jarv

I know this is quite a harsh view but I have just watched the news and feel outraged at the fact that most of the bombers last Thursday were deemed to be "normal british citizen's".
Are we living in some kind of reverse thinking country.
I for one am glad to be leaving and starting a new life in Oz, yes !!! I know it is a multi cultural society down there but I do believe the people who live there respect their adopted country and would feel great anger if someone bombed the **** out of it !!!!
I really feel we need to take a firm stance on British preservation and rather than taking it up the arse when people start harping on about human rights. We need to think about the 70++ people (including children) who didn't even get the right to "live".


Jarv

bondipom

http://www.theage.com.au/news/nation...?oneclick=true

'Jihad Jack' pleads not guilty to al-Qaeda link

June 28, 2005 - 11:29AM

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Terror suspect Jack Thomas pleaded not guilty in a Melbourne court today to receiving money from al-Qaeda.

The 32-year-old Werribee man, known as Jihad Jack, appeared briefly at the Victorian Supreme Court this morning for a directions hearing.

Justice Bernard Teague ordered Thomas, who also faces charges of providing support to al-Qaida and falsifying a passport, to reappear in court on January 30.

He has not entered pleas on the remaining charges.

Thomas, a former taxi driver and Muslim convert, was released on bail earlier this year.

- AAP

jarv

At least he was in court before he did anything !!!!!!!!

bondipom

I personally would not try and justify my migration through the threat of terror. Australia is planning on a when, not if, scenario and there plenty of extrermists here. Mamdou Habib has been released from Guantanamo but his past has some interesting associations. I still think you are speaking from hopeful ignorance.

aussie73

l think Habib's alot more interested in making a fortune by selling his story to the media then his is in terrorism, like how he made $200,000 from the interview on the 60 minutes show.

aussie73

It seems half the muslim extreamists in OZ like Jihad JAck, David Hicks and a few others are white anglo Aussies who converted to Islam.

NedKelly

What about the other half?

bondipom

He is now a media slut but I used his example to show there are those who brushed with terrorism here and have been here for a long time. Anyone who thinks Australia is free of people with the inclination to terrorise like the London bombers is living in lala land. The scale maybe smaller and I hope an attack never happens but ASIO and the government knows there are residents and citizens capable of such an attack.

jad n rich

Inclined to agree with you, recent polls show nearly all australians think terrorism is now a when not if it will happpen here. Just yesterday the prime minister warned it will happen here.

I hope if it does our police and emergency services respond as efficiently as the UK ones did.

Looking at the pictures today of a seemingly normal 19 year old, turned sucicide bomber ( we have one that age oureselves) its all to real to me that it could happen anywhere anytime. Australias close involvement with bush and blair in iraq probably didnt go unnoticed by extremeists.

JackTheLad

Thats a positive out the whole horrible episode. Their planning worked well. I really hope the Aussies learn from the UKs experience, cos sadly, it does seem like an 'when not if' scenario for Australia.

And this Al qaeda thing bugs me. I don't really think there is any such thing anymore. Just any Muslim extremist who decides to kill people says he's Al Qaeda. Its just a term for extremist muslim nutter. Most muslims are peace loving,

JTL

bondipom

Bob Carr is "finalising" his emergency plans. Never mind she'll be alright mate.

kirsty&al

I know they've done some training exercises in Melbourne.

A.

Stu.E

An interesting piece by a guy in the know taken from another forum I use:

"For the last 2.5 years I've been employed by a foreign policy think-tank in Helsinki, to research jihadi-terrorism. I'm not a spook, a cop, or politician, and I don't have any particular axe to grind on this issue - but I have had the chance to spend over two years reading as much as I can on the subject and talking to people who know a lot more than me on various aspects of this issue. Now that Blair has said it was a "terrorist attack", obviously all speculation will be on who did it, and then why. I've already turned down three requests for interview with Finnish TV, but I need to get my own thoughts in order and I might as well do it here, as UKC has been such an important link back to the UK for the years I have been living abroad. Perhaps others might find it useful even if they don't agree with me.

Al-Qaeda?

I believe that it is now far more profitable to think of al-Qaeda (AQ) as an ideology rather than as a group. This obviously has implications for anyone claiming the attack is the work of AQ. If AQ ever really existed as an organised and terrorist group, it was during the "Afghanistan period" from the mid-90s to Nov./Dec. 2001 when the US and its Afghan allies over-ran all their bases in Afghanistan. What appears to be the case now is various different militant groups around the world, that have had different types of genesis, are identifying themselves as al-Qaeda. Some of these have clearly pledged their allegiance to bin Laden after some discussions - such as al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq that changed its name from "Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad" (Unification and Holy War Group) to "al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers" (meaning Iraq). On the other hand you have groups such as the GSPC in Algeria/Sahel who have pledged allegiance to bin Laden where there isn't any evidence that this was more than just self identification.

