Mao Tse Tung said "The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise." No s**t Sherlock, and to my mind (warped or otherwise) this is an "Extremist" attack, not a "Terrorist " attack. The difference being that if this was one of a series of bombs in, for example, discos or night clubs or on the Tube, then apart from the deaths and injuries the object of the attack would be to bring about a change in the life of the target country or an alteration of political direction.
IRA/INLA/RIRA/CIRA attacks in both Northern Ireland and the mainland had the ultimate aim of forcing the successive UK governments to hand the province over to Dublin or to give it independance.
The PLO hi-jacked aircraft belonging to European and American airlines with the intention of pressurising governments to in turn put pressure on Israel to change direction and ultimately leave the region.
Despite the political posturing on TV, this won't change anybody's mind on foreign policy. Although Al Queada (sp?) bombs changed Spanish government policy and in fact brought down the government, decades of ETA car bombs and assassinations didn't change its policy on the Basque region.
Irish Republicans didn't manage it in the UK either, nor did 9/11 and the original World Trade Centre bomb change US policy.....at least not in the way AQ wanted it to anyway.
There's no way this will stop the population from walking past the barracks nor army staff from being billeted there. Neither will it force HMG to suddenly withdraw from Afghanistan any sooner than it ultimately will. If it was terrorism, yesterday's appalling action will not cause people to cower in their houses nor cause a change in policy, so I think it was Extremism.
From what I've seen on the news it would appear to me that this was about the gesture and posturing. It looks to me as if they wanted to be killed, or Suicide by Cop if you like. Why else would you hang around and then approach a Police car with a firearm, which may, or may not have been real. It's gone slightly pear shaped for them because they seem to be still alive and assuming they stay that way, bang goes any hope of martyrdom and a shed load of virgins with it.
I'm not sure why it took the Cops 20 minutes to get there. There's not exactly a shortage of firearms officers in the Met and if one car arrived on its own it doesn't sound like a coordinated response either. Also, as Police officers are trained to shoot at the body mass, either she was a lousy shot, or a brilliant one who can wound and incapacitate two people.
I'm sure there would be difficulties, but how come a guard at the barracks didn't fire on the assailants, at least they would have become martyrs. The same thing seemed to happen at Maserine Barracks in Ulster. You can't arm off duty squaddies permanently but it seems bizarre that there've been 2 incidents right outside barracks that have resulted in the deaths of 3 soldiers without anyone attempting to protect them.
Semantics aside, if there is any terrorism subsequent to this, it may be the Muslim population that comes to be afraid if it turns out there's anyone sinister lurking behind the EDL idiots. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, we can only guess at what the family of that young man must feel with the way the incident has been played out in the media.
