Australia distraught after first bitter taste of terror (ALLIES ALERT)

The Times ^ | October 14, 2002 | Roger Maynard

[MadIvan]

AUSTRALIA, a virtual stranger to terrorism, was robbed of its innocence when scores of its citizens were killed in Bali.

With more than 100 dead, injured or missing, thousands of distraught relatives waited for news of their loved ones from the island that for Australians is equivalent to Benidorm or Ibiza. As the death toll rose rapidly, it appeared likely to prove Australia’s worst loss of life outside wartime.

Bali is where young Australians go to party. It is the country’s most popular overseas tourist destination, with more than 300,000 visiting last year. Between 10,000 and 20,000 were believed to be on the island at the weekend, including Australian sports teams celebrating the end of their season.

John Howard, Australia’s Prime Minister and a staunch supporter of America’s war against terrorism, said that the bombings were “wicked and cowardly”. He ordered a mass removal of thousands of Australians from Bali, sending in civilian and military aircraft to airlift the injured and able- bodied to safety.

In one of the biggest peacetime operations in Australian aviation history, a fleet of aircraft from the national airline, Qantas, was diverted to the Bali capital of Denpasar to pick up tourists who had been advised to leave the island.

Four Royal Australian Airforce Hercules transport aircraft flew in medical teams to treat those critically injured and to take them to hospitals in Darwin. The Department of Foreign Affairs said that Australians should not travel to Bali in the near future and advised those on the island to remain in their hotels for now.

The bombed club had been packed with young foreign tourists and offered a soft target for terrorists opposed to the active support of Britain and Australia for American military action against Iraq.

Mr Howard said that the attack a “clear act of terrorism” but he there was no clear evidence to suggest that Australia was being made a target because of its support of the Bush Administration. “Whether or not there is a particular anti-Australian component in this I can’t tell, but Kuta Beach, which is frequented by a lot of Australians, is also frequented by other westerners,” he said. “I can only say again that the war against terrorism must go on with unrelenting vigour and with an unconditional commitment.”

In emotional scenes repeated across the country, families prayed for telephone calls or messages from relatives in Bali that in many cases never came.

Seven members of the Kingsley Australian Rules Football Club from Perth, who had gone to Bali to celebrate their premiership win, were among those missing. Bruce Anderson, their secretary, said: “They only arrived there yesterday afternoon and within a couple of hours it is all ruined.”

At Forbes in New South Wales, which had three players from its rugby union team unaccounted for, Alex McKinnon, a club spokesman, said: “We’re just waiting in hope. We’re all devastated.”

In Adelaide the fate of two members of the Sturt Australian Rules Club was unknown. Steve Chapman, the club secretary, said that the rest of the team were “shell-shocked and if you look at the television pictures you can understand why”.

The first Australian to arrive home was Rick Elliott of Melbourne, who was in the nightclub when the bomb exploded. He was treated in the Royal Darwin Hospital for cuts to his head and leg. “There was a loud explosion and the ceiling collapsed on me,” he said. “I was shocked and lifted the ceiling away from me and wasn’t sure what was happening. Thirty seconds later the whole place was alight and there was a whole lot of people clambering over a brick wall at the rear of the club. I jumped up on the fence and climbed on to another roof and the heat of the place was just really, really intense.”

Daryl Williams, the Australian Attorney-General, announced that Canberra was reviewing security arrangements at its overseas embassies. He said that the Government’s security task force would meet soon to discuss what measures needed to be put in place.

About 30,000 people packed central Melbourne for an anti-war rally yesterday and observed a two-minute silence for the Bali victims.

[MadIvan]

It says on the UK news this morning that Australia is already calling this their "9/11". Australia has been a great ally in the war on terror, and been with America and Britain from the first.

Britain and America grieve with Australia, to be sure.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[KantianBurke]

"it is the country?s most popular overseas tourist destination, with more than 300,000 visiting last year."

Boy that'll change. :< The Hindu majority on the island should attempt independence.

[Mo1]

Britain and America grieve with Australia, to be sure.

Yes we do, what has happened to Australia is sad beyond words I will continue to keep them in my prayers

[MadIvan]

The Hindu majority on the island should attempt independence.

Why not, these days virtually every other region in Indonesia has had that thought as well.

Regards, Ivan

[KantianBurke]

whats stopping them? Whatever happened to the Aceta?? region?

[Indie]

"About 30,000 people packed central Melbourne for an anti-war rally yesterday and observed a two-minute silence for the Bali victims."

