Rocket Launchers Stolen From Australian Defence Force Sold To Man Now Being Held On Terror Charges

One Rocket Launcher Recovered, SEVEN or More Still Missing

Attack On Nuclear Reactor With Rocket Would Only "Chip Away" At Exterior


A massive investigation involving the Australian Federal Police and the nation's chief spy agency has led to the arrest of a 28 year old man in Sydney for allegedly trying to sell rocket launchers believed to have been stolen from the Australian Army to a man now being held on terror-related charges.

The man now facing charges - a known gun dealer and convicted double-murderer - also believed to have been in possession of 20 kilos of Power Gel explosives, was already under investigation following a sting operation where undercover detectives paid him $50,000 in a failed attempt to recover one of the deadly weapons.

One rocket launcher has so far been recovered. Police said today seven or more 66mm rocket launchers are still missing.

It would appear there is plenty more to this story that has not yet been made public. The 28 year old man was described by one investigator as one link in a chain involving stolen Australian Army weapons and ammunition and powerful underworld crime figures.

But were the rocket launchers part of a terror plot? Or some powerful weaponry for crime gangs out for explosive revenge attacks?

The police refuse to confirm one story or the other.

When the story of the missing rocket launchers broke last month, police and Army spokespersons refused to confirm to journalists that the launchers had been stolen from Australian Army stockpiles.

A theory that the launchers may have been smuggled into Australia was floated instead.

No wonder. Now serious questions are being raised about why private security companies are being used to patrol Australian military bases and, presumably, are tasked with securing stockpiles of rocket launchers and explosives.

Incredible. Who defends the Australian Defence Force bases after midnight? Private security guards.

The fact that rocket launchers, capable of destroying vehicles or even taking down airliners, were missing somewhere in Australia triggered one of the biggest joint ASIO-Federal Police investigations in years.

A sense of dire urgency was added to the investigations due to the fact that Sydney is set to host the APEC conference in less than eight months, when dozens of world leaders will gather for days of meetings, including President Bush.

As the APEC summit draws nearer, it is expected that US Secret Service and CIA agents will become involved in the hunt for the missing weapons, as they are unlikely to allow President Bush to visit Sydney when such a massive security breach remains unresolved.

If the rocket launchers are not recovered, and the APEC summit goes ahead with President Bush in attendance, Sydneysiders can look forward to having much of the central business district completely shut down and locked off for at least two days before, and for the entire duration of, the conference.

The NSW state government is already considering making the days of the APEC summt into public holidays, so workers will not be inconvenienced by what is expected to be the biggest security operation ever mounted in Australia.

State and federal police agencies are now urgently appealing to the public to help find the missing rocket launchers.


From the Sydney Morning Herald (excerpts) :

Counter Terrorism police have arrested and charged a 28-year-old Sydney gun dealer over the theft of seven rocket launchers from the Australian military allegedly for sale to a major underworld figure and suspected terrorist.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Frank Prendergast said the man supplied two rocket launchers to one man and five others to another individual who is facing terror charges on another matter.

The arrested man is accused of stealing all seven launchers and has been charged with 17 weapons and stolen property counts...

From news.com.au (excerpts) :

AFP Assistant Commissioner Frank Prendergast, who is the AFP's counter terrorism national manager, said the 28-year-old man supplied two rocket launchers to one man, and five of the weapons to another man.

"The person who received five is facing terrorism charges on another matter,'' Asst Commissioner Prendergast said.

"It is a matter of great importance to us to recover the six outstanding weapons.''

The charged man is believed to be one link in a "chain of supply'', Asst Commissioner Kaldas said.

Army chief Lieutenant General Peter Leahy said earlier that the Defence Department was investigating claims that former soldiers may have sold anti-tank rockets on the black market to criminals or even terrorists.

UPDATE : Claims aired today indicate that the alleged terror plot included launching rockets at the Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor. But that might not be quite as terrifying as it sounds. There would be no meltdown, no leak of radiaton, no mega-explosion.

All that would result from a rocket attack on the reactor would be...the waste of a rocket :

Security consultant Peter Collins said the easy-to-use single-use rockets could destroy a car, or if fired into a packed train or bus, would cause a blast and shrapnel spray capable of killing people within a five metre radius.

But the former navy intelligence officer said the outdated rocket, which has a range of 220m and is best used on stationary objects, would have almost no effect on a building like the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.

"It would chip away the exterior but the chance of it penetrating the reactor area of the site would be zero,'' Mr Collins said.

Go To 'Your New Reality' For More


Dawn Raid, Men In Black, Helicopters, Machine Guns - The War On Terror Comes To A Quiet Surburban Sydney Street

Rocket Attack Plot Blurs The Line Between Criminality And Terrorism

Who's Got The Rockets? Terrorists? Or Crime Gangs Out For Explosive Revenge? Police Are Still Undecided.

Rocket Launcher Found On Sale For Only $2

Australian Spy Agencies Join Hunt For Missing Rocket Launchers, As World Leaders Conference In Sydney Draws Closer

86 Days Of Savage, Booze-Fuelled Violence In New South Wales

5 People Beaten To Death

Another 5 Punched And Kicked Into Comas

More Than 7200 Brutal Assaults In Just Twelve Months

There's something terrible happening in New South Wales. A level of violence and aggression we haven't seen in years, and alcohol abuse is believed to be a major factor in most of the assaults.

In the space of one year, an average of twenty assaults per day are being reported by police. More than 7200 in total. The majority of the beatings and assaults and murders have occurred on Friday and Saturday nights.

In some areas of New South Wales, primarily in Sydney and country towns, teenagers are reportedly so scared of being assaulted they are choosing to stay home on Friday and Saturday nights.

One in ten youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are reported to have been hashed, or threatened with assault, in the past year.

The evening news has become a cavalcade of murders, beatings, rapes and child molestation.

In just the past 12 weeks alone, five people have been beaten to death, including a fifteen year old boy, and another five have suffered such savage assaults they've been left in comas.

The storm of savage violence engulfing New South Wales towns and cities shows no signs of abating.

From The Daily Telegraph :

Homicide squad chief Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said police were worried by the aggression and the ferocious nature of the attacks. "There has certainly been a rate of assaults that is of great concern to us," he said.

"People are getting into a fight or king hitting someone and not thinking about the consequences."

Dr Weatherburn said he was most concerned for young people who were often targeted by drunk people who pick on them because they are more vulnerable or of smaller build.

