Your say: Rocket launchers lost 12 years ago suddenly become important

The Daily Telegraph, The Today Show and many other media outlets are reporting this morning that the Government and Police have stepped up a search for five rocket launchers that went missing in 2002.  This is today’s news headline – big news, breaking news!

“POLICE are searching for five rocket launchers believed to be buried in Sydney bushland by a terror cell linked to Islamic State savages Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar.”  say the Herald Sun.

But my first thought on hearing this is “Why now? All of a sudden are we making a media feast of five rocket launchers when they’ve been out there for the last 12 years without “BREAKING NEWS” reports?”

(From today’s Daily Telegraph) 

Now this started a little bit of dispute over my breakfast table this morning so I thought I would throw it out to you to see what you think.  When watching the headline news item, I declared that I thought this was possibly a deliberate PR leak, aligned with the Government announcement that we are sending 600 troops to the Middle East.  It is my suspicion that information like this could sway public anxiety to support political moves to step up security measures and send in troops.

My husband was adamant that I am wrong and that we should all be very afraid about the five rocket launchers that went missing back in 2002.  He feels that if they are out there then they should be found and in the meantime should be feared.  He believes that we can’t be ignorant of something like this in Australia.

So today, I ask you to join my breakfast table discussion… Is this a political and media beat up designed to sway popular opinion to support the military effort in the Middle East?  Or is it truly critical and newsworthy to hunt down these rocket launchers today, making them a headline news item?

I want to hear your thoughts.

[And don’t get me wrong, I am in full support of the troops and the effort to stymy the terrorist cells in Australia, I just feel strongly about the political beat-up].