We are the lucky ones that were born or raised in this great country......people don't know how lucky they are until they have travelled to third world countries!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardyards
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We are the lucky ones that were born or raised in this great country......people don't know how lucky they are until they have travelled to third world countries!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardyards
Where are the do gooders now??? This will become common place......
The Australian Federal Police has issued arrest warrants for the two most prominent Australians fighting for a banned terrorist group in Syria and Iraq, following the publication several days ago of gruesome photos of one of them brandishing severed heads.
There is deepening concern among intelligence agencies about the potential for the bloody Syrian and Iraqi civil wars to spill over onto Australia's shores, with Attorney-General George Brandis saying the threat presented by returning Islamist fighters is the greatest threat to Australian security in years.
The ABC's 7.30 program can reveal that the AFP has issued warrants seeking the immediate arrest of Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar for terrorism offences if they return to Australia.
The two Sydney men travelled to Syria and then Iraq late last year and joined the most vicious of the Al Qaeda-linked groups fighting there, the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL.
Elomar pictured with heads of Syrian government soldiers
AFP counter-terrorism head Neil Gaughan said the warrants were issued after a Twitter account, purporting to belong to Sharrouf, published photos on Thursday and Friday of Elomar holding the severed heads of Syrian government soldiers.
In one photo Elomar holds up two severed heads. In another, he presents one head to the camera, with another three on the floor beside him.
The heads belong to soldiers who were killed late last week during fighting in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
"The Australian government came out very strongly on Friday criticising the type of behaviour that those two gentlemen are allegedly involved in, [saying] that they should not set foot back in Australia," Mr Gaughan told 7.30.
"If they do, we can assure the Australian community that we have first instance warrants for their arrest.
"As soon as they set foot on Australian soil they will be taken into custody."
Concern for domestic security
In an interview with 7.30, Attorney-General George Brandis also made the first public reference to recent intelligence warnings that Australian citizens have been trained in Syria or Iraq to undertake terrorist attacks here.
"There is evidence that they are trained in terrorist tradecraft to perform acts of domestic terrorism in the event that they return either to their home countries or go elsewhere after they have been in theatre," Mr Brandis said.
"So that is a new and very alarming development."
He confirmed that Australians were among the group being trained.
"That's why I've said several times now that this is the biggest threat to Australian domestic security in many years."
Western intelligence agencies have become increasingly concerned about the potential for the Syria and Iraq conflicts to result in terrorist attacks back home.
In May, a returned fighter opened fire at a Jewish museum in Brussels, killing four people.
Last week the Norwegian government announced it had reliable intelligence suggesting an attack was imminent, prompting Australia to issue new travel advice for that country.
"The one thing no Australian should ever think is that this is a problem that exists on the other side of the world," Mr Brandis said.
"Because while it may take shape on the other side of the world, the number of Australians who are participating in this war fighting in Syria and Iraq shows that this is a problem that exists and germinates within our suburbs, within the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane."
The Federal Government is using the concerns about returning fighters to push through a suite of reforms to Australia's federal counter-terrorism laws.
Mr Brandis told 7.30 he was considering lowering the evidentiary bar used by police investigating terrorism offences.
He said he was also considering modifying the language regarding an offence related to providing vocal support for terrorist acts.
Mr Gaughan said the AFP had struggled to pursue cases against Australian Islamists because of the lack of strong, verifiable evidence.
"We are [in the] dark in relation to what occurs there a lot of the time because there is no competent authority to deal with. We’re not getting the normal intelligence feeds," he said.
- Watch the full report on 7.30 tonight on ABC.
G'day mate,
So true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!
Especially reading this article today!
Illness reduced jihadi Khaled Sharrouf’s stretch
The Australian |
August 02, 2014 12:00AM
FORMER NSW judge Anthony Whealy says he would have given Khaled Sharrouf a much tougher sentence if he had not pleaded guilty, or claimed to have a mental illness.
Sharrouf was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for his role in the 2005 Pendennis plot. He pleaded guilty to possessing items, six clocks and 140 batteries, connected with the preparation of a terrorist act, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 15 years’ jail.
Mr Whealy said Sharrouf’s guilty plea reduced the sentence by 25 per cent and his schizophrenia also reduced the time he spent in prison. Sharrouf, now 33, served three years and nine months for his part in the plot.
“I was pretty hard on him, I think,’’ Mr Whealy said yesterday.
“If he hadn’t pleaded guilty and hadn’t had the mental illness, it might have made a difference of another five to seven-year *sentence.”
The NSW Supreme Court judgment details psychiatrists’ analysis of Sharrouf’s mental illness, and how exposure to illicit drugs — LSD, ecstasy and *amphetamines — was “likely to have been a significant factor in the emergence of his chronic mental illness”.
Sharrouf released a statement on Thursday claiming his mental illness was a fraud, a ruse he used to beat whatever charges he happened to be fighting.
“I played the government like ignorant children,’’ he said.
“I was never mentally ill, not then, nor now.’’
Sharrouf’s examining psychiatrists saw it differently. According to assessments conducted as part of his terror trial, Sharrouf was schizophrenic, prone to hallucin*ations when off his meds.
He was also diagnosed with a depressive anxiety disorder.
Clinical notes produced by his GP under subpoena state: “Mr Sharrouf has a history of psychotic symptoms over the past few years and has been diagnosed to be *suffering from a schizophrenic *illness”.
Mr Whealy said he did not believe Sharrouf’s statements this week that he was not mentally ill.
Police who locked up Sharrouf as part of the Pendennis raids describe a moody, volatile man whose days were spent praying at Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque or knocking about his Wiley Park home with his Anglo-Australian wife, Tara Nettleton, and their three small children.
