WHAT WAS HE THINKING? PM Abbott Instructs Terrorists Where To Strike

Tony Abbott, Parliament, October 2014 (image via Twitter)

Australia still hasn't suffered a terrorist attack on our soil, and everybody agrees that is both fortunate and a very good thing indeed. But in the wake of a 'lone wolf' attack on Canada's parliament, PM Tony Abbott has been ramping up The Fear, with his near constant curious smirk, trumpeting, 'We Could Be Next.'

This morning on 3AW radio, Abbott made a clear and direct suggestion to potential terrorists where they could strike in Australia, for both impact and lack of security. Does he want terror to happen here? What the hell was he thinking? Was he even thinking at all?

PM Tony Abbott, 3AW, Oct 24, 2014:

"I suppose to extremist fanatics (the Canberra War Memorial) could therefore be a target. There's the Last Post at our War Memorial every day and I guess if someone wanted to do something gruesome that's the kind of thing that could be looked at." 

 He finished the interview by stating as prime minister he was the minister responsible for National Security.

Now that is scary.

FireBomb Democracy

Today on Andrew Bolt's blog of fevered hate and intolerance, an open, uncensored call to commit acts of terrorism in Australia from a regular commenter :

"...it's always the darkest before dawn, and the people will have the ultimate voice - molotov cocktails into the Parliament Houses. We WILL regain control of the nation."

Let me guess, it slipped by the moderators, eh?

The Herald Sun's and ABC Insider's Andrew Bolt suggested an act of terrorism could have helped then prime minister John Howard win the 2007 election :

"...something might yet turn up that will make us appreciate anew his vast experience and steadiness under fire...if there were to be another terrorist attack...(we could) admire his firmness in handling it."

Will he suggest the same for Tony Abbott now?

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Advancing Democracy Through Terrorism

The Australian's editor, Chris Mitchell, has a peculiar take on the terrorist attack that targeted and killed military leaders in Iran over the weekend :

"....no matter how destabilising, the suicide bombing may do little to advance democracy in Iran."

Have suicide bombings advanced democracy in other countries of the Middle East?


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Of Course It Was A Conspiracy

The instant reluctance, almost pathological refusal to consider or even mildly entertain the possibilities of Conspiracy is one of the main reasons why so many of the biggest, most deadly, and most damaging, terror attacks remain unsolved.

ICC referee Chris Broad, who was in a van behind the bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team through Lahore, is not afraid to explain why he fears a conspiracy is behind the horrific terror attacks, carried out by a well-trained, extremely well armed and thoroughly rehearsed team who escaped and remain at large today.

As he tried to make sense of what had happened, Broad said there were several questions he was struggling to answer.

"On the first two days (of the Test) both buses left (the hotel) at the same time with escorts. On this particular day the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lankan bus. Why?" he said.

"It went through my mind as we were leaving the hotel - 'Where is the Pakistan bus?' But there were times during the Karachi Test when the Sri Lankans went first and Pakistan went afterwards.

"I thought maybe they were having five or 10 minutes more in the hotel and would turn up later, but after this happened you start to think: 'Did someone know something and they held the Pakistan bus back?'"

Broad said although he had no evidence for a conspiracy, the events he had witnessed had left him perplexed.

"At every junction from the hotel through to where we were attacked and all the way to the ground there were police in light blue uniforms with hand-guns controlling traffic," he said.

"How did the terrorists come to the roundabout and how did they start firing and these guys not do anything about it?

"There were plenty of police there and yet these terrorists came in, did what they had to do and then went again. It is beyond me."

It sounds like an ambush.



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Bullets For The Bombs

This is why "Imam Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas" were tied to pieces of wood and shot through the heart yesterday. This is what they did to 202 people, from more than a dozen countries around the world, including 88, mostly young, Australians. This is what bombs and missiles and artillery do to human beings all over this war of and against terror.









Photos are from here

Revenge for the revenge for the revenge has been vowed, by an isolated, feverish few, while the majority remain appalled that this years-long nightmare of death and misery and sadness ever happened, ever began, ever smeared the name of Bali with the blood of foreign tourists.

