Tuesday 7 September 2021

Hollow Laughter, Mixed With Tears.

Guarding The Stable Door: In the absence of the hard evidence only an actual terrorist atrocity can supply, the ability of New Zealand’s national security apparatus to pre-empt such attacks is legally and politically compromised. Indeed, even in the aftermath of an all-too-real terrorist massacre, the judicial and bureaucratic machinery of the state proved criminally inadequate to the task of keeping New Zealanders safe.

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound.


“They All Laughed”, Ira and George Gershwin, 1937


THERE IS absolutely no humour in the tragic sequence of events that unfolded in the New Lynn mall on Friday. Perhaps the only positive aspect of this latest terrorist attack is that, to date, the only fatality has been the terrorist himself. There was plenty of heroism in the bloody aisles of that Countdown supermarket, however, and plenty of cool professionalism also. On a shaky cellphone video, now viewed by millions, the clearly audible sequence of rapid-fire pistol shots indicated an officer determined to bring the Isis-inspired, knife-wielding perpetrator’s stabbing-spree to a halt.

Why quote the Gershwin brothers, then? What is there to laugh at?

The black humour of this situation derives not from the terrorist attack, but from a review of the way elements of the New Zealand Left have, by turns, scoffed at the very idea that terrorism might constitute a genuine threat to this country’s national security; castigated the national security apparatus for failing to prevent the atrocity of 15 March 2019; and then, reversing direction once again, cautioned against an excessively draconian response to the events of the past few days.

One of the reasons the New Lynn terrorist, Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, was not safely incarcerated on Friday afternoon, is because, as the judge overseeing an earlier trial pointed out, securing a conviction on a charge of planning and/or preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in New Zealand is just too difficult. Only when an act of terrorism has been committed does the law have anything useful to contribute. The judge’s speculation that this weakness in New Zealand’s anti-terrorist legislation might turn out to be its “Achilles Heel” has been dramatically vindicated.

Why nobody spotted this deficiency in the Terrorist Suppression Act 2002, which was passed by the New Zealand Parliament in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, remains a mystery. It is, after all, rather difficult to imagine how terrorism might be suppressed if, when preparations for launching a terrorist attack are detected, the loose wording of the Act effectively prevents the authorities from intervening until after the event had taken place. They would have been better advised to entitle the legislation the “Shutting the Stable Door Act”.

It took the curious case of the alleged Urewera military training camps to fully expose the inadequacies of the Terrorism Suppression Act. As things turned out it proved to be next-to-useless in dealing with activities suggestive of a terrorist campaign in its preparatory stages. Alerted to the existence of armed groups engaging in military-style training exercises in the Urewera mountains, the Police mounted an extensive surveillance operation culminating in the arrest of 17 individuals in October 2007.

There were many reasons why the Police’s “Operation Eight” failed. The inadequacy of the Terrorism Suppression Act was one of them; the excessively intimidatory raid on the little town of Ruatoki another. Critical to the whole exercise’s failure, however, was the extraordinarily successful campaign waged on behalf of the defendants by the Far Left.

At the heart of this campaign was the carefully cultivated perception that the whole exercise was farcical – a bit of a joke. New Zealand just wasn’t the sort of place where terrorism was seriously contemplated. The Police had grossly overreacted to what was no more than a bit of harmless play-acting. The only people terrified by Operation Eight were the traumatised Māori residents of Ruatoki. Those in serious search of terrorism need look no further than the racist and colonialist depredations of the New Zealand state.

They all laughed at Police Commissioner Howard Broad and his damned-if-he-did, damned-if-he-didn’t, predicament. The nation’s politicians, however, were quick to draw the obvious lessons.

What the Urewera debacle made clear was that not only will intervention before the fact of a terrorist attack expose the national security apparatus – and its political masters – to the ruthless excoriation of the Far Left, but also, crucially, to serious criticism from the news media. As the Far left critics of “Operation Eight” proved, pre-emptive policing is all-too-easily presented as the action of a “police state” over-eager to put its new-found powers to the test.

Small wonder, then, that both major parties became extremely wary of displaying too much interest in correcting the all-too-obvious defects in the Terrorism Suppression Act.

