Well, it is over a week ago since the horror occured in Bali.
At least 30 Australians have been identified. 180 Are feared dead - most can't be identified at the moment. The number of countries that have had dead or missing grows. Australia has the most.
They have pieced together what might have happened from eye-witness accounts.
The area is always full of people. Some guy walked along past Paddy's opposite the Sari Club and chucked in a bag full of explosives and ran off... the security guard ran after him - not realising what had happened. Then a minivan drove down the small street and just stopped outside of the Sari Club. The street is quite a narrow one and this stopped van caused a big traffic build-up... taxi's couldn't get past etc. A Woman jumped out and ran into a waiting get-away car which was a local Toyota and it sped off towards the other side of Bali to where the Ferry to Java is. It had Javaneese numberplates.
The Explosives that were thrown into Paddy's went off... the place went up (supposedly a lot died in fire-wells). It was a smaller explosion that the second bomb. It served to draw people out onto the streets from near-by places like the packed Sari Club.
Then the second bomb went off - the minivan. Supposedly it was packed full of gas-bottles (there were immediate reports of explosions accompanying the blast that sounded like gas-bottles exploding). Everyone knows what happened next... people packed onto the street would have probably been vapourised... I watched a report where a man and a friend survived (they were on the foot path) because they were protected by all the corpses that fell on top of them... about 6 deep.
The bomb, it has been found to have been C4 plastic explosives. Into the mix was added TNT and Napalm... so people would burn. Suffer terribly. The Gas cylinders were also packed into the van.
The cowardly bastards who did this drove off - they didn't even do the whole crazy "suicide bomber thing" fucking arseholes.
So many people are dead. The step daughter of an Australian Olympian was there and she is barely alive... she has burns to 50% of her body, she had already lost a leg and an eye and her lungs have collapsed once. Poor girl. That's just one story.
What really gets me is... most of us on this board are in our late teens - early -> mid twenties. Nearly everyone that died in Bali last week is that age. They are us. I remember thinking to myself when I was about 9 or 10, that our generation was going to be different, we weren't going to ruin the world like our parents or grandparents have. Our generation has been suffered dearly.
Don't be so inward looking to your own countries, states, provinces, cities or towns. The largest city in the world to a peaceful holiday island, we can't be complacent or be so blas� or unconcered with the world outside our city or country's borders.
Remember those of our generation who are now gone
Peace.
Andrew
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
I couldn't agree more. Incidentally we should also remember the victims of the other 18 terrorist attcks in which al-Quaeda have been implicated since 11/9/01.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Now it is time for you to determine how this will affect you.
Are you cowed, or are you challenged?
quote:Q :"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out there. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
quote:If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well, I was pleased when I saw a couple during the week get married in Bali. Some dumb-fuck terrorist isn't going to change who WE are as a nation.
And from the Prime Minister at Sunday's Memorial ceremony:
quote:JOHN HOWARD: Our nation has been changed by this event. Perhaps we may not be so carefree as we have been in the past, but we will never lose our openness, our sense of adventure.
The young of Australia will always travel, they will always seek fun in distant parts, they will always reach out to the young of other nations. They will always be open, fun-loving decent men and women.
And so as we grapple inadequately and in despair to try and comprehend what has happened, let us gather ourselves around each other, let us wrap our arms around not only our fellow Australians, but our arms around the people of Indonesia and Bali, let us wrap our arms around the people of other nations and the friends and relatives of the nationals of other countries who have died in this horrible event.
It will take a long time for these foul deeds to be seen in any kind of context. They can never be understood, they can never be excused.
Australia has been affected very deeply, but the Australian spirit has not been broken. The Australian spirit will remain strong and free and open and tolerant.
I know that is what all of those who lost their lives would have wanted. And I know it is what all of those who grieve for them would want.
Here, here Andrew
Posted by E. Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Well said, Andrew.
"The Australian spirit will remain strong and free and open and tolerant."
I'm sure those immigrants can attest to that.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
It was a quote... and Cartman - NObody can point out any immigrant problem to Australia... HELLO American HYPOCRITES! Haitians, Mexicans, Cubans, Need I say more?
And Europeans/Brits... Hello cargo-containers full of dead people.
We know the real problem here. The people smugglers - lots of fucking evil pricks in Indonesia and beyond who have no problem taking a family's entire wealth to put them on a rickety boat to no-where.
Plus, Many Immigrants who have gone through detention centres like in Woomera have had no complaints. It gets a little suspicious when half of these people start destroying their surroundings - instead of waiting. Yes some have been waiting for a long time - but rioting and endagering children like they did is NOT going to get them a ticket out of there.
There are plenty of people who immigrate to Australia from all over the world... LEGITEMATELY. Half of those people in the detention centres are or were quite well-off in their home countries, and use the 'boat people' solution as a way to jump the queue to get into Australia. After September 11th 2001 - they are going to have a MUCH tougher time succeeding. And how fair is that on the people who have waited for so long legitemately.
Besides all that, I hate how people, as I said, Europeans or Americans... love to dictate to other countries how to deal with things like Illegal Immigrants. I mean we've had Clinton coming here (on a very, very well paying public speaking tour) critisising that very point... have a look how he handled his own country's illegal immigrant problem during his 8 years in office. *shakes head*. And Bush, The Texan oil-barren, would be worse.
Look to your own backyard.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: And Europeans/Brits... Hello cargo-containers full of dead people.
That's their own fault for wanting to come to the UK rather than stay in any of the European countries they go through first.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, this is taking a somewhat unpleasent turn.