He was a trusted member of the group, but not a senior one.
“He was a bit of a gofer,’’ said Peter Moroney, a former member of the NSW Police Joint Counter-Terrorism Team. “He was trusted as the muscle, as the security, but not as a mastermind.’’
The head of the al-Risalah Islamic Centre, and Sharrouf’s friend, Wissam Haddad, acknowledged Sharrouf had a “dominant” personality, but denied he was a dangerous psychopath. “He doesn’t — I don’t like to use profanity — he doesn’t take crap from anyone,’’ Mr Haddad said.
PS, "kill them all, let GOD sought the good from the bad, after all, he is the one that passes the final judgement!"
Regards,
PMC
He played them alright, just like the rest of his peers do.
This young fella sums it up well....
http://youtu.be/EqBuJ5-6b_c
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-0...nition/5642274
Updated about 2 hours agoMon 4 Aug 2014, 9:31pm
Descendants and historians are calling for recognition for thousands of Australian nurses who served overseas in World War I but were not part of the official nursing deployment.
About 5,000 Australian nurses are thought to have taken themselves to war, even though the official number is just over 2,000.
Professor Melanie Oppenheimer from Flinders University says there were two distinct groups of Australian nurses in WWI - members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) who left "officially" and the rest.
The AANS nurses - as part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) - were initially sent to Egypt, then moved on to France and Belgium.
But others were already in London and made their own way to the theatres of war.
A group of 20 Australian nurses known as the Bluebirds is one example of those who fell outside the official group.
They were also called the "gifts for France" - a country reeling after losing hundreds of thousands of men at the Battle of Verdun.
The Bluebirds were organised by the Australian Red Cross and financed by the Australian Jockey Club. They were known as such because of their distinctive blue uniforms.
One of the nurses was Sydneysider Helen Wallace.
I think that part of what this Anzac centenary is digging up is how narrow the myth has become, and I wonder, are we tiring of that?
Linden Wilkinson, granddaughter of Bluebirds nurse Helen Wallace
Her granddaughter, Linden Wilkinson, only found out about her grandmother's war service as an adult.
There were no records at the War Memorial in Canberra.
She finally found a reference to "Wallace", as her friends called her, in an article by Professor Oppenheimer.
She says her grandmother was a stoic woman, scarred by the war.
Her family remembers her ducking under the kitchen table in a sweat when planes flew low over her house in Sydney in the 1930s.
"So, that was the shellshock. The remnants of the war," Ms Wilkinson said.
'Unofficial' nurses denied war payments and memorial recognition
When Ms Wallace returned to Australia, she lobbied authorities to recognise her war service so she could claim prime minister Billy Hughes's generous war gratuity.
But she eventually gave up, busy with two young children and a husband gassed in the war.
Professor Oppenheimer says the government of the day was frightened about too many people claiming money for their war service.
"Once they say 'yes' to one group, they might open the flood gates. They were very aware of not wanting to do that," she said.
"So they stuck very closely to the line that unless you left Australia officially, we are not going to recognise your service."
But that decision has a legacy today.
The Australian Service Nurses National Memorial in Canberra only acknowledges the nurses who served in the AANS, as does the Australian War Memorial's Roll of Honour.
Ms Wilkinson now wants that to change.
"I think that part of what this Anzac centenary is digging up is how narrow the myth has become, and I wonder, are we tiring of that?" she said.
"Because we all know it's deeper than that, and the nurses are another way of accessing the complexity of that time."
Professor Oppenheimer agrees and says the war effort needs to be looked at more broadly.
"We've got 100 years of reflection. I think that in some respects the Anzac myth has narrowed over time," she said.
"I think now it's probably narrower than it was say 40 or 50 years ago.
"I think that since the last of that generation have all passed on, we're re-historicising the war in a very narrow way and one way to prise our knowledge open is to focus on the war more broadly.
The first Australian women to get to France as a group were those who joined the Australian Voluntary Hospital (AVH) on August 19, 1914.
They were paid for by a private benefactor.
Newcastle nurse Ida Greaves was part of this group.
Her great niece, Trish Hayes, has been investigating Ida's story, which has been largely untold.
"I think she went to France out of a sense that it was part of her life's calling, because I think caring for others was probably the most essential component of her existence," she said.
"She would have thought, 'It's who I am.'"
In 1915, her efforts in moving the field hospital under fire won her the most prestigious decoration available to nurses.
The Royal Red Cross medal was presented to her by King George V at Buckingham Palace.
She served until 1919, helping care for the wounded long after Armistice Day.
When she returned to Australia she went back to nursing in Newcastle and rarely spoke about the horrors of what she saw.
Ms Bramble found a group of stoic, patriotic women who wanted to do their bit.
She found that when the nurses returned home, like Ms Greaves they settled back into nursing and did not talk much about their war service.
They were strictly trained to be "ladylike" and did not engage in self promotion.
Ms Bramble found Ms Greaves's story mirrored those of the Bluebirds. Despite being awarded the Royal Red Cross in Britain, when she returned home there were no medals - or any real recognition at all - because she was not part of the official AANS.
Ms Bramble says Ms Greaves's story is one that has slipped through the cracks.
"In her own time, she was well known," she said.
"Newspapers of the day had a lot to say about the Australian Voluntary Hospital because people like Lady Dudley and Sir Robert Lucas Tooth, the beer baron who funded the Australian Voluntary Hospital, were household names in those days.
"But that's been lost."
