How does an 18 year old become a terror suspect...?

[onthefly]

Well, in fairness there are Muslims and then there are people cutting off other people's heads on camera, or threatening to do so. I think many people are uneasy about the decapitations and not everyone is conflating the two.

[Jaycee]

If your comments have nothing to do with Muslims, which "goings on" are you referring to? The nude photo hacking scandal?.

The "goings on" I was referring to were the arrests of those suspected of conspiring to commit acts of terror, and obviously the stabbing of police officers, and the subsequent death of a terror suspect. I don't give a flying hoot if they were Muslim or not, what's happening in our country is of great concern to me. End of story.

[Phteven]

Funny how most of them were released without charges or on minor unrelated charges which means that the AFP never have to prove the accusations in court...
Coincidentally Tones is simultaneously introducing previously unpopular legislation which will erode everybody's civil liberties and committing our troops to an unwinnable "war" in the Middle East.
It's lucky for him that the sheeple of Australia love to believe whatever the media tells them to.

Personally I'm concerned about the measurable damage caused by climate change, the death toll from domestic violence, a government that is willing to stir up hatred to shore up its popularity, and the increasing costs of education and health but yeah.......terrorists *screams* and forgets all the real issues.

[Jaycee]

The real issues?? You don't think terrorism on a global scale is in issue??

[PumpkinZulu]

I'm completely cynical about the real threat of terrorism in this country. This government has pretty clearly cracked out Howard's old notes on ruling through fear and mistrust. It's working too.

[Phteven]

I think that terrorism is an issue.
As a Muslim I can also assure you that the Government decided to deliberately incite terrorism that it couldn't possibly do a better job than it is now. Making a massive media circus out of arresting a few people on rather dubious charges, introducing non-democratic legislation aimed at Muslims, preventing misguided young Muslims from traveling to war zones whilst allowing Zionists to join the Israeli army, encouraging the Murdoch media to vilify Muslims, treating refugees like ****, sending troops to the Middle East, dog whistling bigots.... we don't even need to worry about extremists radicalising young Muslims. The government is doing it for us.

I'm about as moderate as a Muslim can be and I am incredibly ****ed off at the moment. I am sick of confronting bigotry and intolerance. I am tired of being scared in public spaces. I find it kind of laughable that the sheeple are all hysterical about 'terror' when the threat of random violence is part of every visibly Muslim woman's normal. I don't know a single scarved woman who doesn't have at least one story of being the target of physical or verbal abuse in a public space. The best we hope for is that it doesn't happen when our children are with us. I'm tired of casual racism and micro-aggressions. I'm over being told that the democratic right to say that my country is ****ful in many respects doesn't apply to me because I wear a scarf, that apparently only white Australians can complain about the state of the nation, the rest of us should love it or leave it, even if we have lived here for generations.
I can only imagine how angry my less moderate brethren are.

[Phteven]

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...-isis-800w.jpg

[onthefly]

Of course terrorism is an issue, but there are other very real, immediate and demonstrable threats to our citizens and our way of life which don't get anywhere near as much attention or resources, and even if we are serious about addressing terrorism, the actions taken by our government and its allies are unlikely to be particularly useful (if anything, quite the opposite - First Dog).

ETA - snap on first dog

[Teeki]

We had the news on the other night - a bit rare for us so I listened in - and the main story was about being aware because Muslim extremists want to behead random Australians. That report made me so bloody angry. How are we supposed to be aware? To a lot of people out comes down to "be scared of everyone who you think looks a bit Muslim". Way to stir up the racism guys. How am I supposed to know if I'm around someone who belongs to IS? I can't know.
Yeah, it's not nice to think of being randomly attacked. By anyone. By an angry customer who's come to rob my place of work. By someone who thinks he's been hard done by and wants revenge, by someone who hates women and is gonna show us he's in control. The fear of all these is the same, the fear of 'terrorism' is not any different or higher. The likelihood of any of these things actually happening are so small, I'm not wasting my time being scared.

I will, however, spend my time being furious that innocent men, women and children are being treated in such a horrible way just because of their religion.