If it turns out - as seems likely - that the bombs in London were done by a jihadi group, this means that although it might be correct to say that the attack was "linked" to al-Qaeda in the sense that the perpetrators see themselves as fighting the same fight as bin Laden, it doesn't necessarily mean that there has been any contact between the perpetrators and what could be described as the AQ-core hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Domestic or International?

Like lots of multinational corp.s, charities and pressure groups, AQ is also a type of globalised NGO. Attacks that have been attributed to AQ over the last four years have been a mix of those carried out by "foreign specialists" who fly-in to do an operation, and domestically organised attacks. One of the crucial things that will come out in time is whether this was done by people who travelled to the UK to do it (like with 9/11) or was carried out by British people, or at least people who have lived in the UK for a long time (like with the Madrid attacks). I pray the former, which is bad enough in itself, because if it is the latter it will confirm the anti-muslim prejudice of everyone already that way inclined and put race-relations in the UK back by a generation - and would also add to the vicious circle that will create more terror like this.

Why anyone within the UK would want to do something like this is horrible to even speculate on, but we have seen with recent arrests and courts cases that some British muslims have been tempted (Sajid Badat) or have, allegedly, tried to launch and attack - such as the eight arrested in and around London with the ammonium nitrate last spring. There was also the case of the two British-muslims who carried out a suicide attack in Israel two years ago. It is one of those issues that very few people are comfortable talking about as the lines between security and prejudice are so fine, but I think the idea of "de-territorialised Islam" is very important to try and understand here. Despite the successes there are clearly also failure in integrating both immigrants and the children of immigrants in to European societies. I think in fact the UK has done better than many other European countries, but clearly not with everyone. When people don't feel that they belong to the society they live in, the look for alternative identities - religion being a powerful one. But there is a definite tendency within Europe, for many complex and inter-related reasons, for some (a minority?) Muslims to turn their back on the 'localised Islams' of their parents/grandparents and follow what they believe to be a "pure global" Islam (this can be called the "salafi" tendency). This tend to allow more ready identification with the problems faced by other Muslim communities around the world, be that Chechenya, Kashmir, Iraq or the West Bank. It solidifies a sense of a worldwide attack on Islam, rather than seeing what is (in my opinion at least) a series of seperate political and military struggles with very different histories and causes. This has been amplified hugely by the use of the internet which brings news and pictures of these struggles to anyone anywhere, and is also used for discussion and propaganda across all borders. The struggles of someone in Europe against prejudice or unemployment or poverty becomes conflated, in their mind at least, with the struggles of Muslims in Gaza or Chechenya.

What happens next?

In the next couple of days, Britain will show it's true colours - but I have no idea what they are though. There are two possible models. First is what happened in Holland after the murder of Theo Van Gogh by a wannabe jihadi. The Government panicked. The press fanned the flames of prejudice and fear rather than smothering them, and a round of fire bombings of islamic schools, mosques and cultural centres began. This was followed by attacks on churches etc. by Muslim youths. Holland turned out not to be a country at peace with itself.

The alternative in is Spain. After the vicious murder of hundreds, virtually nothing happened in terms of revenge attacks on Spanish Muslims. One Imam was quoted in Newsweek saying he was amazed at the understanding of the Spanish population that this was a product of a tiny but violent minority, not a reflection of the wider muslim community. Spain, a new democracy that only within a generation had escaped from Fascism, showed more civility than Holland, often seens as most liberal country in the world.

I hope that Britain shows the innate liberalism and civility that Spain clearly has, or this will get worse before it gets better. "

renth

One of the minor reasons we moved here was because I think there's going to be a WMD attach in London soon - a "dirty" bomb or a "suitcase nuke". - So, sorry BP, this was one of my reasons.

Just like I still can't work out why more Jews didn't leave for America during the late 1930's when the writing was on the wall for them.

Another thought about the bombings was thank god Australia has a sensible immigration policy, with good screening systems. A policy that includes a generous humanitarian stream taking refugees from UN camps from all over the world. A policy that deters families paying smugglers to take their "best" sons across the world in rickety boats to dump them on our beaches.

Another though is I can't believe how stupid these bombers were, it would have been so easy to have left the devices on the trains with a timer. Then every few days repeat the process, thus causing real terror, rather then just blowing themselves up. If you were serious about "terrorizing" that was plain dumb.

jad n rich

I think with the games next year, Melbs got some serious thinking to do.

Relatives down there and read it again on here, said a fertiliser factory has been stripped of its chemicals twice. For those who dont know it seems those are the chemicals you use if your handy with a bit of bomb making.