He said the problem was worse in rural areas, particularly in the northwest of the state.

The victims have included Geoffrey Taban, 26, who escaped war-torn Sudan only to die after he was bashed...

And there's this incredible story, from Victoria, about a a family picnic destroyed by a booze-fuelled brawl involving more 60 drunken youths :

It was midday on the last day of the year and Adrian Leckie, his sister and their families were enjoying a picnic in a park outside his holiday house in Brunswick Heads, on the North Coast.

A few hundred metres away a group of about 100 youths were riding bikes and playing cricket.

It was a sedate and peaceful beginning to a day that was to end otherwise - Mr Leckie and two others savagely beaten, his house attacked and invaded and his three-year-old daughter picked up and thrown on the road.

The Australian government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade running ad campaigns about the dangers of illegal drugs. Alcohol abuse by teenagers, and adults, rarely gets a look in from the federal or state governments. Despite the fact that social service agencies repeatedly publish studies showing that alcohol abuse is constantly cited in thousands of cases of rape, child abuse, domestic violence, car accidents and street assaults.

While cigarette advertising has been banned across all media in Australia, most major sporting events are still awash in advertising and promotions for alcohol.

Rocket Launcher For Sale For Only $2

We reported here that there are at least eight rocket launchers circulating somewhere in Australia that the police and the Defence Department are trying to track down.

But one rocket launcher has turned up in Queensland.

It was on sale. For $2. At a rubbish tip.

The rocket launcher was brought by a man who works in a local theatre, who thought it would make a great stage prop.

Once he saw a newspaper story about the missing rocket launchers, he called the police...Sorry, he delivered it to his local newspaper.

Why?

The media stories didn't explain.

The rocket launcher found in the tip was reportedly a Matador anti-armour model, developed by Singapore, to be used once and then....thrown on a rubbish tip.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

He gave the weapon to a reporter from Rockhampton's The Morning Bulletin, who kept if for a number of days to photograph it and write a story.

"The police rang me earlier this evening and they told me they didn't know where it was so I redirected them back to the reporter," Mr Maloney said earlier this week, adding that the last time he saw the weapon was in the back seat of the reporter's car.

The reporter handed it in at Yapoon police station...

"It's sitting right in front of me at the moment. I'm sitting here trying to deal with it," said Senior Constable Vicky Lees.

"It's not dangerous at all ... unless you have some sort of explosive to fire it off..."

A Defence Department spokesman said the matter was under investigation.

The spokesman also said it would be "unusual" for used military ordinance to be dumped at a public tip.

Unuusal, but obviously not unlikely.


Eight Rocket Launchers Missing In Australia, As APEC Summit Draws Closer

'Black September' In Australia : The Assassination Conspiracy That Wasn't

Israel Accused Of Tricking Australia's Chief Spy Agency Into Believing Palestinian Assassins Were Gunning For A Future Prime Minister

In the early 1970s, a future prime minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, believed he was the target of Palestinian 'Black September' assassins.

Hawke claimed in his biography that he had received a telephone call in 1973 (when he was a rising star in Australia's trade unions and the Labor Party), from a man who said he was a member of 'Black September.' Hawke said the caller had threatened the lives of his children.

In 1974, Bob Hawke gave an emotional speech to the Zionist Federation in Sydney. He burst into tears and said the Australian government had to end its policy of neutrality when it came to the conflict in the Middle East.

"I know that if we allow the bell to be tolled for Israel, it will have tolled for me, for us all," he said.

Hawke, who became prime minister of Australia in 1983, was not the only possible Australian target of 'Black September', according to newly declassified ASIO files.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The Australian Security intelligence Organisation (ASIO) also believed prominent pro-Jewish figures, Isi Liebler and journalist Sam Lipski, were on the hit list.

Cabinet documents for 1976 - released by the National Archives of Australia today under the 30-year rule - reveal security authorities and the government were deeply concerned about the rising tide of Palestinian terrorism.

Liebler and Lipski are now questioning why ASIO didn't do more to alert them to the alleged threats posed by Palestinian militants in Australia.

The most likely explanation is that while ASIO recognised a possible threat, they had no credible evidence that such plots existed, or that assassination attempts were likely to occur.

Isi Leibler told the Jerusalem Post yesterday that he knew nothing about the alleged 'Black September' plot to kill him until his son read it on the internet, following the declassification of the ASIO file.

He now intends to find out from the Australian authorities about why he was not told of the claimed plot back in 1975 :

The details (of the alleged assassination plots) were in a secret ASIO report that had been presented to the cabinet of prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

The report described the terrorist threat to Australia at a time when Palestinian groups were hijacking aircraft and carrying out attacks aimed at Jewish institutions in Europe and the Middle East.

ASIO identified a key figure in the plan as Munif Mohammed (Ahmed) Abu Rish, who came to Australia in 1974 claiming to be a journalist and indicated he would return in 1975...

Abu Rish never returned to Australia. He was killed by the Israeli Defence Force in the early 1980s.


Part of the controversial ASIO report reads : "The Government has made a number of decisions which could be interpreted as unfavourable to the Palestinian cause...A pro-Palestinian terrorist attack could take place in Australia."

In 1972, at least 15 letter bombs bearing the addresses of Jewish community members and Israeli diplomats were intercepted by Australian post offices.

ASIO suspected the letter bombs were sent by members of the 'Black September' group.

Leaders of the Australia's Jewish community were alerted to the threat of letter bombs, but were not told of the alleged assassination plots.


So where did the information contained in the declassified ASIO documents come from?

All it would have taken for such a file to be compiled and classified by ASIO in the 1970s would have been warnings or rumours passed on, or generated by, Israel's Mossad agency.

Mossad were involved in assassination conspiracy plots of their own at the time, hunting down and killing Palestinians across Europe and the Middle East.

Mossad were at war with the 'Black September' militants and terrorists throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. As part of that war, the agency spread their warnings far and wide about how they believed Palestinian militants were gunning for pro-Israel figures across the world.

That Australia's chief spy agency, ASIO, would have been briefed by Mossad agents on the threat posed by 'Black September' militants would not have been unusual. Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors had made Australia their home by the early 1970s, and thousands of Israelis temporarily relocated to Australia from the Middle East during the height 'Black September' attacks and tensions.