Talking to a mate, down the club. He mentioned he had a mate, in the Army, but could not understand the Army lingo. Simple, I sez,
" All the people in the Army are soldiers, all privates are soldiers, but not all soldiers are privates. Some are Officers who are commissioned, but some are officers who are not commissioned. Obviously if every private was called private it would be confusing, so some privates are called things like trooper, driver, gunner, craftsman, sapper or signaller. Not all the drivers actually drive because some of them cook, but they are not called cooks, for that matter, not all drivers are called drivers.- some of them are called privates or gunners. Gunners as you know, are the men who fire guns, unless of course they are drivers or signallers just to make it clearer. All gunners belong to the Artillery, except that in the Infantry there are gunners who are called privates because they fire a different sort of gun , for the same reason the Army call the drivers & signallers private as well
Well, my mate reached for another rum, & I went on. A lance corporal is called corporal, unless he is a lance bombardier, then he is called bombardier to distinguish him from a full bombardier, who is just like a corporal. All other ranks are called by their rank for the sake of simplicity except that staff Sgt's are called staff, but they are not on the staff. Some warrant officers , who are not officers , are called Sgt Major, although they are not Sgts. or Majors. Some Warrant Officers are called Mister, which is the same thing some officers are called, but they are not Warrant Officers. Lieutenants are also called mister because they are subalterns, but their rank is always written as Lieutenant, or Second Lieutenant, and second comes before first.
My mate started drinking double rums, which was a bit strange .I went on. When we talk about groups of soldiers there obviously has to be clear distinction. They are called Officers & soldiers although we know that Officers are soldiers too, sometimes we talk about Officers and other ranks, which is the same as calling them soldiers. I guess it is easiest when we talk about rank & file which is all the troops on parade except the Officers & some of the NCO's- & a few of the privates- and the term is used whether everyone is on parade or not. A large group is called a Battalion, unless it is a regiment but sometimes a regiment is much bigger than a Battalion and then it has nothing to do with the other sort of regiment. Sub units are called companies unless they are squadrons or troops or batteries for that matter. That is not radio batteries & don't confuse this type of troop with the type who are soldiers, but not Officers.
My mate started to slowly hit his head against the bar. I've seen that happen with rum drinkers. So, I went on. Mostly the Army is divided into Corps as well as units, not the sort of Corps which is a couple of divisions but the sort which tells you straight away what trade each man performs, whether he is a tradesman or not. The Infantry Corps has all the infantrymen for example & the Artillery Corps has all the gunners. Both these Corps also have signallers and drivers except those who are in the Signals or Transport Corps. Both those Corps provide a special service and that's why the Transport Corps provides cooks. In fact the Signals Corp is not a service at all because it is an an arm. Arms do all the fighting, although signals don't have to fight too much, rather like engineers who are also an arm, but they don't fight too much either.
I looked at my mate, he was quietly sobbing into his triple rum. I didn't know he loved the Army that much. Cant wait to explain the Australian tax system to him. Bit more complicated than the Army though.
Fooled or foolish? :)
http://youtu.be/B80YXYslsW4
This site is always a good read...
http://www.anzmi.net/index.php/compo...&sid=440:Walsh
A good mix of silliness :)
G'day folks,
The story that our left wing anti Jewish friends do not want you to read!
Regards
PMC
ISRAEL’S NEXT TUNNEL THREAT IS FROM HEZBOLLAH.
After destroying Hamas’ infiltration network, eyes shift to northern border Posted on August 20, 2014 at 12:08 AM EST By Aaron Klein.
Israel, at great cost, believes it has destroyed the complex tunnel network built by Hamas to smuggle arms and other contraband into Gaza and send suicide bombers into the Jewish state, but the possible existence of a similar and perhaps even greater underground system remains a threat to its national security.
The Israeli government is quietly concerned the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization has excavated tunnels that snake under the Jewish state’s northern communities in the Golan Heights. A Hezbollah tunnel network under Israel could mirror or even dwarf the Hama terrorist tunnels in the county’s south, along the Gaza Strip border. Such tunnels could enable Hezbollah to carry out previous threats to use commandos to storm northern Israeli communities in an attempt to hold positions within the country.
After Israel’s nearly month-long military campaign in Gaza aimed in large part at destroying Hamas’s tunnels, Israeli officials seem careful to avoid publicly addressing the potential for Hezbollah tunnels. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on Hezbollah’s possible tunneling in the north.
The Shiite terrorist organization is known for its vast, sophisticated tunnel networks in Lebanon.
Indeed, Hezbollah taught Hamas its tunnel-warfare tactics and helped supervise the construction of its network. It therefore must be assumed Hezbollah has at least attempted to tunnel under Israel in the north. The organization may not have drilled any openings into Israeli cities yet, however, fearing discovery or retaliation from Israel.
Northern Israeli residents have for years reported hearing drilling sounds underground. However, the Israeli military has said it has not discovered any tunnels.
Last week, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, a city near Israel’s border with Lebanon, reportedly asked the IDF to investigate the possibility of Hezbollah tunnels. Asked by KleinOnline for more information on the Hezbollah tunnel threat, an Israeli security source speaking on background said there is fear that after the Gaza conflict, Hezbollah will attempt to convert its defensive tunnels into offensive networks that can snake under Israel.
The source said that while no tunnels were yet discovered under Israeli towns, the working assumption is that Hezbollah will attempt to tunnel there. The source said Hezbollah is bogged down with the ongoing insurgency targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and that Israel does not believe Hezbollah wants a direct conflict with the Jewish state any time soon.
However, the source added the assumption within the Israeli defense establishment is that Hezbollah has incorporated into its future war plans the potential to raid Israeli cities via tunneling, learning lessons from the most recent Gaza conflict.
