Dennis Richardson must resign

A few weeks ago a story surfaced that added further weight to the seemingly now undeniable claim that the Howard Government turned a blind eye to an Australian citizen being tortured in Egypt see the story here .
But while Mamdouh Habib has (rightfully) received plenty of air play for his ill treatment at the hands of the State since, it appears that one person has suffered no sanction for his sorry role in this sordid little affair, that person being none other Dennis Richardson.
On February 15 2005 Richardson (the then head of ASIO) told a Senate Committee that ''we have no information as of fact about that,'' in relation to whether he knew if US terrorism suspects were sent to Egypt for interrogation. However his successor Paul O'Sullivan admitted that the Americans had indeed told Richardson about the rendition to Egypt.
Richardson is now the head of DFAT, and it seems has suffered no sanction for apparently lying under oath. Not only should he be terminated from his position, but the AFP should seriously consider charging him with perjury.
A despicable and sordid period in Australian political history in my view.

the death of bin Laden, American gloating....and "enhanced interrogation"

One of the most frustrating things upon learning about Osama bin Laden's death was that it coincided with my busiest period at work, making it difficult to read all the available information and analyse it properly.
So while Americans are (not unsurprisingly) gloating over the news, and the Democrats in particular scoring points that their man Obama got him instead of Bush. In fact, no sooner was Obama flashing his birth certificate, he was then flashing Bin-Laden's death certificate around (as so eloquently described by Robert Fisk), the Democrats should probably temper their enthusiasm as we're already seeing reports emerge claiming that Guantánamo captives provided information that led to the eventual tracking down of bin Laden.
First of all we have no way of knowing if any of these claims are correct, but you can be certain that Republicans will try to claim that torture....sorry....enhanced interrogation led to his killing, thereby justifying the brutal technique.
But before we put this manhunt down to the success of torture techniques, a little perspective is required;

• the location, Abbottabad, is a Pakistani military garrison town.
• is 100 yards away from a Pakistani military academy.
• The house was much larger than others in the area.
• It had a 18 foot wall in front, topped by barbed wire.
• The third floor had an 8 foot privacy wall.
• All garbage was burned on site, not placed outside for collection. 
• Entrance was controlled by two stainless steel gates. 
• The house had no phone lines or internet attached to it, unusual for such an expensive home

The most basic of intelligence and investigation techniques should've led the Americans to this location, apparently bin-Laden had been there for years? So as I've mentioned before, torture and "anti terror" laws are no substitute for decent investigating, almost without exception you'll have a better chance of success, instead of chasing down false leads from a person who'll say anything to make the pain stop.
It should not be forgotten that we've been in the midst of a Muslim awakening in the middle east in recent times, ordinary people wanting to throw off autocracy, not institute an Arab caliphate which was the aim of  Bin-Laden. What he represented was rapidly diminishing in the eyes of those who count, Muslims. In fact up until the recent bombing in Morocco targeting tourists, Al Qaeda appeared to be rattled by the Arab uprisings.
So while the world's headlines are dominated by the death of bin Laden, I'm of the opinion that the Al Qaeda brand was on the slide, yet it remains to be seen whether the American military and policy makers turn a positive into a fiasco.......an option that can't be ruled out?

real policing, not terror laws catches criminals

Following the Moscow airport bombing today read here we are likely to see a crackdown from the Russian Security forces against the predominantly Muslim Northern Caucasus, with the predictable round up of the usual suspects for their annual beatings and the like. But this of course will not solve the problem (in all likelihood exacerbate it?), and nor will blaming the perceived lax security at the airport. While less than enlightened governments rush to bring in draconian legislation in order to look tuff after a terrorist attack, there's very little evidence to show that standard competent police investigations wouldn't have brought in the same result. If the state is relying on bag searches at airports, train stations etc to stop a suicide bomber then they're in for a sad reality check. A potential terrorist needs to be caught at the plotting stage, ie alarm bells should be ringing when person X purchases excessive fertiliser, or components for other terror making equipment. This is how real police catch criminals, not rounding up "enemies" for a beating...which is valuable time lost looking for real criminals.

Australian "terrorists"?

While the Murdoch tabloids rage about the would be "terrorists" see here with captions in bold type of the nasty things these guys said about Australia, it is perhaps time to put some of this in perspective. The last time I checked this was still a free country and people were allowed to call us infidels, be happy that bushfires killed lots of non muslims, and call us a "filthy people". It will be very interesting to see what type of sentence they get in the new year, because it seems to me that these goofballs are guilty of not much more than being loudmouths and bignoters. They never obtained weapons, or got further than "talking" about doing something rotten. In fact I would argue that if the police had never discovered this "plot", nothing would've happened?