Australian Hostage situation

[Harpo]

From the "Australian" newspaper of the hostage taker

The picture emerging of Monis, 50, is of an unstable individual whose moti­vations were not ­entirely clear The self-styled Muslim cleric, who had also gone by the names of Sheikh Haron and Mohammad Hassan Manteghi, was born in Iran and came to Australia as a refugee in 1996.

He was no stranger to Australian authorities, achieving notoriety in 2010 for his letters to Diggers’ families. In March, he was charged with sexually and indecently assaulting a young woman in 2002.

.........harpo

[BobHelm]

It was indeed unfortunate that deaths resulted from this. However it is possibly fortunate that there were not even more.
i was directed, at another Forum I use, to this piece about the incident.

The Banality of Terrorism: Sydney’s other Hostage Crisis, of 1984

http://www.juancole.com/2014/12/banalit ... stage.html

IC doesn’t usually cover hostage-taking, since it is an artificial and manipulative criminal act. Any two-bit thug can grab someone off the street and push them into a car, and subsequently kill them. It doesn’t take intelligence or any other admirable quality, just brutishness.
One’s heart goes out to the Sydney hostages. But it is distressing to see the hostage-taker made 10 feet tall by the media and to have Daesh (which is what most Arabs derisively call ISIL or ISIS) invoked. He is likely not mentally well, and he is not evidence of Daesh’s reach. Just that sadists are willing to franchise just like purveyors of hamburgers.
[Update: The hostage taker was Iranian, and clearly just a wack job and career criminal; this guy said he converted to Salafism but that kind of switch is very rare & itself indicative of lone wolfism- would have been ostracized by family.]
In fact, Sydney had another hostage crisis, in 1984, in a bank. A formerly wealthy (secular) Turkish-Australian became unhinged at losing his fortune. Today’s incident is not more important than that one, which few now remember. Both of these hostage-takers were common criminals. Neither is a “terrorist.” Today’s Sydney hostage-taker is not representative of a new activity. He isn’t important, and ordering a black flag won’t make him so. The only one who can bestow recognition on this criminal is the mass media and the press. They shouldn’t do it.
Nor are Australia’s Muslims responsible for this maniac. All white people aren’t responsible for motorcycle gangs or white supremacist groups. No one has ever asked a white person on television, ‘why don’t you condemn the Aryan Nation?'” The mainstream or ‘unmarked’ ethnic identity in a society doesn’t suffer from guilt by association. It is only the minorities who do.
Criminals and gangsters should not be fetishized as “terrorists.” It is just a way for them to inflate their egos. People are violent and sadistic because they are violent and sadistic, not because they have any particular ideology. Sociologist Max Weber posited “elective affinity,” that two phenomena find one another. Maybe sadists and killers are attracted to groups with deviant ideologies that permit wanton violence.
Daesh is just a bunch of gangsters. They are smugglers and human traffickers and mass murderers. It is secondary that they deploy a language of political Islam. The Ku Klux Klan in the US thought of itself as Protestant White Knights. One reviewer of my book, Engaging the Muslim World, complained that I compared the Taliban to the KKK, on the grounds that the latter is a small group. But it wasn’t in American history always a small group. It captured the governorship of Indiana in the 1920s.
Nor is Daesh popular, nor does it find ideological acceptance. Almost nobody in the Middle East likes it, and the tiny percentages who do tell pollsters they approve may not even agree with many of its actions. The Bangalore food company executive who did massive twitter propaganda for Daesh, when presses, admitted he did not agree with all their policies, and allowed how he couldn’t go join up because he had to take care of his parents (didn’t the kids he encouraged to go die in Syria have parents?) A 2012 poll of Iraqi Sunnis found that 75% said religion and state should be separate. They are likely the most secular people in the Middle East. Just because Daesh has taken over Sunni Arab Iraq does not mean they have changed their mind on this issue. They just chose an assertive Sunni group like Daesh over being ruled by equally fundamentalist Shiites.
It is really unfortunate that the magnificent city of Sydney had its peace disturbed by this maniac. But he isn’t important, least of all geopolitically, and shouldn’t be built up otherwise.

[wazza]

Tragically , 2 hostages lives lost and a self claimed Cleric killed .

From my perspective, the Police and Emergency Services did an incredible job , it seems one of the hostages took the Cleric on as he was sleepy and shots fired, and in went the Armed teams to take him out. Not sure on Aarvark's comments about everyone wanting to be in the SAS (or civilian equivalent ) , they train , have expertise in these situations , and still come under fire from within the community for what arm chair experts claim should have been done

Having been the initial scene commander and triage coordinator at Port Arthur some 18 years ago, where 35 killed 22
injured and a perceived hostage situation in place, its not pleasant, media becoming experts in all sorts of scenarios and getting in your face for days after even.