It is clear from reading the declassified files that ASIO took a long, hard look at information supplied by Mossad regarding the threats, weighed it against other reports they received, and then assessed the available evidence for assassination plots as weak, or mere hearsay.

Palestinian militants might have expressed interest in taking out targets in Australia, ASIO concluded, but no credible plots to do so were ever initiated.

ASIO wrote up a thin report about the possible threats, a report rife with words like 'could' 'might' and 'maybe'. A number of government ministers were briefed on the report, it was stamped "Classified", then it disappeared into the files for three decades.

Former Palestinian ambassador to Australia, Ali Kazak, said he believes the 'Black September' assassination conspiracies were cooked up by Mossad :

"It has never been the intention of Palestine to bring this [Middle East] conflict to Australia and we made this clear to ASIO.. This was part of Mossad's campaign against Palestine.

"ASIO have a job to do, it's got to take everything seriously but they were taken for a ride..."

Interestingly, declassified files also revealed that the Fraser government had been extremely willing to develop relationships with both Iran and Iraq in 1976.

The Whitlam government approved the opening of an embassy in Baghdad in 1975.

Australia's foreign minister in 1976, Andrew Peacock, thought it was important to open a Baghdad embassy because he viewed Iraq as being :

a "front-line" state in the dispute with Israel and "as an oil-rich power of growing strategic and economic significance".

Malcolm Fraser, the Australian prime minister at the time the assassination conspiracies were investigated by ASIO, now claims he has no memory of the alleged plot to assassinate Bob Hawke and Jewish leaders, but he told ABC Radio that there were growing concerns about the threat posed by international terrorists. But not by Palestinian militants, specifically.

"In the middle to late 70s, the...countries that had the greatest terrorist problem... were Britain, from the IRA and then Germany and Italy from the red brigades or red armies."

Fraser was either not briefed by ASIO on the 'Black September' threats. It appears ASIO determined the threats were not valid, nor viable, and saw no reason to brief the prime minister.


More documents relating to the claims, and the threats posed by Palestinian militants, and their supporters, inside Australia, are expected to surface at the end of 2007, when another batch of 30-year-classified government documents will enter the public domain.

Australian Jewish Leaders Mentioned In Declassified Spy Agency Files As Possible Assassination Targets

Government Ministers, Intelligence Agents Were "Alarmed" About Threat Of International Terrorism In Australian In Mid-1970s

Claim : 1000 Chinese Spies In Australia

Intelligence Services Recruit Dozens More Spies With Asian Language Skills, But Share Only 12 Arabic Speakers Amongst Five Agencies

Australian Government Has Doubled Staff Of Key Intelligence Agency Since 9/11

While sections of the Australian media and commetariat have been obsessed with paranoid fears that Australian society as they know it will somehow be undone by the 300,000 Muslims who now call Australia their home, the much more realistic security threat appears to be the alleged 1000 Chinese spies living and working here.

In less than five years, the Australian government has doubled the staff of the chief intelligence agency, ASIO, to more than 1600, and have recruited nearly 90 foreign language speaking spies and analysts.

But only twelve of those new recruits speak and read Arabic. More than 70 have been hired specifically because of their skills with Chinese and Asian languages.

The government claims that they are having trouble recruiting fluent Arabic speakers.

The impression is given that those who can speak and read Arabic don't want to work for Australia's intelligence agencies. To become an Australian spy or intelligence analyst, new recruits are subjected to lengthy and highly intrusive 'screening' procedures.

Former analyst Andrew Wilkie has claimed (in his book 'Axis of Deceit') that every single address each new recruit has ever lived at is examined, as well as the backgrounds of those they frequently associate with, be they friends, family members or former co-workers.

Having to explain your relationships, your employment history and your international travel history would prove difficult for most young Australians, not just those who can read and speak Arabic languages.

There is little to suggest that those who offer Chinese and Asian language skills as part of their resume are subjected to less investigation and background checks than those who can handle the complexities of Arabic.

So what's going on here?

Is the threat posed by Chinese spies and espionage greater or less than that posed by Middle Easterners?

So great is the need to recruit Chinese and Asian language speaking spies and analysts in Australia that ASIO has formed a new counter-espionage unit specifically to deal with the perceived threat.

And yet, the five key intelligence agencies are said to share amongst themselves only some 12 people skilled in Arabic languages.

The disparity of new recruits skilled in one set of foreign languages compared to another is vast.

Which raises the question : Is the threat of Chinese espionage now viewed as a greater threat to Australian security than that posed by jihadists or extremists of Middle Eastern backgrounds?

It is also interesting to note that in recent months, senior officials and ministers of the Australian government, including the prime minister, John Howard, are now using the words "extremists" and "radicals" where they had previously word-punched "terrorists."

'Extremist', of course, is even more open to broad definitions and categorisations than 'terrorist'.

So presumably it is no accident that senior government officials are reflecting US President Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair in their change of words to describe the what are deemed to be the key threats to national security.

It's out with "terrorists" and in with "extremists" and "radicals".

The threat of terrorism, it would then appear, is far less than the threat posed by government and corporate espionage, from the Chinese in particular, sniffing out details of new military hardware and software, courtesy of the United States, and examining Australia's relationship with 'The Locals' - Fiji, Tonga, East Timor, the Solomon Islands.

From 'The Australian' :

....many of the new recruits are fluent Chinese speakers who have been assigned to a new ASIO counter-espionage unit specifically to combat the increased number of Chinese spies in Australia.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told The Australian that ASIO needed recruits with "a range of experience and backgrounds".

The new intake of Chinese-speaking ASIO officers has bolstered its capacity to monitor the activities of Chinese spies, which now outnumber the Russians that dominated Canberra intelligence circles during the Cold War.

....senior government sources believed Australia had been targeted aggressively in recent years by Chinese spies seeking information on military-related technology and strategic policy secrets.

"China would be the biggest now by a fair way ... they have built up their capabilities over the last 10 years and are more aggressive in their activities," the source said.

China has denied it has spies in Australia, a claim dismissed by security officials who say they operate mostly under diplomatic cover and under the guise of businessmen.

ASIO has now established what has been called "a dedicated division" to ramp up defences against the increased threat posed by "foreign spies."

Since September 11, 2001, ASIO has given its greatest emphasis and resources to the threats posed by terrorism, particularly those threats that may have originated from jihadists or Middle Easterners.