My God. STILL anti-war?? Makes my blood boil that the commies who want to see liberty destroyed have this much nerve. These slime should be felled where they stand.

I'll pray for you mates.

[Aracelis]

My deepest, heartfelt condolences to our cousins in Australia...

[blam]

Prayers for the Aussies and all that were killed or injured in this murderous attack by Islamic pigs.

[Bobby777]

With more than 100 dead, injured or missing,

s/b With more than 100 nearly 200 dead, injured or missing,

[Arkinsaw]

Indonesia is just a pasted together bunch of islands. It needs to be broken up so the Hindus and Christians can govern themselves and the Muslim areas can make use of their resources without having them exploited by Jakarta. Hopefully East Timor is not the last. Hopefully we will see a good deal of old fashioned secession taking place in the near future.

I hope that this is the worst hit that Australians take in this war on terror and that they start seriously defending themselves. (I hope New Zealand decides they need an army and navy after all also).

[Mr. Mojo]

There will always be appeasement/surrender types around, and they won't be changing their worn-out tunes under any circumstances. Reality is way too much for them to bear, so they escape into Marxist fantasyland. They simply can't handle the truth.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? What I don't think Indonesia realizes is that when all the tourists leave, how will they survive. Are the terrorists going to support them?? I don't think so.

[Vidalia]

Distraught? ... Distraught?

Distraught is when the Insinkerator eats your favorite grapefruit spoon, with you holding it...

Or when you are expecting the boss over for dinner and the kids throw whole toilet tissue rolls in the commode and repeatedly flush just to watch the water reach the other level of water in the bath tub that also has the last roll of terlit paper stuck in the drain, not realizing that the bread rolls for dinner will not hold back the rising tide of ... ANYTHING!

Don't ya think Pissed as Hell might be a bit more appropriate?

But Nooooooo!

Let's be trendy with political correctness.

I'm soaking my knuckles in brine for those so inclined...

[Consort]

[Tony in Hawaii]

The answer, of course, is more gun control.

[I'm_With_Orwell]

I was in that nightclub two years ago.

These scum must be hunted down and sent to their maker.

[Brian Allen]

<< The Hindu majority on the island should attempt independence. >>

Please God!

As should every component part of the Javanese colonies called "Indonesia."

The Islamanazi Javanese collection of brutally and murderously colonised and systemically looted island states known as "Indonesia" were once the Netherlands East Indies and have, since being abandoned, during the periood 1945-49, to their fate by the Dutch, been held together only by force and by brutal repression.

Like America, Australia is not without guilt in "Indonesia's" existance and during the 1970s then Labour Party prime minister "Peking's-Gough" Whitlam even went so far as to enable, encourage and assist the Javansese islamanazis' brutal and murderous invasion, occupation and colonization of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor which, I pray as a portent of things to come recently, with assistance from Australia's present, conservative, government; that of Prime Minister John Howard; became independent.

If America's War on Fascist Islamic Terrorism is, with the help of Our Nation's ANZAC and Israeli Allies, conducted logically and to its proper conclusion it is reasonable to expect that "indonesia" will, during it, go the way of Iraq and of Saudi Arabia and of some of the other insanely EURO-peon-created phony states that litter and are the bane of the world in the wake of the collapse of once great Britain and the other EURO-peon collectivist colonialists into the black hole of the EUROnal's Neo-Soviet.

[ApesForEvolution]

This hits home here in the states as well. We found out this evening that we lost a good, good man there as well.

[Timesink]

I hate to say it ... I REALLY hate to say it ... but something like this was necessary to truly wake up the Australian-in-the-Street as to just how serious a threat this is and how much a part of it they themselves are going to be. They were just like us pre-9/11: "What could possibly happen to us? We're surrounded by oceans!" Now their eyes have been awakened, just as ours were.

Inevitably, similar attacks will occur in Canada, and the UK, and inside Australia itself. And more and more will be awakened. Only then will we really be able to get down to business and annihilate these psychopathic murderers off the face of the planet.

All that said, I too pray for all the victims, and for all the people of Australia who are certainly feeling the same shock and anger and a whole other stew of emotions just as we felt in the days after 9/11. Let us also pray that their eventual reaction is the same as ours: A massive surge of patriotism, and an unceasing desire to destroy these subhuman scum in order to save our liberty.

I tried to go somewhere to post a note of condolence like all the US embassy web sites had set up after 9/11, but all the Australian embassy sites I found were pretty much business as usual except for special pages telling their citizens how to get the hell out of Indonesia.