Why the Australian terrorist wannabe did it

Following 9/11, Dubya famously [infamously? Ed.] said that the Islamic terrorists hate us for our freedoms. Ascribing that motivation to al-Qaeda was risible at the time, and, as anyone who's been dealt with by TSA and other "protectors of our freedoms" knows, is now ludicrous. America "the land of the free"? HAH!

If not for our long-vanished freedomes, why, then, do the Muslim fanatics -- the Taliban, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram -- really hate us? Why would a scumbag like Man Haron Monis -- the Iranian-born "refugee" shot by police yesterday in Sydney -- take over a dozen hostages in what was ultimately a futile and fatal publicity stunt?

The same question was asked in Canada back in October, after two "radicalized" Canadian converts to the Religion of Peace [HAH? Ed.] killed two Canadian soldiers in separate incidents outside of Montréal and in the nation's capital.

The Canadian government (Steve Harper, Beloved Leader) was keen to downplay any notion that the killings had anything to do with its decision to join the American coalition attacking ISIS (or "ISIL", as they and Obama persist in calling it, lest we believe it has anything to do with Syria). The Canucks could barely bring themselves to admit that the killers were, by conversion if not birth, Muslims. No, they were just misguided young men with emotional problems. Probably drug addicts too. Drug-addled nutbars, really. That was the PC government spin on the story.

So fast was the story spinning that the Mounties, who had promised to release a video made by the Parliament Hill shooter, reneged on their promise. They are now saying they might release a "transcript" of the video, which will doubtless be sanitized to remove images of the IS flag and the killer's repeated declaration that he acted to protest the Canadian involvement in the anti-IS coalition.

So now in Australia, we are seeing the same spin on what is basically the same story. It's a little more difficult for the Australian government to gloss over the late Mr. Monis's motives, since he had already been convicted of writing threatening letters to the families of Australian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, and -- more important -- had ranted on a widely-circulated video about wanting to make the Aussies pay for joining the US invasion of the Middle East.

The governments of Australia, Canada and (of course) the USA, would like you to forget that, until the Americans started bombing IS, it was confining its barbaric activities to killing fellow Muslim men, women and children, as well as religious and ethnic minorities -- particularly Kurds -- in Syria and Iraq.

It wasn't until after the American "intervention" in August that they started beheading westerners. And only after the September extension of the bombing to include Syria did IS urge its followers to attack Westerners wherever they might be found. That is exactly what the "lone wolves" in Canada and Australia did. And that's why they did it.

Will the governments of Australia and Canada and the Paranoid States of America now rethink they disastrous policy of constant meddling in the Middle East? Walt doubts it. Lifetime pct .977.

Further reading on WWW:
"Some wars would be better forgotten" (11/11/14)
"The war against ISIS explained... again... seriously, this time" (14/11/14)