But the establishment of a Counter-Espionage and Foreign Interference Division by ASIO
clearly shows the chief threats to Australia's security have changed in the past two years.

And this change of percieved threats appears to have begun somewhere around the time that a Chinese diplomat announced that there were some 1000 Chinese spies living and working inside Australia.

From the Australian :

Many of the recruits will work in the counter-espionage unit of the new division, which was set up in July. A separately managed unit on "foreign interference" completes the new division.

The division's mission is to "address threats from espionage and foreign interference that complements the focus on terrorism and other extremist activity", ASIO said.

You don't exactly have to read between the lines.

When Australia's chief spy agency is dishing up such details to a national newspaper you can assume they want their friends and enemies to know what's going on, and where their focus is now centred.


June 2005 : Attorney General Confirms Australian Intelligence Agencies Looking Into Claims Of Chinese Spies In Australia

Chinese Diplomat Claims At Least 1000 Chinese Spies Inside Australia

Defector Claims To Be Chinese Spy Master

Mossad In Australia : The New Zealand False Passports Scandal

Government Denies Mossad Obtained 25 Australian Passports

Australia's Top Cop : Don't Blame Australian Muslims For Terror


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PRIME MINISTER VOLUNTEERS TO HAVE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BUILT NEXT TO HIS HOUSE

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, has announced that he would be quite happy to live right next door to a nuclear power plant.

"I wouldn't have any objection," he told reporters today when asked if he would mind a nuclear power plant being located in his neighbourhood. "No objections....None whatsoever."

When journalists snickered and shook their heads in disbelief, Howard pursed his lips and affected his trademarked hurt look.

"I'm serious," he said, and then paused. "...quite serious."

Howard didn't reveal whether or not he had consulted his neighbours about the installation of Australia's first nuclear power plant in their street, just to prove his point that nuclear energy is safe.

But then, he's the prime minister, and he doesn't allow the objections of any Australians to change his mind, or views, regardless of whether the issue is Australia's involvement in the 'War On Iraq' or the establishment of some two dozen nuclear power plants up and down the east coast of Australia.

Howard wants Australia to become the biggest exporter of uranium in the world, and he's using the debate over Australia's energy future to ram through a change in the public mind, from anti-uranium mining and energy, to pro, on both issues.

He's got a hell of a fight ahead of him.

Most Australians believe that alternative energy sources are the key to Australia's "energy security" (to use a Howard pitch).

Poll after poll reveals that Australians would rather see the mass roll-out of solar power and wind farms, and more focus on energy efficiency, than putting massive potential terrorist targets in dozens of Australian towns and cities.

Howard seems quite keen to have Our Nuclear Future become a key election issue.

Of course he is.

Even if a site was chosen tomorrow, Australia wouldn't have its first nuclear energy power station until 2020, at the earliest.

The prime minister wants to cram the 2007 election issue grinder with controversies of his own choosing, rather than issues that actually concern Australians.

Like why average families will be paying almost half their income to meet their mortgages, and why Australia is still involved in the Iraq War, and why an Australian citizen named David Hicks can be detained by the United States for five years, tortured, psychologically destroyed and still not be put on trial as the most basic tenets of western democracy demands, and why young Australians can't afford to go to university. Issues like those.

Howard is already claiming that the opposition Labor Party is going to run a "fear campaign" surrounding nuclear energy.

But the fear of a nuclear power station down the road is already well entrenched. Australians are not necessarily fearful of Three Mile Island-like meltdowns, but they are fearful that the value of their homes will suffer a meltdown once it becomes public knowledge exactly where these plants are going to be built.

If they are ever built at all, that is. And Howard has made no promise yet that nuclear energy will be a part of Australia's future. He just wants to fuel the debate.

Of course he does. Howard's political mastery has long been controlling the issues in the arena of public debate, and in the media. He'd rather be pilloried for pursuing nuclear energy than face involved public debates about why and how Australia became involved in the Iraq War.

Create the issues, fuel the debates, control the national agenda.

And turn Australia into a massive uranium mine and nuclear waste dump along the way.


Howard Wants Nuclear Power In His Own Backyard

Good Luck : Prime Minister Tries To Energise Nuclear Energy As An Election Issue

Lift Bans On Uranium Mining, Demands Howard

Tell Australians Where Nuclear Plants Will Be Built, And Where The Waste Will Be Buried


Go To 'Your New Reality' For The Latest Stories

Go To 'The Fourth World War' For New Stories

TWO SHOCKING MURDERS, TWO CORPSES DUMPED IN WHEELIE BINS

ELDERLY "HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR" STRANGLED

MISSING TEEN GIRL FOUND MURDERED

In the space of just one week over Christmas, revelations about two murders on the East and West coasts have shocked Australians, not only because of the brutality surrounding the deaths of a 16 year old girl and an 81 year old woman, but because both corpses were dumped inside wheelie bins.

When the two young Perth women charged with murdering their 16 year old friend, Stacey Mitchell, appeared in court yesterday, they giggled as authorities struggled to pronounce their names. Not surprisingly, this behaviour earned them a sharp rebuke from the magistrate.

Police believe an argument broke out between the victim and her friends at a rented house in a Perth suburb on Sunday, December 17. The 16 year old girl was missing for four days before police found her remains crammed into a bin behind a house in which police found bloodstains and signs of a struggle.


But police are mystified as to why 81 year old Kathy Schweitzer, from Bellevue Hill in New South Wales, was killed. A detective admitted he was "struggling to find a motive for such a callous act."

Schweitzer lived alone in an apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour. Neighbours found her body inside a wheelie bin after they became concerned that no-one in the building had seen or spoken to her in days.

Police have assigned more than 20 detectives to the murder case, a task force commitment described as an "unusually large" number of police resources by one newspaper.

Police believe Ms Schweitzer was strangled to death in her apartment, but they've found no signs that there was a break-in, that she had been robbed or that a struggle had taken place.

Ms Schweitzer was described as a "Holocaust survivor" by 'The Australian' newspaper.

Although described by most residents and locals interviewed by media as "a very nice lady", "kind", "she always had a big smile" and "a quiet woman who kept to herself", 'The Australian' quoted a member of a Hungarian Holocaust survivors social group who claimed Ms Schweitzer was "a terrible racist. She didn't like Aborigines, or any other race. She didn't like the advantages they were gaining."

