ONE of the most beautifully droll remarks from the age of terror was Bob Carr’s assessment of the unfortunate trajectory local lad David Hicks’ life took after he threw in his lot with the Taliban.

It came when Carr was foreign minister and facing an earnest grilling from sections of the press gallery about poor Hicks’ apparently illegal internment in Camp X-Ray and the five years he lost as a result. Carr was unmoved.

“If you do what David Hicks did you undertake certain risks,” Carr said.

“You put yourself in the line of fire-fighting a jihad against NATO forces, against Western forces, then your life becomes more complex.

“David Hicks did that and I think he accepts he has to live with the consequences.”

Life does indeed become more complex. Life became more complex for Numan Haider around dinner time on Wednesday. Life, in fact, came to an end.

It is probably inhumane to say that you are happy with such a result. I would be lying if I said I was upset by it. Under the circumstances it does seem like the best possible outcome, given the alternative outcome was two cops having their heads chopped off, just over the road from the Little Angels Childcare Centre in suburban Endeavour Hills.

But despite the fact that Haider had just repeatedly stabbed one officer and had started stabbing another, there are some in the community who regard him as the victim of a savage overreaction.

They’re not isolated to the rattier fringes of Australia’s Muslim communities, either, but proliferate among the hand-wringing class which wonders whether the whole thing was somehow cooked up to demonise Islam and drum up support for the terror laws.

The other inane rhetorical question is whether this signals that the Victorian Police are returning to “the bad old days” of shooting troubled people dead with the slightest provocation.

Most people would argue that it represents nothing of the sort but is a wholly defensible display of lethal force, based as it was on the twin premises of self-defence and national defence.

Aside from questioning the use of force by the police, apologists for Numan Haider also argue that the fact that he was under surveillance drove him to the edge. It is an absurd suggestion. The reason he was under surveillance is that there was already evidence that he was at the edge. Indeed the way things panned out on Wednesday it looks like the authorities were acting on a very reliable basis that this bloke was a card-carrying nutjob who would try to do harm.

His friends aren’t buying it on Facebook.

They include his best mate Abu Peter Bin Ryan, who described Haider as “A sincere brother I was with every day and always there to help brothers. I don’t know how life will be now without you. Your grave will have a window to paradise.”

There were more. Ali Hunter called for others to follow his lead. “We need more brothers like him,” she wrote. “Everyone else is a coward”.

Karim Bux couched his death as if it were the result of some kind of Dandenong intifada. “You cancelled his passport, you have taken his land and when he didn’t give up you killed him”.

Jaffar Baj is either a poor typist or knows little about human anatomy, but he wrote: “My hearts (sic) sunk when I heard of his passing. The last time I saw him he was smiling in prayer with me. I will never forget his smile”.

The cops probably won’t forget his smile either as they made the near-fatal error of agreeing not to meet him in the police station but the car park, where he was waiting with a dagger and an ISIS flag.

Life gets more complex. In this case one ended. Of the three it was the right one.

Well I most certainly have not been an apologist of any kind. That said, the quote below is the point whereby the OP lost me...

I made a post (yep one single post) about my thoughts on this on one of the other (funny how there are always more than one thread for each and every morsel of debate...) threads a day or so ago.

"I would be lying if I said I was upset by it. Under the circumstances it does seem like the best possible outcome, given the alternative outcome was two cops having their heads chopped off, just over the road from the Little Angels Childcare Centre in suburban Endeavour Hills."

From the moment this meeting was set up, there was not going to be any "best" outcome, it is that simple.

Certainly I do not entertain the daft notion that the cops should have had their heads chopped off, for example. However, unlike the OP, I can also feel some regret/remorse, if not for the thug with the knife, then at least for his family (yep, even the lowest scum on the earth have people who love them, well sometimes at least...).

Perhaps the heading should be the Right outcome, it seems to be those right leaning (you know, the low wage conservatives) who are trying hand over fist to frame this as something of a "good" or "positive" or "right" outcome.

The right outcome would have involved no one being killed or injured. Sadly us human's are neither smart enough or, it seems, compassionate enough to recognise and advocate for that.

Like I said in my other post, the poor copper who pulled the trigger, I would argue would not agree it was the right outcome, and, despite his shot leading directly to his own life being saved, survivor guilt will no doubt haunt him for most (if not the rest) of his days. Is that honestly the "right" outcome?

Calling it such, no matter how "thoughtfully" the rest of the OP is couched, is, in effect, being the cheer squad for the bloke being killed. Honestly, that is a pretty base position to take.

It is not good that the two cops got stabbed, nor is it good that a young life was taken...

The difference between me and the average target for this type of thread though, I realise that the cop made the best possible choice left available to him at the time, under extreme pressure. It sure would have been nice if he could have "Hollywooded" it and either tasered the bloke down or shot him in the leg - but that is just for the movies in reality.

I am afraid the original author of the OP is in that category for me of not worth a rating...

You should paste a link to other peoples work Longy.....

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/david-penberthy-police-reaction-to-nu...

adelcrow wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 5:28pm:



Police make no mention of the culprit carrying any ISI Flag, yet Penberthy does. makes Penberthy a liar or ill qualified for journalism!

Phemanderac wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 4:22pm:



this kid went to the meeting with the intention to kill.  That is rather clear.  With that motive in mind, being shot during such an act is not to be overly criticised.  Just as Carr said, when you go on the path of terrorism then rules get a lot more complex and the price usually very high. He paid the ultimate price, but it was HE who went shopping.

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 5:58pm:



What clarified it for you?

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 5:59pm:



The answer is that Penberthy is a lying blowhard.

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 5:59pm:



Please share.