Gerard Henderson, domestic terrorism, kicking the Lebanese can, and it's all Malcolm Fraser's fault ...

(Above: eek, a Guardian journalist, and he has a man bag. Paddy Considine as Simon Ross at Waterloo station in The Bourne Ultimatum).

It almost goes without saying that Jason Bourne liked to read The Guardian.

That tragically liberal leftie farrago of nonsense always purported an interest in the doings of the CIA, and took an early interest in Bourne's shenanigans. It also goes without saying that any journalist for the rag had to be shown as a quiche-eating, bag-carrying poncy git, inclined to blind panic and getting in to water way too deep from him, and so despatched with clinical, ruthless efficiency by forces too powerful and deviant for him to understand.

You have to wonder whether Mossad operatives like to watch Jason Bourne movies, though the level of skill involved in the bungled Dubai operation suggests that being a movie buff isn't the best qualification for being a skilled assassin. It's more Ocean's 26 than the Bourne trilogy.

On the other hand, the silliest moment in the Bourne trilogy happens when the state organised assassination program is broken up, the head of the CIA and his deputy are arrested, and it looks as if there'll be a sudden cleansing of the world of spooks. Yeah, sure, and Mossad will come under sustained criticism from commentariat columnists.

I got to brooding about the ethics of state-sponsored terrorism because, let's face it, the Bourne trilogy is vastly more entertaining than reading Gerard Henderson, and Henderson today gets into the question of terrorism in Abbott picks wrong target in battle for hearts and minds.

The primly pedantic Henderson takes a swing at Tony Abbott for having a go at Chairman Rudd for having 'sexed up' the recent report on domestic terrorism, and releasing the document during his pink batt hour of need. Not so, says our prattling Polonius:

This is an exaggeration. It turned out that the government received different sets of advice. The intelligence and security organisations, which did the inaugural draft, stressed the rise in Australia of home-grown jihadist terrorism. Apparently this wording was watered down by officials in the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Attorney-General departments. The Rudd government preferred the advice of those officials who deal directly with the terrorist threat.

Oh dear, could the operatives in the PM's department have been wary of a 'sexed up' report producing the Lebanese bashing so splendidly displayed by Miranda the Devine in The warning that we ignored.

Never mind. Gerard Henderson knows how to pick up a tune, hum the melody, and join in the chorus. He too knows it's all Malcolm Fraser's fault, because he relaxed the refugee intake in 1976 in response to the Lebanese civil war:

I have written about this decision, which saw large numbers of Muslim Lebanese enter Australia, in my 2007 pamphlet Islam in Australia. Some of this group have settled well in Australia. Others have not. In Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, Fraser and his co-author Margaret Simons fudge the problems caused by this decision by equating the Muslim Lebanese and Vietnamese refugee intakes at this time. In fact no Vietnamese Australians are into home-grown terrorism. No community is responsible for individuals within it. But it is disturbing that the response from Muslim spokesmen in the Elomar case has been to deny or play down the matter. Taj el-Din al Hilaly, of the Lakemba Mosque, said that the convicted men had "no connection to acts of terrorism whatsoever". And Keysar Trad, of the Islamic Friendship Association, denied an act of conspiracy to commit a crime.

Actually what's disturbing about this is the way the commentariat repeatedly and in an ongoing way ignore the financial contribution of Saudi Arabia encouraging the spread of Wahhabism.

If we accept the Devine - and now Henderson's evocation of the Lebanese as the issue - and the Devine went further by calling them unskilled and illiterate - where is the cash coming from to fund these illiterate, unskilled foot soldiers, who seem unnervingly capable of terrorising the commentariat and the neighbourhood and Chairman Rudd?

Sssh, not a word about Saudi Arabia, they're our allies, don't you know, and they have a lot of oil. And it's terribly unsporting the way some people keep on harping about how Osama Bin Laden hails from the land of the two holy mosques.

As for the Lakemba Mosque, whose spokesperson so upsets Henderson?

About half of the funds for Sydney's oldest mosque, Lakemba - opened in 1977 - came from the Middle East.