The hatred and intolerance that drives men to do such things no doubt still burns strong in the hearts of some, but you have to believe, at least you want to believe, that this fever will fade, must fade, that it will not spread, does not grow, that any religious or political belief that promises a better life promises the same for all humanity.

They wanted to die for what they did. Now they are dead. They died in far less agony and fear than many of their victims.

There is consolation in knowing they cannot taunt the families of their victims anymore simply by being alive.

Claire Hatton, who lost her husband in the 2002 attacks :

"I saw a quote by Mahatma Gandhi and it said: 'The trouble with an eye for an eye is that it makes us all blind'. That's what I think."

Maria Kotronakis lost two cousins and also two sisters in the attacks :

"We're very happy ... we've waited a very long time for this and this is our justice.

"Finally the moment has come ... we are over the moon."

John Mavroudis, who lost his son David :

(he) said he "couldn't care less" about the bombers.

"I don't give a damn about them really ... we just try and get on with our lives."

A panoramic night image of the incredibly serene memorial to the victims in Kuta, Bali

You Are Gullible, Like America....Just Before 9/11

A little terrorising on terrorism, from a self-confessed terrrorist, who now makes a living as a terrorism expert :

He warned a 700-strong audience in Melbourne last week that Australia is woefully under-prepared for a terrorist attack.

"I'm in the loop, I'm seeing a lot of information, and I can tell you that Australia was always far away, the dark side of the moon," he later tells the Herald.

We spend hundreds of millions of dollars "preparing" for terrorist attacks where we, until only recently, once spent a few dozen million, if not much less.

"You were isolated, you were in a bubble, and you were secure. That bubble has burst."

Why do self-claimed terrorism experts so often sound like terrorists themselves as they ramp up their warnings?

"Australia today is exactly where America was before 9/11 - gullible, believing you are secure because you are an island."

So who is this prophet of bombageddon?

Juval Aviv has an incredible claim to fame. He led a deadly team of five assassins set loose to avenge the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes.

Aviv says he was a bodyguard and anti-terrorism adviser to Israel's so-called "Iron Lady", Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969-74, and a major in Israeli army intelligence when Meir unleashed the secret revenge mission.

Well, maybe. Mossad says Aviv is full of crap, and he was never anything more than a security guard.

Ahh, says Aviv, that's all part of the "official secrecy" and the need for "deniability."

None of that matters much, apparently, because...

This much is clear: Aviv is a fascinating storyteller with strong views on the present day terrorist threat.

Aviv says Australia's troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan make the country a bigger terrorist target, lifting it to rank alongside the United States, Israel and Britain.

...he also fears official complacency has compounded the threat.

"You have done a lot, but you are light years away in Australia from really being ready for an attack," he says.

"A lot of people really don't believe it is going to happen."

He's here to help Australians re-align their reality to include a more vivid fear of terror exploding its way into their lives. Tough battle, we're all far too obsessed with fearing climate change right now.

Aviv on the assassinations of the suspected Munich terrorists, which included exploding bombs that killed and injured civilians :

"We found those 11 terrorists, and one by one, we bought them to justice - which we only know how to do in Israel, as I always say."

When pressed, he admits this refers to executions.

Justice = Execution.

Aviv has also made similar startling claims of mass terrorism that will lay waste to cities, this time in the United States, in his regular appearances on Fox News. An example :



Suicide bombers running, or driving, into American casinos and theme parks and malls. Aviv made these It Could Happen predictions back in 2005.

Aviv sure sounds like someone who's selling something. What's he selling?

Fear of Terrorism.

It's a unique, cash spouting spin-off from the War On Terror.

A war to stop terrorism creates more terrorism, actually increases the likelihood of terrorism, and this in turn gives rise to a multi-billion dollar new industry that "prepares" businesses and governments far away from the warzones to deal with the terrorism that may (or maybe not, whatever, it doesn't matter) perhaps result from the war to stop it.

It's brilliant, really.

Australians Fear Terrorism Less Now They're Not Being Bombarded By Ads Telling Them To Fear Terrorism

Worried About Terrorism, Don't Care So Much About The War On Terror

Will Australians fear terrorism more under Kevin Rudd than they did under Howard?

The shift raises complications for Kevin Rudd because, while the electorate supports his withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq, it still wants Labor to retain the Howard-era laws to combat terrorism at home – a feeling at odds with the views of many Government MPs who want to tilt the scales of justice back toward personal liberty.

The Australian Election Study posed a new, more general question last year: “How concerned are you that there will be a major terrorist attack on Australian soil in the near future.”

Two out of three (65.7 per cent) said they were concerned.

Water Civil War?

How desperate will state governments become, and how far will they go, when their cities become truly dry? Obviously the idea of a civil war breaking out over fresh water flows is ridiculous. For now. But another decade of drought might change all that. The driest country in the world can still become even drier, especially when you remember that Australia's population is expected to increase by another five million people by 2020.

I'm still undecided on whether South Australian premier Mike Rann is ranting like a loon, in this story, or if he's right on the money. Regardless, it's truly bizarre to hear an Australian premier accuse another state of terrorism :

...Rann says the diversion of water from the Paroo River in Queensland is an act of terrorism during a water crisis.

The river runs from south-west Queensland to north-western New South Wales.

In 2003 the two states agreed to protect it from dams, weirs and irrigators but satellite images of the river show 10 kilometres of channels and a dam have been built.

Mr Rann has described it as a criminal act.

"That is an act of terrorism against the nation, it's terrorism from within during a water crisis," he said.

"So my view is that anybody and I don't care who they are or how big they are or how important they are, if they're diverting water illegally they should be locked up, it should be a criminal offence."

Soon enough, it probably will be.

US Intelligence, Scotland Yard Claim "No Bomb" Involved In Qantas Explosion Before Investigation Begins

Qantas Had Bomb Threat Against 747 On July 19



Even before Australian aviation investigators reached Manila, two of the world's biggest intelligence agencies were hitting favoured media sources deny that the explosion that ripped through the floor and the side of a Qantas jet was the work of terrorists.

The UK Telegraph runs big with this :

Sources from Scotland Yard said they did not believe an explosion had caused the damage and attributed the “gigantic hole” to problems with the plane's fusilage.

Flight QF30 was carrying 346 passengers and 19 crew from London to Melbourne when it was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila after it suddenly lost cabin pressure and dropped 20,000 feet.

And ABC News (US) enthusiastically helps in the hosing down process :

US law enforcement and intelligence officials say there is "no sign" that a bomb caused the gaping hole in the fuselage of a Qantas Airlines 747 early today over the Pacific.

"No sign", except for the "gaping hole" of course.



So how did Scotland Yard and "US law enforcement and intelligence officials" know for certain, or were confident enough at least to tell the media, there was no bomb in the baggage hold of this Qantas flight only hours after the explosion occurred, and before any investigation had even begun?

Aviation experts, however, are not so quick to dismiss the possibility of a bomb in the baggage hold, for good reason :

David Learmount, Safety Editor at Flight International Magazine, said: "It's possible there was some kind of explosive device in the suitcases. There's a hole where there shouldn't be."

But he stressed that other possible causes for the damage included physical damage or a corrosive that weakened the hull, making it give way.

He said the hole had exposed some bags in the hold which are usually contained in metal containers. "It's interesting to see them - how else could that be if not an explosion?"

Here's one of the more bizarre explanations for the explosion offered up through the media, the UK Telegraph again : spilled coffee!

UPDATE : Just in case readers of the American ABC News site didn't get the 'No Terror' message, they helped out with this amazing double headline of stated fact, with no attribution :




UPDATE : Only a week ago, more than 300 passengers were evacuated from a Qantas 747 at Los Angeles International Airport after a bomb threat :

...Qantas had been told of the threat by US authorities but declined to comment on the nature of the threat.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said agents searched the plane and the luggage for about six hours but found no explosives.

Detectives are now investigating who made the bomb threat.

