Terror Plan Foiled Down Under...

[Lord Jim]

Australia raids over 'Islamic State plot to behead'

Police have carried out anti-terror raids in Sydney sparked by intelligence reports that Islamic extremists were planning random killings in Australia.

PM Tony Abbott said a senior Australian Islamic State militant had called for "demonstration killings", reportedly including a public beheading.

The raids, with at least 800 heavily-armed officers, led to 15 arrests.

One man has been charged with planning an attack. Prosecutors said he planned to "gruesomely" execute someone.

Australian media reports said a plot involved beheading a random member of the public after draping them in an Islamic State flag.

Asked about the reports in a press conference, Mr Abbott said: "That's the intelligence we received.''

"Direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL (Islamic State) to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29245611

This is quite worrisome...

Kidnappings followed by beheadings are a lot easier to carry out logistically than bombings; they require fewer people, no equipment (beyond a sharp knife or axe) and no real expertise. One or two untrained but ideologically motivated terrorist operatives can carry something like this out fairly easily.

But carried out on Western soil, this kind of barbarous terrorist attack would have a "terror impact" similar to a bombing...

It would give ISIS the PR effect of showing an ability to project its "power" beyond the Mid-East...

[Sue U]

Quite worrisome indeed, in that 15 people have been arrested apparently for doing absolutely nothing except hearing about one idiot's murder fantasy. Quick, arrest the writers of the "Saw" movies, and everyone who's seen them, too!

Be afraid, Australia (and Lindsey Graham)! There are terrorists under your bed, coming to kill us all!!!!! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

[rubato]

"... There are terrorists under your bed, coming to kill us all!!!!! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Sneaky, just like all those Communists hiding under the bed!

Well, I was feelin' sad and kind of blue
I didn't know what I was gonna do
The Communists were comin' around
They was in the air, they were on the ground
They were all over

So I ran down most hurriedly
And joined the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
Went back to my backyard
And started looking on the sidewalk
'Neath the rose bush

Well, I was lookin' everywhere for them gold darned Reds
I got up in the mornin' and looked under my bed
Looked behind the kitchen, behind the door
Even tore loose the kitchen floor, couldn't find any

I looked beneath the sofa, beneath the chair
Looking for them Reds everywhere
I looked way up my chimney hole
Even looked deep inside my toilet bowl
They got away

I heard some footsteps by the front porch door
So I grabbed my shotgun from the floor
I snuck around the house with a huff and hiss and
"Hands up, you Communist" it was a mail man
He punched me out

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone
I got a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they was red stripes on the American flag
Did you know about Betsy Ross

Well, I was sittin' home alone and I started to sweat
I figured they was in my television set
I peeked behind the picture frame
And got a shock from my feet that hit my brain
Them Reds did it, no one's on the hootin' nanny

Well, I finally started thinkin' straight
When I run outta things to investigate
I couldn't imagine doin' anything else
So now I'm at home investigatin' myself
Hope, I don't find out too much, good God

Songwriters
Bob Dylan

Read more: Bob Dylan - Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues Lyrics | MetroLyrics

yrs,
rubato


One of the oldest tricks in the book is using fear for social control. Well they don't have to get smarter and learn new tricks, if we don't.

[Big RR]

Yep; the war with Oceania is working.

ETA: Or was it Eurasia? Or Eastasia? Or some other enemy? Does it even matter?

[Sue U]

We have always been at war with Oceania Eastasia Eurasia terrorists.

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, this whole thing's something we made up...

ETA:

ISIS has no foreign fighters, they haven't taken over any cities or enslaved, beheaded or massacred anybody...they represent absolutely no threat to us or anyone else.

In fact, ISIS doesn't even exist; everything we see on television is being filmed on a sound lot using actors at a remote location in the desert in Southern California...

The same locale they used to film the fake moon landings...

