Slashdot Mirror
Australian Police Arrest 15, Charge 2, For Alleged Islamic State Beheading Plot
The Washington Post reports (building on a short AP report they're also carrying) that "[Australian] police have arrested 15 people allegedly linked to the Islamic State, some who plotted a public beheading." According to the Sydney Morning Herald, of the arrestees, only two have been charged. From the Washington Post story: “Police said the planned attack was to be “random.” The killers were to behead a victim and then drape the body in the black Islamic State flag, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. ... Direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in [the Islamic State] to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said at a press conference, as the BBC reported. “So this is not just suspicion, this is intent and that’s why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have.”
Gotta do more than an insane passenger on a Greyhound bus does to another passenger to really shock me at this point.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
While the IS stuff is rather a hot news item, I do not agree that slashdot is really the place for it. One of the reasons I look at Slashdot is to get a nice newsfeed without 5 items per day about wild muslims.
Of course the poor polls, the terrible budget, the scandals, the deaths in custody, the lies of the Abbott government have absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Sinister's current attempts to take us to war.
Nothing at all. Nope. Nu uh.
Oh look, a shiny!
No matter what anyone thinks about surveillance, etc., these asshats were arrested and prevented from doing their thing. Were I the leader of Australia, I'd turn them over to the law of their original country of origin, stating they have lost their Australian citizenship (if they began citizens) by dint of plotting against Australians. If the countries of origin will not take them, line them up and shoot them for conspiracy. Most governments would dearly love to just shoot the extremists but shy away because of political correctness. The only thing extremists like these asshats understand is a sword or a bullet.
Conspiracy to commit a crime has been illegal for a very long time.
From the Sydney Morning Herald article:
"I dunno, I got a lot of anger," he said. "It's a war on Islam just because we grow our beards. They want to label us as a terrorist, or supporters of IS, whatever, that's up to you."
As long as the more stable regional powers refuse to directly confront the extremists, it becomes very easy for this view to continue.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
let's have a massive disproportionate reaction!! you know.. lots of fear mongering and maybe we can invite more surveillance!!
just remember.. we need to reserve these blissful over-reactions for only 'threats' that involve the terrorist-boogey-man... if we reacted this way to comparable threat-per-capita non-terrorist criminals, we would run out of resources in about a week. (plus, the whole surveillance thing would be harder to jam down the masses throats)
Australia has a great garbage disposal system right off their west coast. Just toss these fuckers into the sea and the Great Whites will make them disappear.
All you have to worry about is PETA getting upset over feeding toxic wastes to the sharks.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I thought the reason why someone goes and brutally murders another human being is because he is either an evil bastard to start with, or brainwashed by other evil bastards to be an evil bastard himself, and because he thinks he can be an evil bastard without getting caught and getting punished for it.
The US had NOTHING to do with the formation of Israel. Absolutely nothing. Yes we recognized them AFTER they gained control but we even had an arms embargo against them up until that point. Israels creation and almost all of the worlds problems can be traced to EUROPEAN colonialism and direct action by the British and French.
The problem with ISIS is that it rejects the political divisions
The problem with ISIS is that they are a brutal regime and no one likes them except themselves. Furthermore, one of their stated goals is that they want to destroy the US. Note that this is also the primary problem with Iran as well: I don't want anyone who has a holiday for "death to America" to get nuclear weapons (even if it's the fault of the US they have a holiday for that).
The reason Obama sent us to war in Iraq is because the Kurds have spent decades building up government lobbying programs around the world. The US didn't get involved in Syria, even when Assad used WMD. The Kurds have built up a stable country and are easy to work with, and as already mentioned, are good at lobbying. So they get the air support.
