snark of the week
From the Sydney Morning Herald:

But it [the Australian government] refused to acknowledge the inevitability of organised carnage, going so far as to mislead the US about Indonesia's intentions. During the Tampa affair, a momentary failure of communication from the military to the Government laid the basis for a sustained and grotesque political abuse of raw intelligence in the children overboard scandal.

The increasing frequency of leaks and unauthorised briefings from the Washington and London intelligence communities are sure signs they know they're being set up. After all, these guys wrote the manual on dirty tricks. That's why the British papers are suddenly full of unnamed MI6 poobahs complaining about interference by Tony Blair's office. And why a lot of CIA guys have been bitching to The Washington Post about the number of times Vice-President Dick Cheney would loom over their shoulders, cracking his knuckles and choking everybody with warm clouds of Old Spice while he rumbled about how much he was looking forward to kicking Saddam's butt.

Wouldn't you massage the raw intel, just a smidge, just to stop the VP massaging your carotid artery with his knuckledusters?

Bear it in mind the next time someone tries to sell you a blurry picture of a secret missile base, or to convince you of a secret plot to smuggle terrorists into the country via leaky fishy boats. Because, you know, international terrorists just love to travel by leaky fishy boat and they always announce their arrival by twirling a few kids in the air over their heads, before tossing them to the fishes.

The intel says so.

The inevitable carnage in Aceh also seems not to be happening or not to require any Australian action.