Thoughts on Christchurch...

Been thinking a bit about the horror of the Christchurch terrorist incident, specifically the person who was responsible for the event.


If we look into his background, the usual stats appear


1. Young male. Under 30
2. Lack of formal education
2. Childhood trauma
3. Poor upbringing
4. Radicalised
6. Not married/no girlfriends
7. A lot of free time.


Now here is the average bio of just about every terrorist foot soldier, religious or otherwise.


A couple of issues though that differentiate this event from the usual.


1. Where did he get his combat training? Very difficult to kill 50 people in a short period of time, even with modern weaponry. I don't believe you can learn this stuff playing first person shooters on computers.
2. Planning. This wasn't a random event. It showed a fair bit of strategy...i.e the clothing and equipment; knowing the targets, the timing...Friday afternoon to maximise the number of people who would be in the mosque. Moving to a new mosque after the first to continue the killings..all show a fair bit of tactical and strategic awareness that you wouldn't expect from a personal training from Grafton.
3. The psyops component. Live streaming the event and the manifesto does elevate the localised  terrorist event into an international flashpoint.


It would appear to me that he has had some sort of assistance with his plot...either by people close to him, or the internet community. Which makes it even more of an intelligence/police stuff up.
Someone must have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the white supremacist movement in New Zealand.


But regardless, it is pretty clear that we now have two terrorist threats in the world going head to head. Islamic terrorism (waged by the radicals in the Sunni religion) and its counter, anti-Islamic terrorism (which seems to have be co-opted by the global white supremacy movement). Both using the remote radicalisation model to get people to commit acts of terror in their own backyards, with their own cells and means (with some remote strategic assistance) And its not going to end well.


Not sure about the answer...but like every answer to terrorism ever engaged in the world, it lies in the political sphere.


More needs to be done by our politicians to make us all feel secure and content. Over the last 20 years, our economy and social culture has been changing at breakneck speed. I think we need to take our foot off the accelerator and start consolidating the gains that have been made.