Was Haron Monis really a terrorist?

Let me begin by saying I’m not prepared to excuse Haron Moris’ actions in anyway. The man was a coward who took a shotgun to innocent civilians. A nasty, bigoted, violent man who terrorized pregnant women for seventeen hours and unnecessarily humiliated the rest of his hostages who were just going about their daily business.

But to call him a terrorist, even though he did wave Islamic flags around, is completely ridiculous. His “action” was completely disorganized and the outburst of a man with a diseased mind, who it seems was facing some fairly serious Goal time for dirty little crimes against women and complicity in his wife’s murder.

Of course there will sadly be a minority of troubled people in the Australian Islamic community who will see him as some kind of hero. This disturbing aspect of the Arabic mentality came to light during the second Iraq war: there is just as much respect to be earned from standing up to a significant enemy and being defeated as there is to defeating one.

However I would tend to believe that even these people can see the ridiculous and pathetic nature of the Martin Place siege. Taking hostages in a little suburban coffee shop with a shotgun from under the bed is hardly comparable to teams of organized Terrorists laying siege to an American Embassy with sub-machine guns!

Indeed this was more a case of “suicide by police” in which the perpetrator “uses” the police to take his life when he is too cowardly to do it himself.

This was just a small, angry little man who was eaten up by his selfish bigoted ideas. A sex offender and murderer trying to improve his self esteem by trying to make his last day on earth make him look like something he was not.

Haron was always something of a big mouth, grandstanding outside various showboat court appearances, trying to force his twisted interpretation of Islam onto everyone and just basically draw attention to himself.

A lot has been said of the police failing to provide him with an IS flag when asked, but this begs the question: if he was such a committed terrorist taking it to the state why did he not take one with him?! I think the answer lies in the fact that this was a completely random act and trying to get publicity for it as some type of Terrorist attack was just a distorted after thought.

The manager of Lindt Cafe who died trying to take the firearm off this crazy man is truly worthy of being called a hero; unlike those we are often encouraged to see as national hero’s – listen to Ray Hadley..if you believe him he resolved the whole siege and deserves a medal! Tori Johnson was a truly brave man who died a good death with all the honor Monis did not have.