[Big RR]

The whole thing? Probably not; but many of the details? Who knows. After all, they can't give much in the way of details--state secrets and homeland security and all that, so we just have to trust that the government is telling us the truth and acting in our best interests. And face it, this is ISIS acting on western soil and setting out to kill people in Australia.

Pardon me if I don't see questioning of the veracity of those statements as akin to denying the moon landing. There are plenty of examples to demonstrate when we've been lied to in order to try and sway public opinion, from Hillary's claim that the whole Monica Lewinsky affair was concocted by right wing liars out to smear Bill to Nixon's saying Watergate was made up by agitators and that Daniel Ellsburg was someone set out to damage out country and that the Us government never broke in his office... just to name a few instances.

You can believe the whole thing if you want, but I'll raise my questions. If that's anti-American or playing into "their" hands, so be it.

[Joe Guy]

This is quite worrisome...

Kidnappings followed by beheadings are a lot easier to carry out logistically than bombings; they require fewer people, no equipment (beyond a sharp knife or axe) and no real expertise....

How is ISIS gonna carry that one off?

No terrorist would ever be able to get a knife or an axe onto an airplane to come here.

Some of the most obvious bullet proof built-in security measures that have been instituted since 9/11/01 are overlooked when one is a CONspiracy theorist....

[Gob]

This is the response...





So Sue & BigRR, should we have waited for another one of these to happen?

[Econoline]

How is ISIS gonna carry that one off?

No terrorist would ever be able to get a knife or an axe onto an airplane to come here.

Well, I guess they'll just have to leave their knives and axes at home and buy some semi-automatic weapons when they get here then....



(Axe a silly question....)

[Joe Guy]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Econoline...

You probably gave some of those ISIS guys an idea now.

After reading your post, they will realize it is much easier to come here and buy semi-automatic knives & axes than to bring them and try and get them through customs.

[Big RR]

Gob--should we just wait for it to happen? No. should we turn our streets into armed camps and suspend civil rights further and further on the chance that it might happen? No (and I hope you'd agree there).

But the question I raised isn't that, it's whether the governments are conspiring to elevate the threat level to permit them to take increasingly draconian measures, and I personally think this is the case (at least in the US, but I doubt other governments are that different). Coming out and saying we foiled a major terror plot but can't tell you much about it because of security reasons serves to elevate the concern without providing anything that can be checked, and the crackdown continues. I don't want to see anyone killed, but I also want to see some level of accountability in my government. You are free to accept the official story if you want.

[wesw]

the govt should not withhold information in a democracy. too much is classified. how can we make good decisions without the truth?

[Sue U]

So Sue & BigRR, should we have waited for another one of these to happen?

My point is that in a free society, people aren't -- or at least, shouldn't be -- arrested for merely thinking bad thoughts, or for hearing someone else urge them to do bad things. In this case, there seems to be precious little else to warrant the arrests -- other than the need for convenient boogeymen to frighten the general public and stifle any opposition to the "war on terror" that justifies the ever-increasing police power of the emerging national security state. Could you prevent "another one of these" by rounding up all the Muslims and putting them in detention camps? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it likely that oppressive tactics simply provoke more aggressive and outrageous responses, in turn leading to more repression yielding more extreme "terrorism." People are far too ready to sacrifice their civil liberties for sham security, and to cede their power to those providing it.

To be clear, no one is saying that the so-called Islamic State (which is nether) is wholly imaginary or that they are any kind of good guys. But they are simply not a significant threat to anyone outside the parts of Iraq and Syria in which they operate -- and where they operate precisely because there is no effective governmental authority exercised by either Baghdad or Damascus. And to the extent they may pose a threat there, it is first and foremost a problem of those particular governments, and then the Arab League, and then arguably NATO (to the extent Turkey may be affected) and then the UN.

[Gob]

So if the police had the phone call tapped, and had not acted on it, and these guys had kidnapped and beheaded someone, would we live in a more free state?