The unnamed woman suggested her murder may have followed an argument with a taxi driver, noting that taxi drivers grew "annoyed" with Ms Schweitzer because she used taxis for short journeys.

Ms Schweitzer is believed to have been active in the Hungarian Resistance during World War 2, forging fake birth certificates and ID documents for other Jews while in hiding from the Nazis.

Claim : Teenage Girls Tried To Clean Up Blood Stains, Removed Carpets From House After Murder

An Undignified Death : Strangled And Dumped In A Garbage Bin

ROCKET LAUNCHERS GO MISSING, AUSTRALIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES JOIN INVESTIGATION

THE HUNT IS ON

NINE MONTHS AND COUNTING UNTIL APEC 'WORLD LEADERS CONFERENCE' IN SYDNEY

Maybe someone stole the now missing rocket launchers from an Australian Defence Force ammo dump, or maybe the armour-busting weapons were smuggled into Australia illegally.

Whatever. The fact is at least eight incredibly destructive weapons, that can unpacked, fired and dumped in a car boot within minutes, are now missing somewhere in Australia.

In just on nine months, the Australian prime minister will celebrate one of the crowning glories of his leadership years when he hosts the APEC conference in Sydney, bringing key world leaders to Australia, including US President Bush.

You can probably understand now why cops, detectives, counter-terror security officials, government ministers, the prime minister himself and key intelligence agencies are shitting themselves.

It's the stuff of horror stories.

From the Melbourne Age :

ASIO has been called in to help investigate whether rocket launchers have been stolen from the army and possibly sold to criminal gangs or terrorists.

With thousands of high-level foreign visitors due in Australia over the coming nine months for a series of meetings leading to the APEC summit in Sydney in September, ASIO, Australian Federal Police, NSW Police counter-terrorism specialists and the Middle Eastern crime squad are all involved in a major effort to track down eight 66-millimetre rocket launchers capable of destroying a light-armoured vehicle.

Police have reportedly paid $50,000 to recover a ninth launcher and explosives. Security around all ADF munition supplies has been strengthened.

The light anti-armour weapon is used by infantry to destroy light-armoured vehicles and bunkers or to knock holes in buildings.

Presumably knowing these weapons are out there, and that terrorists would pay top dollar for them, means this event constitutes a major terrorist threat.

So why has the prime minister been so quiet about it?

And yet, when a mysterious white substance turned up at the Indonesian embassy last year, he rushed in front of the cameras to announce Australia's first biological terror attack, which turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Perhaps eight missing rocket launchers constitutes an all-too-real terror threat you don't want to promote, too loudly.

Not with the prime minister's good mate, President Bush, coming to town.


Army's Shocking History Of Weapons Theft

Warnings On Weapons Security Was "Ignored"

Blackmarket Weaopons Ring Run By 'Rogue Military' Suspected

STUNNING DROP IN AUSTRALIANS' SUPPORT FOR IRAQ WAR

70% OF AUSTRALIANS NOW THINK THE IRAQ WAR WAS A MISTAKE, HALF DEMAND EXIT DATE

IRAQ WAR SET TO BE KEY ELECTION ISSUE FOR 2007

Politicians always say they don't rely on polls. Except for the ones that make them sit up and scream in horror.

A poll like this one that reveals 70% of Australians don't think going to War on Iraq was worth it.

A poll that reveals more half of all Australians want the government to announce an exit date.

A poll that reveals only 21% think going to War on Iraq was a good idea and that the vast majority don't believe Iraq will be anything close to stable in the next few years.

The majority of Australians were opposed to the 'War On Iraq' in early 2003.

Once the war began, support went up, and climbed again following the deceptively quick overthrow and routing of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.

The poll today tells the story of a country steadily losing faith in its political, and war-time, leader, and the decisions he has made since the successful Iraqi elections provided an exit for Australian troops, with most missions accomplished.

Of course, Australian prime minister, John Howard, decided Australian troops had to stay in Iraq after elections.

One of the greatest mysteries in Australia at the moment is exactly what our 700 or so soldiers are actually doing in Iraq. They're protecting embassy officials and escorting corporate clients, and training up the Iraqi police and army, for the most part, but there has been minimal effort from the government's propaganda wing to market the ongoing war in the Australian media, and thereby in the minds of Australians.

Australian troops have been involved in countless clashes with insurgents. There have been a few deaths, the most infamous being that of Jake Kovko, who apparently shot himself by accident, and whose corpse was lost, was misplaced for days, as the Howard government furiously tried to spin its way clear of the fallout. Something they failed to do.

But does a lack of keeping the Australians role in the war front and centre really explain such horrendously low levels of support the war?

Just how deep an impact was made in the public mind by former SAS Iraq war planner Peter Tinley's revelations that no-one he worked with in pre-war planning in the United States took the Saddam Has WMD Threat seriously, and that the resulting war had been a moral and strategic blunder?

It's hard to tell. But Tinley's revelations were featured prominently in the Australian media in the weeks before the poll was taken.

John Howard knew such unease amongst Australians over Iraq was a harsh reality on December 8, when he timidly announced (as though forced to) that the Iraq War had not gone according to plan, and that "certainly things in Iraq are going very badly."

But neither the impact of Tinley's revelations and Howard's dawning reality-check fully explains why 70% of Australians don't think the Iraq War is worth fighting, and the vast majority now demand to know exactly when Howard plans to "bring the troops home."

It has been the steady thudding of terrorist attacks almost every night on the news which has induced a sense of helplessness and regret about the war. We think about all those terrorist attacks, and how virtually all of them have happened in Iraq, where we have deployed at least one-fifth of our fighting forces in the past three years, resulting in many hundreds of young Australians suffering depression, PTSD, traumatic injuries.

It has also been the rapidly increasing association of the name "Howard" with the words "corruption" "lies" "deception" in the headline news, radio talk back and double page spreads.

And it has been the vast awakening of Australians to the truth about why their country launched an unprovoked attack on Baghdad, and then an illegal invasion and occupation.

Nobody likes to feel that someone they trust has done the dirty on them, particularly not Australians.

The internet has certainly played its part in that education process. But so have the scandals directly involving Howard's near faultless use of 'plausible deniability' to cover his "I don't recall" and "I don't know" answers to important questions.

And it was the same for the AWB bribery scandal involving $300 million paid to Saddam Hussein as it was for Howard's astounding ignorance of key Australian intelligence reports about the lack of evidence for WMDs in Iraq before the war actually began.

