Mixed News from Down Under

Events in France continue to demonstrate the prescience of Theodore Dalrymple:

A profoundly alienated population is thus armed with serious firepower; and in conditions of violent social upheaval, such as France is in the habit of experiencing every few decades, it could prove difficult to control.

Yes. Everyone is linking to this three-year-old piece today, and for good reason. If you haven't already read it, do so now, if for no other reason than to understand in the event I slip in the future and call him "The Prophet Theodore Dalrymple."

In the meantime, events in Australia continue to be interesting. Arrests have been made thwarting what officials said would have been a "catastrophic act of terrorism".

Australian police launched fresh raids after officials said they have foiled a "catastrophic act of terrorism" inspired by a radical Islamic cleric with the arrest of 17 suspects earlier in the day.

Federal police said they searched a home in the southwest Sydney suburb of Revesby Tuesday night as part of a sweep that had begun before dawn.

According to one report, a woman and two children were taken from the house and that a second home in a nearby suburb was also raided.

The pre-dawn raids in the two largest cities of Australia, Melbourne and Sydney, involved more than 450 heavily armed officers backed by helicopters in Australia's largest anti-terror operation.

That's the good news. Worrisome is the following news, which I noticed awhile back and then forgot to blog.

Muslim clerics in Sydney and Melbourne - led by radicals Sheik Mohammed Omran and Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud - are still preaching hatred against the West, urging followers in Arabic to resist peace and support insurgents [bold added] waging war against Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In open defiance of John Howard's proposed new terror laws [link added] and the Prime Minister's demand that Muslim leaders desist from inflammatory rhetoric, Lakemba cleric Sheik Zoud has used his Friday prayer meetings over the past month to praise Muslim fighters.

"Allah yinsur el-mujaheddin fe-Iraq (God grant victory to the mujaheddin in Iraq)," he repeatedly screamed during a 35-minute Arabic sermon at Lakemba's Haldon Street prayer hall in Sydney's southwest last week.

These clerics are soliciting aid and comfort to enemies of Australia during a time of war. They can and should be jailed (for sedition under Australian law, as far as I can tell). Why haven't they been?

Still, it's better there than in France....

-- CAV