How differently New Zealanders might have responded to “Operation Eight’s” videos of armed individuals moving stealthily through the Urewera bush if they had been recorded subsequent to the terrible events of 15 March 2019. By then, of course, the notion that domestic terrorism was a bit of a joke had been tragically and decisively dispelled. Fortunately for the Left, those twelve-year-old Urewera images had been largely forgotten – along with the Far Left’s insistence that they conveyed nothing sinister.

Harmless Play-Acting? “Operation Eight” surveillance footage of military-style training exercise in the Ureweras, 2007.

Indeed, within days of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre, the Far Left’s position had changed dramatically. Not only was the threat of terrorism dangerously real, but it was also latent in a colonialist Pakeha population fatally tainted with both the legacy and the actuality of “white supremacy”. The cry from the Far Left, now, was not that the national security apparatus was too heavy handed, but that it was not heavy-handed enough. Why had the SIS not subjected the Alt-Right and militant ethno-nationalist groups to the same oppressive surveillance it reserved for Muslims?

The Māori Party demanded to know why the Police and the SIS weren’t working together to root out the white supremacist threat. Radical leftists called for the curtailment of “hate speech” – especially against New Zealand’s Muslim population. The Labour Government promised to oblige.

Which was odd. Because long before Brenton Tarrant unleashed terror in Christchurch, Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen had been giving the government of Jacinda Ardern nightmares. Ever since 2016, three years before Tarrant’s attack, New Zealand’s national security apparatus had been grappling with the clear and present danger of a dangerously radicalised Islamist who made no secret of his support for and admiration of the actions of the murderous Islamic State. If Tarrant slipped past the SIS, GCSB and Police Intelligence watchers, it was for the very good reason that they had another predator in their sights. What’s more, they could not be absolutely sure that Samsudeen was the only Isis-inspired “lone wolf” in the forest.

George and Ira Gershwin’s 1937 hit, “They All laughed”, concludes with the lines:

Hee, hee, hee!
Let’s at the past laugh
Ha, ha, ha!
Who’s got the last laugh now?


Faced with the Far Left’s cynical gyrations on the subject of terrorism, and whether or not it poses a threat to ordinary New Zealanders (like Muslim New Zealanders at Friday prayers, or the seven unsuspecting Kiwis stabbed in the aisles of their local supermarket as they innocently shopped for groceries on a Friday afternoon) the answer to the question “Who’s got the last laugh, now?” offers a variety of answers.

First and foremost, the last laugh belongs to those who, fourteen years ago, attempted to protect the New Zealand public from terrorism, only to discover that, in the absence of the evidence only an actual terrorist atrocity can supply, the ability of the national security apparatus to pre-empt such horror is legally and politically compromised. Indeed, even in the aftermath of an all-too-real terrorist attack, the judicial and bureaucratic machinery of the state proved criminally inadequate to the task of keeping New Zealanders safe.

Also entitled to a final, grim chuckle, are those stalwarts of the Old Left who never wavered in their conviction that the infliction of violence for political purposes must never be treated as a purely tactical issue. The Far Left’s argument that: in one context, training with weapons in the bush can be forgiven as harmless play-acting; but, in another, treated as evidence of the criminal plans and preparations of murderous white supremacist terrorists; must be rejected as ideologically-driven moral relativism of the worst kind.

Finally, a rough grunt of vindication is due to all those who have argued consistently that no matter what the location: Central Christchurch or West Auckland; the paying of History’s debts with innocent blood is always and everywhere a crime.

But, when these principled New Zealanders laugh at the Far Left’s tawdry equivocations on who is, and who isn’t, a terrorist; that laughter will not be light or mirthful. It will be hollow, filled with rage, and mixed with tears.


This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 7 September 2021.

27 comments:

Gezza said...

Good post. My views exactly, including on Operation 8.

Odysseus said...

Jacinda's old boss, Tony Blair, had this to say in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute over the weekend, "In my view, Islamism, both the ideology and the violence, is a first order security threat; and, unchecked, it will come to us, even if centred far from us, as 9/11 demonstrated," he said. "This is a global challenge and one that is getting worse."

Blair called on leaders from around the world - including China and Russia - to develop a common strategy to counter the menace to their societies. Will Ardern listen?

Simon Cohen said...

Its not only the far left who scoffed at the idea terrorism constituted a threat to NZers.

In 2015 Newshub reported

The Prime Minister has revealed the Government is undertaking 24-hour surveillance; monitoring people it believes pose a risk of committing a terror attack in New Zealand.

