A long article in the LA Times tells us that Muslim convert Jack Roche, at least according to his lawyer, tried to tell Australian intelligence officials about Osama's plans for 9/11 -- but no one cared.
PERTH, Australia — When Jack Roche telephoned Australia's intelligence agency in July 2000, he offered a tantalizing story: He had been to Afghanistan and ate lunch with Osama bin Laden. He had received training in explosives and plotted with Al Qaeda leaders to carry out a bombing in Australia.A Muslim convert, Roche was prepared to become an informant, his attorney says, and provide information about Al Qaeda; its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah; and their goal of staging an attack in a Western country.
But at the time — 14 months before the Sept. 11 attacks — no one was interested.
It wasn't until 2 1/2 years later that authorities decided to take Roche seriously and arrested him on terrorism charges. Last week he was sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring with Al Qaeda leaders to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Canberra.
While many Australians applaud the country's first conviction under new anti-terrorism laws, Roche's case is a tale of intelligence failures that illustrates how poorly Western security officials understood the threat posed by Islamic extremism.
I wonder if they understand it any better now.
Sigh. If this this is the whole story it is sad, sad, sad.
Intelligence agencies are not exactly overwhelmed with people offering to go undercover is islamist circles. Sentencing someone who voluntered information will not increase the number.
From the article:
"Roche said it became clear that their priorities for Australia were attacking Jews and forming a cell of Caucasian Muslims."
"The Bali bombing on Oct. 12, 2002, awakened Australian authorities to the danger posed by Islamic extremists."
Australian authorities didnt wake up about a year earlier? Or about 10 years earlier by the World Trade Center bombing on February 26 in 1993?
Since the west is routinely accused of being "Islamophobic" (whatever that means) you would expect it would be aggressively suspicious.
"On Oct. 30, tipped off by members of the Islamic community, police raided Roche's home. They had learned his name from others in the Muslim community and did not know he had once offered information."
Seems like "Big Brother" have a lot to do before becoming the all seeing eye.
"Roche spoke freely with police for nine hours. Videotapes show that the investigators didn't know the names of many of the key players in the terrorist networks and needed Roche's help to spell them."
'Big Brother' was Clinton at the time. Does this not Highlight the failure of his administration? Is there any way to discover if any of this information made it's way to the US, regardless of whether is was listened to or Not by the Australians?
and for those of you who may not already know of this site:
http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy%2Ddirect/
He could've made up the story of offering to spy. Perhaps he wanted to be a hero and say "I told you so" in the end. These converts are kinda wierd.
If anyone had known of the 911 plans and phoned the AUSTRALIAN police or newspapers they would have been called a crank or even arrested for trying tyo incite a riot.
Auetralia,s attitude before Bali was simply that terrorism was something that did not happen in OUR COUNTRY.
When keating was in power all they did was bring in Muslim immigrants and reject the western ones.
It was all part of the loony lefts multiculturilism appoach.
that's why we have the situation with Lakemba's jihadists today.
I'm always amazed at how witnesses seem to
come out of the woodwork usually years after an event. These stories make great print and feed
into the "Hindsight" anger that wants to blame
someone.
In Canada an ex-intelligence agent did a special about the terrorism links to funding
and promoting in Canada. Well tell me what he
thought his paycheck was for,with all that knowledge he just stayed mum and saved it for a future book deal.
I know it's tough to arrest people for a crime
you think they might commit,but experts that
decide to remain silent with information must
be questioned on the grounds for this inaction.
If I have proof my office building will be bombed at around 10:00 a.m. that morning,I would
set off the fire alarms to empty the building
and take the blame later. Going on Larry King and boasting that you knew about it but no one listened so thousands were killed because of the FBI or President is a little self-serving.
People on the hijacked planes phoned others to tell of the event,they didn't think of a "book-deal" down the road,the assumption was to go back
to a Airport and not to be part of a CIA cover-up or Jewish plot to rule the world .
I dont know too many people that can keep a
secret,how could hundreds of workers remain
quiet,even the ones that didn't vote for Bush.
Take off your foil hat before it bakes your
brain any further.
Foil hat? I don't get the reference...
All I can say, is it's time John Howard stop playing 2nd fiddle to the US. Each country has to take their own punitive measures to fight terrorism and taking direct orders from Uncle Sam ain't gonna cut it.
About Roche turning himself in and offering to a double agent for the Australian govt, I have my doubts over the articles... I mean, the chances of a Muslim defecting?..
Very questionable in my humble opinion.
Davo:
I'm afraid that your view that people here were woken up by Bali is over-optimistic.
Many persons I've met have NO IDEA and they DON'T WANNA KNOW, remaining lost in the lotus-land syndrome reinforced by the leftists/"liberals" (for their own sinister purposes).
In fact, many Australians can't wait to rush back to their paradise of illusions: that's why the ALP's likely to win the next election - they'll pull us out of Iraq by Xmas and the "War on Terror" and all of its threats, of course, WILL THEN JUST GO AWAY! YES!
Our schools, hospitals, roads, railways, etc, will all be improved - right in time for the Islamo-fascists - walking straight in by that stage - to destroy forever these symbols and more of "el-Jahailiya" (the "Darkness").
