A thoughtful article by Shaun Carney, from today's Age:
The challenge for Australia
By Shaun Carney
September 11, 2004/the Age
Will our political leaders pass the test set by the Jakarta bombers?
The murderous creeps who conceived of the car bomb outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta almost certainly do not understand it, but they have presented our national political system with an enormous challenge. Will we pass the test? Will we be able to see the issues related to the bombing - Islamist terrorism, the war in Iraq, our relations with regional neighbours - clearly through the fug of electioneering? Or will our national discussion collapse itself into provocative sound bites and tit-for-tat taunts of "I told you so"?
....The point appears to be that it is easy for politicians to stoke fears among some voters in the short term but much harder to maintain those fears over the longer term. ...
...Even so, the important question remains: will the bombing play through the campaign all the way to October 9? So far, with the shock of the event still fresh, the public comments by politicians have been largely confined to the leaders. ...
(complete article)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/10/1094789685556.html?oneclick=true
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