September 10, 2004

JAKARTA ATTACK LATEST

The Australian: "A massive car bomb was detonated outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta yesterday, killing at least 11 people, including children, and wounding hundreds just weeks from the federal election and days before the third anniversary of the September 11 US terrorist attacks."

The Sydney Morning Herald: "Indonesia's national police chief has accused the man who built the Bali and Marriott hotel bombs of carrying out the huge blast that killed at least 11 people and wounded as many as 139 at Australia's embassy in Jakarta yesterday."

• Former head of the Defence Department's international policy and strategy division Allan Behm: "There are more people with more anger seeking to direct their anger at us for what they think is a war against Islam. We know it's not but that's how it's represented in much of the Islamic press."

AAP: "A five-year-old Australian girl was critically injured and her Indonesian mother killed in the bomb blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta."

Meru: "I'm looking for my family."

The Australian's Greg Sheridan: "It is time to accept that we are a high priority target for radical Islamist terrorism. It is also clear that JI knows all about the Australian election timetable and that the timing of this bombing is no accident."

• Australian National University's director of terrorism studies Clive Williams: "I think (the embassy was a target) probably because of our pressure on the Indonesians to keep (Abu Bakar) Bashir in jail; the fact that we have been co-operating very closely with the Indonesian police in terms of pursuing JI."

• Labor leader Mark Latham: "These were people - some of them, it seems, security guards - there trying to defend our interests in Jakarta. It is time to pay our respects. Others were just passers-by. That is the horror, the blatant stupidity of terrorism ... As I said a few days ago in response to the tragedy in Russia, it does shake your faith in human nature, but it also doubles your resolve and strength to deal with evil, so that you can build a world that has freedom and the basic decency of respecting each other as human beings."

• Jakarta housewife Ibu Martono: "We're beyond angry. I want to kill those who did this."

The Age's Tony Parkinson: "After each atrocity, a similar pattern of argument emerges: that Spanish commuters paid for their government's folly in Iraq; that holiday-makers in Bali were violating Muslim sensitivities; that office workers in New York were legitimate targets, as proxies for US policy in the Middle East. This business of attributing culpability to the targets of terror, directly or indirectly, is obnoxious. Worse, it leads into a metaphysical funk: paralysis via analysis."

• Indonesian guard Siti Riani: "My friend Anton just died, my friend Anton just died. He was a security guard."

• Jakarta Man in comments: "My house is 500m from the bomb site. My son is at the Aussie school in Jakarta. To the fellow saying 'our government must start to understand why islamic extremists hate us so much', I say 'fuck you and all your kind.'"

• Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa: "The victims here are ordinary Indonesians. We cannot reduce the nature of the threat only to foreign envoys or foreign governments. We are all potential victims."

Posted by Tim Blair at September 10, 2004 04:32 AM
Comments

Thank you, Australia, for standing tall in the War.
We in the U.S.A. realize that this puts your interests in the crosshairs.
And, of course, a moment of silence for the poor civilians who all too often are slaughtered by the ROPMA (Religion of Peace...My Ass!)

Dave in NY

Posted by: remove<@optonline.net">Dave at September 10, 2004 at 05:12 AM

How can that fucking gutless Mark Latham have the balls to say "it also doubles your resolve and strength to deal with evil" when he has been no more then an apologist for the terrorists. Mark has been on the side of the "what have we done to deserve this crowd" for a long time. It's time for this poofter to be outed for what he really is.

Posted by: swassociates at September 10, 2004 at 06:59 AM

My condolences to all the inocent victims. I feel sick just waiting for the likes of Bob Brown to start saying we had it coming cause we have the balls to fight a murdering, retrograde and Satanic bunch of cultists. If anyone does not really believe that pure evil stalks this earth they are deluding themselves. I will be praying for the 5 year old girl.

Posted by: Dog at September 10, 2004 at 09:00 AM

"Thank you, Australia, for standing tall in the War.
We in the U.S.A. realize that this puts your interests in the crosshairs."

