No mention of the Bali Bombing here?

paddymee

I'm suprised to see little mention of this bombing in which nearly 200 died and hundreds injured, including Irish people.

What US actions caused this attack on young holiday makers? Or Israel's?

Paddy

ReefBreak

What US actions caused this attack on young holiday makers? Or Israel's?

I assume you're being ironic. Although no doubt, some of the far-left crowd will eventually find a way to blame the US or Israel. In fact, the conspiracy theorists have already started: apparently, the bomb was planted by FBI agents in order to promote support for an attack on Iraq. Utter rubbish. Yeah, and thousands of Jewish people stayed home from work on Sep 11 - again, utter rubbish, and in time proven to be rubbish.

Fact is, war on terror or not, it's very difficult to prevent something like this - you only need one car, some high-explosives (or in Ireland, some fertiliser will do, such as in Omagh), a detonator and a few crazed Islamic extremist nutjobs to kill 200 innocent people. Couple all this with 17,000 islands to prepare and then hide.

Also, we don't know what other atrocities might have been committed by now if the US and Britain had listened to the hippy brigade, sang songs of peace and love and decided not to proceed with the War on Terror.

Shinji

What's to say, really? Bomb blows up some people at the other side of the planet, nobody knows who did it although Blair and Bush have divined that it was Al Queda using their mystic powers of perception. Right.

It's same old same old. I don't believe for a moment that the powers that be planted the bomb to drum up support for Iraq, but you can be damn sure that any information about the perpetrators that comes out in the coming weeks will have a spin on it for that purpose. We may never know the truth behind the Bali bombing, while it suits someone's agenda for us not to, so why bother even speculating really?

(Anyone remember the bloke "caught" wandering through Turkey into Northern Iraq carrying 15kg of U-235 in the same week that Bush and Blair were trying so hard to convince us all that Saddam is close to being nuclear-capable? Truth is playing second fiddle to convenience right now, and anyone who can't see that really needs their head examined.)

DadaKopf

I don't see what your comments about the Left has to do with anything. The bombing is tragic, a disgusting act of twisted logic and religious extremism but getting into conspiracy theories or arguments about retaliatory measures is a bit dumb until all the facts become known.

Once the facts are known, then we can argue all we like about loony Lefties, rabid Righties and crazy conspiracy theories. Either way, for anyone to say it was a US plot (presumably because the explosive was C-4) is nonsense. Don't forget, some loons even said the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the CIA.

The most likely culprates seem to be both al Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah working together, but that's yet to be proven. It depends what paper you read.

What is the net effect going to be? The US is going to work closely with the Indonesian government to encourage them to crack down on militants. The US is also going to claim jurisdiction over the bombing so it'll be interesting to see how they balance wallpaper morality with legitimate politics.

What I find really regrettable is that it took a bomb aimed at Westerners to wake the world up to the religious and political conflicts already claiming Indonesian lives on a daily basis, some atrocities of which have been carried out by the Indonesian government itself. I can see a debate arising our of US involvement in Indonesian security affairs: America urges Indonesia to take harder line on militants but critics argue it gives greater license for Indonesian army to threaten human rights.

shotamoose

The people who planted the bomb are probably anticipating such a crackdown, in fact it may be partly why they carried it out in the first place. It's going to be tricky for the Indonesians to get at internal terror groups (with or without the help of the US) without dangerously polarising political opinion. Look at what's been happening in Pakistan - hardline Islamic groups made big gains in the recent elections.

DadaKopf

What exactly do you suspect the bombers' motives to be? So as to polarise public opinion and press forward their cause á la Pakistan?

bonkey

Originally posted by DadaKopf
What exactly do you suspect the bombers' motives to be?

Agitation for Indonesia to become an Islamic nation.

Assuming that it was an Islamic fundamentalist group (which seems to be the most persistent rumour, although we have Al Qaeda and a more local group to choose from in the news), and given that Indonesia already has these trouble, its not too unlikely. Incidentally - isnt Indonesia the nation with the largest islamic population in the world?

Note that they specifically did not target their fellow countrymen, but rather Johnny Foreigner. The attack was focussed on western culture at the very least. This would be consistent with the theory. If you attack your fellow countryman, hes hardly likely to accept your new regime. If you kick out / scare away the foreigners, then your fellow countryman is less likely to be influenced by them, and more likely to be influenceable by you....

Note also that the immediate US reaction was "we are considering reducing our presence in the area due to this terrorist threat". In other words - the US sees it as an internal struggle they want to be (visibly) out of the way of, rather than an international terrorist threat which they need to follow up on.

jc

mike65

I figured the lack of posts was due to no Irish being killed...

As for motive it could be anything, religious extremism bearing in mind Bali is a Hindi, not Islamic island, I've heard drug cartels mentioned, Al Queda maybe..., one thoery was Indoneisian nationalists taking revenge on Austrailia vis-a-vis East Timor. Either way the Indonesian goverment has a tough time ahead, it can't shrug this off, as too many powerful countries have lost citizens.

Oh yeah Robert Fisk did'nt waste any time suggsting Ireland was at risk of similair action due to Shannon...thanks Bob.:rolleyes:

Mike.

Clintons Cat

Lets not forget that Indonesia,like pakistan another so called ally of the "war on terrorism",frequently cultivates these types of islamic terrorist groups for its own domestic purposes.
Murderous Attacks and Masacres on non muslim minorities in particular chinese and timorese and puapans by paramilitaries have been a reoccuring feature of indonesian domestic and foriegn policy for decades.
A quick browse of HRW.org should dispell any myths that indonesia is a haven of secular democratic tolerence that it has been painted in the last week or so.
One Of the main reasons for the reletive calm and tranquility of bali compared to the rest of indonesia is the importance of the tourist dollar to the indonesian ecconomy.
However Tourists and tourist resorts provide a soft target for terrorist organisations due to the necessary lower security levels that allow terrorists to move freely within crowds without being spotted
Islamic Groups linked to al queedia have frequently targetted foriegnersFrom attacking trourists at Luxor in Egypt,to abducting backpackers in kashmir to the recent attacks in Tunisia and now Bali, in part to cripple the local ecconomy and in part to polarise local society.
This is not a uniquely Islamic manefestation of terrorist activity,Targeting tourist areas forms a core part of many terrorist groups strategy,from Eta in spain to the PKK in Turkey,even the IRA were planning to target british holiday resorts both in britain and abroad.


Indonesia

East Timor

Jemaah Islamiya

Militas (indonesia)

Harakat ul-Ansar (Kashmir)

Blade

Originally posted by mike65
one thoery was Indoneisian nationalists taking revenge on Austrailia via-a-vis East Timor.

Well thats what I woulda thought it was considering it seemed to be aimed at Austrailians. Thats really the only thing thats been going on in Indonisia lately. I don't think any of them give a damn about Palistinians or Iraqi's when they have their own cause.