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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arno who wrote (1217)	9/17/2001 11:15:01 AM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

Jorj's comments on Powell are spot on. This is "binary" We can say to foreign countries "either you are for us or you are against us" Indonesian Leader Heads for U.S. By Slobodan Lekic Associated Press Writer Monday, Sept. 17, 2001; 9:08 a.m. EDT JAKARTA, Indonesia –– Megawati Sukarnoputri, the leader of the world's most populous Muslim nation, departed for Washington on Monday and left in charge her deputy, who has said terrorist attacks could "cleanse the sins of the United States." U.S. ambassador Robert Gelbard said he was "dismayed" by Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz's comments. President Megawati, who is scheduled to meet President Bush on Wednesday, will be the first Muslim head of state to visit Washington since last week's attacks, which claimed thousands of lives. The Bush administration invited her shortly after she took office in July. Originally, the two were to discuss economic aid to cash-strapped Indonesia. Bush is now expected to press the Indonesian president to crack down on hardline Islamic groups in her country. Indonesia is wracked by a number of separatist and sectarian conflicts and some groups have been accused of having links with international terrorist networks. Muslims make up 85 percent of Indonesia's 203 million people, and some are incensed by what they perceive as Washington's unreserved support for Israel. There have been a series of anti-American and anti-Israeli rallies in recent weeks. Megawati's government, which relies heavily on the support of conservative Muslim-based parties in Parliament, immediately condemned the attacks in New York and Washington and expressed its condolences to the United States. But Haz, who heads the Islamic United Development Party – the country's largest Muslim party – warned against revenge strikes on Muslim nations. He suggested that American policies may have been the catalyst for the terrorist attack. "Hopefully, this tragedy will cleanse the sins of the United States," the newspaper Kompas newspaper quoted him as saying. He repeated his statement on Monday, saying that America had committed "many kinds of sins." Gelbard immediately responded to the remarks by Haz, who in the past has called for strict Islamic law to be introduced in Indonesia. "I certainly would expect that no Indonesian official would imply any sort of justification for these barbaric acts," he said. On Saturday, Gelbard reacted angrily to comments by Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a former presidential foreign policy adviser, in an interview with The Jakarta Post daily. She maintained the attacks were caused by Washington's support for Israel. Gelbard called her comments "anti-Semitic and misinformed," adding that "her comments suggest that the terrible acts against Americans ... may be justified." Some Indonesian Muslim militants fought and trained in Afghanistan during its war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. On Monday, asked by reporters whether the government would stop foreign Muslim extremists from entering Indonesia, Haz said it would and added that Muslim groups in Indonesia now are not hard-liners. © Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

To: arno who wrote (1217)	9/17/2001 1:29:37 PM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

I could really rant on that stuff arno.... Some of our continental EU friends are pretty lacking in spine. I don't doubt that they are afraid of reprecussions, but they need to think about the long term reprecussions of not doing something. I posted something on the MGL thread about some countries being willing to live with terrorism. I suppose that is its own punishment. But I bet that in 10-20 years when their countries are being terrorized to the brink of truly disrupting their infrastructure, I bet that they will expect us to come to their aid. And I hope we flip them the bird.