And John Key says there are a number of Kiwis linked to Islamic State (IS), even trying to raise money for them, and is scared there might be more hiding under the radar.

“Their actions are significant enough to [pose a] potential threat – exactly what [I] can’t go in to,” says Mr Key.

But one man known to support IS posted on social media that he thinks the Prime Minister is lying, saying “no way do we want to commit terrorist attacks in our own country”.

There are 40 New Zealanders on a Government watch list, and Mr Key says one or two are being monitored around the clock.

So Key warned in 2015 that there were one or two people being monitored 24/7 and what was the response:

But Labour leader Andrew Little says the Prime Minister is scaremongering.

“[It’s a] desperate attempt to look tough,” he says.

Andrew Little thought it was all scaremongering. Thanks Andrew.

AB said...

Who is this fictional entity "the Far Left" that you have created - and against which you can then conveniently level charges of intellectual inconsistency? And in reality, do we even have a far left in this country that couldn't hold its AGM in a garden shed?

The fact is that everyone's views of these three events (Urewera, Christchurch, New Lynn) is coloured by their ideological predilections - and that includes you. The proper topic of this piece might therefore be an examination of your own intellectual inconsistencies. In particular, you might focus on your insistence that lone wolf attacks such as Christchurch can't be prevented without the most egregious infringements of free speech rights - while a lone wolf attack such as New Lynn requires a forthright examination of the state's various failings. That you have chosen to construct and then attack a strawman (The Far Left) - rather than examine your own inconsistencies and assumptions, is unfortunate.

Anonymous said...

"The judge overseeing an earlier trial pointed out, securing a conviction on a charge of planning and/or preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in New Zealand is just too difficult." Quite so, Chris. But it was reported that this individual was out on bail for injuring prison guards while incarcerated. What judge in their right mind would not hold someone in remand that they knew to be on a terror watch list and monitored 24/7 - unless the judge was not made aware of these facts? Bail seems to be given too easily to perpetrators that seem to go on and commit more heinous crimes than what they were originally charged with. Accepted that being held in remand and then imprisoned may have only held off for awhile longer of his intentions......

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Well said AB.

Tom Hunter said...

Nice to see the double standards of the Far Left taken to task. It would be more precise to say that they have only one standard - obtaining overwhelming, permanent control of State power. Everything else flexibly turns on that; hence the screeching about the Terror Of The State at Ruatoki, followed a few years later by equal screeching that NZ's apparently numerous White Supremacists be tracked down by any means necessary.

At the same time, don't think that some of the Far Left's criticisms, hypocritical as they are, don't find support in the rest of the political spectrum, as with this:

... as the judge overseeing an earlier trial pointed out, securing a conviction on a charge of planning and/or preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in New Zealand is just too difficult. Only when an act of terrorism has been committed does the law have anything useful to contribute. The judge’s speculation that this weakness in New Zealand’s anti-terrorist legislation might turn out to be its “Achilles Heel” has been dramatically vindicated.

It's quite rightly an Achilles Heel because lawmakers would have to be damned careful - basically very prescriptive - in detailing exactly what planning and preparing mean. Found yourself on a blog thread, Social media message board or such sharing some thoughts with what turns out to be a Tarrant? Well, maybe you too could find yourself in the cross-hairs merely for what you said.

I could easily see hyperbolic sarcasm and Black Humour being twisted into "planning" by the security organs of the State. And before we dismiss that let's realise that our lawmakers to date have hesitated in this area likely because of such traps.

Which brings me to this:

Why nobody spotted this deficiency in the Terrorist Suppression Act 2002, which was passed by the New Zealand Parliament in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, remains a mystery. It is, after all, rather difficult to imagine how terrorism might be suppressed if, when preparations for launching a terrorist attack are detected, the loose wording of the Act effectively prevents the authorities from intervening until after the event had taken place.

This may come as a surprise to the Left in all its forms, but in the USA there were voices on the Conservative Right, not just Libertarians, who objected to the Patriot Act because they thought it was far too intrusive a State power to empower an engorge security institutions that had already failed. But those voices were dismissed as "Paleo-conservatives" by many in the GOP. It has been with some grim amusement that I've the light dawn for some the Right as they find themselves targeted by the forces they weaponised and now in the hands of the Democrats, the Jan 6 "insurrection" farce first and foremost as an example.