H.G
I am doing my best to inform pepole up here in Queensland to the serious threats of islamofascists.
Twenty years ago people like me who guilt their own computers and went on the Net were regarded as geeks or nerds.
The force of leftist and left wing media and Islamist disinformation have reduced us to the same level of our previous computer status.
But all that is changing rapidly and most of the people i know are scandalised by the biased disinformation of the ABC and SBS et al on ME matters and their obssesive self flagellation.
The cretinous articles of the SMH are daliy being exposed by bloggers such as tim blair and Nick Bolt is exposing the public TV channels.
Within a short time, resistance to Islamic Jihad will becoma a majot campaigning issue here however much the bob browns, the Lathams, and the melbourne marxist left Intelligenstuas try to prevent it.
Today i actually saw ROBERT SPENCERS "onward muslim soldiers in the Public Library!
Admittly still outnumbered by John Pilgers rantings but it is A START!
j
We're new at this anti-terrorism thing. We were complete neophytes pre-9/11. Who was OBL before the twin towers' destruction horrified the world? I might have heard his name mentioned once in a while but it wouldn't have registered much concern before 9/11. So Roche comes up with this story about bombings in Australia before 9/11 - I'd have thought he was some crank seeking attention if I were ASIO. I saw Roche being interviewed on TV after his house was raided. He came across as a real arrogant prick, denying they had anything on him. So how come he's saying he tried to warn them beforehand, when only last year he was Mr. Innocent and Oppressed? Not sure I'd believe much of what he said.
I hope we're getting better at understanding warning signals and looking into suspicious activity and taking heed of people who call up with information. But at the same time, you can't have the police jumping at every phone call either. After the raid on Roche's house and others in Melbourne, our illustrious Civil Liberties mob called the raid a stunt. Some other "liberty" organisations demanded that the officers involved be disciplined and called it "harassment". Other lefty politicians expressed "concern", and somebody else said it was a "Rambo-style" approach that terrorised women and children.
You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Don't investigate every call and you get condemned for not doing enough. Investigate every call and you risk displining and get the lefty mob pummelling you from all directions, screaming "racism", "ethnic profiling", boo hoo hoo.
HG
The naivity of the Australian press i believe is due to the widespread ignorance of Islam, the Koran and the devestation of religious minorities under the Umma throughout history.
There is no such person as an Australian Muslim. they are Muslims who live in Australia.
Evry Muslim belongs to the Umma which has no borders. No allegiance to the man made laws of democracy and freedom are possible without blaspheming islam.
Australians do not seem to be able to understand this as we are conditoned by our secularism into believing democracy and secular human rights are self evidently beneficial to humanity.
But to a Muslim human rights are assigned by religion. Those assigned by man corrupt and fallacious.
So when we violate human rights as in the endlessly publicised prisoner abuse scandals , we self flagellate ourselves endlessly.
At the same time some of us are "amazed" that we have little condemnation by Islamists of their own attrocities.
It is precisely because of the fact that human rights are dispensed by islam to the Muslims that there is little soul searching by them.
All the killings, we view as atrocities are sanctioned by Jihad and so there is no need for "guilt".
Muslims who swear allegiance to australia and are sincere are very brave and should be supported fully. They risk sanctions from the Lakemba "clerics".
Muslims who sincerely condemn Jihadist slauighter are also brave and deserve our support.
ONly the elimination of Jihad from the Koran can bring some kind of lasting peace between the muslim and non muslim communities in Dar al Harb.
TaRANIS
I wonder if ROCHE has not now renouced ISlam and become an apostate.
If he regrets his errors then he must have rejected his muslim identity,
So in thaat case his light senence would seem reasonable.
unfortunately because he is a CAUCASIAN convert, the light sentence will prove a barrier to future prosecutions of non caucasian jihadist, whose lawyers along with the liberal press will scream racism if they are not given light sentences.
Before exerting too much mental energy on what a person "reports" you have to look at who is doing the reporting...
If the person is a Muslim or a Muslim Convert it is best to not believe one word they say or anything they do. Anyone can claim anything...but without documentation it is not worth the breath it takes to say it or the paper it is written on.
What we see on this and other web sites and in the Muslim Media are a bunch of Tokyo Roses' ..I believe the current terminology calls it people "Talking SMACK".
Like Mohoumd...Hoodi...Reza and the rest... They are whistling in the dark... and if we let them get to us, well, we have only ourselves to blame.
The Name of their "Game" is CAUSE STRIFE and try to get the enemy to attack each other...Australia is NOT responsible for 9/11.
I believe it was in l998 that Time magazine reported that OBL had declared war on the US. I remember seeing his photo and reading a quote where he indeed declared war on us.
Can't you imagine people laughing and thinking, "What a megalomaniac! Thinking he can declare war on US, the most powerful country in the world!"
We didn't realize what kind of war he was talking about. Until 9/11. That was a sucker punch, delivered to a smug and complacent society. Of course no one would have believed this guy Roche at that time.
And it is possible that he converted to Islam, because of all the wonderful idealism it preaches, went whole hog (no pun intended here) and even sat in the presence of OBL but that was shocked by what he heard them planning to do against his country and compatriots and tried to warn us.
It does seem wrong to sentence him if he recanted and tried to get people to listen to his concerns.