Meblog

Basket Treatment for all Terrorists!

12 years in prison equals 12 lives?  Where is justice? Terrorism is really going to be squashed with harsh verdicts such as this.   

JW Marriott bombing accomplice gets gets 12 years

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The South Jakarta District Court has found defendant Ismail, alias Muhammad Ikhwan alias Agus, guilty of involvement in the JW Marriott Hotel bomb attack on Aug. 5, 2003, and sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment.

The blast at the five-star hotel, located in the Mega Kuningan business district, South Jakarta, took the lives of 11 Indonesians and a Dutch banker, and wounded 147 other people.

Ismail was also found guilty of being in possession of explosives in contravention of Article 1 of Emergency Law No. 12/1951. A hand grenade was recovered from him when he was captured in Cirebon, West Java.

The court said that the 24-year-old defendant transported 3.5 cardboard boxes of explosives from Lampung to the capital and helped moved them to rented houses on Jl. Kemuning and Jl. Rawa Bambu, both in South Jakarta.

With alleged mastermind Dr. Azahari, Ismail surveyed the targeted hotel and the Citibank branch in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta. He drove Azahari on a motorcycle to the bomb site and witnessed the blast from the nearby Rajawali building. They later absconded to Bandung.

The judges, however, declared Ismail not guilty of the primary charge of violating Article 14 of the Antiterrorism Law for his involvement in the planning of the attack.

"The defendant was driven by Noordin M. Top," said judge Rena. "Everything (he did) was by order and he was not allowed to know what the preparations were for."

Ismail is the 15th defendant, and the last, in the Marriott case to be convicted and sentenced. The others were sentenced to between three and 10 years.

The alleged masterminds of the explosion -- Azahari and Noordin -- are still at large, however. The police have blamed the recent bombing in front of the Australian Embassy on Jl. Rasuna Said, Kuningan, on the pair, who are alleged members of the Jamaah Islamiyah regional terrorist group.

The court took into consideration that the defendant had admitted his crimes and showed remorse during the trial.

It might not be such a bad idea if Indonesia went back to it's old code of law.  For instance in Kalimatan among the Dayaks of the Ketapang region if someone wanted to marry a relative that was considered too close a relation, the matter could be settled within a matter of minutes in the old days. The man and woman who wanted to marry were put in a large basket with a sharp rock.  The basket was closed with rattan, and then thrown in the river.  If the man and woman could cut themselves out of the basket with the rock before they drowned, they could marry.  Seems to me if Indonesia started putting terrorists in baskets and throwing them in rivers and oceans to determine if they got the death penalty or life in prison it would cause some of those thinking about blowing up buildings or heading off to a terrorist camp to think again. 

Campaign Managers Arranging Weddings

And we think the campaigning here is bad. Today in Indonesia, there are rules even if they are broken, but in the old days....but still a mass wedding? 

Mega's supporters defy law, run wild in streets

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bandung/Mataram

Thousands of supporters of President Megawati Soekarnoputri hit the streets of the capital on Thursday, ignoring strict rulings issued by the General Elections Commission (KPU) that ban outdoor campaigning...In Bandung, Megawati's camp also appeared to be involved in unlawful campaigning by organizing a mass wedding ceremony for 41 couples -- most of whom were scavengers, poor laborers and homeless people.

Her campaign managers also paid for a one-night stay at the five-star Horison Hotel in the capital of West Java province for the couples.

All of the participants in the ceremony wore T-shirts bearing the images of Megawati and Hasyim.

Smuggler Gets Scrambled

Caught smuggling 6,550 endangered turtle eggs. - this is the Indonesia I know.

It Has the Necessary Soap Opera Ingredients

One of the victims of the Australian Embassey bombing in Jakarta last week as described in the Jakarta Post was a five year old Elisabeth Manuela Banbin Musu who was going with her mother to the Australian embassey to pick up her new Australian passport. Her mother did not survive the attack. She has already undergone two operations to remove shrapnel from her abdomen and brain, and her doctors are saying her right side may be paralyzed. How much? They don't know yet.

According to the Straits Times, her story has captured the attention of Australians across the county. I would say this interest has more to due with the fact that two men are claiming to be her father and less to do with the fact that her mother was murdered by terrorists and she was nearly killed herself and will live with the effects of the attack for the rest of her life. I think it is very sad and telling that although 9 people died, including Elisabeth's mother, and 185 were injured in the terrorist attack, a custody battle is what hold's people's interest in the situation.

Blueprint for Victory

Very good article in the Opinion Journal today about the terrorist attacks on School No. 1 in Beslanin:

Gives a very clear explanation of what it will take to win this war on terrorism:

As should be obvious by now, the war on terror cannot be won only by disrupting terrorist networks and shoring up homeland defenses. It is also a war of ideas, and as such can be won only if the widespread ideological support for terrorism found in the Muslim world and some quarters of the West can be transformed into widespread condemnation.

and

In making the case that the world needs to think differently about terrorism, Mr. Bush and other members of his Administration sometimes cite the example of the British in the 19th Century as changing the way the world thought about the slave trade. By the end of the century, slavery may still have existed in parts of the globe, but no one was making the moral case for it.

Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, explained the Administration's effort to de-legitimize terrorism in a speech last spring at the University of Chicago. "The world should view terrorism as it views the slave trade, piracy on the high seas and genocide," he said, "as activities that no respectable person condones, much less supports."

After reading the article I'm left with the question, why will they (the left) not blame the terrorists?

In the face of such horror, who can offer up any shred of justification? Yet that is precisely what has happened in the wake of every terrorist event the world has seen in recent years. By such lights, terrorism is viewed as a political act, intended to draw sympathetic attention to a cause--in this case the brutal Russian occupation of Chechnya.

The only answer that comes to mind is hate. They hate Bush, his administration, and all conservatives with a hatred that blinds them to the truth.

Arabic News With or Without the Bias

The Jewish World Review (JWR) has a good article comparing al Jazeera and the new Arabic radio station based out of Virginia called al Hurra. According to the stations themselves, the other is biased.

''We're neutral and simply report the facts,'' al Jazeera's London bureau chief Mostefa Souga told me. ``Al Hurra is the Bush administration's mouthpiece.''

''Al Jazeera fans the flames,'' contends Farrell Meisel, an al Hurra founding father, formerly program director at Miami's WCIX-TV (now WFOR). ``We're legally shielded from White House interference and have balanced reporting by experienced Arab journalists. We avoid propaganda.''

However, as the JWR article points out, in comparing the coverage offered by the two stations, it is easy to see which news source has the anti American bias and which does not:

In Fallujah, al Jazeera showed horrific images, branding U.S. soldiers ''occupiers'' who target ''martyrs'' and civilians. Al Hurra aired less graphic video while emphasizing ''American forces'' were fighting ''gunmen,'' restoring order and preventing chaos. Both covered the Abu Gharib prison scandal that dominated al Jazeera's broadcasts, but was infrequently the lead on al Hurra.

Best wishes to al Hurra.

(As noted in JWR, CBS analyzed the above for 60 Minutes. Wish they would analyze their own coverage for bias.)

Judge Makes Right Decision in Indonesia

A judge in Indonesia has ruled that the arrest and detention of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged leader of Jamaah Islamiyah - the group responsible for the Bali Bombings, is legal. He will be tried for the August 2003 bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12. His trial could show that Indonesia is growing serious about fighting terrorism, but in light of the growing Islamic fanaticism across the islands and the wide spread corruption at all levels of the government, a positive outcome, with Ba'asyir receiving a life sentence or the death penalty, would be very surprising.