Im sure questions will be asked as to why the Cleric was on bail, but the Magistrate said it was a weak case.

He lost his High Court appeal on Friday for another case and no doubt may have been the catalyst to this terrible event.

It certainly highlights these " Lone Wolf " attacks and how vulnerable communities to these radicals.

[marjamlew]

Great humanitarian response shows the quality of most ‪:

‬http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... um/5969608

http://www.news.com.au/technology/onlin ... 7157197523

[Harpo]

Twood appear its all over ........... except for the ifs n ans as to how it all "went orf" .....

Sniper 1 has shot , sniper 2 has shot ......... shoot the fooker in the heed hours ago .....now alas wait n see the damage , news coverage seems just an old has been muzzie wanna be hero tomater ... wanting his 15 mins of fame .

Hope no deaths except the **** himself.

Hope all thats politically correct chaps

DM

Perhaps you would like to expand on your observation DM, and expand on your definition of "politically correct chaps"......However before you do, take into consideration that there has been an innocent mother of 3 children killed, an innocent young man of 34 years killed, a police man shot in the face, police fully trained for this scenario where there ready to act , and they did, and they did most likely with family to go home to, that means DM, they put their lives on the line, snippers across the road ready for the word to take this f**ker out, given the command...... If that all correlates with your definition of "politically correct chaps", well you can belt it up ya f**ging arse old boy as far as I'm concerned.......harpo

[Aardvark]

You should re-read DM's post Harpo, his last sentence "Hope all thats politically correct chaps" was about the wording of his post. At no stage did he denigrate the Authorities or try to put down the Hostages. We seem to be getting a little agitated on this forum lately, cooler heads should prevail, including mine ....

[Aardvark]

He gave it his best shot ..... https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/257 ... ney-siege/

[socksy]

This c*nt should never have beeen bailed to continue being a flickinn aerosole. The judges who have made previous decisions should never sleep at night. My thoughts only go out to the innocent families of the dead hostages. I hope that f*cker rots in hell where he belongs,

[Harpo]

You should re-read DM's post Harpo, his last sentence "Hope all thats politically correct chaps" was about the wording of his post. At no stage did he denigrate the Authorities or try to put down the Hostages. We seem to be getting a little agitated on this forum lately, cooler heads should prevail, including mine ....

Ardy

I have re-read DMs post

Having done so.... In hindsight my remarks to DM were written in hast, and without responsively analysing the content of the post

Therefore I would hope DM would except my apologies, for making inappropriate remarks to him.....And to members of this forum reading this topic.......

My emotions about the shootings were running high at the time of writing....... harpo

[jackspratt]

This c*nt should never have beeen bailed to continue being a flickinn aerosole. The judges who have made previous decisions should never sleep at night. My thoughts only go out to the innocent families of the dead hostages. I hope that f*cker rots in hell where he belongs,

As an ex-copper, I doubt you would ever agree - but this article (by a prominent Australian barrister) may assist you in your deliberations as to the appropriateness (or not) of bail in Monis's case:

............The facts in Monis's case seem to be, as far as one can glean from media reports, on the side of the Sydney magistrate Daryl Pearce who granted him bail in December last year. Monis was facing an accessory to murder charge. Mr Pearce took into account the weakness of the prosecution case.

He no doubt looked at the risk of Monis offending while on bail and on the material before him decided to grant bail with strict conditions that included daily reporting to Campsie police station, surrendering his passport, not going within 500 metres of an overseas departure point and not contacting the prosecution witness. Some will say why didn't the court take account of Monis's mad rants and his previous offences relating to sending offensive letters to soldiers? The answer to that question is that you can't lock people away simply because what they say is offensive.

If Magistrate Pearce's decision had been so outside the realm of judicial discretion then it could have been appealed by the police or DPP. It wasn't and that says something of the reasonableness of the magistrate's decision. Bail was also granted in relation to sexual assault charges, relating to incidents alleged to have occurred some 11 years ago, by Magistrate Joan Baptie at Parramatta Local Court earlier this year. Monis's bail conditions included those imposed by Magistrate Pearce and he needed to find a $10,000 surety and live at a particular address..............

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-17/b ... ts/5972018

There follows after the article quite lengthy debate, which given the nature of the ABC, is generally reasoned, and moderate in language. Something which may give you pause for thought.

[Drunk Monkey]

You should re-read DM's post Harpo, his last sentence "Hope all thats politically correct chaps" was about the wording of his post. At no stage did he denigrate the Authorities or try to put down the Hostages. We seem to be getting a little agitated on this forum lately, cooler heads should prevail, including mine ....

Ardy

I have re-read DMs post

Having done so.... In hindsight my remarks to DM were written in hast, and without responsively analysing the content of the post

Therefore I would hope DM would except my apologies, for making inappropriate remarks to him.....And to members of this forum reading this topic.......

