Piers Akerman
SEVEN years after Osama bin Laden’s jihadis razed New York’s World Trade Centre towers and crashed hijacked aircraft into the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania paddock, a Melbourne jury has convicted seven men on terrorist charges, ending a phase in the nation’s largest and longest-running terrorism trial.
Contrary to the views of numerous self-appointed guardians of the Whitlam Labor government’s legacy of multiculturalism, there are radical members of a significant minority group in Australia who were determined to kill and maim as many innocent Australians as they could in their ``holy’’ war.
Predictably, a number of civil libertarians, academics and legal figures who have vilified those who predicted such a development since the 9/11 bombings and the earlier Islamist attacks against civilians in Bali and the West, have continued their attacks on the legal system which enabled these men to be held, tried and convicted.
Seven years ago, those who were prescient enough to foresee just such terrorist cells being formed in Australia by Islamists were unquestioningly branded as racists by broadcasters within such major media organisations as the ABC and SBS, and by various State Government anti-discrimination bodies which were played like violins by outspoken advocates for the wider Muslim community.
The charges brought against individuals, including this writer, in the running ``lawfare’’ conducted in the ridiculous tribunals and commissions by lawyers such as Sydney’s Adam Houda were rarely, if ever, successful but some of the targets may have been intimidated into quiescence by the accusations of bias and racism levelled against them for pointing out the obvious.
Their concerns have now been shown to be justified and they have been vindicated.
The conviction of Melbourne’s self-anointed ``cleric’’ and ``sheik’’ Abdul Nacer Benbrika, his three ringleaders and other members of his group, have given the lie to those who protested that Islamists were being wrongly targeted by the authorities and some in the media.
By the same token, a handful of moderate members of the Muslim community deserve praise for their co-operation with law enforcement bodies which enabled police to construct their complex case.
The trial has helped strip away much of the apologetic mythology which supporters of the radical Islamists have worked to construct with the assistance of left-wing workers in a compliant media.
Benbrika, it should be noted, was an illegal immigrant who was ordered out of Australia in 1990, 1994 and again in 1995, and though a review tribunal upheld a decision not to grant him a permanent visa, there was never any deportation order issued against him.
Further, he was able to remain by pushing the system to its limit, in his case by marrying a Lebanese-born Australian citizen and claiming his right, under the spousal arrangements provisions that came into force under Labor in 1990, to remain in the country.
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ALASKAN HEELS
Tim Blair
Just a routine image from the 2008 campaign:
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CLIMATE CHANGING
Tim Blair
A promising start from Malcolm Turnbull:
He used his first press conference as leader to target Mr Rudd’s climate change measures, saying voters had not been fully informed.
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DROUGHT ENDS
Tim Blair
Mark Steyn is back online. From a pre-hiatus column:
Meanwhile, Barack Obama staggers from gaffe to gaffe like a Dan Quayle minstrel show and nobody minds.
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9/11 REMEMBERED IN LONDON
Tim Blair
Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat reports:
Islamic fundamentalists in Britain held a conference coinciding with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Members of the fundamentalist “Al-Ghuraba” movement gave speeches and a Ramadan fast breaking dinner was held during the London event.
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THEY CLING TO STREISAND
Tim Blair
Unlikely to have been heard at Obama’s $28,500-per-head Hollywood spare Change! dinner:
“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?”
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MODO DOES WALMART
Tim Blair
Wasilla survived a multi-pronged NYT reporter assault, so now they send in opinion-page MOAB Maureen Dowd:
I wandered through the Wal-Mart, which seemed almost as large as Wasilla, a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake.
Wait until she finds out there’s no subway.
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PHOTOS DOWN!
Tim Blair
It’s the most ferocious arts protest ever:
Canadian members of the social networking website Facebook are taking down their profile photos to protest the Canadian government’s decision to reduce funding for the arts.
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HONEST JULIO
Tim Blair
Julio Flores cannot tell a lie:
At about 4 p.m. on Sunday, the owner of the two-story brick home on Ardsley Court, in Teaneck, where Mr. Flores had been working, saw him acting suspiciously and spoke to him, the police said.
He told the owner he was, “just putting my girlfriend in cement,” the police said. The owner than called 911, the police said.
That’s the last we’ll hear from Julio.
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HITS LANDED
Tim Blair
Further promising signs:
Malcolm Turnbull last night demanded that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd fix the “financial ruin” of NSW rather than fly to New York next week.
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EXPECTATIONS FOR THE WOMAN
Tim Blair
University of Washington academic David Domke disses Sarah Palin:
“She does not in any way challenge the traditional conceptions of men and women that are present among conservative evangelicals.
“She is a mother of five, she talks about God as having a plan for people’s lives.
“Her role on the ticket is to support the presidential candidate and this fits very much what would be the expectations for the woman.”
As reader Wally asks: “So what does that say about Joe Biden?”
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EMISSIONS, EMPLOYMENT REDUCED
Tim Blair
Mark Hawthorne on Lehman Brothers, whose meltdown was slightly more rapid than Earth’s:
Two Lehman reports from last year have been central to convincing governments, media and business of the need for a global carbon trading scheme to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In them, Lehman Brothers makes predictions about the climate in 2100, provides projections for climate change costs and suggests possible trends in the carbon market for the next 50 years.
Impressive stuff, except, as has been pointed out, Lehman should have been more concerned with existing markets rather than phantom ones.
Icecap’s summary: “A year ago they couldn’t predict their bankruptcy but were predicting the climate 100 years ahead.”
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CUT THROUGH THE PIGS
Tim Blair
Obama refines his election plan:
“If we can cut through the nonsense and the lipstick and the pigs and the silliness, then I’m absolutely convinced that we’re going to win.”
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SIX LAWS A WEEK
Tim Blair
Reason reports:
Since it took power in 1997, Great Britain’s Labor Party government has created more than 3,600 new criminal offenses.
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SORRY DAY
Tim Blair
Irfan Yusuf unreservedly apologises:
An opinion article published in The Canberra Times by Irfan Yusuf on August 18, ‘’Justice the remedy required to help Bosnia heal’’, cited the US analyst Daniel Pipes as predicting that Europe’s next Holocaust victims would be Muslim migrants and it alleged that Mr Pipes suggested Muslims thoroughly deserved such slaughter. The Canberra Times and Irfan Yusuf accept that Mr Pipes never predicted nor has he ever endorsed a Holocaust of European Muslims, and they unreservedly apologise to him for the errors.
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SHE’S INSIDE THEIR HEADS II
Tim Blair
Playwright Eve Ensler:
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks.
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