Commonalities among Various Terrorist Operations

  At the Sydney siege

by Elias Davidsson

Editor’s Note: This is the Foreword to Mary W Maxwell’s book “Inquest: Siege in Sydney,” written by Davidsson who has studied many terrorists incidents.

This book demonstrates that the fear from terrorism did not skip Australia.  But terrorism is not limited to what lonely or depressive individuals wish to impose on us. The most potent form of terrorism is that planned and executed by cool minds in comfortable offices for strategic reasons and profit — in short, by governments.

Maxwell’s book suggests that the incident at the Café Lindt in Sydney belonged to the category of terrorism often designated as “false-flag” terrorism, or simply covert state terrorism.  False-flag operations are planned and executed covertly under the auspices of state agencies but staged to appear as authentic terror.

The purpose of false-flag operations is to generate public revulsion towards those who are presented as the perpetrators and their alleged cause. Such revulsion provides governments with popular legitimacy to proceed with foreign or domestic measures, that they would hardly be able to adopt otherwise.

During the Cold War in Europe, NATO organized and trained terrorist cells, operating under the code-name Gladio. They carried out bloody terrorist operations attributed publicly to leftist organisations – in order to diminish the attraction of Communist parties.

The existence of the Gladio network was revealed by no less than Italy’s Prime Minister Andreotti in a speech to the Italian parliament in 1990. It was followed by a resolution of the European Parliament calling on all its members to dissolve these secret networks and reveal what they did during the Cold War. Only Switzerland, Italy and Belgium complied, and only partly.

Creating and maintaining the perception of a fictional threat is thus a well-established method of governance.

The present study by Mary Maxwell raises two sets of questions. The first one is what motivated Monis, the accused, to carry out the reported operation, if he acted alone. The second is whether the police or other unidentified actors, were involved in facilitating this operation.

Mary Maxwell has ranged broadly, in her typical way, in attempting to tackle this forensic question. As state authorities do not relish disclosing all the evidence, she cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt the role of the State in staging the Sydney siege, but she provides sufficient evidence to presume such a role.

Her strong conviction is manifested by her courage to openly accuse her government for this criminal operation. I find her accusations justified and join myself to her accusations.

Was the Sydney siege a sui generis attack committed for domestic reasons (or private motives), or part of a global strategy that transcends Australia?

The 1990s were used to build up that enemy perception, including the promotion of icon Osama Bin Laden. American strategists realized however, that absent a traumatic event, akin to Pearl Harbor, it would be difficult to rally the population behind an aggressive and focused policy. That traumatic event is now known as 9/11, a brilliantly staged horror show that made US citizens support war and restrictions on their own liberties.

There are commonalities between the various terrorist operations carried out in recent years. Let me list some:

1. In virtually all major terrorist operations since 9/11 (outside zones of armed conflict), the alleged perpetrators died. We are told that the suspect killed himself or was killed by police forces acting in self-defense. Typically, no independent person witnesses the circumstances. We have only self-serving testimonies by anonymous police officials to go by.

Note: if these operations had been committed by authentic militants, one would expect public authorities to do all they could to capture the suspects alive in order to question them, describe their modus operandi, reveal financial sources, and explain their motives.

2. Despite police forces and commandos possessing a vast arsenal of non-lethal means (such as tear gas or smoke bombs) with which to neutralize dangerous individuals, these have not been employed. It follows that that death of the “terrorist” was desired.

3. Investigations are not done properly. For authorities striving to establish the truth about a terrorist incident, the death of the suspected perpetrator represents a loss. For authorities implicated in the crime, it is, however, a boon: The suspect cannot be brought to court and cannot, therefore, spill the beans or demonstrate that he had been framed. Also, relevant information becomes “classified”.

Even in those few cases where an investigation or inquest had taken place after a terrorist incident, it is marred by omissions, irregularities or worse. The work of the 9/11 Commission is a sorry case in point. None of these investigations were in any way impartial and independent.

4. Another similarity between many (though not all) of the terrorist operations is that the alleged perpetrators had been previously known by the police or by intelligence services, and were no pious Muslims. Their personal and legal vulnerability makes such individuals easy to recruit to serve as patsies.

5. A further common feature of numerous recent terrorist cases is that they were not claimed by any bona fide organisation nor accompanied by a clear political demand, both of which are hallmarks of an authentic terrorist operation. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are certainly not bona fide organisations:

Statements allegedly issued by these entities cannot be authenticated, their leaders cannot be questioned, they possess no physical address, telephone number, or website, they have no recognized manifesto or program that details their objectives.

There exists circumstantial evidence that statements and videos allegedly published by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are actually produced by US and British corporations. These “jihadist” products may be distributed to media by Zionist outfits such as SITE Intelligence Group, Jihadology, and IntelCenter.

The Sydney siege appears to me, therefore, as a contribution by the Australian government to the aforementioned global strategy, namely the maintenance of the fiction of a global Islamic terrorist threat.

The Security Council of the United Nations claims periodically that international terrorism represents “one of the most serious threats to peace and security.” To the eminent members of the Security Council I bring some news.  Had they examined global and regional statistics on terrorism, they would have discovered that the effects of terrorism outside zones of armed conflict – authentic and synthetic combined – are statistically very small.

While it cannot be excluded that occasionally a crazed person would kill someone and claim he acted in the name of Islam, such rare cases do not threaten peace and security. Their effects are even negligible in comparison to ordinary crime.

A last observation relates to citizens’ investigations, such as the one undertaken here by Dr Maxwell. Although it is tempting to dig into each case of a suspected false-flag operation, I argue that the case has been sufficiently made: Western governments engage in a long-term policy of maintaining the fiction of a global Islamic terrorist threat.

Spending efforts to forensically examine each case of suspected false-flag attack, is therefore superfluous. Identifying typical hallmarks of a false-flag operation should by now suffice for presuming state complicity. The onus must be on state authorities to debunk this presumption of guilt by proving their good faith.

While “presumptions” are not sufficient for a legal case, they are sufficient to put state authorities on notice as the main suspects.

Regarding the contrived justifications for wars and for establishing the infrastructure of an Orwellian state, citizens should name and shame those responsible for promoting the legend of 9/11 and the fiction of a global Islamic terrorist threat. They should demand the removal of such persons from positions of influence.