Perhaps instead of criticising our lawmakers for their understandable hesitation we should applaud them. This terrorist attack, and even the mass shooting of 2019, is not another 9/11 or even the other bombings that have happened around the world, and the last thing we need here is an NZ version of a knee jerk Patriot Act.

Chris Trotter said...

To: AB @ 10:27

You are correct, AB, we all come at issues from our own personal perspective. Unavoidable, I'm afraid, but at least partially ameliorated by letting people know from whence these opinions come - i.e. by putting your name to them.

As to your challenge about the Far Left being a straw man, I can assure you that this is far from the case. I could easily publish a list of the individuals and groups who leapt to the defence of the "Urewera 17" (as could you if you were willing to scour the mainstream press and the Internet for the relevant stories and posts) and it would more than justify the use of the term "Far Left". Involved in the campaign were Marxists, anarchists, extreme Maori nationalists, and firebrand mixtures of all three. Some are still very active, others have moved away from the spotlight. Personalising the debate by naming-names would not, however, be either fair or productive - hence my use of the "Far Left" descriptor.

As for my alleged "inconsistency", my reply would be "What inconsistency?" If ever proof was required that "Lone Wolf" actors cannot be stopped, this latest terrorist attack supplies it. Samsudeen made no attempt to hide either his beliefs or is intentions - and still he was able to inflict near fatal injuries on innocent citizens before being brought down. Tarrant was careful to fly well below the radar and was, consequently, effectively unstoppable.

Your claim that I have insisted that "lone wolf attacks such as Christchurch can't be prevented without the most egregious infringements of free speech rights - while a lone wolf attack such as New Lynn requires a forthright examination of the state's various failings" is without substance.

To the best of my knowledge, I have never argued that limiting free speech could in any way prevent a determined terrorist from carrying out his attack. This is not to say that the sad catalogue of judicial, bureaucratic and political blunders that made Samsudeen's attack possible do not merit the closest scrutiny. Accordingly, I would wholeheartedly support an official inquiry into the New Lynn attack, just as I wholeheartedly supported the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Mosque Shootings.

Finally, I feel compelled to draw attention to your own effort to minimise the efficacy of the Far Left by suggesting its numbers are tiny and its influence correspondingly miniscule. I strongly suspect you know full well that numbers are not always indicative of influence, and that your "garden shed" quip belongs in the same category as "harmless play-acting" - the Far Left equivalent of "Move along please, folks, there's nothing to see here."

Nick J said...

Interesting analysis Chris. It has never ceased to amaze me that those who call for the end of state repression are the first to implement it on regime change. Lenin managed to confirm the abolition of the death penalty then rescind that witin months.

The real problem with the extreme Left is that their constant failure to persuade results in them quickly moving to coercion and authoritarianism. What greater proof is there to the frailty of their arguments?

Gezza said...

Further to my very first comment, as the years have passed I've concluded that I always had some sympathy for Tame Iti & the Tuhoe & that even though Operation 8 & the judicial aftermath was a complete farcical national security cock up, it did at throw light upon a potentially dangrous insurrection before it went too far & that everybody pulled back from the brink & eventually reached a peaceful resolution with their settlement claim. The significance of Tame Iti firing his shotgun at the flag around then, which sent some pakeha into paroxyms of rage, I see now as a cultural gesture that seemed to be appropriate tikanga, like the haka & challenge at a powhiri.

Simon Cohen said...

Tom Hunter must be of the far right if he believes the January 6 insurrection farce was somehow instigated or weaponised by the Democrats.

greywarbler said...

I compare the extent that police were involved with a Russian ex-soldier in Christchurch in March 2019 who I think eventually committed suicide. He had been troublesome to them but I don't think it was any comparison to the Sri Lankan terrorist. Was there a division between police and Corrections response with the Sri Lankan?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/111596809/exrussian-soldier-dies-of-suspected-suicide-after-police-standoff-in-christchurch

greywarbler said...

Referring to Odysseus comment about serious threats from fervent believers. I have a book about the Christian Church attacking a group in France and wiping it out.* Wherever men or women feel that their inner beliefs or interests are being attacked they will respond. Tony Blair knows all about deadly attacks to support his own cause. What a weather-cock he is.

