When Tony Abbott says that terrorists are not targeting us for what we have done, but for who we are, he is wrong. It's primarily because of our foreign policies, writes Sebastian Dixon.

October 12, 2002: On the Indonesian island of Bali, a car bomb is detonated, killing 202 people, the vast majority of whom were Westerners, and injuring 240 more. Those held responsible for the attack were members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical Indonesian Islamic sect.

May 22, 2013: In London, two men brutally kill Fusilier Drummer Lee Rigby in broad daylight with knives and a cleaver. They attempt to decapitate the man, but are unable to, so leave his body on the pavement and speak to passers-by while they wait for police to arrive. The two men had converted to Islam as adults.

What do these attacks tell us about the motivation of terrorists - and indeed terrorism in general? Are we to believe that terrorists kill innocent people because they enjoy killing Westerners? Is Islamic State a "murderous death cult" as Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been at pains to repeat since the group and its allies took Mosul earlier this year?

The answer is no.

There is a gulf between the public perception of terrorism and prevailing scholarly opinion on the subject. It is generally held by academics and in the intelligence community that terrorists are rational and driven by strategic goals - not blind hatred or dogma.

Take the examples above. What is lost in the coverage of these attacks and terrorism more broadly is an exploration of the motivations.

Australians were the principal targets of the Bali Bombings, with 88 of the 202 fatalities coming from Australia. However, it was not for the colour of our skin, our ratification of the UDHR, women's suffrage or "The Loco-motion" that the bombs were detonated.

The motivation was clearly articulated in a message broadcast by Al Jazeera, purportedly from Osama bin Laden himself. In the recording, he gave clear reasons for the attacks: support for the US-led War on Terror and Australia's role in the liberation of East Timor from a Muslim nation, Indonesia.

Similarly, the motivations behind the murder of Lee Rigby are quite plain. One of the attackers, Michael Adebolajo, asked a pedestrian to film his statement and in it he is categorical:

The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers ... So what if we want to live by the Sharia in Muslim lands? Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us?

Judge the motivations of each attack as you may, but they are not simply because the only good Westerner is a dead Westerner. The victims were targeted primarily because of their governments' foreign policies.

So, when Prime Minister Abbott says that "terrorists and would-be terrorists are not targeting us for what we have done or for what we might do, they are targeting us for who we are", he is wrong. When you consider that this sentence was uttered in the course of all-but committing Australian combat troops to Iraq to fight IS, it becomes disingenuous.

However, the Prime Minister took this rhetoric a step further when he addressed the Parliament: "Groups such as ISIL will cite our involvement but they would attack us anyway for who we are and for how we live, not for anything we have done."

Why should terrorists, who brazenly kill (often innocent) people and want you to know they did it, make up an excuse? Are we to believe that they're happy to kill Westerners, but they don't want to upset the West by telling us the real reason?

This is nonsense.

At what point did Islamic State militants begin decapitating Westerners? When the US began its campaign of air strikes on IS targets. What reason did the black-clad perpetrators and their victims give for the decapitations? Because the US had begun its campaign of air strikes on IS targets.

The Government has an interest in portraying the terrorist threat as high and terrorists as irrational serial killers, because it gives the impression that our involvement in combating Islamic State militants won't raise our profile as a target because, according to Mr Abbott, they already hate us and want to kill us.

Meanwhile, Australia shores up our alliance with the United States and we contribute to the re-liberation of Iraq - both good things.

The Australian public needs to understand that this is not accurate, that this policy preference will increase the likelihood of an attack targeting Australians.

Islamic State is a monstrous organisation, but their behaviour is both rational and predictable. Prime Minister Abbott is right to call them evil. However, their actions to date, their nuanced media strategy, and yes, even the beheadings demonstrate that they are a rational, strategic, goal-oriented organisation.

The public must be aware that psychological warfare is being waged against them.

We should contribute to the US efforts against Islamic State forces with the full knowledge that there will be costs. Not because we have no choice, but because it is worth the costs.

Sebastian Dixon is a web publisher in the ABC's Radio Current Affairs department. View his full profile here.