My emotions about the shootings were running high at the time of writing....... harpo

Hey no problem Harpo no need to apologize ... but excepted anyway no hard feelings .

DM

[wazza]

Spare a thought for the parents in Pakistan where the Taliban killed over 100 children at a school.

This religion and its fanatics are causing grief..

[Aardvark]

This c*nt should never have beeen bailed to continue being a flickinn aerosole. The judges who have made previous decisions should never sleep at night. My thoughts only go out to the innocent families of the dead hostages. I hope that f*cker rots in hell where he belongs,

As an ex-copper, I doubt you would ever agree - but this article (by a prominent Australian barrister) may assist you in your deliberations as to the appropriateness (or not) of bail in Monis's case:

............The facts in Monis's case seem to be, as far as one can glean from media reports, on the side of the Sydney magistrate Daryl Pearce who granted him bail in December last year. Monis was facing an accessory to murder charge. Mr Pearce took into account the weakness of the prosecution case.

He no doubt looked at the risk of Monis offending while on bail and on the material before him decided to grant bail with strict conditions that included daily reporting to Campsie police station, surrendering his passport, not going within 500 metres of an overseas departure point and not contacting the prosecution witness. Some will say why didn't the court take account of Monis's mad rants and his previous offences relating to sending offensive letters to soldiers? The answer to that question is that you can't lock people away simply because what they say is offensive.

If Magistrate Pearce's decision had been so outside the realm of judicial discretion then it could have been appealed by the police or DPP. It wasn't and that says something of the reasonableness of the magistrate's decision. Bail was also granted in relation to sexual assault charges, relating to incidents alleged to have occurred some 11 years ago, by Magistrate Joan Baptie at Parramatta Local Court earlier this year. Monis's bail conditions included those imposed by Magistrate Pearce and he needed to find a $10,000 surety and live at a particular address..............

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-17/b ... ts/5972018

There follows after the article quite lengthy debate, which given the nature of the ABC, is generally reasoned, and moderate in language. Something which may give you pause for thought.

A shame they forgot to confiscate his Gun, and cancel the License he had for it .....

[wazza]

NSW authorities denying he ever had a gun licence.

[GT93]

One of the things that concerned me about the siege was why the police continued to permit the live broadcast. I fear it will encourage other sxx offending wife killing losers who might think this loser died as a big man because of the publicity. I gather the police thinking might have been this coverage would pacify him a bit while his other demands such as speaking to Abbott weren't met.

[Aardvark]

One of the things that concerned me about the siege was why the police continued to permit the live broadcast. I fear it will encourage other sxx offending wife killing losers who might think this loser died as a big man because of the publicity. I gather the police thinking might have been this coverage would pacify him a bit while his other demands such as speaking to Abbott weren't met.

A fair bit about that in the local rag 93. With rumours he had a bomb in the backpack he was wearing, and not knowing if there were a couple of sleepers in there with him, they decided to keep him entertained watching himself on tv while they did their reccies . Also many have asked why the snipers never took him out while he paraded infront of the window. The answer was they didn't really know what kind of glass they had installed. Being that it fronted the main street it was likely to be re-enforced which would have had significant deflection of the bullet and could well have killed someone else. Also he had told the Police there were two other bombs in the CBD and they needed time to check out any likely targets. The "West Australian" had 8 pages of stories dedicated to this one subject, milking it all the way to the bank. Congratulations to the NSW Police, they did a fine Job considering this is not a usual occurrence for them ....

[GT93]

Thanks for that. I'm also surprised to read that some people are saying the SAS should have been involved. I think the cops are far better as their specialist teams unlike the SAS must deal with these kinds of situations every week. The difference with this one was that the loser had a "terrorist" flag so it gets world wide coverage. It was continuously covered on Sky TV NZ taking the feeds from Sky Australia.

[tigerryan]

Following the Columbine school shooting in the US ten years ago or so it forced a sea change in police response tactics. Anyone raising an Islamic flag or dressing like a jihadi that takes a hostage has just committed an act of war and has signed his death warrant in my mind. The lesson learned from Columbine was that this situation isn't going to end well and allowing a classic hostage negotiation to develop is not going to win with people motivated by death and terror. Trained shooters know that shooting through glass at basically a right angle has no real effect on the trajectory of your shot. My guess is that the responders to this situation had more talk on the handheld radio from a exploding command structure than was helpful in this situation. I support police brutality against people that fly ISIS flags in my country so long as we are at war.

[GT93]

Well, the big question now is should Amirah Droudis, Monis's partner, be on bail? I'd hate to be the magistrate deciding that.

[Aardvark]

If there's any chance she is a threat to anyone in the community I say Yes lock her up ....