Fellow Aussies,
Through this whole tragedy and the resulting conflict we are about to witness, I wonder just how much attention the Australian government and/or military is giving to the immediate threat posed to us by the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia.
If America launches some sort of attack on targets in Afghanistan, and this appears more and more likely each day, then the Taliban have said that they will have no choice but to declare a "jihad" on America and it's allies.
Whilst the government of Indonesia has supported the US (evident through the visit to Washington by Megawati) it is the actions of the fundamentalist and unpredictable minority in that country which worry me. It was reported on CNN today that a group of Indonesians entered a large International Hotel in Jakarta and warned American guests to leave (or something along those lines...if someone has the actual story that would be great.)
Surely here in Australia, being behind the US 100% and only a stone's through away, we are extremely vulnerable to any attacks by terrorists based in Indonesia. While we're on the topic, surely there is a number of fundamentalist Muslims living within our own country. While the number is likely to be very small, these people perhaps present more of a threat, simply because they can move throughout our country almost undetected, as did those responsible for the attacks in the US.
What I am trying to say is that we are definitely not immmune from these terrorists attacks and in the event of a "jihad", we become a very real target. Maybe those cutbacks on defence spending year after year wasn't such a good idea at all.
TL