I WRITE in response to The Border Mail article “Time for terror crackdown” (February 24).
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Here we go again, politicians using threats to our national security to enhance their standings.
I can remember Sir Robert Menzies telling us that our biggest threat was the communists — reds under the beds.
I wonder how many people remember the Petroff affair and how that just petered out.
Then it was Chinese communism — the yellow peril. If Vietnam fell to communism then the whole of south east Asia, including Australia, would fall; it was known as the domino effect, and that petered out.
Now the big bogeyman is international terrorism: “be alert not alarmed”.
The problem here is that unlike the 1950s and 1960s, this is fair dinkum.
There is a clear and present danger, according to our terror experts, it’s not a case of if but when, and here we have Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten chanting the same mantra as Menzies and Fraser.
All they are doing is rattling these terrorists’ cages by spruiking on about cracking down on terrorism. Not only that, they are telegraphing our punches by broadcasting our counter-terrorism measures.
Why can’t these politicians keep their mouths shut when it comes to our national security? Just give the appropriate departments and agencies the funding and resources they need and let them quietly get on with their job.
— KEVIN T. COOPER,
Wodonga