Australians Fear Terrorism Less Now They're Not Being Bombarded With Ads Telling Them To Fear Terrorism

The former Howard government's generous publicity campaign for Al Qaeda and terrorism fell off our TV screens and out of the newspaper ads some weeks before John Howard became the former prime minister of Australia.

The Howard government spent years and tens of millions of dollars trying to position terrorism as the National Fear. It kind of worked for a while, particularly with the in-the-neighbourhood attacks in Bali helping to make the threat seem more real to the people of Broome and Wollongong, but Terror Fear never really took hold, not like it has in countries where state and non-state terrorism is a local, brutal reality.

The survey quoted below claims that Australians are now more worried about meeting their financial obligations - mortgage, credit cards, fuel, food - than they are about the esoteric threat posed by terrorists deciding to attack a concrete bridge they may occasionally drive over :

Australians are more worried about their hip-pocket than being involved in a terrorist attack, according to a new survey.

One in three people are very concerned about meeting essential payments such as mortgages, while fears about national, personal and internet security have all fallen since December.

December, 2007, was about two months after the ads telling you that you must be awesomely suspicious of bags of garden fertiliser, rolls of wire left in carparks, bearded men with cameras and an intense interest in architecture and not really curious holes in fences stopped airing across the country.

The findings graphically illustrate the impact on average families of rapidly rising grocery and petrol prices, and high housing costs.

Fears about meeting financial obligations rose by three percentage points to 33 per cent of people being very or extremely concerned.

"There's no doubt more people are fearful of protecting the family's hip pocket than of being bombed by the Taliban..."

Those promoting Al Qaeda through exaggerating its potential threat must now find a way to blame Islamic bomb fetishists for $1.50 litre petrol, soul crushing drops in the value of millions of Australian homes, interest rate rises that shred hope and break up families, and food prices that leave much more space in the fridge and not so full plates.

All of those financial head and heart kicks are terrorism, too. If what worries you makes you fight with those you love, makes you sleep less, and less deeply, and makes you feel paranoid and fearful, uncomfortable and hopeless, then you are being terrorised. But this is legal, financial terrorism.

You won't, however, see ads telling you that three credit cards with limits all far beyond what average wage earners are every likely to be able to pay off - while bleeding cash on the mortgage, fuel and food bills - will do more damage to the lives, health and minds of Australians than tribal warriors in lands where electricity and water does not flow will ever inflict.

Bin Laden could only have dreamed of unleashing the kind of terror that savage debt now carves across the country.

If The Threat Of 'Terror' To Australia Is So Great, Why Is Howard's Security So Weak?

I was photographing the security fence cutting through the Botanical Gardens, during the APEC summit, when an American jogger walked up and asked what I was doing. I showed him the camera, and some of the images, and told him it was such an amazing and weird site to see that I had to get photos.

"It's like a piece of modern art," I said, and the American laughed. "Yeah, ugly as hell."

I asked him if he was a Bush secret service agent, on a break, a question he ignored completely. He then asked if John Howard went for a walk every morning along the foreshore of the harbour, like he had seen on the news.

Every morning he's in Sydney, I said. The American nodded and snorted a laugh, before saying something along the lines of "He's not worried about his security then?"

It's a question worth considering. No doubt John Howard insists on a low key security presence, so passers-by are able to say hello and shake his hand. He clearly enjoys the contact with the people, and it looks good on TV as well.

But if the threat of terrorism to Australia is so great, so real, and so pending, you also have to ask why it is that any terrorist's presumed number one target leaves himself wide open, every morning on his walk, and at almost every speech and public appearance?

All of this was sparked by the incident today, where a man armed with a pooper scooper tried to "rush" the prime minister during a speech. The man was holding the pooper scooper, he said, because he wanted to clean up Howard's smelly trail of non-core promises that he's left in his wake :

A protester carrying a doo-doo collector surged towards the prime minister, getting to within three metres of him as the PM took the stage.

The man - wearing a badge marked Ken Franklin but later identified as education union official Ken Case - was tackled by security and thrown out of the Convention Centre, before explaining he had been collecting Mr Howard's non core promises.

