The Qaeda-linked terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah has detonated a car bomb in front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, killing at least eight and injuring hundreds. The suspect believed to be responsible for this attack is the same who engineering the deadly Bali nightclub bombing in 2002 that killed 200 Australian and Indonesian citizens.
This bombing is likely designed to impact the upcoming Indonesian and Australian elections in much the same way the Madrid attacks did. It is critical that no nation submit to the will of terrorists and does everything they can to strike at these murderous savages before they have the chance to strike again. As it has been made clear time and time again, capitulation or negotiation with terrorism is a fool’s errand and neutrality is a naive illusion – either all nations stand strong against terrorism or we risk more attacks by Islamofascist terror.
Of course no nation should capitulate to terror. However, if the case is being made that any opposition party or centre-left coming into power after a terror attack equals surrender, then I think that is a dangerous attitude. The American right wing’s reaction to the Spain elections change of power was viscious, partisan, and totally disingenuous to the victims of the Madrid bombing. No analysis was made of the flaws of the Popular Party in its refusal to condemn Francoist atrocities, it’s lying about how ETA was to blame, or its castillan cultural assault on Catalonia and the Basque Country (two of Spain’s most prosperous regions- not good to alienate your breadbasket). If the sort of anti-intellectual, lowest common denominator analysis follows if Australia were to elect the Labour Party over John Howard’s centre-right Liberal Party, it will be very dissappointing.
I agree with Justin. And so does this article by “Le Monde”. If you can read french, please read this article. If you can’t…just try!
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3270,36-378655,0.html