THIS ABSURD LINE WAS IN THE NEWSPAPER - BUT NEEDED TO BE HERE ADDED BY ME [GS] TO THE ON - LINE VERSION!!
GS
Before David Irvine retired as director-general of ASIO a year ago, he repeatedly warned of the threat posed by “lone-wolf” terror attacks on Australian soil. These extremists often fly under the radar of security agencies, evading detection. So frightening is the prospect that one of these radicals could slip through the net of security agencies and inflict an act of terror on an unsuspecting, perhaps complacent, public that it kept the former security chief “awake at night”. While Australians are fighting extremist terrorism abroad — in Iraq and Syria — we also need to remain ever-vigilant about the threat of terrorism at home. After the shocking, cold-blooded murder of police employee Curtis Cheng by radicalised 15-year-old boy Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar in Sydney’s Parramatta on Friday, Mr Irvine’s nightmares have again been realised. This is not the first time Australians have been murdered or injured by lone-wolf radical extremists. Nor, regrettably, will it likely be the last.
The shooting outside police headquarters in Parramatta in broad daylight on Friday afternoon was described by NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione as “politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism”. This is not a time for hand-wringing denialism. The terror threat we face from within has again come to the fore. The youth, dressed in black, is believed to have attended a mosque to pray before killing Mr Cheng. After his act of pure premeditated evil, the boy was seen waving his gun in the air while yelling “Allah, Allah”. Halting the rising tide of radicalised youth was “the global question at the moment”, Commissioner Scipione said. While details about the youth are still being sought, it has been suggested he was part of a group that was already known to police. Moreover, it is believed the youth is part of a family known to police and security authorities. His sister has apparently disappeared, leaving Australia on a flight bound for Istanbul with her belongings.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull struck the right tone in his public remarks over the weekend. He began by speaking on behalf of the vast majority of Australians in saying that “our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Curtis Cheng” and then praised the “courage of our police and security agencies” for their dedication to our safety. In a change of tone urged by security agencies, as we reported last week, Mr Turnbull said “the Muslim community are our absolutely necessary partners in combating this type of violent extremism”. This is the right approach. “Efforts to blame or vilify the Muslim community are utterly counterproductive,” he said. Labor leader Bill Shorten echoed Mr Turnbull’s words of comfort to the family and friends of Mr Cheng, praised the police response and urged unity throughout the community. But he erred when he said “our thoughts are also with the family of the alleged young perpetrator”. This is not a sentiment that will be shared by many Australians at this time. It was a regrettable lapse in judgment.
We have confidence in our security and policing agencies. Their job is an unenviable one. We should be thankful they have foiled planned terror plots, including last Anzac Day. It would be wise, nevertheless, to again review the strategies and practices in place and consider if changes are needed to strengthen their hand in this ongoing fight.
It is also a community challenge. We cannot afford to be complacent. Previous acts of terror by Man Haron Monis in Sydney and Abdul Numan Haider in Melbourne underscore this stark reality. Yesterday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said it was time for “the whole nation to take stock” after the tragic shooting. “This kind of issue must be the subject of a holistic approach, not only from governments at all levels, but also the community,” she said. This is a sound approach. Middle Eastern community leader Jamal Rifi highlighted the need yesterday for Muslim parents to “initiate a dialogue” with their children and to “be alert for any changes in behaviour”. This could help save their children’s lives and other lives, too. “Every and each one of us have a role and responsibility,” he urged. We agree.
25 COMMENTS
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Harden up Australia. Make heroes of the survivors and responders, prepare and strike back with toughness and preparation. Build a resilient Australia.
This handwringing over offending idiot welfare parasites is silly; if they work, let them eat. If they do good, may good come to them.
And whenever some half-insane extremist starts killing people out of frustration at their insignificance and uselessness, it isn't rocket science. Shoot them, hose the mess off the road and move on.
The media could play a part, but they are determined to act as force multipliers for terrorists. Let them, social media has eroded their power to help much anyway.
The State under Turnbull seems to be switching sides and throwing its weight behind perhaps the most important sharia law of all - sharia blasphemy law - under the guise of hate speech laws justified as promoting social cohesion, cultural harmony and, even more sinister, to prevent terrorism (the terrorists’ free speech veto). Once a Government accepts that offending Muslims by discussing terrorism and the sharia law mandate to it (Quran 8:12; 8:39; 8:60; 9:05; 9:29; 47:4 and 9:111 – the doctrine of jihad or Islamism) and sharia law in general (and how these are hostile to, and incompatible with Australian laws and values) is offensive to Muslims and risks terrorism, then the State has the perfect excuse to ban all speech about it making the rapid spread of sharia law and jihad inevitable.
Of course the Government and all Australians should reach out to Muslims who should not be harmed, unfairly discriminated against, harassed or improperly stereotyped. That is a given in Australian society.