*Massacre At Montsegur: A History Of The Albigensian Crusade
https://www.hachette.com.au › Books › Zoe Oldenbourg
So began the Albigensian Crusade (named after the French town of Albi), which was to culminate in 1244 with the massacre of Cathars at the mountain...

Massacre At Montsegur: A History Of The Albigensian Crusade
https://www.paperplus.co.nz › books › history › general
28/10/2019 — In 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade against a country of fellow-Christians. The new enemy was Raymond VI, Count of, NON FICTION.

Chris Trotter said...

To: Barry.

Your comment was defamatory, it has been deleted.

Tom Hunter said...

Tom Hunter must be of the far right if he believes the January 6 insurrection farce was somehow instigated or weaponised by the Democrats

Weren't you the one on another thread whinging about Kat making attacks on you and others rather than engaging in argument?

Because if you'd care to re-read what I wrote it's quite clear that what I said was the GOP weaponised police agencies in the USA that are now being used to go after Democrat opponents in unethical ways.

Just in case you mis-read that, let me be quite clear that while I thought the Jan 6 invaders of the Capitol were dickheads, often led astray by conspiracy theories, they were not - as the hysterics had it - an "insurrection" of seditious people.

That hysterical claim of an armed mob trying to take down the US government was a deliberate and ongoing partisan effort by the Democrats to keep their GOP opponents on the back foot and has turned out not to be supported the facts of hundreds of people being charged with things like trespassing rather than sedition or treason.

But hey, the FBI has has classified the attack as an act of domestic terrorism, there's that. It must be the first such attack in history that had so many unarmed people walking around taking selfies inside rope lines.

I wonder what the US government agencies would have done if they'd had a repeat of the 1954 attack on Congress by Puerto Rican terrorists who actually opened fire on the floor of the House, injuring five congressmen.

As one of the defense lawyers has said (you know about them right? Very popular with the Left when challenging the State) said:
“If grandiose rhetoric was evidence, the Government’s case would be very strong,”

Yet even then, dozens of those arrested have had to be held in jail for months, often in solitary confinement before they finally pled guilty. We'll see what happens to the remaining few hundred, but I'm sure most will crack under the strain sooner or later. That's the sort of weaponisation I'm talking about.

Just as one example: remember the most iconic of those dickheads, the QAnon guy in the horned hat and half-dressed furs? Well his name is Jacob Chansley and...
oday pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

Chansley, 33, turned himself in to law enforcement and was arrested on January 9. A grand jury indicted Chansley two days later on six nonviolent counts including obstruction, civil disorder, and “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.” The remaining counts will be dropped.


Scary isn't he? And for that he's spent 8 months in jail. I doubt there are any other prisoners in the USA who have sat in jail for that long while facing mainly misdemeanor charges (despite being non-violent, obstruction is a felony).

Sounds like what a Far Right State would do to their political opponents, no?

Nick J said...

The famous event when Simon de Montfort when asked how to tell if you were slaughtering non heretics said, "Slaughter the lot, let God decide".

sumsuch said...

From the view from the moon, the apex of humans'interests, this doesn't matter at all. Versus the massacre at the mosque -- in a slight way. We keep concentrating on immediate things instead of ... reality.

Lists. The theology of'm. We start with the easiest instead of the most important. Hard-willed presbyterians do it the right way round.

It was the end when a fellow Scot sponsored out to NZ by my G.G. Uncle discovered you could put brown sugar on your porridge instead of salt on the voyage.

John Hurley said...


A women mentions a case where a father of 6 was picked up by the police ans children taken by Oranga Tamariki
A story I want to share is about six children who were swiftly taken away by Oranga Tamariki and the police at a Muslim school and taken into care. The father was looked at as a potential terrorist; radicalised and hence they decided to take the children away. I believe that if that demographic was different that if he was a Pakeha man Mum was a Pakeha mother the children were Pakeha he would have been put into mental health care but he was sent to prison
https://youtu.be/jKU8_xFeUWU?t=790

Also, the last section of the Counter terrorism hui is interesting. It's a Zoom with a NZr in Singapore where they have a "Center of Excellence" devoted to Countering violent extremism. Ours is to be based around te tiriti and te ao Maori. One questioner (Dr Justin Barry-Walsh - forensic psychiatrist) asks if they have evidence actually works and he was equivocal in his answer. Another asks about airing grievances which he hadn't heard of (or thought was interesting).