Standing aside would have conferred no immunity. Look at the French journalists in Iraq. Is there any evidence that these terrorists were actuated by the Iraq war? They hit Bali before the war. These Islamofascists just don't like anybody with a white face and a free society. They are a plague and must be eradicated wherever found.

Posted by: PJ at September 10, 2004 at 09:06 AM

I thought that Latham was going to come out with the 'its our fault for being in Iraq', as I said in an earlier post.

He hasn't.

Good for him.

Thoughts and prayer with all those whose lives have been irrevocably changed by those who simply regard anyone who is not with them as targets.

Posted by: Andrew at September 10, 2004 at 09:33 AM

Isn't it tragic that in spite of obviously targeting Australia through Australian interests abroad, the only deaths so far have been Indo Nationals? It's been a fucked-up week, dead kids by the score, bombs, threats, John Howard on TV every night, operation 9/11 emotional rollercoaster saturating our TV's (normally where we like to hide from the real world) and shit-loads of reasons to be ashamed to be a member of the human race assailing our well manicured sense of ordered safety in a mad world.

Pretty soon people are going to have to start thinking about WHY these things happen, about how far you have to push a human being before they can consider strapping kilos of explosives to themselves an slaughtering children, about what kind of a fucked-up life leads to a hatred so passionate you're willing to drive a several hundred kilo bomb into a city to express it. That the people who ultimately do these terrible things hate us is a given. It's from understanding and resolving the underlying issues that fuel the hate that an end will come, not through a policy of extermination of people so diseased by that hate that they do socially abhorrent things in a misguided effort to engender change. The terrorists might die, but their causes don't.

Hunting down and killing the leaders of terror cells doesn't address the conditions which cause those groups to form any more than blowing up civilians helps them get their message across.

I guess you've got to decide what you want here - peace or retribution?

Posted by: Anonymous at September 10, 2004 at 10:20 AM

These terrorists' hatred is not limited to those with a white face. JI targeted native Indonesians when they bombed churches across the country. Their hatred extends to all that would stand in the way of the formation of a hard line Islamic nation.

Posted by: Fabian at September 10, 2004 at 10:40 AM

Retribution, then make peace with the smarter survivors if they can talk us into it nicely enough...

Posted by: richard mcenroe at September 10, 2004 at 10:59 AM

Anonymous,

what would drive YOU to strap a pack of explosives to your body and blow up kids? I would very much like to know that.

Because, you see, I've thought about it and realised that there is nothing, but nothing, short of succumbing to a horrendous mental illness, that could drive me to do that, and that I will never be able to understand those who do it. Nor those who claim that we should try to understand them.

Time and time again, we discover the perpetrators' lives had been just like everyone's elses. Except that somewhere down the line something in their heads went Bling and they decided to fuck their lives up of their own free will. Why and how that happens is for psychiatrists to try and figure out, not politicians or us. Look no further than psychopathology for your "root causes."

Posted by: Toby at September 10, 2004 at 11:08 AM

Anonymous,

You are addressing the problem of terrorism in a perfectly rational way, using philosophical principles now ingrained in western culture and, whether you believe or not, employing a Judeo-Christian moral framework. Your enemy is not.

Your enemy does not particularly care whether he is rich or poor, educated or ignorant, dead or alive. He only cares about serving his God. The God of this particular sect of Islam demands complete submission - no elections, no 'personal lifestyle choices', no questions. Just submission to the word of God, as interpreted by a mullocracy. That terrorists are so willing to kill 'soft' Muslims is proof of this.

You don't necessarily have to descend to the level of randomly killing innocents to combat your enemy - but you must be to defend what is right and good.

You have three choices in the face of religious terrorism:

You can fight.
You can submit.
Or you can die.

Posted by: fidens at September 10, 2004 at 11:23 AM

"but you must be WILLING to defend what is right and good"

Posted by: fidens at September 10, 2004 at 11:26 AM

Anonymous said:-

"I guess you've got to decide what you want here - peace or retribution?"

I'm afraid for the future of this country if people like Anonymous were running it.