Osama Bin Laden had some, not all but some, reasonable requests of the US government in response to the terrorist event on 9/11 that we could have implemented along with domestic security measures that would provide a reasonable, but not perfect assurance, of our security. Instead, we chose to dump 3 trillion dollars into a 15 year campaign of scorched earth across afghanistan, and in the process created more terrorists. we dumped a portion of that cash into Iraq,
It's not controversial to say Afghanistan was a poorly executed mess, and that Iraq was a mistake, but there is a reason we don't negotiate with terrorists: doing so encourages more terrorist acts. If Bush/Obama accomplished anything, it was to ensure that no one will think of attacking the US mainland as a tool scare the US out of the middle east.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have a couple of issues with your post - firstly you seem to think that there was never a communist threat. As a Western European I am quite glad that communism never came further west than it managed. Secondly, what you call "controversial" in your last paragraph I call stupid, and not too dissimilar to appeasement or Dane-Geld: (The following is not Kipling's best but the idea is important.)
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
When the colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American ships lost British Royal Navy protection. A Revolutionary-War era alliance with France offered French protection to US ships, but it expired in 1783. Immediately US ships came under attack and in October 1784 the American trader “Betsey” was taken by Moroccan forces. This was followed with Algerians and Libyans (Tripolitans) capturing two more US ships in 1785.
Lacking the ability to project US naval force in the Mediterranean, America tried appeasement. In 1784, Congress agreed to fund tributes and ransoms in order to rescue US ships and buy the freedom of enslaved US sailors.
In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. The two future Presidents asked Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja for the reason for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. They reported that Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja responsed “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
Sound familiar?
Not only is this incorrect, but you topped it off with a bigoted assault on religion. "Palestine" was administered by the UK, not the USA, and American Jews voluntarily moved to it mostly after the 1948 independence. At the time of independence, it had nearly indefensible borders after suffering additional partitions beyond what the UK had promised. See "Transjordan" had already been partitioned for settlement by Palestinian Arabs. The West Bank, Gaza strip, and some other small areas were snipped off after WWII. Israel mostly lived with what they were given until they were attacked, repeatedly, by the Arabs who hated them. Regardless, even if you don't think Israel should have occupied any territory gained in 1948 or 1967, you can't blame it on the USA.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes it was, the dysfunction of the western hemisphere is the US's fault. We ran around exploiting and destroying the nations of the western hemisphere and as a result they continue to be tortured and dysfunctional governments because of what we did. Hell the US used to let the rich build private mercenary armies and invade these smaller countries and replace their governments. It was detestable conduct on the part of the US.
But the US, outside Liberia, had almost no involvement in Africa, the middle east or Asia outside normal trade until the cold war. The US didn't create Israel, the British and French did. The US didn't carve up Africa, and the middle east into little empires, the Europeans did. We still are dealing with the problems of the borders the English and French drew after WWII because they took no account of ethnicity or culture of the people's they grouped into nations (or they did so deliberately in the case of the British). All these nations are in constant war amongst themselves because groups of peoples that are traditional enemies are grouped together. Make no mistake the British did this deliberately, it was part of their divide and conquer strategy where they grouped people together that were in opposition then put the minority group in control. The perfect example of this is Rwanda where the Tutsi's were put in control under British rule and then subjugated the larger Hutu population. Because of this we've had a genocide and nearly constant war in Rwanda since independence, and all because this divide and conquer policy was official British policy for controlling foreign colonies.
Since the start of the cold war the US has interfered in nations world wide but that involvement typically was limited to stopping socialist sympathizing governments. The overthrow of the regime in Iran was mostly at the feet of the US though instigated by the British. There are others, like Vietnam that we damaged pretty heavily but in the short reign of the cold war the US could never do the same level of damage the Europeans did with more than 100 years of colonialism. But nothing gets my goat more than people blaming the US for the creation of Israel, because at the time the US was against the creation of Israel and through the arms embargo and other measures worked against the creation. It was only after they succeeded against all that opposition that the US recognized them and began to support them politically, though that support was tepid at best until after the '63 war probably about the time Israel became a nuclear armed state.
The US didn't create Israel, the British and French did.
The Balfour Declaration notwithstanding, the foundation of Israel was contrary to Britsh foreign policy at the time, hence this.
The perfect example of this is Rwanda where the Tutsi's were put in control under British rule and then subjugated the larger Hutu population.
Belgian, not British.
Since the start of the cold war the US has interfered in nations world wide
This makes for interesting reading: US foreign jaunts