The Bali Bomb

Unlike 9/11 and 7/7, the Bali bomb has been pretty much forgotten here. Clearly it needed a snappy, date-based acronym.




Well, once again we find terrorism is taking up a large amount of space in the news. And for once, America is pretty much uninvolved (apart from one or two spectacularly paranoid conspiracy theories which I'll return to later). A terrorist bomb exploded in Bali last week and, in doing so, reopened the War on Terror debate in earnest. This time Australia claimed the lion’s share of the grief arising from this tragedy. However, as on September 11th, Al-Quaida and their numerous affiliates are being (probably rightly) blamed although no statements have been made by the terrorists to confirm this. So where do we now stand in this stop-start war? Is this a case of "Another day, another atrocity" or is it likely to galvanise those opposed to terrorism into some sort of action other than invading a secular nation that has bugger all to do with sponsoring religious, ideologically led terrorists?

It would seem logical to firstly examine the reaction in Australia. Naturally, a mixture of grief and anger was the immediate reaction. Bali was a popular holiday destination for young Australians and so there have been numerous headlines of the "losing the flower of our youth" type. However, one of the main reactions seems to have been "This bomb is proof that we should have no part of the War on Terror". Now I'm not exactly Pro-Dubya. And I think his little war is nothing more than a cack-handed grab for oil. But leaving aside my distaste for Dubya's warmongering, I'm not sure I agree with the aforementioned Australian reaction at all.

Perhaps it's because I grew up in the UK during the 80's, when bombings by the IRA and INLA were a weekly occurrence. And maybe it's because I grew up in Thatcher's Britain, where the idea of surrender to terror was simply unthinkable. But whatever the reason, it makes those Australians who believe the Balinese bomb was their cue to back off the terrorists sound cowed and beaten to my mind. I'm not arguing the point that the American led War on Terror is a bullshit exercise. What I am arguing is that the people that they are ostensibly fighting the war against, Al-Quaida, are just as big a bunch of bastards as the American government are. Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely amending my position here; I still believe that sorting out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only way to get peace in the Middle East. But just as the US government is being hijacked by stupid old men who want a war to bolster their self esteem, the leadership of the terrorist network is full of equally stupid old men who want a war for exactly the same reasons. Peace in the Middle East won't stop these few hardline terrorists, but it will rob them of their recruiting grounds. Backing down at the first sign of trouble is giving in to the latter group of idiots. Supporting a war on terror on ones own terms and not those dictated by the US is not necessarily giving in to the former.

And then we have Bali itself. Currently, the Indonesian authorities (who, for the record, are as large a bunch of totalitarian, militaristic, corrupt scum as one could possibly hope to avoid) are placing the blame on a gentleman named Abu Bakr Bashir. He is a Moslem cleric and is noted for being something of a radical. So radical in fact that he and his followers have been linked to numerous bombs in Indonesia over the last few years. However, as none of these bombs killed Westerners and as the only fatalities were Indonesian civilians whom even their own government don't care about, you could be forgiven for never having heard of him or his alleged terrorist activities.

As a side note, I do have to express a certain amount of admiration for Bashir for his intelligent use of the media in the aftermath of the bombing. He gave an interview where he stated that people in the employ of the American government planted the bomb. His logic for this was that America had recently issued warnings to its citizens not to travel to Indonesia. Never mind the fact that America has all but warned it's citizens that anyone outside of it's borders is an evil foreigner and not to be trusted. Never mind the fact that most Western nations remain uneasy about Indonesia due to its history of breathtakingly violent civil uprisings. Never mind the fact that a supposedly Moslem terror group will almost certainly have had few qualms about planting a bomb on a predominantly Hindu island. What Bashir has done here is tap into that vein of American thought that states that all of the bad things in the world are the fault of the US government.

I believe I've commented before on that brand of small mindedness that is incapable of accepting that there is a world outside of America, and that there are people there who are just as blinkered, selfish, and destructive as any US President. Now that Bashir has opened Pandora's Box, you can bet that there will be any number of emotionally stunted Americans who will leap to the defense of Bashir (who may well have nothing to do with the bombing for all anyone knows) and once more bray their idiot refrain that all bad things in the world are the fault of America. Again I should stress; I'm not trying to say that the hands of angels touch everything America does. I'm saying that there are terrorists who are warlike and bent on destruction as well.

America itself has barely figured in the reportage of the bomb in Bali. Aside from committing FBI resources to the investigation it has done little apart from making an effort to say that the bomb "proved that we're right in wanting to invade Iraq". Erm....how, exactly? Not long after Dubya made his speech saying that their was clear evidence linking Iraq to Al-Quaida, the CIA released a statement saying that they were not aware of any such evidence. The fact that the people of the American capital are currently living in an ecstasy of fear due to a sniper dealing with his/her personal issues in a very public way (there has even been credible speculation that the sniper is a terrorist. Personally I think it's the blokes from the Grassy Knoll; they haven't taken kindly to being pensioned off and so they're taking their revenge!) whilst their President tries to whip up support for his land grab hasn't helped Dubya's approval rating, so the sloppy attempt to link Bali with Iraq hasn't gone down at all well thus far.

All in all, the bomb in Bali has given the Indonesian authorities a mandate to be even more oppressive. It has given John Howard, the right wing (in the British Conservative style of right wing, i.e. an unpleasant bigot) PM of Australia, a chance to prove his hard line credentials. And it has given me another reason to point at Dubya and laugh at him until there are tears in my eyes. But it has given the terrorists a victory in that a wave of fear has once more swept over the western world. As far as I can see, it was one more step toward polarising the world into 2 opposing camps. Somewhere, there are some rich, stupid old men cackling at the way things are shaping up.