Peace only comes when the war is won. The war was declared by radical Mahommedans, and even though we are far too civilised to fight by their rules, yes, we will win this war, by exterminating these scum like rabid dogs.

We don't want retribution - this is the rallying-cry of the enemy. We just want peace by victory.


Posted by: Kaboom at September 10, 2004 at 11:28 AM

"Pretty soon people are going to have to start thinking about WHY these things happen, about how far you have to push a human being before they can consider strapping kilos of explosives to themselves an slaughtering children..."

It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? Never the terrorist's, poor puppet. If only random Western strangers had hugged them more, they would have become happy executives of Fortune 500 businesses instead of fanatical Muslim killers.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 10, 2004 at 12:39 PM

The "experts" reckon that it takes many months (more than a year) for JI to plan a terrorist attack. The election was called a week or two ago. So we may be reading too much into the terrorist attack if we claim it was planned to coincide with the Australian election campaign.

Posted by: Andjam at September 10, 2004 at 01:03 PM

anon has asked the favorite question of the left "what is the exit strategy?"

We must apply the same exit strategy as we did to Nazi Germany and to Japan.

The exit strategy is victory.

Posted by: Harry Tuttle at September 10, 2004 at 01:08 PM

You've got to give Mark Latham credit for giving this issue bipartisan support. Not necessarily your vote, but credit all the same.

And he can't be worse than Crean (Howard might not think so).

Posted by: taspundit at September 10, 2004 at 01:18 PM

C'mon Anonymous put your real name on your post.
Neville Chamberlain!

Posted by: gubbaboy at September 10, 2004 at 01:34 PM

I can just hear it now, at the end of October the rising whine of Leftoids moaning how Howard stole another election due to the Russian/Jakarta/???? bomings. Once again Democray has been defeated as it is not doing what they want, evil,evil, blah, blah.

It is obvious why the Left supports Islamic terrorists, an enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It is time to make the 21st century safe from all theologies, the snake of the Left is not yet fully scotched and Islamo Fascisim need be crushed.

Posted by: M Rintoule at September 10, 2004 at 02:52 PM

I was never much of a fan of the Australian flag, what with the Union Jack in the corner. Not that I wanted the Eureka Flag or any of those "TAFE Graphic Design"-quality entries for various national flag competitions, but I thought we could just do better than what we had.

After 9/11, I proudly put the "YOUNG AND FREE" sticker with the Australian flag on my car.

After the Bali bombing, I got it tattooed on my right arm.

And after seeing the picture of the Australian flag flying proudly in front of the bombed embassy, saying "fuck you JI", I've never loved that flag more than I do now.

Posted by: steve at September 10, 2004 at 02:57 PM

Concur Steve,
Just as the crosses of the United Kingdom no longer necessarily represent the faith of Saints George and Andrew, so too the significance of the Union Jack on the flag of Oz need not imply a dominion status. It's our flag, and it means exactly what we believe it means.

Posted by: fidens at September 10, 2004 at 03:55 PM

Onya Steve I second that.

Anonymous. You STILL don't get it do you! What will it take to make you and others like you realise that the effing roof is on fire and we aint gonna save the house by trying to "understand" the fire. Just let us PUT OUT the Fire and get out of the way.

Posted by: Dog at September 10, 2004 at 04:00 PM

Man, that's a great comment steve and yes, it is one hellofa pic isn't it.

I see someone in here is keen to supplicate to terrorists because "it must be all our fault".

Tell me then, what did the poor East Timorese do then, or the Arche'ns or those in Sulawesi or Ambon, or maybe those in west Papua? They're all in our region and happened long before 9/11, Afghanistan, Bali or Iraq and none of them were aligned with the US as you claim we are.

We've done nothing to these morally repugnant gutter slime Anonymous, you may want to blame someone but remember, history and facts let you down.

One thing you need to remember is that Indonesia have their elections in three days and were told by JI they would be hit. Stop blaming Australia for this or linking it to our election, it's a falsehood.

The fact is that Islamists are involved in conflicts or terror attacks all around the world against all races and religions and all for different reasons. There is no appeasing them.

You cannot understand or negotiate with an evil that has no cause.

Posted by: scott at September 10, 2004 at 04:15 PM

Well put steve. What a great pic. If Latham and his loons get in you won't see that flag again.

Posted by: graboy at September 10, 2004 at 05:02 PM


Scott:

"You cannot understand or negotiate with an evil that has no cause."

Unfortunately, mate, they do have a cause, and it has been more outspoken in Indonesia than anywhere else this disease has erupted.

The cause is simply put: "KILL WHITEY".

You cannot negotiate with this evil. It is like negotiating with a rabid dog. "If I feed you, do you promise not to bite or infect any humans?"

You have to exterminate the radical proponents of Islamic fundamentalism, who can see no moral turpitude in killing innocents/children/ whomsoever in their response to Jihad, and sacrificing their lives to the glory of Allah (SWT).

It is going to be a long battle, that will ultimately last generations. It is, I suppose, politically incorrect to publicise this clear agenda, or cause.

If you want proof of the "cause", simply refer to the justifications of the Bali terrorists.

Your statement "You cannot understand or negotiate with an evil that has no cause" is partially true.

You cannot understand or negotiate with an evil whose cause is "kill white people". That is fascism.

All we can do is fight the evil of fascism, wherever it sprouts.


Posted by: Kaboom at September 10, 2004 at 08:02 PM

The blood is on Mark Latham's hands.

He said a Labor Government would pull Australian forces out of Iraq.

He thereby gave terrorists an incentive to attack Australian targets.

Thus, in the event of a Labor victory terrorists could claim they had toppled a second government of the "Coalition of the Willing."

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latrham's hands.

Posted by: Sue at September 10, 2004 at 08:53 PM

The blood is on Mark Latham's hands.

He said a Labor Government would pull Australian forces out of Iraq.

He thereby gave terrorists an incentive to attack Australian targets.

Thus, in the event of a Labor victory terrorists could claim they had toppled a second government of the "Coalition of the Willing."

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latrham's hands.

Posted by: Sue at September 10, 2004 at 08:53 PM

The blood is on Mark Latham's hands.

He said a Labor Government would pull Australian forces out of Iraq.

He thereby gave terrorists an incentive to attack Australian targets.

Thus, in the event of a Labor victory terrorists could claim they had toppled a second government of the "Coalition of the Willing."

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latham's hands.

The blood is on Latham's hands.

Posted by: Sue at September 10, 2004 at 08:54 PM

Uh...that's nice Sue, but I don't think I really feel comfortable "blaming" anyone except the guy who put the bomb there.

Posted by: Quentin George at September 10, 2004 at 08:56 PM

Jesus, Sue, just click once.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 11, 2004 at 01:13 AM

Whose hands is the blood on again?

I'm not sure I got that. But Quentin obviously does.

Condolences from a grateful America. Sometimes it's not easy being the good guys, but Australia has never lacked for courage. How many more attacks will it take for some people to realize that we're all in this together?

Posted by: Cassandra at September 11, 2004 at 02:29 AM

If public sentiment in Indonesia is any guide Cassandra, the radical muslim groups may have just shit in their own nest.

Yeah Kaboom, I guess you're right.

P.S. Brian Deegan must want to surrender to Islamists does he. His bullshit claim that we weren't a threat prior to John Howard is crap. Terror groups hated us for getting involved in 91, [Bob Hawke], in the Gulf War, but mainly because we had the guts to help the East Timorese. In '99 we went right up the list for getting the Indo's out of Timor.

Something the lefties put their heads in the sand over for 25 years.

Posted by: scott at September 11, 2004 at 02:16 PM

Sorry, Andrea, i thought my clicker didn't click. it did.

Posted by: Sue at September 12, 2004 at 12:14 AM

Your nation has had our back since September 11th. Everywhere our soldiers have gone, taking war and freedom into the hearts of darkness, Australian soldiers have been beside them. We will stand by you.

Posted by: David Paglia at September 13, 2004 at 11:37 AM