So, to a large extent, the prime minister himself has aided in educating Australians as to the truth about the War on Iraq by the enormous amount of media time devoted to scandals either directly, or indirectly, involving him.

The prime minister has had to answer too many uncomfortable questions this year about Iraq, WMDs, bribing Saddam, the disappearance of Jake Kovko's body, Australia's relationship with the US and the 'War On Terror' in general, for all that defensiveness from Howard not to have impacted negatively with the public.

Clearly it now has.

When it came to yet more revelations about the illusions of why Australian went to war on Iraq and how the body of an Australian soldier could get lost, for days, Howard usually adopted a near pitiful, pathetic pouting face, as though journalists were being cruel asking him some tough questions.

And, surprisingly, Howard turns out to be a shockingly bad liar when cornered, particularly over Iraq.

Finally, there has been a slew of American books about the failings of the Iraq War, the chaos in the White House and how Bush Co. manufactured WMD evidence to order released in Australia this year.

From 'The One Percent Doctrine' to 'Fiasco' to Bob Woodward's 'State Of Denial', these books have received enormous publicity, and their extracts and revelations have filled front pages and featured heavily in weekend supplements.

Information and imagery derived of the steady flow of books, articles, documentaries and key interviews with dissenting ex-Bush Co. officials, generals, intelligence experts and soldiers (most of all this media coming directly from the US) have frequently book-ended news reports on appalling terror attacks in Iraq, and the inability of Iraq's government to get their country under control.

All that information - the AWB revelations, the lack of WMDs, mass media exposures of the deceptions that led to the war, the endless terror unleashed by the 'War On Terror' - adds up to a monumental re-education from The Facts As They're Known in late 2002 and early 2003.

There was a lot to unlearn in order to accept this New Reality, and it took time.

But now the questions to talk back radio, to letters to the editor, to comments and chat boards on the internet, on what the prime minister's true motivations for going to War on Iraq actually were, are coming thick and fast.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, there are dozens of possibilities up for public discussions as to why Howard followed the US president into a war that was clearly illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary.

So many questions. Did it have something to do with the AWB scandal? Was it really just about Iraq's oil? Does Howard do everything Bush tells him to? Is the Iraq War a lead in to an Iran war? Is John Howard yet another NeoCon?

It is all but impossible to imagine a change in Iraq before the 2007 elections are held that could turn the public's opinion back to overwhelmingly positive for Howard, and the resulting holocaust of a war he helped to make a reality.

Howard has now announced he will commit no more troops to the Iraq War, which would seem to confirm rumours that the prime minister will "bring the troops home" by June-July 2007, just in time for the federal election.

But even this move - giving the public what it wants, making it feel like it had a big say in the fact that Australians troops had been brought home from Iraq - would not placate Australians.

The Iraq War is likely to still remain a deadly mess when the elections are held, and they will wonder if Howard only brought the troops home to win the election.

The War on Iraq has made Australians particularly cynical about their prime minister, and a shamefully high number of people now believe their leader lies to them on a regular basis.

Perhaps worse, they accept it as fact, as something to expect, that their prime minister would treat them this way.

How could such a loss of faith, such a widespread recognition of duplicity and deceit, do anything but turn the Australian people against their prime minister, and the War on Iraq that he simply had to have?


More numbers from the poll :

In October this year, 68% of Australians didn't think it was worth going to War on Iraq. The figure now is 71%.

In February, 2004, 40 percent of Australians thought it was worth going to War on Iraq. Now only 21% believe the War on Iraq was worth it.

In October, only 37% of Australians wanted the prime minister to announce a firm, decisive date for when Australian troops would leave Iraq. Now 47% of Australian want John Howard to make this decision, and make it publicly.

Nearly half of Howard's supporters want an exit date to be announced.

In October, 65% of Australians believed it was unlikely Iraq would be made stable in the next few years. Now that number is up to 69%

Two-thirds of Australians still believe that they are more likely to suffer a terrorist attack because of Howard's decision to go to War on Iraq.

May 2003 : Australian Foreign Minister Had To Warn BHP To Back Off From Plans To Claim Key Iraq Oil Field

Australians In Brutal Fight With Iraq Insurgents, Five Killed

Then And Now - John Howard On The Iraq War

Top SAS Major Says Iraq War "Helped Out Terrorists"

How John Howard Broke A "Moral Contract" With Australian Soldiers

ABORIGINAL LEADER ANNOUNCES "WAR" HAS BEEN DECLARED ON INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS


A young Aboriginal man is beaten to death in a Palm Island police cell and nobody is prosecuted for anything. When investigators come to the island to look into the matter, they go out drinking with the people they're supposed to be investigating.

While this most controversial Aboriginal death-in-custody case has been covered by the Australian media, the reaction of Aborigines to the unprosecuted killing of one of their own hadn't really reached the Australian people.

Until now, that is.

From The Australian (excerpts) :

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine last night accused Queensland's Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare of declaring "war on Aboriginal people" after she defiantly ruled out any review of her decision not to lay charges over the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee.

The Queensland Police Service will now treat every indigenous death in custody as a suspicious event, meaning that it will be automatically investigated centrally by the ethical standards branch instead of through a local investigation.

Last week, Ms Clare ruled that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley would face no charges over Doomadgee's death in a police cell on Palm Island in November 2004. This was despite a coroner's finding that Sergeant Hurley was responsible for the death.

The Australian reported this week that the initial investigation into Doomadgee's death was handled by police officers who were friends of Sergeant Hurley.

After Doomadgee died in custody, police from Townsville flew out to investigate the matter later that day, and spent the evening socialising with the police they were investigating.

Mr Mundine said the indigenous community would not let the matter rest, and warned there would be a continuing campaign against the decision.

"Police and prison officers arethere to serve the public, andwhen something like this happens, it creates an issue of concern for all Australians because it shows a serious flaw in our democracy."

Paradise Still Denied On Palm Island

Palm Island Mayor Calls Decision Not To Prosecute "Cowardly"

FIVE JOURNALISTS WERE LEFT TO DIE IN EAST TIMOR

CLAIM : SAS WERE READY TO STAGE A RESCUE, TOLD TO STAND DOWN

Indonesia wasn't fucking around in 1975 when it told Australia to get the hell out of East Timor before they invaded the tiny country.