Hezbollah’s underground highways
Knowledgeable sources told KleinOnline that Lebanon is virtually catacombed with sophisticated tunnels from the northern part of the country into the Bekaa Valley, throughout Beirut and in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has specialized in tunnel boring to move fighters and supplies in various conflicts with Israel. Some of the tunnels, especially in mountainous areas, not only are used to store military supplies but to move more sophisticated weaponry undetected from overhead surveillance, the sources said.
Updates were made for the tunnels to host missile launch pads after the 2006 Lebanon War, when Israel took out scores of above-ground Hezbollah missile and rocket launchers. Throughout the Bekaa Valley, there are tunnels known to hide military equipment from continuous Israeli and U.S. surveillance.
Sources say the Hezbollah tunnels in Lebanon, which are capable of withstanding some aerial bombings, store missiles and rockets and other military hardware to respond to an Israeli attack. Even under Beirut itself, especially in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, military supplies are stored in bunkers and tunnels estimated to be some 40 to 50 feet below the ground.
Up above, there are regular businesses masking the existence of the tunnels. Because Hezbollah controls south Lebanon, sources say the region has been the subject of extensive tunneling, some of which can be bored quickly to allow troops to move secretly into Israel.
At its Museum for Resistance Tourism, for example, Hezbollah has demonstrated its tunneling capability and conducts tours through underground bunkers. A 200-meter tunnel displays complete living and working quarters for fighters, replete with kitchens, electrical generators and communications equipment. The war museum, which is operated by Hezbollah near the village of Mleeta in southern Lebanon, is the site of a former Hezbollah base utilized to ambush Israeli troops.
North Korea
Hezbollah has a relationship with North Korea’s communist dictatorship, which is known to have constructed tunnels that snake underneath the demilitarized zone with South Korea.
The northern Israeli landscape, with its rocky hills and mountains, is geographically different than beachfront Gaza. However, numerous geologists told Israeli media outlets in recent years that Hezbollah has the capability to tunnel under the Israeli north. Just last week, geologist Col. Yossi Langotsky, a former adviser on terror tunnels, explained to Israel National News that the ground in Israel’s northern Galilee is easier to dig than in the Koreas.
“For nine years I raised hell, and said [terrorists are] digging tunnels into Israeli territory, and the state security system is not organized with enough seriousness required to deal with the intensity of the threat,” Langotsky said.
A warning to Israel during operation
“Protective Edge”: a senior in the US defense ministry responded to the suggestion made by some Israeli ministers to remove Hamas, and warned that if Hamas will fall, the outcome will be a more extreme and more dangerous organization replacing it, which will continue the conflict in a worse manner.
Michale Flin, a senior in the pentagon intelligence, admitted that Hamas has infrastructure and funding that allows it to build tunnels t Israel and cause a major threat, but added that removing them from Gaza is not the solution.
“If Hamas disappears, it is probable that we will have to deal with something worse. The area can create something worse”, said Flin in a security conference in Colorado. “It might cause something like ISIS to rise there, the extreme organization took over large areas of the Middle East and created its own Islamic state in Iraq and Syria.”
Flin described the problematic conditions, poverty and population density in Gaza, and said that the locals see a little chance to remove the siege that Israel has over them with Egypt. His prediction to the ending was very pessimistic: “Peace in the middle east? Not in my life time”.
Yesterday( Saturday) the British “Telegraph” reported that Hamas is having negotiations to purchase rockets and advanced warfare gear from North Korea. According to the report, which is based on information from security officials in the West, Hamas already paid for some of the communications technology and for tunnel building knowledge, also to refill the depleted rocket supply after the engagement with Israel.
The officials claimed that the discussed amounts of money between Hamas and Pyongyang are around the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are transferred by company located in Lebanon, coordinating between the sides. Israeli security officials believe that experts in North Korea helped Hamas in designing the tunnel infrastructure towards Israel, so it won’t be detectable and suitable for weapons transferring.
“Hamas wants to resupply its rockets and missiles since he fired so much towards Israel in the last weeks”, said an official in the West. “Pyongyang is the natural location to turn to, because North Korea has connection with radical Islamic groups in the Middle East”. Also he claimed that the officials in North Korea are experienced with tunnel building since they built a complex tunnel network under the demilitarized zone between them and South Korea, and Hamas wants to learn the same expertise.
G'day folks,
Further reading that our left wing anti Jewish friends do not want you to read!
Regards
PMC
The Underground War on Israel
By Lee Smith
During the first two weeks of the Gaza conflict, Hamas landed at least two significant punches. In firing missiles at Ben Gurion Airport, Hamas convinced the Federal Aviation Authority and European air carriers to temporarily suspend flights to Israel. The fact that relatively primitive rockets falling far short of their targets are nonetheless capable of at least briefly severing an advanced Western democracy with a leading tech economy from the rest of the world is a psychological blow. But perhaps the even greater concern for Israeli officials is the revelation of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.
Until Operation Protective Edge, it was generally assumed that Gaza’s tunnel system was simply a feeding tube for a community of 1.8 million people. With both the Egyptian and Israeli borders closed, as well as Israel’s naval blockade, goods entered Gaza mainly through the tunnels from Egypt. So did weapons, including missiles made or designed by Iran, which, as the last two weeks have shown, are capable of reaching any site in Israel. The tunnel economy flourished under former Egyptian president and Hamas sponsor Mohamed Morsi but has suffered under his successor, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has won praise from Jerusalem for shutting down as many tunnels as he can find.
However, there is another system in Gaza as well, a network of attack tunnels that end not in Egypt but in Israel, where over the last two weeks Hamas commandos have attempted several terrorist operations.
“Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that we are not under siege, we are imposing a siege,” says retired IDF officer Jonathan Halevi, now a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “What he meant was that [Hamas] can use tunnels as a strategic weapon. If you multiply tunnels, you can use them to send hundreds of fighters into Israel and create havoc, totally under cover. According to Hamas, the tunnels have changed the balance of power.”
