"No News is Good News"

Anyone who studied the Foreign Incursions Act 1978 before if got tweaked and swept into the Criminal Code via the Foreign Fighters Bill and is also old enough to remember Mad Mike Hoare and Bob Denard will give a wry grin. The law was meant to stop Mercenaries from going to places people never heard of and using force to take over and put someone else in charge. Movies like "Dogs of War" with Christopher Walken and "Wild Geese" with Roger Moore were personal childhood favourites. Search the archives and you won't find anyone ever convicted of being a "Mercenary" under the Foreign Incursions Act 1978. A few that went to fight for Croatia and Serbia during the 90's came close as they went a bit too far to the dark side. One of the most notorious Aussie "Mercenaries" ex-SAS David Everett (RIP) also fought alongside Karen rebels against the brutal Burmese junta but he was not charged for fighting a foreign government, he went to jail in 1991 for a career in armed robbery as he tried to raise cash to buy weapons for the Karen. David Hicks, the Aussie Taliban, started his career in the Kosovo National Liberation Army doing cross border raids against what was left of the Yugoslav republic but was never stopped on return to Australia or a year later when he departed again, destination Afghanistan and eventually Gitmo. Not one person convicted under the Foreign Incursions Act 1978. Bring on Syria and dozens of Australians rush off to join the Caliphate. The Government realizes it has a problem on their hands and they amend the Foreign Incursions Act 1978 into the Foreign Fighters Bill 2014, to not only target terrorists but also those that join dodgy groups not on the terrorist list. They won't let people like Hicks get away with joining any of the menagerie of Islamic groups that seemed to show up in Syria like flies at a barbie. So the law appeared to work, well mostly. No one imagined Aussies would also go over there to join the YPG, a Kurdish secular democratic revolutionary movement in a life or death struggle against some of the most brutal psychopaths ever seen, Daesh. The Kurds presented itself as a sane and righteous force in Abbots “baddies versus baddies” war. Where else can people from all nationalities and persuasions join a social experiment to create a secular confederal democracy that promotes gender equality, ethnic harmony and environmental responsibility? Where the younger generation see themselves as fighting for humanity and creating a pluralistic, inclusive and egalitarian society. The Kurds of Rojava are building something not seen since the Spanish Civil War and the use of Foreign Volunteers was reminiscent of the International Brigades fighting against the Fascists. They deserve our support and if Australians want to volunteer, let them, but they carry the risk of doing so. Often it’s too easy to simplify the conflict in Syria, to label the opposing side as “baddies versus baddies”, but it far more complex than that. The Attorney General is at a loss about what to do with the YPG enigma because there is no law which deals with them. On one had the YPG are affiliated to the PKK and considered an enemy of Turkey, on the other hand they are fighting Daesh and taking ground while building a democracy that resembles our own. The Turks are bombing the YPG while the US is providing them with air cover, weapons and now trainers. Testing the Foreign Incursions laws on Dyball and Williams is a farce when I think about the hundreds of Aussies who have taken up arms in “other peoples wars” for money, ideology, nationalism or adventure over the last four decades. Testing it on the YPG is akin to saying the YPG is considered an illegal militia fighting against a “legitimate” state, a notion which is ridiculous as it is obscene.