SYDNEY -- Burn, baby, burn. That's how arsonists among illegal arrivals held in detention centers across Australia greeted the new year. What an inglorious way to start 2003!
Australian taxpayers who will have to pay for the $10 million fire-damage bill are fuming. Though all are grateful that a worse tragedy, an expected outburst of Islamic extremist terrorism, did not happen here. It's amazing how quickly we are adjusting to a new lifestyle in the wake of 9/11 and the Bali bombing.
As families across the country were settling down to eat and drink to traditional Christmas excess, Middle Eastern illegal aliens imprisoned in isolated detention centers began savagely torching their living quarters. One after another -- Woomera and Baxter in South Australia, Port Hedland in Western Australia, Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, Villawood in Sydney -- the newly refurbished facilities went up in smoke.