Israeli officials have expressed amazement at the extent of the tunnel network. “Food, accommodations, storage, resupply,” one astonished official told reporters last week. “Beneath Gaza,” he explained, there’s “another terror city.” That is, Hamas’s tunnel network is evidence of a military doctrine, both a countermeasure to Israel’s clear air superiority and an offensive capability that threatens to take ground combat inside Israel itself, targeting villages, cities, and civilians as well as soldiers. Israel perhaps should not have been surprised to discover the size and seriousness of Hamas’s tunnel network because they’ve seen something similar before, in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Hezbollah. And indeed it was Iran’s long arm in Lebanon that helped build Hamas’s tunnels.
“The spiritual father of Hamas’s tunnel system is Imad Mughniyeh,” says Shimon Shapira, a Hezbollah expert and senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Mughniyeh, assassinated in 2008 in an operation believed to have been conducted by the Israelis, is credited with directing Hezbollah’s 2006 war. He was the head of the organization’s external operations unit and responsible for countless terrorist attacks. He also served as liaison to the top Iranian leadership as well as other Iranian allies and assets, including Hamas. “Mughniyeh sent instructors to Gaza and took Hamas members to Iran,” Shapira explains.
While Hamas and Hezbollah’s tunnel technology, equipment, and funding are mostly Iranian, the knowledge and the doctrine date back to the earliest days of the Cold War.
The North Koreans
“The North Koreans are the leading tunnel experts in the world,” says North Korea expert Bruce Bechtol. They learned as a matter of necessity. “The U.S. Air Force basically exhausted its target list after the first eight months of the Korean War,” Bechtol explains. “All the North Korean cities were turned to rubble, so they got good at building large tunnels and bunkers, some of them 10 or 11 square miles. In effect, the North Koreans moved their cities underground for three years, with hundreds of thousands of people living down there.”
“There is no better protection than the earth,” says David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. But Pyongyang also has an offensive doctrine. “Defectors tell us that the North Koreans built 21 tunnels under the demilitarized zone, but only 4 have been discovered,” says Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served in South Korea. “Our concern is that the North Koreans would infiltrate, sending thousands of men through the tunnels in an hour, maybe dressed in South Korean uniforms. You can’t imagine the kind of havoc that would wreak.”
Just last week Hamas tried the same tactic, sending commando units disguised as IDF troops through two tunnels. For a short time, they fooled real Israeli soldiers in an observation post
It’s nothing new for the North Koreans to work with terrorist groups, as Bechtol explains. It started with the Polisario, the North African, and at one time Soviet-funded, terrorist group fighting the Moroccan government. “The North Koreans built them underground facilities, command and control, hospitals,” says Bechtol. “All of it was supported by Soviets, but that changed with the end of the Cold War, when the North Koreans offered their services on a cash and carry basis only.”
Their top customer is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The North Koreans, Bechtol says, have helped build some of the Iranians’ underground nuclear weapons facilities, as well as Hezbollah’s underground network. “They built it in 2003-04, coming into Lebanon disguised as houseboys serving the Iranians. Maybe nobody asked, hey, how come these houseboys are speaking Korean?”
The significance of the tunnels became clear in the 2006 war, as Bechtol explains. “It lowered Hezbollah’s casualty rate. The Israelis wondered why the air force was not inflicting more damage and it was because of those tunnels. It was the first time Hezbollah was ever truly protected.”
Last week a U.S. federal judge ruled that North Korea and Iran were liable for providing support to Hezbollah during the 2006 war. According to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, North Korea and Iran assisted “in building a massive network of underground military installations, tunnels, bunkers, depots and storage facilities in southern Lebanon.” Lamberth noted that one Hezbollah commander who received training in North Korea was Mustafa Badreddine, Mughniyeh’s cousin. And as with North Korea, Hezbollah’s heavily reinforced underground network has also given rise to an offensive doctrine—to invade northern Israel.
“Hassan Nasrallah says Hezbollah has a two-part operational plan,” says Shimon Shapira. “One is rocket fire on Tel Aviv and two is conquest of the Galilee. I wondered what he meant by that—how is Hezbollah going to invade the Galilee, take hostages, capture villages, and overrun military installations? But we’re learning from what is happening now. Nasrallah means Hezbollah is going to penetrate Israel through tunnels.”
The difference between Hamas’s underground network and Hezbollah’s, explain experts, is the topography. It’s easier to dig tunnels in the Gaza sand than in the rocky pastures and rich soil of the Galilee. The catch is that the latter are also harder to destroy since they are further fortified by nature.
Several Israeli journalists are reporting that “the fiasco of the tunnels,” as Yossi Melman calls it, might have been avoided. Either military and security officials were aware of the extent of Hamas’s network and didn’t do enough about it, or they ran up against bureaucratic roadblocks. Whether the IDF needs to detail a specific unit to monitor and uproot the tunnels that cross into Israel on its southern and northern borders, one fact is plain: For decades Israel’s traditional military doctrine has been to fight its enemies on the other side of the wire. However, its enemies’ new North Korean-inspired doctrine is to go under the wire. If Israel doesn’t deal with first Hamas’s tunnels and then Hezbollah’s, the next war it faces may well be inside Israel itself.
Multiple media outlets report that Hamas’s offensive tunnel network – now known to have been composed of over forty attack tunnels dug underneath Israel’s border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip – was set to be activated during the Jewish High Holidays (September 24th) as a mass terror attack.
The attack was meant to generate as many as ten thousand casualties, men, women and particularly children and hundreds of captives. Explosives were particularly placed underneath kindergartens to make certain that these “institutions” would be the first struck, even before anything else.