Incidently, immigration, refugees, and "detention centers" play a central role in this thing I am trying to write.
Anyway, off to somewhere more appropriate.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
Why would anyone want to immigrate to Australia?
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
I don't recall any large US detention centers being set up to deal with the illegal immigrants - quite the opposite. We keep offering them amnesties.
On the other hand, I DO remember a lot of Australians giving the US crap about holding our wartime detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
quote:Report reveals intolerable conditions at Woomera Adelaide April 16 2002 Many young people in the Woomera detention centre are suffering severe mental problems, a South Australian government report has found.
The report, which followed an inspection by child protection officers after Easter, also raised specific issues relating to the welfare and treatment of children at the outback facility.
Social Justice Minister Stephanie Key said it had prompted her to conclude conditions for children at Woomera were intolerable.
quote:“Kids there are exposed to episodes of violent behaviour, tear gas and sometimes there are night raids and searches, they're in solitary confinement at times and separated from their parents”, he told John Laws' radio program on January 21.
Ziyad (not his real name), a refugee from Iraq recently released from Woomera who now lives in Adelaide, recounted the effect of detention on some of the children he knew. One friend's child weighed 11kg when he arrived in Australia, Ziyad explained. That child was still 11kg nine months later, and he doesn't talk. “He used to love cars, but after seeing the water cannon trucks pounding detainees with water, he is now afraid at the sound of a car. I have other friends whose 10- and 13-year-old daughters have started to wet the bed.”
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
My sympathies to every innocent life taken in the Bali attack.
Questions:
1) Anyone know the specifics of all the 18 suspected al Qaeda attacks since 9/11? I know there's the Tunisia blast (19 dead), the Karachi embassy bombing (14 dead), the French engineer attack (11 dead), the Limburg blast (one dead, the US Marine attack (one dead) and the Bali blast (180 dead). All these figures may not be right (they're from memory).
2) Has there ever been a terrorist attack on Australian soil?
3) This may be off-topic, but who's suspected in the Peru Embassy bombing earlier this year? South American guerillas? Al Qaeda?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Peru has more than enough domestic sources of terrorism, and doesn't need to import any.
Posted by Daryus Aden (Member # 12) on :
quote:Originally posted by Magnus de Pym: Why would anyone want to immigrate to Australia?
To ride kangaroos maybe. Or perhaps to spend numerous hours in the desert saying:
"Caw its hot out here Bruce".
"Yeah, you're right Bruce, it is hot. Strewth"
"Lets head over to the sheep dip and see if that ewe has lambed yet".
"Yibbidi Yibbida".
Does that cover it?
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
That's what I was gunning for.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by Veers: Questions:
1) Anyone know the specifics of all the 18 suspected al Qaeda attacks since 9/11? I know there's the Tunisia blast (19 dead), the Karachi embassy bombing (14 dead), the French engineer attack (11 dead), the Limburg blast (one dead, the US Marine attack (one dead) and the Bali blast (180 dead). All these figures may not be right (they're from memory).
I'm fairly sure I've still got the paper with the details in. I'll have a look and put them up tomorrow if I can find it.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Never mind just found it (although the first is actually before 11/9/01):
1) May 27, 2001: 3 Americans and 17 Filipenos are kidnaped in the Philippenes. Two of the Americans are murdered.
2)October 6, 2001: Suicide bomber attacks a Saudi shopping mall, killing one American.
3)December 13, 2001: 14 killed in attack on Indian Parliment building in Delhi.
4) British Muslim Richard Reid attampts to blow up an American Airlines plane with a bomb in his shoe.
5) January 22, 2002: Gunmen attack the US centre in Calcutta, killing four Indian policemen.
6) January 23, 2002: US journalist Daniel Pearl seized and later killed in Karachi, Pakistan.
7) March 17, 2002: 5 killed in grenade attack on church congregation in Karachi.
8) April 11, 2002: Truck bomb kills 19 outside synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia.
9) May 8, 2002: Suicide bomb attack in Karachi kills 14.
10) June 14, 2002: Car bomb attack on US consulate in Karachi kills 13 Pakistanis.
11)August 6, 2002: Attack by gunmen on church leaves 6 Pakistani Christians dead.
12) August 25, 2002: Bomb blast near UN residences in Kabul injures 2.
13) October 2, 2002: Bomb kills 2 Filipenos and one US soldier at a military base in Zamboanga, Philippenes.
14) October 6, 2002: Explosion on French tanker off the Yemani coast kills crew member.
15) October 8, 2002: Two gunmen kill a US Marine taking part in a military exercise in Kuwait.
16)October 13, 2002: Bomb blast in Bali kills 188 and injures 300 at a beach front bar- 234 are still missing (as of Oct 20th).
17) October 14, 2002: Shots fired at US troops in Kuwait.
18) October 17, 2002:Bomb kills 7 and injures 170 in Zamboeanga.
19) October 18, 2002: Three killed and 22 injured when a bomb destroyed a bus in Manila.
That's from The Sunday Telegraph, 20th October.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
They've still got a ways to go before they catch Soviet Russia, The Nazis & Zombie Cohorts, Milosovich, Some African warlord people, Hussein, a lot of other people, Crusading Christians and The United States and probably a whole bunch more people from ye olde history as world leaders in the killing of innocents.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
Thanks, Wraith. I don't remember that Saudi bombing on October 6, 2001, though...I guess it was overshadowed by the next day's events...