Islamisim/Terrorism Spread More

In discussing the Sydney siege on Sunday I drew attention to how the Fairfax press and the ABC “lag badly in recognising the seriousness of the threat from Islam”. Yesterday I referred to an analysis published by a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute in the US showing the extent of Islamism in Germany as well as the serious deficiencies in administrative decisions in Australia on the increasing applications for admission as migrants and citizens, including from countries where the Muslim religion dominates.

Below are some analyses/reports on further developments in the terrorist threat.

• An excellent article by Nick Cater, who runs the Menzies Research Institute, outlining the truly pathetic ABC reports on the siege gunman and the obvious attempt to “overlook” his Islamism. The credibility of ABC news is now down to very low.
• The revelations following the siege of the origins of the “compassionate” Facebook  message sent to Sydney Muslims that “I’llridewithyou”. It appears this was started by someone who has since admitted that she did not in fact witness any harassment of a Muslim woman ie there was no basis for the message. The subsequent Twitter circulation was apparently started by an Australian Green.
• Following the attack on three police on Saturday in France by an Islamist, 11 people were injured yesterday, apparently by another Islamist, in Dijon. Hitherto France has tended to boast that its tougher controls has prevented or at least limited terrorist activity;
• From a different terrorist perspective, Obama is reported as considering putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism following the cyber attack on Sony films for constructing a skit film on Kim Jong-un. In an article commenting on the incident, the chairman of the Gatehouse institute and former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, argues Obama should not hold back but return N Korea to the terrorist list, increase sanctions and “strike hard across the politico-spectrum”. One might add that N Korea should never have been taken off the terrorist list and that Obama should not have made the public criticism of NK that Kim, like other terrorist groups, wanted.

I have not included any references below to the horrific report in today’s Australian from a journalist in N Iraq on the sexual enslavement of  Yazidi girls. Such enslavement is said to be “central to the jihadists’ core values”. Through its air strikes on IS forces Australia is contributing to the attempts to overthrow those forces in the area. But it is surprising that the US and other Western countries are doing so little to overcome what can only be characterised as Islamic barbarism.

Let us hope that the upsurge in terrorism at least slows and does not recur again here. Another hope, albeit forlorn, might be that there is a stoppage to the failures of important sections of Australian media to recognise the threats and their sources and, in the interests of supporting a civilised society, the need for strong action against Islamic extremists.