The IDF recently published the below map showing that tunnels were created in pairs, to empty out on both sides of nearby communities. The known cost of the infrastructure – each tunnel costs upward of some $1 million – clearly shows that Hamas was planning a coordinated mega-attack. It must be understood that use of even one tunnel would inevitably trigger Israeli retaliation against the entire network.
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...4/07/Gaza1.jpg
A map of a small portion of the tunnels meant to be used 9 weeks from now.
Revelations regarding the planned tunnel attack magnitude played a decisive role in the Israeli government’s rejection of a ceasefire proposed late Friday by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Unbelievably, Kerry actually proposed in his latest “cease-fire proposal” – none of which have been honored by Hamas so far – that Israel refrains from degrading remaining attack tunnels. This mind-boggling concept would necessarily be rejected by any sane government, of any country.
Israeli security sources, citing information acquired in interrogations of captured brigands, described a scenario under which hundreds of heavily armed Hamas fighters would have spilled out into Israel in the dead of night and within 10 minutes been positioned to infiltrate essentially all Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Waiting then in hiding until schools and kindergartens were occupied, the terrorists would then attempt to kill the children first, and then kill and kidnap as many Israelis as possible. The plot was set to take place during Jewish New Year, on September 24.
“It’s like the Underground, the Metro or the Subway,” Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said. “These tunnels are all connected. I would describe it as Lower Gaza .”
Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said, “A whole city of terror tunnels has been found. Without the ground operation, we would have woken up one day to an Israeli 9/11.”
Except, the actual objective was to be five times 9/11.
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...4/07/Gaza2.jpg
This picture shows clearly the width of one of the tunnels, sufficient for wheeled vehicles to transverse it. Hamas did not build a “subway” system for Gaza residents. They built an infrastructure for one purpose, and one only, an industry of death.
Israeli military officials reported that the tunnels are stocked with tranquilizers, handcuffs, syringes, ropes and other materials used for subduing abductees, civilians and soldiers. The tunnels also had fantastic quantities of explosives and additional military materiel meant to be used in the up-coming mega attack. Much of these explosives had already been placed underneath Israeli kindergartens. Some of these tunnels were as deep as 30 meters underground.
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...4/07/Gaza3.jpg
Fantastic quantities of explosives were stored in every tunnel, meant to be used in a mega-attack on civilian communities and infrastructure.
Sources say the Gaza Strip war, Operation Protective Edge, could serve as a prelude for a more extensive underground war with the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah. Perhaps, not ‘just’ in the Middle East .
The tunnels inside Gaza and under the Israeli border are not a secret project Hamas ran under the noses of Israel and the Palestinian public. Everyone in Gaza , knew that beneath Gaza , the City and all of its environs, a network of tunnels was being dug over the past five years, with an investment of tens of millions of dollars. Yet no one in Israel , public or military, was prepared for the scope of the tunnels – the danger that became clear in the past week or two.
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...4/07/Gaza4.jpg
Senior Hamas operatives show off their offensive tunnels to their spouses. Unbelievably, this is actually a picture of a Marriage taking place in the ‘place of death’.
In order to create this monstrosity, Hamas needed significant professional help; and this help had to have come from a large organization or state entity. This is not just the monetary aid it received from Qatar , America ’s ally. This is professional guidance for the performance of such an underground feat. Perhaps Hamas could have used experts from the tunnels dug at Rafah under the Gaza-Egypt border, but those were significantly simpler, and did not demand any extraordinary investment or effort.
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/up...4/07/Gaza5.jpg
A Hamas operative climbing upward in a pier of one of the major tunnels. Notice the work on the sides of the tunnel.
Who supplied these quantities of material? Who planned what would be needed? How did Hamas acquire thousands of ampoules of tranquilizer, syringes and other, additional drugs to be used? These are far beyond the quantities and variety of what is needed by any civilian medical service.
How was all this brought in to the Gaza Strip? The logistics of this planned attack are the work of a well-organised military, not that of a militia or club. This was no amateur plan.
Observers note that attack scenarios lined up with recently revealed data about the sophistication, scope and nature of the offensive tunnel network. As previously reported here, this sophistication and know-how is being copied right now by Mexico-based Hezbollah agents along the Southern US border. Tunnels in Southern Lebanon, as in South US , are significantly more difficult to detect than those in the sandy terrain of the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas planned these tunnels for years, and planned to use them to kidnap soldiers,” Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mordechai Almoz said. “[Now] they see the tunnels collapsing one after the other.” For the last two years, the Israeli army has sought to develop skills and equipment to fight in enemy tunnels and bunkers. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have used tunnels to operate command and control, to infiltrate Israel and abduct soldiers, to fire rockets and to conceal fighters amid invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Why has so much bias reporting occurred against Israel? Why is India the only country reporting and filming Hamas tunnels and firing rockets into Israel.
It was only 70 years ago when one of the world's greatest atrocities occurred, the 6.7 million Jews exterminated by HITLER and the Nazi Party!!!!!!!!!!!!!
G'day folks,
Sorry for not been active on this thread. Unfortunately, I have been inundated with young Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans suffering awful psychological and debilitating service related injuries.
Since I got home from hospital in Sydney, I have been flat chat with work. I have currently 16 claims before the department of Veterans affairs and the Veterans' Review Board.
PS, the following below in the latest news from DVA regarding pension increases.
Friday, 19 September 2014VA075
PENSION INCREASE FOR THE VETERAN COMMUNITY
From 20 September 2014, veterans, their partners, war widows and widowers across Australia will see an increase to their pensions.
I am pleased to confirm that the Abbott Government has delivered upon its promise to annually index the income limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC) to CPI. This will provide a fairer income limit for card holders and will mean around 120 additional DVA clients will now be eligible for the Card in 2014-15.