Five Australian journalists ignored the warnings to leave and stayed on to cover the unfolding genocide of the East Timorese. The journalists were killed, apparently upon request of the Indonesian government, their bodies were dismembered and burned.

For 30 years, friends and family of the five slain journalists have fought for the truth to be exposed. They've been called kooks and trouble makers and conspiracy theorists and "anti-Indonesian".

But in 2007, these brave and dedicated Australians, who always believed that their friends and sons and husbands had been murdered for daring to show reality of what was happening to the East Timorese, are probably going to find out more about what happened than they could have ever possibly imagined.

Incredibly, new claims are being made that the Australian Special Forces were on a Darwin airstrip, ready to fly in and pluck the five journalists out of the free-fire zone, when they were told to cancel their mission.

Probably the biggest question to be answered in next year's public inquiry into the murder of these journalists will be this one : Just how high up in the government was the decision made to call off the SAS and leave these Australians to the Indonesian death squads?

Investigators are hoping to get former prime minister, Gough Whitlam, into the witness box.

Absolutely amazing, dramatic Australian history back in the news, and looking set to become one of the biggest news stories of 2007.

From the Daily Telegraph (Sydney) :

Special forces soldiers were disgusted when the operation was called off and they learned that the five - all journalists - had been killed, according to sources.

It is the first confirmation that the Australian Government considered moves to rescue the newsmen - a shocking secret held since they were killed by Indonesian invasion forces in Balibo in October 1975.

NSW deputy state coroner Dorelle Pinch, who will conduct the inquest, was told at a preliminary hearing last week of evidence that the government "at a high level" knew the (Indonesian) nvasion was to take place and that the Australian journalists would be targeted.

"It is clear that this was going to be a deniable, or black, operation," Mr Peters' solicitor Rodney Lewis told the court.

Previously-hidden intelligence intercepts have revealed the newsmen were assassinated on the orders of Indonesian generals.

Australian Journalists Were "Executed" On Demand From The Indonesian Government

Indonesia Expert Claims New Evidence Of Balibo Five Murders Is Old News, Hearsay

Attorney General Says Classified Documents On Deaths Of Five Journalists Unlikely To Be Released To Inquiry, But Hopes The Truth Becomes Known

Wife Of Murdered Journalist Not Surprised By New Claims Her Husband Was Abducted And Executed

PRIME MINISTER AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER SPATTERED WITH BLOOD IN CARTOONIST'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE



One of Australia's leading, and most controversial, cartoonists has decided to portray the Australian prime minister, John Howard, and the foreign minister, Alexander Downer spattered with blood in his Christmas message, with the words "Celebrating another successful year in Iraq' underneath the image.

The cartoon, by Leunig, featured prominently in Melbourne newspaper, The Age.

Did Leunig go too far? Is it tasteless? Or biting political comment?

It's not particularly creative. Images of prime ministers and presidents flecked by blood have been prominently displayed by anti-war protestors since the the Iraq War began, as well as being a fairly steady favourite of anti-war marchers since the 1960s.

But 'Peace On Earth & Goodwill To All Men (conditions apply)' is funny.

It's funny, because it's true (as the mafia don on The Simpsons would say).

Peace On Earth & Goodwill To All Men doesn't mean maybe some peace after this next invasion, and it doesn't mean goodwill to just these guys and those guys. It means peace everywhere and goodwill to everybody, no exceptions.

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun opinonist and steady Leunig promoter (by regular criticism), didn't try too hard to come up with this headline for his blog post on the cartoon : 'Heart Of Hate'.

Standard right wing reactionary attribution. It's all about hate. If you dare to criticise the PM, if you dare to make fun of him or mock him, then you must hate him. Ridiculous.

It's interesting to contemplate why Leunig's cartoon received these kinds of comments on Bolt's blog. The key word is clearly 'sick' :

This man is a seriously sick puppy...

What a repulsive “cartoon” - it’s sickening really

Leunig’s madness is beyond description. This is despicable.

he needs a great deal of mental help.

That is sick.

The guy is seriously warped

Leunig is a sick bastard.

Words can not describe my rage at seeing this horrid offering from such a miserable, stinking, rotten, flatulent representative of the Left.

My favourite is definitely, 'Leunig's madness is beyond description. This is despicable'. It would be perfect for the cover of Leunig's next book.

SURFERS HAD TO BE TALKED OUT OF RETURNING TO THE WAVES AFTER VICIOUS SHARK ATTACK

Australia's hardcore surfers are a rare breed.

When the waves are calling, nothing, absolutely nothing, will keep them out of the water.

Yesterday, a surfer was attacked by a shark near Bells Beach, Victoria. The shark left a tooth in his wetsuit when it bit through into his leg, leaving a 30cm long gash.

British backpackers pulled the injured surfer out of the water and looked after him until paramdeics, and then the police, arrived.

But two surfers ignored warnings from the police not to go back into the water. They wanted to keep surfing, even though they could see the shark attack victim right there on the beach in front of them, being treated by paramedics.

It took two police officers to convince the surfers that returning to the waves was a really, really bad idea :

"(The surfers) wanted to go out after the attack," said a policewoman. "...it is just unbelievable..."

The local constabulary are not shocked by the shark attack. The area gets sharks passing through, and sometimes they hang around. And while there have been "no serious shark attacks in the area" of recent :

"We have had quite a few nibbles on boards. They're getting closer."

The surfer who got chomped, Peter Galvin, had been sitting up on his surfboard, one hundred metres from the shore. His mistake was to dangle both legs in the water. Police said he was lucky he didn't fall off his board.

An eyewitness report :

Murray Thomas, 34, surfed the break less than an hour before the attack and dashed back down to the beach when he saw the ambulance fly by him.

"He had a chunk taken out of his calf, just hanging off, and his board had been chomped, it had teeth marks underneath," Mr Thomas said.

Shark attacks in Australia are extremely rare, considering the zeal with which we plunge into the ocean throughout the summer.

The last time anyone was killed in a shark in Victoria was 1954.

There have been two major shark attacks in Australian waters in 2006.

On January 7, a 21 year old woman had her arms bitten off by what were believed to bull sharks off Amity Point, North Stradbroke Island.

On December 2, a fifteen year old boy was attacked near Esperance in Western Australia. A five metre shark bit off a section of his leg.

There were calls for the Bells Beach shark to be hunted down and killed, but one online poll of 5500 Australians revealed 85% think the shark should live, and that surfers know the risks involved.

