Middle East people are interesting with their ancient history background. I am looking for one of those teapots you rub and a Major Nelson type genie pops out!

Only a few radicals are doing the senseless bloody murders and that should not get decent Muslims a bad name. Nor should it generate bad attitude from other people or faiths.

Look beyond the bloodshed.
Think about likely causes for such rebellion.
Think about solutions and opportunities.

Patience and understanding might go a long way toward good solutions instead of war and catastrophic spread of ebola and other disease.

Hi Pete, I was putting up an actual event and surmising what differences there would be today, if Hawkey had condoned, and reinforced the actions of the said patrol boat skipper and his buffer/crew. It may sound a bit 'Queen Annes Revenge' I will admit, but in the 20/20 hindsight that time allows, it may have provided enough deterrent to make the People Smugglers/SIEV's/foreign incursions etc think twice.

NORFORCE at present, and for the past 7 yrs that I have been involved with them, are seriously underfunded/undermanned and resourced for the tasks they perform. When Minister B-Rough & Herr Fuhrer Howard declared that "Little Children Were Sacred" aka 'Operation Reach-Around' and marched in the troops to the accompaniment of brass bands, a phalanx of university undergraduates funded by Liberal Party think tanks doing research, DEEWR lackeys, & anthropologists, doctors, basket weavers - ad nauseum... a gravy train of epic proportions ensued.

Territory Alliance (to name one), and scores of other building companies, consultancies, and quasi government organisations set up by bureaucrats given the nod to "take leave entitlements accrued" prior to the declaration by the Fuhrer announcing the Intervention. These parasites then set up shops in Darwin, Katherine, Alice Springs and outlying Island communities - in anticipation of the Gravy Trains.

This was where the resources of NOFARCE were then diverted, into the PR exercise of 'community engagement'. Continuing from there, when the government changed with KRudds cabinet, the Liberal Party grads & research fellows were booted out of their cosy little offices and rat holes at Charles Darwin Uni to be replaced with those of a more Socialist flavour, funded by...you guessed it Labor Party think tanks, but the DEEWR lackeys, QANGO's & other parasites remained until they milked the host dry, fell off, or had been given the nod to return shortly after the mandatory 2 yrs elapsed (after getting lovely redundancies) as advisers to government agencies.

If any government was fair dinkum about Border Protection, it would (or should have done) have put the dollars into boosting the roles of the various squadrons across the Top End.

Yes LEGO, there is a boogeyman, the 2 SASR "shooters" at Port Arthur were silenced shortly after in the Townsville Blackhawk Disaster so that they would never ever get diagnosed with PTSD, get drunk and tell stories, or murder/ suicide their families years down the track.

Martin Bryant was seen there, yes, by many witnesses. Read "The Queen v Martin Bryant" the actual court transcript - if you can still get it that is. The gun shop owner Terry Hill, who sold the weapons to Bryant was told to concoct 'evidence' about previous ammunition/weapon sales to Bryant by the police, or he would "...go inside for a very very long time..." One of the weapons that Bryant was supposed to have fired (the M16) did not have its firing pin functional (it had 3.5 mm ground off).

Bryant himself could not hit a sparrow at 10 paces with an air rifle let alone effect a "shots fired to kill ratio" of better than 96%.

That kind of shooting skill is entirely in the realm of special forces/highly trained persons who fire in excess of 2,500 rounds per day in training scenarios - week in and week out, at ranges I personally attended as an armourer!

Dr Rebecca Peters was the architect of the event. Howard was just another lackey.

As a law student in 2004, I was denied access to; all evidence but for the final judgments of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, a most peculiar event in itself. Most of what I received was heavily redacted.

Yes Lego, there are some folk who have actually gone behind the B-S & supposed conspiracy theories. So can anyone explain the video camera frame at 2:45:22 through to 2:45:29 PM on the 28th April 1996 which shows a person remarkably similar in description to Martin Bryant, going towards a hovering Tasmanian Police Air Wing helicopter ?

Yes Lego, I am on a watch list monitored by ASIO, ASIS and Federal Agencies because I don't happen to swallow the Crown Government B-S.

Hi Albie Manton in Darwin

Granted. When the Muslim-Christian-Buddhist-Hindu Indonesians paddle across the Timor Sea in their outrigger canoes NORFORCE will be more than ready to give them a beer or 2.

Pete, I am NOT suffering from PTSD...more like PMSL....thanks you for the last comment...Cheers

Albie.

Dear Albie

People are much larger than sparrows and firearms are completely different to air rifles. Most specialist shooters would have difficulty hitting a sparrow at ten paces with an air rifle. A person, on the other hand, is another story, especially when targeted with a firearm, which an air rifle is not. It was generally accepted by military strategists prior to WWII that a standing person could easily be hit by a bullet with open sights at 600 metres. Bryant was much closer to his targets than that, and how do you explain the stories of those who survived?