As pension rates are calculated on a daily basis, the next pension paid after the 20 September increase (on payday 2 October 2014) will be paid partly at the old rate and partly at the new rate. The first full payment at the new rates of pension will be payday 16 October 2014.
The table below highlights the key changes to fortnightly rates.
Pension IncreasePension Old Rate (per fortnight) New Rate (per fortnight) Increase
Service Pension—single $842.80 $854.30 $11.50
Service Pension—couples (each)
(combined) $635.30 $1,270.60 $644.00 $1,288.00 $8.70
War Widow(er)’s Pension $856.20 $868.00 $11.80
Income Support Supplement $252.40 $256.00 $3.60
Special Rate (TPI) of Disability Pension $1,293.20 $1,311.30 $18.10
Intermediate Rate of Disability Pension $877.80 $890.10 $12.30
Extreme Disablement Adjustment $714.10 $724.20 $10.10
100 per cent General Rate Pension $459.60 $466.10 $6.50
These are the maximum rates of payment and include any Clean Energy Supplement payable.
Pensions are indexed twice a year in March and September. A full list of pension rates are available on www.dva.gov.au or by calling 133 254 or 1800 555 254 from regional Australia.
Regards,
PMC
Media inquiries: Minister Ronaldson: Jordi Procel 02 6277 7820 or 0448 232 908
Department of Veterans’ Affairs Media: 02 6289 6203
Australian military personnel should carefully consider wearing their uniforms in public, the Defence Department says, after an officer reported being attacked in Sydney.
The 41-year old Australian Defence Force (ADF) officer said he was threatened and assaulted by two males in Sydney's north-west and suffered minor bruising, NSW police said.
The man called police to report the incident early this morning and later spoke to officers at the Kings Cross station.
The two alleged assailants have been described as being of Middle Eastern appearance, police said.
The Hills Local Area Command was investigating.
While the Defence Department has said it would not discuss details about any threats against ADF personnel or their families, a spokesperson said members had been advised to exercise their judgement about wearing a uniform in public.
"ADF members have been advised to consider where they are going, to be aware of their surroundings, and to exercise commonsense and judgement when considering where and when to wear uniform in public," the spokesperson said.
The incident comes amid concerns about the safety of police officers following an attack in Melbourne on Tuesday which saw two officers injured and their apparent attacker shot dead.
G'day NP99,
So sad that this kind of incident is happening in our alleged peaceful land!
Regards,
PMC
I had an idiot set his dog upon me at a railway station in Melbourne during Gulf War 1.....Quote:
Originally Posted by PMC
There are probably much deeper ramifications, but instead of not wearing their uniforms how about wearing their side arms?
I am so sick of this nanny state of affairs, that bloke from the other day has his family bagging the police response, bloody hell what would it be like where they escaped from?
If we are that bad then tootle off "home", you wont be missed!
Not exactly the words I would use.Quote:
Originally Posted by macca
Doc Neesen and the Angels summed it up well:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Apollofish
G’day folks,
I have been flat-out like a lizard drinking over the last month with Veterans claims, getting up at 4.30am taking my eldest daughter to swim club and also trying to set-up a coffee meet and greet place for ex-servicemen and women.
Finally, after reading about our story on the new Veterans’ coffee club in Saturday’s Woolgoolga Advertiser, I am now looking forward to seeing everyone who can make it tomorrow at 9.30am at the Rustic Mezedes in Market St, Woolgoolga. I had the idea to start a coffee club two years ago. It has only come around now has my health has now improved.
It has been a 3 and a half year journey with my own personal health issues. With so many of our Veterans suffering from various psychological illnesses in and around the Woolgoolga area, I just had to do something to help these folks! However, PTSD is not just confined to our ex-service personnel but also our Police, Ambulance and Firefighters as well. This is the main reason for why I decided I had to do something for my community.
The original idea came from two ex-army lads from Coffs Harbour. If all goes well, we should have the original ‘Lounge Lizards’, Craig Ellis and Scott Seccombe that started a similar venture in Coffs’s Harbour 2 years ago. Both lads decided that the Veteran community in the Coffs Harbour area needed an informal meeting place to help one another with various issues and advice (especially the young Afghanistan, east Timor, Iraq and the UN peacekeepers.)
The Coffs Harbour coffee club meets every Wednesday morning around 10am. Craig Ellis, is the owner of Piccolo espresso bar in Coffs Harbour. Craig also decided to give ex-service members discount on tea/coffee. I have been to their coffee club meetings on numerous occasions and that’s when I decided we should do something similar in Woolgoolga.
For those of you that do not know Scott Seccombe, Scott is a Balkan’s War veteran and one of Scott’s goals was to help post 1980’s servicemen and women to manage their post-traumatic stress disorders and other physical problems that they might be suffering from. Scotty recently competed for Australia in the 2014 Invictus games in the UK. For those of you who saw the TV coverage of the aussie larrikin chanting aussie, aussie, aussie, oy, oy, oy, whilst giving the Royal Prince “Harry”” a hug, well folks, that is our lad Scotty! lol
I am also looking forward for folks coming up with new ideas to help take our Veterans into a new era of social connection ie, fishing trips, 4x4 trips to local beautiful hot spots, cards/board games, book and movie discussions etc etc.
Most importantly, this is a about bringing your wife, husband and partner along, “should they wish to share company with our motley crew”!
Kind regards, your humble servant
PMC
G'day folks,
Finally got around to up-date everyone of Tuesday coffee club get together!