One thing he said in reply was that some people see that as part of the problem as well as the solution. I was reminded of Keith Ng and his mocking the National Front who were trying to pull an acceptable ideology together: "we're nationalists; don't stereotype us".

The third question was in relation to using te ao Maori framework and was Canada as useful model for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA0beQczYiY
I'm waiting for subtitles as the sound is poor but she talks about "building effective counter narratives" at the start and I am seeing something dreadful here.

John Hurley said...

I was (by mistake) a member of the Green Party at the time of the Urewera raids

As someone quite rightly put it last night....'if not one talks, everyone walks'.

It is not gossip it is fucken serious and some of our comrades are facing a long time behind bars, it would be good if people could remember that.

Now is an important time to remember AND PRACTISE those good old rules about security culture and solidarity!

The media are easy to ignore however the filth is a different story and it is likely that they will want to 'talk' to some people. If you are concerned about this and don’t know what your rights are etc... please seek the advise of an experienced activist who you TRUST. Maybe we need to have a workshop around this sometime in the next few days so that everyone is confident.

Love and solidarity!

Was posted on the Green Forum

JohnC said...

A recent article by activist Byron Clark claims that “conspiracy theorists appear to be trying to build a movement in rural New Zealand.”

The claim, published on Newsroom.co.nz, was based on a conversation between Agricultural Action Group’s Heather Meri Pennycook and Counterspin host Kelvyn Alp about the possibility of a farmers’ revolt that referred to firearms and resistance.

Counterspin host Kelvyn Alp stated today that he was referring to the Bolsheviks during the Communist revolution in Russia, and that it's true some grassroots, independent organisations who say they represent local communities may not be what they seem.

“I was referring to the murderous communists who targeted and massacred Russian farmers in the millions, who are best represented in New Zealand by Byron Clark and his comrades today.”

Alp said Clark had recently gained mainstream attention as an anti-racist activist in the wake of the March 15, 2019 terrorist attack on Christchurch by Australian psychopath Brenton Tarrant in which 51 Muslims were murdered. But the public needed to be made aware of Clark’s background, which called his motivations into question. Clark was connected to violent revolutionary extremists, including terrorist groups for whom he had actively raised money.

Clark stood for the Christchurch City Council and the mayoralty under the banner of the Communist Workers’ Party in 2007. He was heavily involved in organising Occupy Christchurch, a group of communists and conspiracy theorists who occupied Hagley Park for 160 days from 2011, who called for the overthrow of the government and remodelling of society.

The November 2011, edition of the Spark magazine, the Communist Workers’ Party’s mouthpiece until its breakup in 2013 and edited by Clark, promoted a fundraising drive for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 2011 the PFLP carried out terrorist attacks that led to the death or injury of dozens of Israelis. The PFLP was designated a terrorist organization by the US Department of State on the 10th of August 1997.

Clark’s magazine was named after Vladamir Lenin's first newspaper Iskra, or the Spark.

Former members of Clark’s party can be seen leading most of the revolutionary socialist actions by groups often and erroneously described as “grassroots” and “anti-racist” and “environmentalist” by newsreaders today, groups which have proliferated and expanded after securing significant foreign grants and being organised under the control of ActionStation and related groups over the past decade.

Those members include Simon Oosterman of Extinction Rebellion and School Strike 4 Climate, and Kassie Hartendorp, the current director of ActionStation. Hartendorp arranged financing and logistics for both the Ihumātao and the more recent “Protect Pūtiki” land occupations on Waihiki Island, in both cases under the gaze of her American handler Lev Woolf, although other local activists were presented as occupation leaders in both cases in the news. Hartendorp, like Clark, was also directly involved in fundraising for the PFLP.

Self-described anti-racist organisation Paparoa, which is often associated with Clark and reported on uncritically in the press, was set up by known Cold War-era agent of Moscow, Peter Hall-Jones. Hall-Jones joined the Soviet-backed Unity Party in the mid-80s. He was directly sponsored by them on trips to Moscow. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he spent much of his spare time recruiting delegates for communist youth festivals in Pyongyang, North Korea.

A tech wizard, Hall-Jones also heads the extremely influential but little-known New Unionism Network, a covert channel for socialist organizers that claims as members many prominent politicians around the world including New Zealand’s Minister for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS), Andrew Little.

