THE BALI BOMBINGS REVISITED - AGAIN
As the anniversary approaches it's worth reminding ourselves of what this was really all about. I first posted this in April 2009.It's about how the Howard government attempted to get Australians on board for war against Iraq.
Some ten days ago a former Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) officer, James Sievers, appeared in a Canberra, Australia, court to answer charges that he had copied secret intelligence documents and had them posted to ‘The Australian’ newspaper. The documents were about warnings during the period leading up to the 12 October 2002 Bali bombings that terrorists in Indonesia were planning attacks on ‘sin spots’.

The bombings killed 202 people including 88 Australians. At the time, Brian Deegan, the father of one of the Australian victims, a lawyer and magistrate in Adelaide, Australia, insisted that the then Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, knew of the terrorist threat but had failed to warn Australian tourists. Downer denied that he had received any warning about threats to Bali. Later, Downer’s spokesman chose his words carefully saying there had been no specific warning about the Bali attacks. An inquiry by Australian Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence Bill Blick white-washed accusations against the Howard government that there had been clear warnings of an impending attack and that Downer had failed to provide adequate warning.

The reality was that Downer had been briefed personally on 18 and 19 June 2002 by officers from Australia’s Office of National Assessments (ONA) and was told specifically that Bali and Singapore were ‘attractive targets for the al-Qaeda linked Jamaah Islamiah terrorist network’ and just two weeks prior to the bombing was warned by US intelligence services that there was a threat specifically to Bali. There was even specific travel warnings posted by US authorities that were not repeated on Downer’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) travel warning website.

The evidence is clear: Downer and Australian Prime Minister John Howard were very much aware of the imminent threat to foreign tourist hotspots in Bali prior to the bombings but failed to provide any warning. The question that remains to be answered is simple; why did they not tell Australian tourists in Bali of the threat and danger of being there?

Prior to the Bali bombings there had been a mounting popular movement in Australia, as well as around the world, against Howard taking Australia to war against Iraq. Just the weekend before the Bali bombings there had been a series of anti-war marches and demonstrations across Australia as there had been all over the world. There had even been a protest at the US spy site in out-back Australia at Pine Gap. Howard, despite his denials, had already wholeheartedly committed Australia to Bush’s war against Iraq and was desperate to have some event to turn tide of dissent against him; the Bali bombings would have been, at least he might have hoped, just such an event. As it turned out, the Bali bombings, rather than galvanise the people of Australia to support Howard’s march to war, had the opposite effect; the Australian people saw the Bali bombings more as some kind of retribution for blindly following the US than a call to join Bush’s fight against Iraq.

At the time, Howard responded by saying that the Bali bombings was in response to Australia’s intervention in East Timor adding that it couldn’t have been because of Australia’s commitment to the US lead-up to the war against Iraq because, so he said, at that time he’d not yet made such a commitment. Of course, all Australians – and, indeed, the Bali bombers – knew that he had.


Full article here.....
http://lataan.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-bali-bombings-revisited-again.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-143548/Straw-faces-row-Bali-bomb-U-turn....

I just started a poll:

Has Gillard set a bad example to young women for lying?


In my humble opinon:
JuLiar Gillard has set a bad example to all the young women of Australia -
if you are a first rate professional liar you too can gain the highest
office in the land - Prime Minister.

Bobby. wrote on Oct 27^th, 2012 at 11:36am:


Only a crazy person would use any pollie as a role model..you would get better life lessons and morals from a ten dollar truck stop hooker

I just started a poll:

Has Gillard set a bad example to young women for lying?


In my humble opinon:
JuLiar Gillard has set a bad example to all the young women of Australia -
if you are a first rate professional liar you too can gain the highest
office in the land - Prime Minister.

So Howard was a liar too?

Wow - what PM hasn't lied?

Bob Hawke,
" By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty "