John McCain
Now to get to the guts of the matter and what follows is not especially calculated to raise spirits but it needs to be said…
Read Part 1 here:
Arson, arseholes and the law Part Two
The ugly downside of bushfires
http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/victorian-bushfires.jpg
Now to get to the guts of the matter and what follows is not especially calculated to raise spirits but it needs to be said. That very same friend of mine mentioned earlier, who will remain nameless, was once described in a work setting as “the King’s messenger.” Asked by the head of his department why he only presented himself when there was bad news, his pithy reply was: “because I’m not afraid of you.” And unfortunately, there is a tendency in Australia to stigmatize those who bring bad news, notwithstanding the fact that the media in general are bottom-feeders on death and tragedy.
To its credit, in general terms the behaviour of the Australia media was creditable. I found better coverage from satellite TV and that is to be expected as they are further removed from the problem and have very little experience of this type of situation. I suppose there is a place for weeping relatives telling the tales of those lost; blackened fire-fighters; pictures of field kitchens and temporary accommodation and above all, the charity and generosity of the general population in helping out with clothing, material, toys and especially money. Being very cynical about the motives of supermarkets, I think the decision by Coles to donate a day’s profits to the victims appeal was a good example of what it means to be a responsible corporate citizen.
Man and fire – an uneasy and unequal partnership
The book of Greek myths tells of Prometheus who gave fire to man and paid for it by being chained to a rock by the Gods on Olympus and some quite graphic pictures show a semi-nude muscular man being attacked by crows, who would presumably target his eyes first. I can’t recall the Bible saying that God gave fire to man. While there is no concrete evidence, palaeontologists and social anthropologists are increasingly drawn to the view that Neanderthal man (Homo neanderthalensis)) and what we might call modern man (Homo sapiens) both used fire. A Kiwi friend of mine informed me that the Maori people, like Australian aboriginals used fire not only to cook but also to flush out animals from the scrub to be killed for food. I mention this only in passing because Australasia is home to native peoples who retain racial memories of such events.
The more modern hunters flushed out game by weight of numbers, the use of dogs and better weapons. When modern hunters use fire, it is more likely to be used for cooking and although I have not personally had the experience, I’m told that kangaroo and wallaby are very good when cooked over an open fire. I make that observation only to draw the link between man and fire.
As a species, our attraction to fire is primal and how many kids, especially boys, would be prepared to swear an oath to the effect that they had never played around with magnifying glasses and paper on a hot sunny day. I had the somewhat dubious distinction of having my school cap catch fire while it was lying in a rack adjacent to a sports facility, where someone had brought along a projector lens to show people and carelessly left it in the sun. That may sound like a tall tale but it is perfectly true. Little kids often play with boxes of matches and I imagine that the statistics for children caught by their parents in the act or taken to hospital for burn treatment would be extremely difficult to collect. But we are talking about a much more sinister and premeditated act, which we call arson. It is extremely important to distinguish between arson and pyromania, which are often confused in the public mind.
The sickness of pyromania
Pyromania is defined as a pattern of deliberate setting of fires for pleasure or satisfaction derived from the relief of tension experienced before the fire-setting. The name of the disorder comes from two Greek words that mean “fire” and “loss of reason” or “madness.” The clinician’s handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also known as the DSM, classifies pyromania as a disorder of impulse control, meaning that a person diagnosed with pyromania fails to resist the impulsive desire to set fires – as opposed to the organized planning of an arsonist or terrorist. In short, a pyromaniac setting fires derives gratification and a form of satisfaction in a small percentage of individuals.
A US report notes that while pyromania is “a rare disorder in adults, repeated fire-setting at the adolescent level is a growing social and economic problem that poses major risks to the health and safety of other people and the protection of their property. In the United States, fires set by children and adolescents are more likely to result in someone’s death than any other type of household disaster. The National Fire Protection Association stated that for 1998, fires set by juveniles caused 6,215 deaths, 30,800 injuries, and $11 billion in property damage.” With regret, I have been unable to find comparable Australian figures and the US figures given in the report are over a decade old.
(http://www.nfpa.org/index.asp) Pyromaniacs are by definition mentally ill and deserve to be treated as such. These people are sick and detention may well be the only reasonable course of action but pyromaniacs as noted in the DSM suffer from a disorder of impulse control, and it is important to distinguish them from arsonists.
Arson, Arsonists and arseholes – part of the Australia condition
What then of those who deliberately and callously light fires? Perhaps they don’t really intend to fires to get away and people to be killed but arsonists are officially defined as those who maliciously and deliberately set fire to structures or wild land (wilderness) areas. Arson is a crime: arsonists are criminals and where life is lost, they become, by definition murderers.
Listening to accounts by fire-fighters (and I abhor the practice of calling them “firies”) and members of the general public involved in heroic and often futile attempts to stop the firestorm that swept through Victoria, it was fairly easy for the practiced ear to detect the full range of human emotions – rage, anger, helplessness, hopelessness, frustration, grief — need I go on? The human toll of 181 deaths on February 15 far surpasses the number killed because being caught and surviving such events wreak a terrible havoc on victims and fire-fighters alike – the psychological damage and associated costs will be enormous and many lives ruined.
As I wrote this article, I heard an official state that the final toll could exceed 200, possibly more, when more remote dwellings are taken into account and in a particularly horrible phrase: “when all the sheets of corrugated iron are turned over.” In a professional capacity, I have visited crime scenes but thankfully nothing on the scale of what I would call a holocaust; but that is politically incorrect. I can tell you that the stench of roasted flesh is far from pleasant and lingers in the nostrils, no matter where you go or what you do afterwards.
Government response was two-pronged: a Royal Commission headed by Retired Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague, assisted by former Commonwealth ombudsman Ron McLeod and the State Services Authority commissioner Susan Pascoe will assist Mr Teague. In 2003 Mr McLeod headed an inquiry into the operational response to Canberra’s bushfires.An interim report is expected by August.
The commission has been instructed to investigate all matters it deems to be relevant to the blazes. (User submitted: Glenn Talaue)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/16/2492692.htm
Commissioner Nixon outlined Operation Phoenix, mentioned earlier, on TV in broad detail. I’m not altogether sure that I agree with revealing the full details of how these investigations are conducted but the truth is out there and to use a popular phrase; it’s hardly rocket science. Attempts were made to locate the source of each file and its cause, using the tried and tested grid system and it did not take forensic specialists long to determine that some files had been deliberately lit. Fairly early on in the piece, it was announced that two men had been apprehended and taken in for questioning, only to be subsequently released.
The first apparently fire-related arrest came later, within a week. The news that a suspected arsonist has been apprehended and taken to Melbourne for his own safety will no doubt please many people. But it is hard to believe on the basis of what I have seen and heard reported, that only one arsonist was involved. Many people are very angry and the arrested man from the Latrobe Valley, a 39-year-old, certainly needs protection and whether we like it or not, he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence until he appears before the court. Not that that stopped The Australian and other papers reporting that the person in custody allegedly used light fires in his backyard on a regular basis, setting fire to tyres that filled the immediate neighbourhood with noxious smoke. The accused was held in connection with the fires at Churchill that killed 21 people, which by extension means the authorities are looking for more suspects.
Despite the media ban, the national paper reported that police sources claimed he was a loner: “whose only friend was his mother,” and furthermore that he had been rejected as a Country Fire Authority volunteer. Both The Australian of February 15 and the Sunday Herald Sun went into considerable detail about the man and his background and of course, the residents of Churchill know who he is and all about his family.
Being a pretty reasonable profiler, although without the benefit of FBI training, I can say with confidence that the description in the press was hardly surprising. Many arsonists are rejects from the fire services. They are often almost hypnotically fascinated by fires, which produce smoke as well as flames. Apart from the backyard fires, it was fairly easy to predict other interests, especially the possession of child pornography. The Sunday Herald Sun noted that: “On an American social networking site, the man said his status was that “no one love (sic) him” in a post made 23 days ago. Though the man had no friends listed on his Facebook site, on his American website he had 1009 friends – mostly women in seductive poses, including those listed as his “groupies”. His group memberships on the site included “teens (13-19)” and “Flirts (singles only!!!)” while his list of causes included helping the homeless and animals.” I would like to be a fly on the wall during his psychological evaluation.
A court ban on his identity being released to the press was lifted on February 16, by Magistrate Klestadt who ruled against the prosecution and defence on the matter, on the grounds that his identity would be leaked soon enough and he wanted to discourage vigilantism. Brendan Sokaluk of Churchill will appear in court in May and remains in protective custody. However, as I noted earlier police are looking for more suspects.
This story and the ongoing investigations will have legs as they say in the trade. The last figure of 181 dead will probably be surpassed and the investigations will last for months before anyone comes to trial. Very wisely, Commissioner Nixon asked for people to remain calm and avoid vigilantism. As a student of mob behaviour, I quite often used to shudder when stories of murders, especially of young children, occurred in small towns in New South Wales. I distinctly recall TV footage of the local “lockup” surrounded by an angry mob yelling for blood and revenge. Inevitably the accused was taken away under heavy police guard to face the courts in Sydney.
But the instinctive reaction to murder in a small town is not terribly different from the instincts and feelings articulated by those affected by the Victorian bushfires. In one radio interview, an unidentified man was asked about whether the fires were deliberately lit and in the course of his reply, he suggested very strongly that anyone caught lighting a fire could expect scant mercy. I’m not sure whether I had someone else refer to the term “barbecuing the bastard on his own fire,” because by then even someone as case-hardened as me was reeling from shock. Of course some of those people who reside in Churchill and surrounding areas would have liked to get their hands on the suspect. One press comment makes reference to hanging him – he should be so lucky.
In many respects, I am of the old school despite education, training and experience. There are certain sub-species of humanity whose behaviour appears to me to be almost incomprehensible and while I would hate to see the type of scenario once favoured in Westerns, of a lynch mob, I can understand the dynamics behind the action. I feel a violent antipathy towards paedophiles and my feelings are not in any way diminished by the knowledge that this is a sickness that spreads throughout what some people refer to as the establishment and includes people who are household names. I have the same feelings towards arsonists except that they are more likely to be loners, like the man arrested, find it difficult to make friends or establish relationships; are awkward in social settings; have learning difficulties and sexual dysfunction. The list of indicators is virtually endless and that is where the professionals come into their own.
The fires and the arseholes
Size and damage really make no difference to the way the media treats tragedies on this scale. Without any proof whatsoever, the indescribable Piers Akerman wrote a highly inflammable article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of February 10, 2009, entitled “Arson is pure terrorism.” I tend to pass by the dribblings of this idiot whom some regard as a respectable voice of conservatism. No, he’s not respectable and not conservative but a reactionary.
Pointing out the painfully obvious, namely that the toll of the bushfires was already greater than Australian deaths in the two Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005, he went on to say: “yet we know less about the home-grown terrorists responsible than we do about the Balinese bombers. It’s time Australians turned their attention to arson and how arsonists are treated, and whether, on this continent, an act of arson should be considered in the same light as an act of terrorism or at the very least, attempted murder. Treating arson as terrorism should not be a huge leap, given that a group of Islamic extremists last year singled Australia out as a target for “forest jihad” as a weapon of terror.”
The ramifications of this charge need to be thought through very carefully. There have been reports dating from 2003 that Al Qaeda has suggested that bushfires are a legitimate weapon against the infidel. For those interested, it was reported in a subscription only US Internet site that Australian authorities had launched an investigation that Al Qaeda planned to spark the bushfires in a new wave of devastating terror attacks. Not unsurprisingly, the report dealt more with bushfires in the US and Israel. On September 7, 2008, The Age carried an article: Islam group urges forest fire jihad.” The report drew attention to a website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, which argued in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the “eye for an eye” doctrine.
The Age went on to say; “The posting – which instructs jihadis to remember “forest jihad” in summer months – says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that “this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time”.
“Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires,” the website says. “You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia.”
Precisely and indeed Attorney-General Robert Mc Clelland was reported as saying that the federal government remained digital against such threats and anyone caught lighting fires a weapon of terror would feel the wrath of anti-terror laws.
While The Age article appears to have attracted very little comment, Akerman has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Described by a student newspaper as sick and well known for right-wing racist views, he was charged with stepping over the line in his exploitation and abuse of the tragedy of those who died and those who have survived but lost everything. http://atheonews.blogspot.com/. This is the usual sort of stirring one associates with Akerman and after admitting that there is too little research into arson, he went on to quote Dr. Rebekah Dokey, an assistant professor at Queensland’s Bond University, “who has conducted a score or more interviews with convicted arsonists and believes a national research project is necessary to assist authorities combat this crime.”
Making sensationalist claims without any proof at all that fundamentalist Muslims had a hand in the Victorian bushfires serves no useful purpose. It is hate-mongering or racial vilification at its worst. Akerman would no doubt take great offence to the description of him as a fat white slug; too idle to get out of his chair and what that means for the profession of journalism. His claims serve only those whose objective is more civil strife. Unfortunately, he is read and taken seriously by too many people. In the very worst situation uninformed and malicious comment could provoke a backlash against various communities and at the same time, add credence to al Qaeda claims that one match is a very effective jihadist weapon.
We should also we aware of the damaging claims made on Jihadist websites and repeated elsewhere: http://homelandsecurityus.com;
Australian Wildfires Could Fuel ‘Forest Jihad’ Terrorists, Experts Say http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490306,00.html and we should be very aware of websites apportioning blame.
Conclusion
This has been a very long article but I want to conclude by stating that while I have praised the authorities for their wonderful work following the bushfires, the public has not been given sufficient information, especially statistical details about suspicious fires. A more recent research document entitled: “Using crime prevention to reduce deliberate bushfires in Australia” by Damon A. Muller under the aegis of the Australian Institute of Criminology makes very sober and disturbing reading: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/98/
At the outset, I mentioned a distinct lack of fundamental research on bushfires, their causes and related matters. Dr. Muller holds a PhD in Criminology from the University of Melbourne and I have never met him. His paper is worth reading but like so many publications today, it takes a certain type of statistical evidence before any prominence is given to the subject matter; something I find deplorable.
The attention-grabbers in the abstract of his article are that on the basis of previous ACI research (which I’ve already described as deficient) approximately half of all vegetation fires in Australia each year (between 20,000 – 30,000 – a figure open to interpretation because it implies a minimum of 20,000 and a maximum of 30,000, leaving 10,000 open to question) are deliberately lit. The kicker is that arson costs the Australia and community 1.6 billion annually. Bean-counters love these figures and at the risk of being superficial, that cost alone should stimulate further research because the same figure was used in the previous report mentioned earlier and it suggests that our so-called social scientists and forensic specialists, especially those of an academic bent, spend far too much time shining the seats of their pants and discussing postmodernism and deconstructionism without getting their hands and clothes dirty; enduring the privations of fieldwork and providing psychiatrists and psychologists with more data to fill what is very obviously a knowledge gap in the study of arson.
This is a deplorable situation in the world’s driest and most fire-prone inhabited continent. It is high time that more research funding was directed to empirical research and report writing. No matter what we find, the rule of law must apply and we should not allow ourselves to be pushed back into the past by the forces of darkness.
John McCain
