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tweakabelle -> RE: What is happening in Sydney? (12/22/2014 12:50:29 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Aylee
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
FR
Manus' history with IS is surprisingly brief and revealing.
Until about a month ago, Manus, the perpetrator, had presented himself as a sheik (religious authority) in the Shi'ite sect of Islam. IS, AQ and the like belong to the Sunni sect and regard Shi'ites as apostates. Manus announced his conversion about a month ago on his website. Prior to his conversion Manus would have been anathema to the fanatical purists of IS who loathe Shi'ites. As far as I can glean, there is no record of any contact between Manus and IS during the past month or so (though this may change if more info is made public). The relationship with IS doesn't appear to have been highly prioritised by Manus - apparently he neglected to bring his IS banner with him to the siege ad had to demand that the authorities provide him with one! None of available evidence is consistent with the behaviour of a terrorist operative obeying orders and carrying out some outrage. Manus' relationship with IS appears to be characterised by its brevity and the apparently casual slack fashion that Manus chose to make public the relationship.
Manus lost the last of his appeals against convictions for abusing the families of deceased soldiers the Friday before the siege. He believed that he would be sent to prison, a place that held miserable memories for him and to which he was determined not to revisit.
Finally in a development that reveals the regard in which Manus was held by our local Muslim community, it's being reported that no Muslim funeral service will accept Manus' corpse for burial ....
So the picture emerging is one of a deeply isolated and troubled man, at prison's door, trying and failing to deal with severe emotional, psychological and legal problems. IS may have seemed a convenient, even attractive label onto which he could attach himself and his problems. From his POV, dying a 'martyr' would be far superior to dying as a common criminal or serving a long sentence. To me, this is a far more complete, more plausible explanation of his situation than the hardened terrorist model.
So the real victim here is the man who took hostages and killed people? Wow. That is some screwed up thinking.
Of course you also felt that the other real victims of this insanity were the Muslims riding public transportation. *eye roll*
Aylee, I'm afraid to say that your interpretation of my post is demented. There is no attempt nor intention to elicit sympathy for Manus as a 'victim'. FWIW, all of my personal sympathy is directed entirely towards the victims of this insane idiot's actions.
My intention was to list some relevant facts that might not have been given coverage overseas. From those facts the picture that emerges is one of a troubled person who has just lost the last of his legal appeals and was facing a long and well deserved prison sentence. This provides a powerful alternative understanding of his motivations than the threadbare hardened IS terrorist explanation favoured by some here.
quote:
kdsub
Tweak... you know how violent I am... I am bat crazy...I say the most outrageous things...I am a killer in reality and in my heart
How could anyone possibly disagree?
It's worth remembering that this kind of mindless pathological reaction is precisely the same reaction that motivated the butchers of 9/11. This stupid knee jerk reaction insists on the simplest possible explanation - "all Muslim/Christians/Westerners/{hate group of your choice} are responsible and therefore deserve to be killed - and refuses to consider any alternative explanation, especially when those alternative explanations require some thought and accurate introspection.
So in this matter all Muslims are always responsible for the actions of a tiny minority of extremist fanatics and anyone who disagrees is soft liberal self hating fool, as has been made crystal clear in this thread.
The intelligent response is to refrain from knee jerk responses, calmly analyse the available facts and dispassionately develop and execute a strategy that isolates and attacks those responsible. Preferably this strategy allies itself (but minimally doesn't antagonise) those mainstream forces in the Muslim world who share our loathing of the extremists and fanatics.
A successful strategy to defeat terrorism focuses on isolating the terrorists from their support base. The kind of purely military response, of 'out-terrorising the terrorists' approach favoured by some of the more simplistic of our posters achieves the very opposite of successful strategies - it drives local populations into the arms of terrorists. To put it very bluntly, such approaches are guaranteed to fail.
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