And a long and festy trail of broken promises it is indeed.

If Howard's lax security is anything to go by, perhaps the threat of terrorism is not quite as intense as all those evening TV ads and intrusive airport security checks might lead you to believe it is.

If the prime minister, a prime mover in the horrific War On Iraq, can leave himself so wide open to protesters and possible snipers every morning and every afternoon, what the hell are the rest of plebs supposed to be afraid of?

Climate Change Tops Terror As Chief Security Risk To Australia

Australian Federal Police commissioner cited the fallout from apocalyptic levels of climate change as the greatest security threat to the nation in the coming years. Far worse than anything terrorists can unleash.

The threat of terror, whilst real, takes a backseat to the destruction, death toll and tide of human misery that may be wrought in the region by massive crop failures, rising sea levels and all the other horrors of cataclysmic climate change.

From The Australian :

....Keelty described how climate refugees "in their millions" could create a national security emergency for Australia.

...he described a scenario in which China was unable to feed its vast population.

Law enforcement agencies would struggle to cope with global warming's "potential to wreak havoc, cause more deaths and pose national security issues like we've never seen before", Mr Keelty said.

"It is anticipated the world will experience severe extremes in weather patterns, from rising global temperatures to rising sea levels," he warned.

"We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move.

"Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century."

Mr Keelty said the implications for China were especially alarming. By 2040, with global temperatures surging towards a predicted 3C rise, and sea levels up 50cm, the land available in China to grow grain and rice could be reduced by 30 per cent.

"The mass displacement of people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, could create a great deal of social uncertainty and unrest in the region.

"In their millions, people will look for new land and they'll cross borders to do it."

Prime minister John Howard actually went with 'no comment' when he was asked about Keelty's comments on Tuesday.

Foreign minister, Alexander Downer, tried to claim that Keelty was talking about threats that would take a century to become reality.

The seas won't rise three metres tomorrow, Downer said on Lateline.

But that's not what Keelty was claiming.

Downer, as usual, avoided the substance of the argument and went for the false, but sensational distraction.

Ignoring the looming threats posed by climate change has become a trademark of the Howard government. As with most of the pressing issues of real importance to Australians, Howard and key ministers, like Downer, like to be seen to be doing something, but in reality are leaving it up to someone else, long after their gone, to deal with the challenges they preferred to dismiss as unworthy of their precious time.

Keelty also said that the coming carbon trading market will be rife for corruption, and police will have to become involved in its regulation.

Carbon Cops for real then?

Howard Government Has Left Australian Unprepared For The Global Turmoil From Climate Change

Keelty : Climate Change Will Make Border Security The Most Important Australian Policing Issue Of The Century

Howard's $200 Million War On The Internet

Porn, Violence, 'Terror' And Social Networking Sites In Firing Line

Prime Minister John Howard has announced a war to "clean up" the internet. With a proposed budget of almost $200 million, and plenty more to come, Howard's internet war will be one of the most expensive programs in the world to filter, censor and screen internet users and content.

Howard used an internet-televised speech to some 100,000 Christians to launch his war, claiming he wanted to help parents to protect their children from unseemly content and online predators.

Oh, and he also wants to block and/or ban "terror" and "violent" websites :

Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter and the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source. Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child predators, and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered.

Last night, as Mr Howard talked about Christianity and family values, he revealed the government plan to upgrade the protection for families from internet pornography, violence and sexual predators.

As well as practical tools to help families put internet pornography beyond the reach of children, the Government will form partnerships with leading computer providers in upgraded steps to block porn sites and detect predators using popular websites such as MySpace and Facebook to contact children.

Of the $189 million, $43million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the AFP and establish a working group to find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators.

A "black list" drawn up by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which covers Australia-based pornographic and terror sites, will be expanded internationally after consultation with the Attorney-General. The AMCA will also receive 14 additional internet regulators.

Behind the clearly good intentions of stopping online predators and children from being exposed to pornography and violence, there will likely be second and third waves of content control connected to Howard's war on the internet.

