War on drugs, not just thugs.

(From Canberra Times)

T HERE'S a certain cynical Australian fondness for criminal gangs and their shenanigans, particularly if the participants are regarded as broadly assimilated into the wider community. Perhaps it goes back to convict stock and the brutality and excesses of the Rum Corps, to the bushranger outbreaks of the mid- to-late 19th century, John Wren's tote and Kate Leigh's sly grog shops in the early 20th, and to some more modern outlaw villains and larrikins for whom many Australians have formed an affection, particularly if they cock a snoot at the police or perform a daring jail break. You have to be Australian, of course. A vendetta between Middle Eastern families which has seen a number of people shot in …