John Hurley said...

Bryce Edwards @bryce_edwards
The debate over how the LynnMall terrorist attack could’ve been prevented has shifted [usual suspects] from “deportation & incarceration” to whether govt agencies should have been focused on “rehabilitation & deradicalisation”. Here's my roundup, published by the Herald:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/.../WPGAWPCGEZMHPJDYHL4NYWNJPY/
But
I could not point to a body of evidence that says that any of this uh definitely works um I think it's experimental um but I think it's important and I think that it can also have benefits beyond um solving terrorism right like even if it doesn't fix every terrorist or de-radicalize every violent extremist um I think that it can bring benefits uh like having uh different stakeholders work together on important social issues and and you know learn how best to work together um but yes as I also mentioned there are uh definite problems that can arise such as stigmatization which are clearly important to take into account as well at the front
https://youtu.be/NA0beQczYiY?t=1336

Guerilla Surgeon said...

The raids on Tuhoi were one of them more egregious over reaches of police power, and you don't have to be "extreme left" to realise that. A number of their actions were found by independent bodies to be not just unlawful, which might be a case for increasing the powers of the police, but also "unreasonable". The only other similar events I can think of other dawn raids on Pacific people, and the rest of that fact German guy who managed to buy his way into the country, whose name I can't be bothered looking up. The stupidity of the whole thing is reflected by the risible number of charges and convictions.
It's particularly disturbing that the iwi liaison officers were ignored, considering it's their job to be – well – iwi liaison. Even the police raids on camp David weren't as widespread and as far reaching as these, and there was a lot more evidence of complete nuttiness there.
All our laws are an attempt to balance rights and responsibilities, rights and practicalities, and it seems to me the evidence about "guerrilla activities" was really not strong enough for the reaction. There could be any number of reasons for playing soldiers, and in fact a number of conservatives on this site have suggested in years past that we should do it, because of the "danger of Chinese invasion".
Seems to me a case of what Bishop Arnaud Amalric allegedly said – "Kill them all – God will know his own." :)

Brendan McNeill said...

There was a time when I used to blog about Islam, holy jihad and terrorism as an Islamist tactic; the inevitability of such an attack on our soil.

I note the PM was cagey when asked how many other "lone wolves" there were in the NZ woods. She doesn't want to say and besides, she tells us that this attack was not linked to any religion.

It would be helpful if we could have an open and honest discussion about the Islamic doctrine of Jihad, and what that means for New Zealanders. There are moderate Muslims, thank God, and no doubt the overwhelming majority of Muslims in New Zealand fit that description, however there is no moderate Islam, at least according to Turkey's PM Erdogan:

"Speaking at Kanal D TV’s Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term “moderate Islam”, often used in the West to describe AKP and said, ‘These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007"

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/moderate-turkeys-moderate-pm-erdogan-explains-there-no-moderate-islam-andrew-c/

The Muslim scriptures and the example of their prophet Mohammad fully endorse and justify violent jihad as a means of bringing the infidel into submission. Muslim scholars at the Al-Azhar University and Mosque in Cairo refused to condemn ISIS as being 'Un-Islamic'.

We should pay closer attention.

The Barron said...

I guess you didn't notice the Confederate Battle Flag, the noose, the chanting to hang the Vice President and speaker, the bear spray, the use of poles to assault police, dedication in offices, and the stated aim to prevent the governmental bodies from confirming an election.

I take you at your word that you don't watch Fox News. Their indirect influence must be strong.

Unknown said...

Video in answer to TVNZ - Do de radicalisation initiatives work?
https://youtu.be/Dn0V5bOV4XM

thesorrow&thepity said...

The family of the dead terrorist stated that he was introduced to extremist content by a group of Iraqi & Syrians 'refugees'.
How many more asylum seekers are known to the Police for viewing islamic terrorist material? A question that our PM is keen to dodge as there's no decent photo ops for her.
Simple idea; an 'asylum seeker' caught with terrorist propaganda... immediate deportation... problem solved.

The fact that the liberal left would howl & cry over the inhumanity of such a policy says it all for how far gone they are on their woke Kool Aid

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"The fact that the liberal left would howl & cry over the inhumanity of such a policy says it all for how far gone they are on their woke Kool Aid"
You used the word fact. I don't think it means what you think it means.