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The Howard government's plans to roll out broadband across the nation provides them with the opportunity to do what China, Iran and other countries have tried to do : block content they don't like, or that they deem dangerous, or threatening, or even too dissenting.

The Australian anti-terrorism laws has already led to the banning of books and DVDs that are claimed by the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, to "glorify" and advocate terrorism.

That the Howard government wants to do the same across all internet content reaching Australians is hardly a secret.

But the definitions of what constitutes 'terror' or 'glorification' of violence are broad and open to vast interpretation.

The Tamil Tigers and Hamas are classed as 'terrorist' groups by the Australian government. But does that mean Australians would be blocked from reading their press releases online, or visiting their websites?

Columnist Tim Blair's blog has allowed thousands of comments from readers, over the past three years, discussing ways they think politicians, community leaders and even actors and musicians and Muslim taxi drivers should, could or can be killed and tortured. Would the blog of Tim Blair, opinion editor for the Daily Telegraph, fall under such anti-violence, anti-intolerance and anti-terror related bans on internet content?

Or would it just be those of Islamic extremists discussing terror and violence?

Would future bans on religious intolerance or 'hate speech', both of which the Howard government are considering, apply to all religions?

Or what about the blog of Herald Sun opinionist Andrew Bolt?

In a post today about a New York Times blog where readers were invited to concoct terror attack scenarios on America, Bolt's commenters said the New York Times should be bombed or that journalists should be killed. Clearly such comments are said in jest, but could they also be deemed to be advocating both violence and terrorism? Would Andrew Bolt's blog then be subjected to filtering regimes and bans on its content, and comments?

We also covered the New York Times blog on thinking up terror attacks on the United States over at Your New Reality. Would the New York Times blog post, and Australian websites discussing such a post and open discussion among commenters fall under anti-terror and anti-violence censorship and content control?

To take but one example of successful historical terrorism, the Zionist Irgun group launched dozens of terror attacks on Arab civilians, and army bases and hotels filled with British nationals in Palestine in the late 1930s and the 1940s, killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people. There are numerous websites that openly praise the Irgun terrorism that helped lead to the establishment of the state of Israel. Would such websites be blocked from the eyes of Australian internet users because they glorify and justify the use of terrorism?

Or will bans and blocks only apply to groups advocating and justifying terrorism in the current 'War on Terror'? And what about state-sponsored terrorism?

As with any censorship, particularly censorship of new media, the slippery slope is easy and tempting to climb onto, particularly under the positive auspices of blocking online predators and children's exposure to pornography. When told technology exists to control and censor internet content, control freaks like John Howard are easily tempted.

But once the 'Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?' argument has been used to break down public objections, where do such controls on content, and outright censorship, stop?


'Terror' Books, Video Games And Movies To Be Banned Under Extraordinary New Censorship Law

Books, Movies, Videos Games That Glorify War Won't Face Ban Under New Censorship Laws

The Car Bomb Of Love

A 27 year old Sydney woman is to stand trial for allegedly planning to detonate a car bomb in Sydney, to show her jailed boyfriend the depth of her love and devotion.

The woman is said to be "obsessed" with her boyfriend, and has had his name and "corrective services inmate number" tattooed across her body.

The story, according to police documents, goes that the boyfriend told the woman that he would marry her, but only after she undertook a 'mission' for him, to prove her love. If her 'mission' was successful, then he would marry her.

The alleged 'mission' was that the woman would build, place and then detonate an explosive device inside a vehicle in Sydney's Kings Cross.

The woman has been charged with "conspiring to commit murder and conspiring to cause explosives to be placed in or near a public place." She faces trial in the coming months.

The woman, according to the police statement, has denied the veracity of the main charges laid against her.

From news.com.au :

The statement referred to conversations between them in March last year, which police believed related to Courtney's "mission".

"Police investigations have revealed the accused had previously approached a number of people, requesting their assistance in the preparation, purchase of materials and manufacture of improvised explosive devices."

On March 3 last year, NSW and Federal police executing a search warrant at her home seized various items which police said could be used in the construction of an improvised explosive device.

They allegedly included a timing kit, chemical lists, rolls of tape, a receipt for two litres of ammonia and electric motors.

