Arjay,

Just for the record, Japan never had plans to invade Australia.

The Allies knew this in 1942 but didn't tell anybody because the Japanese would have realised we were monitoring their radio communications.
(Why do you think Churchill was so annoyed with Curtin bringing our troops home unnecessarily).

The problem is that nobody corrected the record after the war because continuing that myth suited us better for different reasons.

Much of history, as they say "is bunk" - even the history we are living today has a deeper truth that many refuse to acknowledge.

David Hicks wrote letters to his stepmother which she handed over to the federal police, stating that he had joined the Muslims and that they had already begun their crusade to convert the world to Islam when they took a village either in Pakistan or India ,(I cant remember which) . They converted this village to Islam at the point of a gun, because the taking of this village was reported on the news at the time and they killed some of the village people whilst taking control. David Hicks thought this was a wonderful achievement in his letter.

I,m glad I didn’t have any sons fighting in Afghanistan at the time because if David Hicks was guarding an enemy tank I would class him as a danger to the safety of my sons and a traitor to Australia.

Regarding the remarks about the torture at Guantunamo Bay. What do you expect the Americans to do with enemy combatants. Sit them down and give them a nice cup of tea and lamingtons or a nice prison cell with TV and three meals a day which is more than some of the prisoners in Guantunamo Bay get in their home country. What would terrorists have to fear from being captured by the Americans? If the treatment was too good they might be lining up to be captured. Get real.

All that’s happened to them at Guantunamo Bay is a bit of humiliation by having their clothes off its hardly the same type of torture as practiced by the Arabs in Iraq lately , with bodies being found with screwdriver holes all over them. What kind of people are they??

As for Marilyn implying that the Americans have killed 655,000 people in Iraq. It’s the Sunnis and the Shiites who are doing all the killing over territorial control of Iraq now that Suddam is out of the picture.

Dear Wobbles,

You need to take your head out of the sand. When I was growing up in the fifties I saw the actual bomb crater where the Japanese just missed the only bridge over the river in Townsville. They tried to take out the bridge to stop army vehicles from crossing the bridge to gain acess to northern Australia .

I’ve heard my Grandparents talk of the whistling sound as the bomb came down and how all the windows in their house rattled and shook.


They didn’t miss the brige by that much either only a few metres.

Sharkfin,

This assessment is one of a few that were made by from Dr Pete Stanley, Principal Historian of the Australian War Memorial.

http://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/stanley_paper.pdf

Like the shell fired at Newcastle, a bomb at Townsville doesn’t quite constitute an invasion.

What everyone seems to have forgotten in this debate is that under Australian law it is illegal to detain anyone, (especially for five years) without a trial. Who knows what went on in David Hick's mind and who knows if he is guilty or not and if so, by how much?
He is an Australian and as such, no matter what anyone thinks, is entitled to a trial here in Australia under our laws. Bring him home, stand him up in court and listen to the evidence. What's so hard about that? It happens all the time, only not under the Howard Government's administration. Shame!!.

By the way, about the Japanese not wanting to invade Australia...What about the bombing of Darwin and the Battle of the Coral Sea? I was alive, listening to the radio, watching the newsreels at the theatre, reading the newspapers and talking to the returned soldiers in those days. Don't fool yourself mate. Their plans were to use us as slaves and kill us all off. Ask the Chinese if you don't believe me.