The surfer who was mauled by the shark sees no reason why it should be killed.

"Leave it alone," says shark attack victim :

Friend Kate Maguire said Mr Galvin saw no need for a cull.

"The last thing Pete wants is a shark hunt," Ms Maguire said. "He is experienced. He knows the risks."

Surgeons at the Royal Melbourne Hospital operated to save his left leg after his lower thigh and calf were ripped open.

The bite was within millimetres of cutting an artery, leaving a 30cm gash.

The shark's tooth embedded in his wetsuit will be analysed to identify the type of shark, possibly a 3m bronze whaler or young great white.

Mr Galvin saw the shark and kicked it away before being helped to shore by his friend

That's the way it goes. You surf, you know you might get chomped by a shark.

If a shark tries to chomp you, you kick it away.

NOW HE'S STUNK UP 'TRUST', WHAT NEW SONG WILL JOHN HOWARD SING?

Howard desperately needs a new mantra. If he talks about trust again, Australians will get cold shivers.

It's, as always, revolting to see John Howard repeatedly demand recognition for his self-proclaimed economic miracles while rarely acknowledging that economic miracles exist because Australians are adapting to 50 and 60 hour work weeks.

Howard's 2004 ironic campaign line, "Who Do You Trust?" would stink like a festering carcass if he tried to dust it off and use it again in 2007. Even if he tries to disguise the stench with a line about him being a prime minister to "you can rely on".

In 2004, barely half the nation trusted Howard's roundabout promise to "keep interest rates low", or as one television ad declared at "record lows". These same people are now paying hundreds more badly needed dollars every month to meet their mortage, as they watch the value of their home deflate.

It will be a neon-bright sign of how desperate John Howard may become if he has nothing more than his highly touted economic record (highly touted most loudly by himself) and the trust, or realiability, issues left to sell himself yet again to the nation.

When the economy turns heavy and drags, people remember when things were better, and they don't like being reminded of it. Least of all by the prime minister.

Plus, Howard must have had at least one of his 50-plus advisers tell him, "Prime Minister, they don't trust you anymore. You need a new song."

Something about trust, about reliability?

Maybe, 'You've Got A Friend In Uncle John Howard'?

Something like that?

They could make it real catchy, and easy to sing along to.

JOHN HOWARD'S CHIEF STRATEGY FOR 2007 ELECTION REVEALED

BE A COMPLETE BITCH

GILLARD CLAIMS HOWARD'S BEST DAYS ARE "BEHIND HIM"


The 2007 Australian federal election is going to be a blood-soaked affair. The prime minister, John Howard, began the real fang fighting yesterday. He tried to burst the bubble of his more popular political opposite, the self-titled 'alternative' prime minister Kevin Rudd with a bizarre and somewhat creepy rant.

Howard claimed that Rudd accused his government of "fostering an ethos of selfishness in the Australian community...to the detriment of the common good."

Howard then asked, "Is that it?"

As though being accused of encouraging selfishness, "to the detriment of the common good," no less, means nothing at all.

Like it isn't something most Australians are concerned about. He has clearly not been listening.

Howard didn't seem to understand that Rudd had not accused Australians of being selfish, simply that the prime minister had transformed the country in a way that encouraged Australians to shift away from "a fair go for all" to looking after number one with increasing priority.

Howard quoted Rudd's bruising accusation as though he believed most Australians would think the argument, like he did, to be completely baseless. Howard tried to make a joke of it, but he botched it.

For a prime minister to be accused of doing anything that was "...to the detriment of the common good..." is bad news. To remind people of it yourself is worse. Howard still seems to believe that Australians view him as a trustworthy bloke who would not, could not, do anything that would be "...to the detriment of the common good..."

Is that it? Howard asked.

Most Australians would say, "Isn't that enough?"


From 'The Australian' :

Labor's new leadership team hit back last night. Deputy leader Julia Gillard said Mr Howard's attack proved his "best days (are) behind him".

And she said Mr Howard, who is seeking a fifth term in office, was "clearly rattled" by Mr Rudd's solid start and Labor's rise in public support.

"Australians aren't going to give him a tick for making shallow criticisms of the Opposition Leader."

Rudd wasn't stupid enough to fall into Howard's trap. Howard wants Rudd to react emotionally. He wants and needs Rudd to hit back with a Latham-like fury. People want to know if behind the Rudd visage of a small town pharmacist there dwells a seriously angry man.

If Howard can crack Rudd and make him unleash some verbal flame, Howard can then grind on for all of 2007 about Rudd's problems with anger, knowing that if he can only make the claim enough times, he can probably make it stick.

But Rudd won't bite back. If he doesn't know every detail of Howard's catalogue of political weapons of character destruction then he shouldn't be leading the Labor Party.

It's not Rudd's job now to be the master blaster.

This is the job of Julia Gillard.

'his best years are behind him'

She's been using the line for weeks, but it's been effective in making Howard appear older, and more frail, that he actually is.

Whether he does it now or in 2007, Howard will use Gillard's claim that his best years are behind him to build an image of a Labor Party that thinks anyone over 60 is over and done with.
We will see Howard play his remarkably synthetic Mock Outrage character, when he speaks in a low, quiet voice, sounding hurt, with slightly moist eyes about how unfair Rudd and Gillard will be towards the millions of baby boomers, like him, who will heading into retirement.

Well, some will be heading into retirement earlier than the rest. It is unlikely Howard will be putting in long hours when those boomers he will now try and champion are celebrating their 75th birthday in the middle of a busy work wee.

It will be extraordinary if Rudd and Gillard allow Howard to auto-reply he will stay prime minister as long as the Liberal Party wants him to be.

He must be held to commit to serving a full term as prime minister, regardless of what the party may, or may not, want in the next few years.

They can hammer the realistic scenario that Howard will handover power to some lesser mortal if he wins the election before kicking back in the United States, taking time to reflect on past 'glories' with old mates Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

There must be a Rudd Vs Howard live debate. Not a staged, tightly controlled in-the-studio television production, but a live debate in a public space, where the time normally filled by questions from journalists can come from the floor, unscreened.

We are in a time of war, as Howard, Blair and Bush continually remind us. If that is so, then we need a war-time leader. Someone who can face the public, and can honestly answer real questions about the reality that lies outside the bubble of federal politics.

MORE TO COME