There's a number of terrorism-related trials underway in Australia right now, and more in the process of reaching the courts, but this is the only one where someone is alleged to have plotted to commit an act of terrorism in the name of love.

Usually, the alleged motivation is hate, revenge or intolerance.

Australians Need Threats & 'Realities of Terrorism ' & War To Feel United

By Darryl Mason

This is downright weird, and a little disturbing.

A piece in today's 'The Australian' claims that our "sense of well-being" has plunged, mostly because we feel so distant, so unconnected with our fellow Australians.

Something called the 'Wellbeing Index' has recorded the "lowest personal wellbeing" ratings since April, 2001 :

"...the marked drop was directly linked to how we feel about our relationships and connection to the community.

It was also linked to the fact Australians were feeling less threatened by external events and were subsequently less attached to each other.

This in turn caused their personal wellbeing to drop, he said. As people felt more secure within the world, their sense of wellbeing was more attuned to the quality of personal relationships.

"(The Index) showed a marked rise in personal wellbeing following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bali bombing and the early stages of the Iraq war...."

Go here for the whole story.

Does this explain why John Howard is apparently planning to use National Security as a key platform in next year's federal election?

There may well be a serious threat of terrorism in Australia - we don't really know for a fact if this is true because the details of such threats are now off-limits to the public, journos, lawyers, even those accused of being a threat - but it is a little creepy to think that all a politician has to do is ramp up the "You Will Be Bombed Soon" mantras to unite the country and install a sense of national unity.

Or can they?

In the US and the UK right now, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are learning that The Threat Of Terror isn't uniting the masses like it used to.

At least, The Threat is not uniting the public behind their leaders.

Recent polls in the UK exposed a mind-blowing statistic : Only about 20% of all Brits believe their Prime Minister when he talked about the threat of terrorist attacks in the UK. And that's after the July 7 bombings last year.

Very, very strange.

One of John Howard's closest mates, and former staffer, is Sydney Morning Herald columnist Gerard Henderson. He stated a few days ago that :

"....John Howard and (Treasurer) Peter Costello have given clear indications that national security will be an election issue, with a focus on the real threat of radical Islamism..."

If we go the way of the Yanks and the Brits, John Howard may discover that ramping up the rhetoric about terrorism and Radical/Militant Islam Threats To Our National Security won't work to unit the country behind him like it used to.

It's something like the threat of Bird Flu.

The headlines may well say, "1/3 Of Humanity Could Die," and you can then hear of outbreaks killing people in countries around the world, but until it happens in your own country, until you lose someone close to you, or see lines queuing outside of hospitals or bodies piled up in the streets, the Fear Factor fades after a while, the threat doesn't seem so real, so looming.

The hassles of day to day reality intrude on the sense of being in perpetual danger from something deadly that may or may not impact upon your life. The longer it doesn't, the easier it is to treat The Threat dismissively.

When something terrible happens, it's easy to get The Fear, but then it fades, it always does. You move on, you get on, and the talk of The Looming Threat loses its power the longer the danger remains an unreality in the lives of most people.

How many Australians live with a serious fear of a massive meteor strike destroying a population centre?

Or a tsunami smashing coastal communities?

Or out of control bushfires destroying whole towns?

Or perpetual drought causing a whole city to eventually run out of water and result in tens of thousands of people having to relocate?

All of these are serious possibilities, and all would cause a far larger loss of life and have a far greater impact on the economy and the lives of everyday Australians than a terrorist attack the size of most we have witnessed during the War On Terror.

But what if Attorney General Philip Ruddock is right?

"One has to be clearly focussed, we believe that Australia is vulnerable, a terrorist attack in Australia is certainly possible."

What if Australia is hit by a terrorist attack between now and the federal election late next year?

Will Australians' "sense of wellbeing" rise as a result?

Will Australians feel more connected to each other, more united?

And will we then, on mass, unite behind the Howard government?

Or will Australians be like the Brits and, in the majority, blame their leader for any terrorist attack?

Hopefully, we won't have to find out.