Jakarta bombing confirms Iraq intervention has increased the threat of terrorism: Troops home now!

“Today’s bomb blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta confirms
what was already blindingly obvious”, Lisa Macdonald, Socialist Alliance
co-convener and candidate for Reid, said today. “By involving Australia in
Bush’s criminal war in Iraq, the Howard government has increased the risk
of terrorist attacks on all of us, as federal police commissioner Mick
Keelty warned.”

Macdonald condemned the attack in Jakarta and at the same time stressed
that the bombing “showed that the Howard government’s ‘anti-terrorist’
legislation—fully supported by the ALP—does nothing to reduce the risk of
terrorism at the same time as it contains dangerous attacks on everyone’s
civil liberties.”

“George Bush and John Howard talk of the war on terror as something that
may continue for decades”, Raul Bassi, Socialist Alliance national
co-convener and candidate for Blaxland, said. “It’s as if there is a
precise number of terrorists out there, and once they’re liquidated the
problem of terrorism will cease to exist.

“But terrorists are not born with terrorist ideas, terrorists are produced
by lives of poverty, repression and humiliation—the exact situation that
Australia and the other occupying forces are imposing on Iraq”, Bassi
stressed.

“In this way the Israelis perpetuate the Palestinian suicide bombings by
their ongoing repression of the Palestinian people. And likewise, the
Russians in Chechnya, with tragic consequences.”

Macdonald said: “These terrorist responses against civilians are horrific
and counterproductive, but when all hope has been destroyed, people are
reduced to hitting back with little regard for consequences.”

>From this standpoint, the Socialist Alliance spokepeople concluded, “the
‘war on terror’ will only generate more terrorism. The only effective way
to fight terrorism is by ending poverty and repression by providing
economic aid and allowing political self-determination.”

For further information and interviews:
Lisa Macdonald (0413 031 108)
Raul Bassi (0403 037 376)

Lisa Macdonald and Raul Bassi will be speaking at a special public meeting
on the Howard government’s “anti-terrorism” legislation in Bankstown, this
Saturday, September 11. Here's the details:

Special public meeting
Stop the ‘anti-terrorism’ laws!

Saturday September 11, 2-5pm
@ Bankstown Town Hall gallery (corner Chapel St & Rickard Rd)

“Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has refused to rule out using
[US Guantanamo Bay-style] military commissions here in the war
against terror.” - Sunday Telegraph, August 29.

Speakers

- Kerry Nettle (Greens)
- Aden Ridgeway (Australian Democrats)
- Raul Bassi (Socialist Alliance)
- NSW Council for Civil Liberties
- Scott Poynting (author of Bin Laden in the Suburbs)
- Canterbury-Bankstown Teachers Federation
- Islamic Association of Western Sydney
- Supreme Islamic Council of NSW
- Lebanese Muslim Association
- Muslims for Peace

Initiated by the Socialist Alliance
and the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group

http://www.Socialist-Alliance.org/