A 22-year-old western Sydney man arrested in one of the largest simultaneous raids in Australian ­history, Omarjan Azari, was charged on Thursday with conspiracy to ­commit a terrorist attack.

Should the police not have the power to arrest someone for conspiracy?

[Sue U]

So if the police had the phone call tapped,

Well, here's the first part of your problem. In a free society, the police wouldn't be tapping your phones. If they were, it could only be by warrant issued by a judicial authority, who has to be convinced that there is actually likely to be some evidence of a genuine crime in those calls.

and had not acted on it,

If the police have legitimately gotten information that an actual crime is afoot, then certainly it would be proper to investigate it. But actual crime is different from thought crime, and thinking about doing bad things, talking about doing bad things, and listening to someone talk about doing bad things is not (or, in a free society, should not be) an actual crime. Some concrete action to commit the crime, and a reasonable likelihood that if not for intervention the crime would in fact be committed, should be prerequisites to any arrest, let alone a criminal charge.

and these guys had kidnapped and beheaded someone, would we live in a more free state?

People commit crimes, sometimes heinous ones, in every society, even police states. That is simply not the test of a free society. In this context, the measure of a free society is how it treats people who aren't actually committing crimes.

Should the police not have the power to arrest someone for conspiracy?

"Criminal conspiracy" is a dangerous concept precisely because it is so vague and potentially overreaching. Generally, it requires some "overt act" in furtherance of the commission of an actual crime. In my opinion, in a free society it is a charge that should be employed most sparingly by the state and viewed with the utmost suspicion by the judiciary and the people.

[Gob]

Oh well Sue, me and you will have to agree to disagree here. I prefer to trust the country and its forces to keep me safe, and to not sit on their hands when they have information about possible beheading being planned.

[Crackpot]

No I demand a cage match! Thunderdome style! Two people enter one person leaves! (With exceptions for intelligent "little person" and simpleton tag teams)

I'd favor Sue unless Gob can find himself a little person.

[Sue U]

Oh well Sue, me and you will have to agree to disagree here. I prefer to trust the country and its forces to keep me safe, and to not sit on their hands when they have information about possible beheading being planned.

Perhaps it's because I come at this issue from an American perspective; we are an ornery people with an innate skepticism of authority. But I prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to infringement on privacy and personal liberties.

No I demand a cage match! Thunderdome style! Two people enter one person leaves! (With exceptions for intelligent "little person" and simpleton tag teams)

I'd favor Sue unless Gob can find himself a little person.

What exactly are you suggesting about Gob???????

[Lord Jim]

Perhaps it's because I come at this issue from an American perspective

Whoa...

A lot of what you've said in this discussion is way out on the Rand Paul/Bernie Sanders fringe on this; even from an American perspective...

You're suggesting an approach that would basically make it impossible to foil any criminal conspiracy until the plot was physically underway. In the case in the OP, your approach would have allowed nothing to be done, (and no intel to even have been gathered) until some innocent victim was already in the hands of the kidnappers. Your approach would make it impossible to foil bank robbery plots until the gang was in the bank with their guns drawn. Your approach would have made the entire set of laws and procedures that brought down major Mafia players under The RICO Act impossible.

Your approach would have meant that even if we'd had the intel, (which with your approach we'd have had no chance of getting) it wouldn't have been appropriate to arrest the 9/11 hijackers until they pulled out their box cutters and started cutting throats. (Afterall, taking box cutters on to planes wasn't illegal at the time, and until they actually physically began the hijackings I guess you would say that all they were doing was "talking about doing bad things")

It's certainly true that in the US, we have a much more expansive view than Brits or Aussies regarding free speech. (And I share in that. In some other discussions I've found myself on your side on that issue.)

But the idea that criminals planning crimes, or terrorists planning terrorist attacks represent some sort of "protected free speech", is most certainly not a broadly held "American perspective". That is a radical, civil libertarian absolutist position, would which never be embraced by most Americans.