Women and children held in Syrian detention camps force Australia to choose between rhetoric and the rule of law.

Snared in the war-ripped Levant are 34 Australian mums and their kids. Back between 2012 and 2019, as impressionable youngsters, they’d fallen in love with men seduced by the dream of fighting for the Caliphate, the political Islamic state.  It sounded like utopia.

Now those women are widows, single mothers in a dystopian nightmare, desperate Australians trying to return home. That seems reasonable if they’re considering their children’s future.

Government people stress the stranded ISIS Brides – as tagged by the tabloids – will get no special help - aka ‘hardworking taxpayers’ money’, to make the 14,000 km journey. That should appease the electorate’s worthies.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese offered homespun wisdom, righteously reminding of consequences: “My mother would have said: ‘If you make your bed, you lie in it’.

“These are people who went overseas supporting the Islamic State and went there to provide support for people who basically want a Caliphate.”

Yes, they did – and some may still nurture that ambition. Surveillance, probation and other legal safeguards along with the sun, surf and ‘she’ll be right’ ethos would eventually erase their hardlines.

At some point the luckless made lousy choices – an investment, a partner, a purchase, whatever. If we couldn’t blame........

© Pearls and Irritations