Opinion
How many “lone wolves” before we get to acknowledge that it’s a pack? How long can police and politicians hide behind euphemisms like “religiously motivated violent extremist ideology”, before we’re allowed to tell the truth?
Five teenagers – one as young as 14 – have been charged with terrorism related offences after heavily armed police raided 10 homes in Sydney on Wednesday and arrested seven minors with alleged “violent extremist ideology” in one of the largest series of terrorism raids in recent times.
The raids were launched off the back of a snap meeting of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team derived from intelligence gained from the seizure of a device from the 16-year-old accused of stabbing an Assyrian Orthodox bishop last week.
Two 16-year-olds have been charged with conspiring to engage in an act in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act and a 17 and 14-year-old have been charged with possessing or controlling violent extremist material.
A 17-year-old has been charged with conspiring to engage in an act in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act as well as possessing a knife in a public place.
No such incident is complete without a grovelling police bureaucrat calling a spade a rectangular manual earth-moving implement.
NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said […] “We will allege that these individuals adhered to a religiously motivated violent extremist ideology.”
Any particular “religiously motivated violent extremist ideology”? Radical Mormons? Violently motivated little old ladies from the Presbyterians? Extremist Mennonites?
The geography is telling:
More than 400 heavily armed police were involved in the raids of homes in the suburbs of Bankstown, Prestons, Casula, Lurnea, Rydalmere, Greenacre, Strathfield, Chester Hill, and Punchbowl, as well as a premise in Goulburn.
The Australian
All suburbs in Western Sydney, Australia’s Muslim heartland. Goulburn is home to a maximum security Supermax prison dubbed the “Super Mosque”, due to the majority of inmates who are either convicted of terrorism offences or on remand awaiting trial.
And just in case anyone whose been living under a rock for the last couple of decades still hasn’t twigged.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir […] who warned the raids could spark social divisions, said his community was concerned that authorities were attempting to appease and reassure the public as opposed to a more thorough investigation. “This (a notion of widespread radicalisation) plays into this narrative that ‘we need to show the public that we’re on top of it’,” he said.
Raising fears that “guilt by association” had started to reappear, Mr Kheir said: “We are not downplaying it.”
Even as he furiously downplays it. As my mother used to say, a guilty conscience needs no accusing.
Kheir also whined that police didn’t inform them about the arrests beforehand. Funny how police don’t tend to advertise raids ahead of time. It’s almost as if someone wants the plotters to be forewarned in time to cover up their tracks.
And, as always, there’s not an Islamic terror attack that Muslim groups can’t make all about them.
“It (the church stabbing) was a heinous act, but we are worried (people) are still playing political football with the Muslim community.”
The Australian
Well, the Australian community are justifiably worried that members of the Muslim community will play pin-the-knife-on-the-infidel with them.