'Terrorist' cases in Australia unravel, exposing government-police frame-ups and lies

By Mike Head
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/terr-n16.shtml
16 November 2007

Throughout the course of their election campaigns, the Howard government and Labor opposition have been almost completely silent on the so-called “war on terror”. This stands in sharp contrast to the last two elections. In 2001, the Howard government exploited the 9/11 terror attacks in the US to mount a ferocious scare campaign, including the depiction of asylum seekers as likely terrorists. The 2004 election was preceded by a wave of arrests of Islamic men. In both elections, Labor uncritically echoed all the government’s claims.

As recently as November-December 2005, the two parties joined hands to push through the federal and state parliaments a series of unprecedented measures, including “preventative detention”, “control orders? (a form of house arrest), the outlawing of “advocacy” of terrorism and new sedition offences. Another far-reaching amendment, backed by the Greens, changed the wording of all terrorist offences from “the? terrorist act to “a? terrorist act, allowing police to arrest and charge people without evidence of any specific terrorist plot.

The virtual silence in the 2007 election is testimony to the growing distrust and opposition among broad layers of the population toward the lies and dirty tricks that have characterised the “war on terror”, particularly the complicity of both parties in the five-and-a-half year incarceration of David Hicks at Guant