of the 'Islamic State' and their murderous cohorts. It's as though, if they remain absolutely passive, then hopefully it will all go away ? By doing nothing though, they unfortunately draw much more adverse attention to themselves, regrettably.

It will probably come to pass, that these more moderate, peace loving Muslims may well have to choose sides, if the violence significantly escalates and becomes more wide spread ? Personally, I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, but, who would know ?

the families of those killed by muslims who are part of the US army would definetly not want more followers of Mohammed among their ranks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225627/Fort-Hood-shootings-Army-major-Nidal-Malik-Hasan-kills-12-injures-31-shootout-troops-army-base.html

Irvine's political correctness just shows that he has little understanding of Islam at best and is willing to sacrifice the well being of our nation to say the things that won't offend the political elite. He shows why are nation is doomed

It is interesting that 'librarian' Foxy quoted from one of those 'MSMs'(sic) that she always maintains are unreliable and in so doing, strangely overlooked a very recent and comprehensive interview on Foxy's usually preferred Q&A of Senator the Hon George Brandis QC, who happens to be the Commonwealth Attorney-General and first law officer of Australia.

As an aside, long after the Governor-General's appointment of Brandis to the role of Attorney-General, the 'fact-finding' ABC still wrongly describes Brandis as the Shadow Attorney-General, which could be wishful thinking on their part. Here you go, ABC (and Tony Jones) please get up to date and show the man the respect and politeness he is due,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney-General_for_Australia

Returning to Foxy, who has previously been an avid watcher of the ABC's Q&A, Senator Brandis appeared on Q&A alone, along with every possible Muslim representative, lawyer and activist in the Q&A audience. As usual, Tony Jones was masterful in interjecting as Brandis spoke and cut off his answers to prefer more statements posing as questions from the audience. Yes, it was another of 'those' Q&A audiences and Tony Jones apparently their conductor for the predictable choruses.

Nevertheless Attorney-General Brandis was able to give very pity and practical explanations and examples. He performed creditably as might be expected of him:

- no, there is no 'demonisation' of Muslims;
- yes, it (terrorism) is a problem that affects the Muslim community; and
- yes with unchallenged examples given, the government has been consulting extensively and seeks the partnership of the Muslims everywhere in Australia to deal with the threats of terrorists to them and to Australia, as Australia is obliged by the UN to do anyway.

Senator Brandis also went into freedom of speech in detail and achieved broad agreement.

Worth watching, but sadly inexplicably missed or forgotten by the forum's self-proclaimed expert on Islam,
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4096883.htm

OTB to Foxy "Worth watching, but sadly inexplicably missed or forgotten by the forum's self-proclaimed expert on Islam"

I have never seen Foxy proclaim herself as an expert on Islam; in fact quite the opposite. Foxy's consistent message has been a defence of the Muslim and other ethnic people within our community (often being women) who are not creating a problem but are the victims of ignorant racist vilification. Foxy on several occasions has expressed her distain for the Islamic extremists.

Although I don't agree with Foxy on some of her political views I feel she has demonstrated a level head in regard to the Islam vs terrorism debate. Foxy and Sen Brandis are correct - Islam itself is not a terrorist organisation but unfortunately 95% of the terrorist in the world happen to be followers of Islam (which makes them Muslims).

OTB, a word of advice if I may, I think you need to be careful to not fall into the same trap as the Abbott haters on OLO who argue against everything he does, never give credit where it is due and thus come off looking so closed minded and one-eyed their comments lose credibility. At this point in time Foxy is looking the more sensible person over the past few days, even though I don't agree with all of her comments.

otb,

"Senator Brandis also went into freedom of speech in detail and achieved broad agreement."

On the contrary, Brandis had a smooth run on QandA to run his spiel. It was left up to a few a few commentators in the following days to correct his misrepresentation.

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/press-freedom-george-brandis-is-talking-plain-rubbish-20141104-11gfvr.html

"......What's more concerning is that Brandis, who constantly applauds himself for his championship of press freedom, appears not to understand it at all.

Witness his bizarre defence of section 35P of the newly minted National Security Legislation Amendment Act (No. 1). That's the section that makes it an offence, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, to "disclose information" about a so-called special intelligence operation."

"Here, verbatim, is Brandis' convoluted reply: "If it's a whistleblower, the whistleblower protection laws still apply. If it's a journalist covering what a whistleblower has disclosed, then the journalist wouldn't fall within the reach of the section, because the relevant conduct is the conduct constituting the disclosure; so if the event is already disclosed by someone else and a journalist merely reports that which has already been disclosed, as it was by Snowden, then the provision would not apply."

Well, for a start, as the Attorney-General must know, there is no chance at all that the whistleblower protection laws would apply to anyone disclosing information about an intelligence operation (let alone a "special" intelligence operation) to the media. Not a chance.

Second, most whistleblowers do not act openly, as Edward Snowden did. They approach the media, seeking confidentiality. The first public disclosure of the information is by a journalist, either quoting a confidential source, or publishing a document supplied by that source.

Is Senator Brandis really saying that the plain words of the act would not apply to that journalist? That interpretation defies belief."

We all know well by now that what this govt says - and what it does - are two entirely diffent things.

Brandis is one of the worst at tangling up his rhetoric for those ends.