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone that turned up, secondly I was stunned by how many attended from 9.30 to 12.30pm. Just as I was about to leave at 11.45am 5 more folks turned up. If was fantastic to have 30 people attend our first causal social coffee club. I also received e-mails and phone calls from 10 other folks who had to pull out at the last minute, however advised that they will be in attendance in the future.
I was stunned by the generous offer made by one of our Veterans that gave me a cheque for $1,000. Has advised, those monies will be donated towards the coffee club members!
This is terrific that we now have another RSL social meeting place for ex-service personnel to gather, meet and rekindle camaraderie with one another! Yee Haa baby bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Geoff Morrow told me to say that. Typical Navy language! Lol
As a result of our first meeting, I have picked up 3 new DVA claims to be filed and processed for our ex-service men & women.
Folks can you please advise me if any of you are interested in participating in the following activities;
1. Book reading
2. Bush walking
3. Camping/caravanning
4. Computer learning
5. Diving/snorkelling
6. Exercising/fitness
7. Fishing (beach or offshore)
8. Four wheel driving in and around the local scenic hot spots in the Coffs Harbour area
9. Going to the movies
10. Hunting or target shooting
11. Military history discussions
12. scenic day trips and B/Q lunch in and around the Coffs Harbor area
PS, once again folks, a special thanks for your kind support! See you next Tuesday (28th October) kick-off 9.30am
Kind regards,
PMC
Top work there Paul, great to see.
Bit hard to attend for us sandgropers but am more than happy to help on some of those topics here in WA.
Feel free to pm me and will fling through my email.
Paul, wouldn't bringing our wife and partner along be a problem or can you manage that in loc? :)
For you sir!Quote:
Originally Posted by NP99
I can make anything happen. lol
PS, I will give you a call soon!
Kind regards,
Paul
hi all i know its old but anyone seen this http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-...209-2z0db.html
Good post up mate......the law can be a funny thing sometimes!Quote:
Originally Posted by Drift triker
probably saw worse that that when he was a real soldier.
G'day folks,
Have a safe and prosperous New Year and all the best for 2015.
PS, I will be back on deck to help our service men and women with their pensions on 6th January 2015.
Regards,
PMC
Don't tell anyone, I have leaked pictures of the latest defence all terrain vehicle.....
... esp if he was posted to the same Unit as LambieQuote:
Originally Posted by Stropp
Subscribed to thread.
Gezz, mate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by NP99
Remember your training SIR !!!!!!!!!!!!!! loose lips sink ships! lol
Regards,
PMC
Thats why I joined the RAAF... no one has figured out how to sink a RAAF base.Quote:
Originally Posted by PMC
Plus sending the Officers out to fight while the troops head to the boozer makes a lot of sense to me.
With the Centenary coming up, has anyone seen any ANZAC shirts? Most of the ones I have seen seem to only have the Australian flag on them...
The RSL have some and I think the National ANZAC Centre in Albany have some as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gecko17
I will have a chat to Derek later and see where he got his fromm.
Did anyone watch "Footprints of War"? From the promo:
Footprints of War explores two antagonistic logics: one of strength and conflict versus the logic of life and balance. Beyond the physical scars left on a landscape, our planet is confronted by serious side effects of modern warfare that are more than just expensive to clean up. What does a war mean to our ecosystem and how is the global eco-balance affected? Can a modern war be eco-friendly? What does it mean when a military machinery is put into motion, what resources are needed and how much are used? This documentary looks back at our world's history, starting with the battlefields of World War I as one of the birthplaces of modern ecocide.
I watched most of this doco in amazement as it explained exactly how much 'war junk' lies below the waves on the ocean floors around the world...enough to destroy the world several times over according to the show's narrator. Whilst the munitions are indeed related largely to 20th Century military adventure, it was the governments and military chiefs of the day that signed off on ocean disposal; I presume under the human failing of if it is not seen then it is not a problem and, if it is to become a problem, then keep it hidden long enough to become someone else's lot in life.
The documentary is an alarming wake-up call as decades on the ocean floor have corroded the millions of munitions containers and shells to the point of causing leakage which, as the show explains, will impact not only on the environment but also on the sea life - sea life that is also caught for human consumption though, as the doco states, there has yet to be any serious study into the effects on sea life by chemical weapons (does your box of Birdseye Fish Fingers glow in the dark???).
U.S. Congress has recently began to focus on the U.S. Military and its illegal dumping of chemical weapons and hazardous nuclear waste (which had been conducted up until the early 1970's before being banned by US law and international treaty) with much of dumping being done off foreign shores (the countries were never notified apparently) with some site locations still highly classified and the issue largely ignored with nothing to mitigate the risk nor has little consideration been given to the long-term effects of such dumping other than the fact that it is now recognised as an environmental issue.
Discarded munitions are constantly being found by trawlers dredging the ocean floors or surveying for new oil platforms or making way for communications pipelines. The doco showed period footage, taken shortly after WW2, of allied military personnel casually rolling countless numbers of artillery shells off the sides of landing craft into the ocean - I doubt they thought about the implications decades down the track - after all, they had just won a world war that had killed upwards of 50 million lives...will the ticking time bombs that continue to leak on the ocean floors eventually cost more???
If anybody is interested, the link below contains publically available information on Sea Dumping in Australia available at:
http://www.hydro.gov.au/n2m/dumping/dumping.htm
The AHS show UXO areas (ammunition, boats, chemical etc) on nautical charts where possible.
It is quite amazing how much stuff is out there.
Yep I watched it and I was also amazed!
Some crazy statistics.
Enough cyanide to kill every human on the planet dumped in rusting barrels in the sea between Ireland and England.
In the Iraq war the American army alone used the same amount of fuel as was used in the entire ww2, every year.
%6 of industry over the entire history of man has been for warfare
Still relevant