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 :)