The largest donation, $320,000, was from the Saudi royal family. Other big donors were Libya, which gave $100,000, and Kuwait, which gave $30,000, says Adib Marabani, a founder of the mosque.

Mr Marabani said a further $27,000 was donated to Lakemba by the then Libyan ambassador to Malaysia who, on a visit to Australia, toured the mosque and offered to pay for the carpeting. (here).

If Henderson and the Devine concentrated on the pernicious effects of the spread of Wahhabism, I'd be inclined to take them more seriously. $87 billion spent on its spread in a couple of decades, if you believe the figure flung around the intertubes like confetti. Cut it in half and it's still more than a little loose change amongst chums.

But then bashing up the Lebanese community, courtesy of a couple of individuals, is so much easier than taking a look at what might actually be involved in spreading more militant forms of Islam.

At the same time, it's important not to mention state-sponsored terrorism, or the recent Mossad hi jinks, and Henderson shows exemplary form:

Meanwhile the civil libertarian lawyer Rob Stary told ABC2's News Breakfast program last Wednesday that the only way to stop home-grown terrorism was for Australia to drop its essentially bipartisan policy on the US alliance, Israel and the Afghanistan commitment.

Sssh, it's Israel thick or thin, and never mind Mossad.

Outrageous, these civil libertarians, and the war in Afghanistan, which officially started on October 7th, 2001, and shows no signs of ending, is going so well, and produced such instant exciting results. I still look fondly back on the show trial of that Saudi Arabian wretch Osama Bin Laden and other high ranking Al-Qaeda members as the high point in the Bush administration's eight year reign.

Oops, that sort of loose left wing talk sinks ships, and Henderson will have none of it:

There is little point in Abbott even momentarily being associated with left-wing criticism of national security measures. David Cameron tried this tactic in Britain and it has not benefited the Conservative Party.

Sssh, not a word about national security measures. Leave it to the boffins, they do such a terribly good job, and the high minded Chairman Rudd is right on to all the problems confronting the nation, and takes them terribly seriously. Sure there's a recent example of terrorism at work, but what's a few faked passports compared to the massacres produced by highly skilled illiterate unemployed Lebanese operatives in the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.

I'm still not quite sure how right wing tactics have benefited the people of Afghanistan - can a country be bombed towards democracy? - but it's reassuring that domestic terrorism is all the fault of these home grown Lebanese operatives.

And it's also reassuring to be told now that the Vietnamese are wonderful law abiding citizens. Thank the lord that the moral panic about Vietnamese gangs and triads and Cabramatta as the heroin capital of Sydney, and the alarums of Tim Priest now seem to be have been put away in favour of regular evocations of the dangers of the Telopea boys. Well there's nothing like conflating gangsterism, drugs, gun running, weapons trading, and turf wars with domestic terrorism to produce a jolly good read (Lighting fuse of drug gangs war: Darwiche vs Razzaks).

Personally I'm relieved that the Fenian ghost seems finally to have been put aside - many will remember that it was an Irish Fenian who attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria's son, Prince Alfred, and led Sir Henry Parkes to create the Kiama Ghost by alleging a large-scale Fenian plot (The Kiama Ghost). Well the Catholic v Protestant feud kept ticking over for well over a century, and was still reverberating around the traps when I came into the world.

So it's pleasing to see that Henderson and the Devine and others maintain Parkes' flame and keep banging the drums and maintaining the rage and sounding the alarums, with Islamic warriors as the new Fenians. And Malcolm Fraser as their godfather. But sssh, not a word about Wahhabism.

That this means we now see Henderson criticising Abbott for criticising Rudd for a bit of blatant political opportunism, beating the terrorist drum, just adds a touch of spice to what is surely surreal sight worthy of Alice down the rabbit hole.

As for Mossad, why not revert to The Guardian, and The truth about the Mossad. I'm sure right now it's being read by Jason Bourne, though whether he will return to the screen in 2011 now seems doubtful. A pity, because I've just finished watching the trilogy for a second time in Blu Ray, and I'll say it twice, because it's true, the shows are vastly more entertaining than reading Gerard Henderson.

(Below: and now a map by Ptolemy, for no particular reason, as part of my campaign to blame the world's problems on the imperialism of Alexander the Great).