Australia's apathy in the face of worsening terrorist threats.

• Author: Miller, John
• Pages: 44(10)

Over the past couple of years, I have been more emotionally engaged with Anzac Day and Remembrance Day than ever before. Some would no doubt say that it is an artefact of growing old, but I can remember when the World War II veterans marched straight-backed and in perfectly formed ranks. There is no question that age wearies their bodies, but the comradeship remains and includes, with justification, the veterans of Korea and Vietnam--two publicly and politically unpopular military conflicts.

This article attempts to provide some insight into the situation in which Australia is enmeshed, especially the "war on terror", for there is no doubt that veterans of this campaign will join those mentioned above. It is worth summarising briefly the nature of our predicament:

* Australia is involved in the struggle against Islamic terrorism by virtue of being a liberal, Western, globalising democracy--a system that is antithetical to fundamentalist Islam.

* Al Qaeda declared war on the US and the West in 1986, but it was its second attack on New York's World Trade Center, namely 9/11, that brought the problem of Islamic terrorism into focus.

* Since that horrific and graphic day in September 2001, Al Qaeda--or other terrorist organisations with which it has operational links--has carried out further "successful" bombing attacks against civilian populations in many Western countries and, somewhat surprisingly, in India. Moreover, US authorities have uncovered a considerable number of other planned terrorist attacks.

* Australia has been threatened by both Al Qaeda, and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the latter being responsible for the Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005. This threat has been spelled out by both organisations and constantly reiterated by Australian intelligence authorities. There is no reason to believe that Australia is any less of a terrorist target than the US and the UK.

In addition, while we have been spared the horrific bomb attacks, such as those in London, Madrid and Mumbai, the Bali bombing was widely considered to be the first direct attack against Australian interests, and for that reason it merits some attention.

LEST WE FORGET

At 01:00 (AEST), on 12 October 2002, in the Kuta district of Bali three bombs were detonated. The deadliest blast occurred inside a nightclub, with a second detonation outside and the third near the US Consulate in Denpassar. Some 202 people were killed, of whom 164 were foreign tourists and 88 Australian. (All loss of human life in such a situation is tragic, and we should not forget that 38 Indonesians and 24 British citizens also perished along with citizens of another 18 countries).

Indonesian authorities rounded up a number of Jemaah Islamiyah activists, three of whom were sentenced to death for the attack; another JI member was a suicide-bomber. Validation of responsibility for the attack was given, albeit indirectly, by Abu Bakar Bashir, the so-called spiritual head of JI, whose gentle and apparently benign appearance masked a mind which condoned violence. He was jailed for three years but released on appeal.

It should be remembered that this atrocity happened less than five years ago and served to alert Australia of the nature of the war on terror proclaimed by US President George W. Bush on 22 September 2001, three weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center. At the time of the Bali bombings, it was reported that the Prime Minister John Howard had hugged the father of a missing Australian citizen and, in words that should be quite unambiguous, told him: "We'll get the bastards who did this." (1) And thankfully, due in no small part to the efficiency of the Australian Federal Police, this task was accomplished.

However, Bali is in Indonesia and, to date, we have been spared an attack on Australian soil. That Australia should be so fortunate owes much to the following cases:

* On 19 June 2006, Faheem Khalid Lodhi became the first person to be found guilty of planning a terrorist attack on Australian soil. He was subsequently sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Willie Brigitte, a French citizen believed to be connected with Al Qaeda, was sentenced to nine years' jail in France in March this year, but part of the evidence suggests that he was engaged in planning terrorist operations in this country, including an attack on the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. The French court heard that he was affiliated with the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), known to have links with Al Qaeda.

* A successful prosecution case against "Jihad Jack" Thomas on terrorist grounds in 2002 resulted in a jail sentence of five years, the main claim being that he was a "sleeper agent". That sentence was subsequently quashed in August 2006, but a control order was placed on him. In December 2006, it was announced that there would be a re-trial, with evidence largely based on a somewhat imprudent interview he granted to ABC televisions Four Corners program. (2)

* In November 2004, Jack Roche, a convert to Islam, changed his plea to guilty on charges of planning to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. In April 2005 he was sentenced to nine years in jail. This case is complicated by the fact that Roche unsuccessfully attempted to contact ASIO...