ISIS opponents are ‘terrorists’, Australian government says

This video about Kurdish northern Syria says about itself:

Anarchy in Rojava: A libertarian revolution in the Middle East

21 February 2015

In this edition, we look at the fierce men and women, who have been fighting the head chopping Islamists of I.S.I.S. to create [a] libertarian commune along the border between Syria, Iraq and Turkey. On the music break we have Kurdish rapper Rezan with “Em Kurdin.” Our guest this week is Chris Dixon, author of “Another Politics” a book about anti-authoritarian organizing in Turtle Island.

In Iraq and Syria, there is the terrorist organisation ISIS. A result of George W Bush’s and Tony Blair’s Iraq war, as President Obama said. For the Pentagon and its allies, they are the pretext for re-starting the Iraq war and starting war in Syria (officially against ISIS, in practice about oil).

The government of NATO country Turkey has often helped ISIS, as even United States Vice President Joseph Biden admitted in a moment of honesty for which he later wrongly apologized.

The government of NATO country Turkey considers the Kurdish opponents of ISIS ‘terrorists’. So do the governments of other NATO countries, like the Netherlands.

So does the government of another NATO country, Great Britain. They recently jailed a Kurdish-British girl for ‘terrorism’ for plans to fight ISIS.

Now, to Australia. Not a NATO country, but usually considered to be a part of the self-styled ‘free world’. Also a military ally of NATO in the re-started Iraq war; though most Australians oppose that.

From the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia:

Former Labor party president Matthew Gardiner arrested at Darwin airport

April 5, 2015 – 7:19PM

Eryk Bagshaw

Matthew Gardiner, the former Northern Territory Labor party president who joined Kurdish forces to help them fight Islamic State, was detained at Darwin Airport on Sunday before being released without charge, the Australian Federal Police have confirmed.

Mr Gardiner, 43, left his wife and two sons in Australia to leave for Syria in January, after making connections with others on social media who were sympathetic to the Kurdish cause. …

The Kurds, who Mr Gardiner was helping, have been involved in a bitter battle with Islamic State since the jihadist group invaded their territory last year. …

The Attorney-General’s department has long maintained that Australians who leave Australia to engage in an illegal conflict and then come back, will be arrested, prosecuted and jailed. …

Under the current legislation it is possible for Australians to join the armed forces of a foreign country. However, the Kurds are not recognised as a legitimate armed force. …

Mr Gardiner served with the Australian army in Somalia during the 1990’s and had over a decade in military experience before becoming a senior Labor figure.

He was also the treasurer of the peak body Unions NT and the secretary of hospitality, childcare and emergency services union United Voice in the Northern Territory.

Friends were shocked when they discovered the dedicated father and vocal unionist had left to join the conflict.

Federal [Labor party] Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he was relieved Mr Gardiner was back home in Australia despite fighting in an overseas conflict which he does not entirely agree with.

“I’m concerned anyone thinks they should be getting involved in these foreign conflicts, no matter what their intentions,” Mr Shorten told the ABC.

“The message has to be to Australians: We’re not going to fix those issues by becoming a foreign fighter and the law’s going to have to take its process.”

Mr Shorten should apply these words to the Australian government’s participation in the re-started Iraq war, rather than for stabbing his party colleague Gardiner in the back; Mr Gardiner, who now may get a long jail term because of governmental hypocrisy.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands, 6 April 2014:

Al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, has kidnapped 300 Kurdish men in northern Syria. According to an official in the Kurdish region Kobani the men were with women and children on their way from the city Afrin to Aleppo when they were stopped. Only the men were taken.