But the question is: which Muslims should the Government spend its enormous resources to support and whose message should it amplify? In the US and UK, and Australia to date, anti-terrorism programs have failed dismally because they have tried to reach out to the mass of Muslims instead of using experts to assess who the genuinely reformist Muslims are (those that openly acknowledge the sharia law mandate towards violent jihad and terrorism, and subversion, to establish a global caliphate where all the world is subjugated to sharia law and then openly renounce it and sharia law) and supporting and amplifying only their message.
Instead it seems the Turnbull doctrine of appeasement will follow the failed strategy of blaming the West (by tacitly supporting this message as propagated daily by the ABC and SBS), supressing free expression (by retaining and employing such as s18C), denying the doctrine of jihad (by not mentioning sharia law or jihad) and supporting those practising religious deception (by outreach to major Mosques instead of small community groups) who are secretly either Islamist sympathisers or actual Islamists employing subversion.
Behind every youthful terrorist are ideas devised and propagated by fanatical adults preaching exclusivity, hate and intolerance.
Agree Thomas. Start with the parents. With a sister on her way to Syria, how the parents have missed this? Or what values did these kids grow up with at home? When refugees come to Australia to seek asylum, they are expected to appreciate the safe haven their new country offers. If they do not accept what Australia stands for, they should leave. Parents should also be held to account and if found too have contributed to the radicalisation of their children they should also lose the right to remain.
"Teen killer turned at city mosque." This is like saying that those who joined the AIF in 1914 were radicalised. These so called jihadists are not radicalised. They are following the dictates of what they have had drummed into them from their earliest age. The denial by the authorities of the root cause of the problem is an affront to the truth, the failure of the system because of political correctness, intellectual dishonesty and a huge danger to the population at large. I live in Malaysia. My wife is a Muslim. I see on a daily basis what underlies the Islamic system. How many Australians have read the Shariah Law. Certainly those in power have not. To deny any part of this law, if you are Muslim, is to make you an apostate. Every Muslim believes that Shariah Law overides all other law. That teenager in Sydney is at this moment is being lauded as a martyr, in spite of what is being said officially. John Keough
Contrast this political nonsense with the reality of Egas's article. If a community is shaped by shared values, beliefs, cultural and religious histories then it is the community that we should be looking to share some of the blame - they allow within themselves a cultural and religious system that actively discourages integration and involvement in the wider Australian community and is intolerant, supremist and openly antagonistic to Western values.
I understand that we need to involve the Muslim world in finding a solution to this, but we are ill-served when we cannot even acknowledge that part of that solution relies on us honestly talking about what Islam teaches.
This paper should be ashamed.
And meanwhile our immigration policy is determined by political correctness above our national interest.
What we need is a change in immigration policy whereby we only admit immigrants of Christian background. What we are seeing now was destined to happen as has happened in England and America before us. The Australian Government needs to take a far more aggressive stance by putting our internal security forces on a war like footing to counter the build-up of resentment in our community towards the Christian majority and authority. Incidents of the kind we have just witnessed will become more common and more deadly. Muslims who preach extremism must be promptly removed from Australia without recourse to court appeals blocking their extradition.
Perhaps Muslim parents could also let the rest of us know exactly what is at the root of the grievances of their young people which seems to make them so prone to murderous influences, and where they think those influences are coming from.
I think that we deserve some proper explanation along with demands for more and more money and resources to counter what we don't really understand.
Linda, Henry Ergas understands. And he has written a splendid article for this publication,
It should be required reading for all our "leaders" especially Malcolm Chamberlin.
I urge you to take a look
Our journalists love talking about "holistic approaches" and "strategies" to prevent radicalisation, but they deliberately avoid mentioning the single measure that would be most effective in lowering the risk of terrorism.
Stop inviting into our country the very people who are most likely to commit terrorism.
It's not that hard.
Jamal Rifi asserts, presumably in the prevention of the radicalisation of Muslim yout, that 'every and each one of us have a role and responsibility'. Sorry Dr Rifi, I have neither any further role or responsibility in the radicalisation of Muslim youth or any other Muslim group for that matter. My role and responsibility began and ended with the tolerance and acceptance I have exercised and continue to exercise. Now, let's talk about the Muslim community. We are each responsible for our own behaviour and, by extension and with some qualification, for the group to which we belong or to which we aspire to belong. Every time an incident occurs, such as the latest assassination we get the same tired old platitudes.
Lefties believe TA overstated the threat, some even thought that he and others would be pleased to see a terrorism act in Australia- would be good for politics. This was always nonsense.
To express concern for the parents of the killer without knowing all of the facts , including his sister's whereabouts, was playing to the PC crowd.
We have a serious problem and we need to deal with this as a nation. I know the Team Australia term has been vilified- it is time for a comeback.