Jakarta bomb

[den]

This morning's news says 16 are confirmed dead, 150 are injured. It looks like some arse-hole from Jamal Islamir drove a van into the covered driveway in front of the motel and set it off.

The PM has offered the Indonesians the use and resources of the Federal Police to help track down the killers.

Comments

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I don't have a lot of faith in the "Death From above" method of getting rid of terrorists. Too many people get hurt and turn their sympathies to the terrorists, so you end up with more than you started bombing.

Too many countries are aiding the bastards by denying they exist within their boarders and/or actively funding their operations. I don't think the Sept11 report should have been edited to protect the Saudis. It should be a finger poking in their chest, going "You helped these people!" All the early evidence was pointing there, but then suddenly we do a right-turn to Iraq.

I didn't agree with the war in Iraq (although removing Saddam was a Good Thing) because *that* wasn't where the terrorists were. Iraq should have been on the secondary 'to-do' list. I'm sure if the US* put all the Attack Iraq resources into getting the people behind Sept11, they would. I'm certain they could do it without the host country being aware of it until after the event. I'd like to see the perpertrators brought to justice, but failing that... trailing elipses.

*I single out your country because I believe it's the only one with the resources to do this. Au and UK are just wannabe players in this field.

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Death from Above is hyperbolic, agreed, but cruise missiles are damn good at killing the cockroaches with as little mayhem against innocent as possible provided intelligence is solid which it never is 100% of the time.

So do we launch a missle at a house where terrorists who are plotting to blow up a hotel may be or not? That's a huge decision to make, look at the possible outcomes:

Launch the missle and miss the terrorist due to bad intel or bad luck, whatever. Innocents may die in the house, and the terrorists carry out the attack, killing more innocents.

Don't launch the missle, no innocents in the house are dead, but the hotel gets blown up by terrorists.

Launch and kill the terrorists and innocents, no hotel bombing, no further attacks from the roaches. Was this worth it?

My value system says yes. Others want a magic silver bullet that only takes out the bad guys. Totally unrealistic and naive in my view.

Launch and just kill the terrorists - the ideal outcome, but I'd imagine rather rare.

It's hard to make the launch choice but how can the military not launch given the probability of the terrorists blowing up another building?

What happens when the Public discovers the military blew a chance to kill the bad guys?

That question was asked in Afghanistan when we held fire several times and missed killing some of the Al Queda cheeses who are still out there raising hell today...

There also is the lingering "How innocent are innocents that are in the same place with terrorists?" question. It's an easy answer with children and in most Islamic cultures, the women too, but for anyone else, well, you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.

Agreed that Saddamn was a secondary target, and the the laser beam should have been turned up on the Saudi King, who is functionally non-functional and all but dead at this point. One of the billions of House of Saud princes runs the show now.

We are, I suspect, trying to keep the House of Saud from collapsing out of power at this point. The potential for an Islamic revolution fueled by Wahibism is a very real possibility when the old king dies. Putting a boot to Saddam's ass helps to stabilize the King in SA and route out radicals from SA itself, as they are all gung ho to go to Iraq to blow up US troops.

You ain't seen hell in the middle east until that Saudi civil war balloon goes up - it's going to make the current Iraq war look like a training camp exercise - these people will slaughter each other happily 24x7 down to the last goat.

Then you have Iran who may/not have nukes...

Ugh, sorry to bugger up your LJ Batty, apologies for the waves I've caused, I wasn't intending to go in to all this stuff. I'll back off now.

CYa!
Mako

PS: No problem at all with you singleing out the US, mainly because you're quite right.

AU and UK don't have their hands on the tiller, though they are doing a fine damn job trimming the sails and keeping the Capt. from going too far off course, for which I am very grateful.

Thanks to Canada too, as Ottowa is more than willing to make very loud and very squeaky noises to help steady the course.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

There is, as you say, no magic bullets. It would be nice if the bad guys could be removed without harming anyone else.

But war isn't nice. I'm truely greatful I don't have to make any of those decisions you mention.

I think the terrorists have shat in their nests. Countries that didn't have terrorists (eg S.A, Indonesia)have had incidents of home-grown terrorists hitting targets on their home turf and killing locals.