Jihad Jack

A smallish news item this weekend about Jack Thomas (aka Jihad Jack) who was found guilty on Friday for accepting money from al-Qaeda and for being a terrorist sleeper or some such.  This ladies and gentlemen is the face of Terrorism In Australia.  And guess what, he wasn’t “of Middle-Eastern Appearance”.  Shock and horror perhaps!  Not really, the news item was dutifully reported with our man Jack walking to and from the court with his dowdy mother on his arm and his white clean shaven face looking immaculate in his Lowes suit.

My point is that this guy wasn’t the atypical terrorist under the bed, back pack carrying, 72 virgin seeking madman from the East side of Baghdad.  No, this guy was a mild mannered middle class white guy with extreme views on the way Australia should be run.  He may have been a Muslim convert, but I doubt it because that would ramped up the hysterical-metre on the news reports.  He would have been labelled “Jack Thomas, MUSLIM CONVERT”.  No, I suggest that they caught someone and that they have been bitterly disappointed that the individual didn’t fit Johnny Howard’s profile for a terrorist.

So what does this say?  I would propose that all this terrorism media hysterics has actually contributed to an extreme element of people – be they Muslim or not – and actually putting ideas into the heads of individuals such as Jack Thomas.  I am glad that they have caught him and he deserves what he gets, but lets not forget that the second largest terrorism attack on US soil was carried out by an Oklahoma red neck called Timothy McVeigh.

Listening:  U2’s Boy.  Part of my 1980’s U2 collection.