-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/18/1021544083230.html
}}}>Begin We will not be safe while tied to current US foreign policy By Adrian D'Hage May 19 2002 So, under Peter Costello's "Keeping Australia Safe" budget, it is going to cost more to treat the common cold but we will be able to do it in a safe and secure environment. Sounds good and plays well in the electorate, but not so. Not unless Australia and other Western nations show greater vision in formulating defence and foreign policy. Broadly, Australia's policies in defence differ from those of the Bush administration only in the way we spell it. Australia is part of whatever the US is planning. The next announcement may be the invasion of Iraq and the deployment of up to 500,000 troops. It will make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park. And while we might support the government's stand, and many of its budget plans for increases in defence spending are sensible, we need to know that under the umbrella of Western foreign policy Australia is now a more prominent target and until that policy changes, no budget can make us "safe". In a dark legacy from the Sydney Olympics, Australia is now better prepared for a biological/chemical attack than any other country. But that defence is far from tested. While everything possible was done for the Games, a determined attack could not have been prevented. Yes, there was a marked increase in the efficiency of intelligence services here and overseas, but who had ever heard of Martin Bryant before he slaughtered people in Tasmania? Intelligence systems will not normally detect the Martin Bryants any more than they will detect the dozens of teenagers around the world who are being taught to hate the US and the West (including Australia) to the point that they will strap on explosives and sacrifice themselves in despair and martyrdom. Yes, the air that visitors to the Games breathed was sampled at various points around the city every single day. And yes, a change would have been picked up because the normal air was tested 12 months before. And yes, mobile laboratories were in place to identify the substance. But once anthrax or smallpox, for example, has been released, it is not a defence but a "whole of agency" approach that is required. That includes police, fire, ambulance, media and health - GPs and hospitals. And in this "brave new war against terror" the public is going to have to get used to seeing emergency services personnel in biochemical suits and aircraft flying over previously peaceful cities - although as the incident in Sydney demonstrated last week, it will help if defence gets its act together with a simple warning to the public. If a smallpox attack were made, we would realise that most of the population is not immunised. But such an attack is unlikely at present. There is time for the West, and in particular the US, to have a dramatic rethink of foreign policy. That policy must recognise the rights of all, not just those of the West. To cite but one example, the Israelis have suffered terribly but of all peoples, they should know better than anyone what it is to have lost your country and to live in ghettos. Until the Palestinians have a state, the Palestinian teenagers who have lost their parents, brothers and sisters and homes at the hands of the West will continue to martyr themselves. And when science makes it easier to deliver weapons of mass destruction, the air in Flinders Street and other train stations around the country might carry much more than the common cold. Not even the Howard/Costello spin can cater for that. Brigadier Adrian D'Hage was head of defence planning for security of the Sydney 2000 Games. 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