TONY ABBOTT has committed Australia to another war in the Middle East. It might not involve Australian ground troops, but it is a war nonetheless.
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And while the Greens and breakaway factions in the Labor Party might bleat about it not being “our’’ war and we should stay out of it, what else was Mr Abbott expected to do?
Sitting back and refusing to join the coalition of more than 30 countries pieced together by US president Barack Obama was not an option given the close ties between the US and Australia.
And the reality is that Australia is very much a part of this conflict.
Australian citizens are in Syria and northern Iraq fighting for ISIL and their involvement increases the terror threat at home.
The prime minister has committed 600 military personnel and eight fighter jets to the US-led push to take on the IS terrorists and in doing so admitted that Australians who have chosen to fight for the group may be killed.
So be it. Mr Abbott is correct when he says they took their chances and must now suffer the consequences.
ISIL and its so-called jihad is not a state as it claims to be nor does it represent the Muslim faith.
It is a twisted movement of psychopathic murderers that has been allowed to fester against the chaotic backdrop of Middle East geopolitics.
It is indeed a “death cult’’, the words Mr Abbott used to describe it, and must be destroyed.
Greens leader Christine Milne has accused Mr Abbott of blindly following the US, but that is not the case.
Like every other country, including a number of Arab nations, that has joined the move to confront ISIL Australia is doing what is right and that is acting decisively to send a message to these killers that their campaign of murder and terror and will not be tolerated.
The danger is that this conflict, like many before it in the region, will drag on without a clear victory in sight or a realistic exit strategy.
The sooner we can annihilate the monsters of ISIL the better.