Monday, December 15, 2014

Sydney cafe hostage: They called the army?

One gunman holding hostages in cafe. This is the exactly the sort of civilian problem that police tactical unites train for the world over and partly what's behind the rise of the warrior cop. In Australia, however, early reports indicate the cafe hostage situation was resolved by an army tactical unit (BBC is reporting RAR, which has a commando battalion but who knows, it could be SASR).  If true, one wonders why the army was brought in. One scenario comes to mind.

The hostage-taker had Islamist banners and such, making the Australian government or authorities regard it a military problem given the at this time nebulous links to Daesh/ISIS. 

Truly bizarre. The aftermath?

1. Linking a comparatively minor civilian event to problems in the Middle-East causes the powers-that-be in Australia to put troops on the streets. Nice work, there.

2. If true, much of the rationale for the New South Wales Police having a tactical capability (very much on display in the news footage) just vanished because violent hostage takings involving civilians are now an Australian military matter. So much for the warrior-cop, eh?

Osama bin Laden couldn't have dreamed this.

4 comments:

Alison said...

After 16 hours of hostage event, seems odd to shift to army tactical an hour after learning dude was nutter with hundreds of assault citations out on bail re charges of complicity in murdering his wife.

OTOH, this response suggested by this person was brilliant.

Beijing York said...

That is definitely heartening, Alison. Our own government has cast aside letting Muslim Syrian refugees into Canada - letting their obvious anti-Muslim slip show.

istvan said...

They are not saying who shot the hostages.

opit said...

ObL was never cited as responsible for 9-11 by the FBI. It was interesting how a 6'4" Saudi prince and CIA paymaster for black assets ( Charlie Wilson's War ) supposedly dying from kidney failure in the back of beyond ( Waziristan ) could not be found during his daily hospital visits ( how about because he wasn't there ) So much nonsense http://www.infowars.com/sotloff-video-found-by-group-responsible-for-releasing-fake-osama-bin-laden-video/ http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2014/09/for-those-suckers-that-still-think.html
'Terror' is an emotion - and sparked by poor theatre