Relax. The “experts” will explain it all for us.
“If he was following IS (Islamic State) direction why didn’t he go in there and kill everyone?” Maybe Man Haron Monis intended to take hostages. Is Associate Professor Rodger Shanahan from the Lowy Institute really unaware of Islamic law regarding hostage-taking and the subsequent killing, enslavement, ransom or release of the hostages?
Ultimately this is an exercise in Clintonesque word-splitting. The Lindt cafe siege is not a terrorist act only if what constitutes a terrorist act is defined so narrowly as to exclude it from the definition. But to any common sense observer, it was obviously a terrorist act: Man Haron Monis displayed the black flag of jihad in the window of the cafe, and declared his allegiance to the Islamic State. The Islamic State has repeatedly called for lone wolf jihad attacks such as this one.
This “expert” opinion has the effect, intended or no, only of fostering ignorance and complacency about the jihad threat.
“Lindt siege not a terrorist act: experts,” by Lauren Farrow, AAP, August 26, 2015 (thanks to Peter):
MAN Haron Monis’s attack on Sydney’s Lindt cafe would have been extremely hard to predict, terrorism experts say.
PROFESSOR Greg Barton from Deakin University told the inquest into the Lindt Cafe siege that Monis was a loner, with no network of support, and that it would have been very hard to see his actions in December coming.
Australian National University terror expert Dr Clarke Jones agreed, saying it came “out of the blue” and would have been “extremely hard to predict”.
Dr Jones said Monis’s mental health problems made him unpredictable and that he was desperate to attach himself to something.
To this end, he said the siege gunman twice tried to join different chapters of the Rebels Motorcycle gang after buying a motorbike and changing his appearance, but was rejected and had his bike stolen.
“I wonder if (the Rebels) accepted his membership, would we be here today?” Dr Clarke said on Wednesday.
Questioning Monis’s actions that day, Associate Professor Rodger Shanahan from the Lowy Institute said he didn’t believe Monis was taking part in a terrorist attack.
“If he was following IS (Islamic State) direction why didn’t he go in there and kill everyone?” he asked.
“Why did he go 18 hours, allow people to escape, lose control for several occasions?”
Ass Prof Shanahan said he believed the Lindt cafe was chosen for personal rather than political reasons – pointing to Monis’s grievance with Network Seven’s Sunrise program.
Had it been ideologically motivated, Ass Prof Shanahan said there was the cenotaph at Martin Place as well as the crowded train station in which to carry out an attack….