Bali Blasts

Zazzlethorpe

How does this weekend's tragic bombing in Bali affect your thoughts on travel in India? Could this have happened in India? Should one avoid tourist ghettos?

Alan D

The answer is yes, it could have happened in India, but it also could have happened in Thailand, San Francisco, Birmingham, Chicago, Sydney or any of hundreds of other places.

Bali was chosen as a very soft target though. The Balinese are a very laid back people and probably security was minimal. This will be seen as a very successful operation by those involved and they may attempt something similar elsewhere. On the other hand security will now be increased in places where many "enemies" gather and the terrorists may go for a completely different kind of target. It's impossible to predict where they may strike next.

Should one avoid tourist ghettos? Individual choice. I'm not changing any of my plans.

abracax

I have never been a fan of tourist ghettos, but the Bali situation must be a bit more complex than that. After all, Disneyland is not nearly as much of an affront to the American religious hypocrites (they have built their own theme parks, after all) as the tourist traps of Bali are to what my Muslim friends call the "bearded ones." The fact that the Balinese are a tiny group of Hindus in a Muslim country also factors in.

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tracyprier

I'll be DAMNED if I will let some hate-filled evil bastards mess with my life. Totally agree with Alan on this, let their actions change your plans and they have won!

The vermin who carry out such attacks WILL reap what they sew...and no I'm not religious, I just believe there are universal laws that exist beyond our daily lives.

O.K. GW seems to have lost the plot a bit with the whole Iraq thing but I totally agree with the general concept of a war on terrorism. Now more than ever we are seeing terrorism exported beyond the borders of the country it started in. One of the consequenses of this is that (for example) even if you disagree with the actions of the Israelis against the Palestinians, you can still be killed by a bomb set by an extremist Islamic group while partying thousands of miles away from where these groups are based simply because you fall into the general group of people that the terrorists hate or because you happen to be in the blast zone of the bomb when it goes off.

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Midnite Toker

I'd caution against jumping to conclusions about the source of the blast in Kuta, tracyprier. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility. The cynical amongst us might even suggest it was the work of MOSAD or the CIA (in order to create positive public opinion for attacks on Arab countries - just look at how numbers of those in favour of action against Iraq have soared today in the UK, for instance).

As for exporting terrorism beyond borders, I think the USA is inescapably #1 in that speciality globally (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, need I go on?). Britain probably lies in second place.

What has saddened me as much as the sheer horror of this attack on innocents, though, is emerging evidence that Balinese and other Indonesians have been on the second tier when it comes to receiving medical help. There was a report in some newspapers on Monday of Westerners being given the few beds in Denpassar hospital while all the Indonesians were on the floor. Even if this later proves to be a rumour without foundation, look at how our thinking has focused almost exclusively on the Westerners who were hurt. The pictures of blooded survivors - all foreigners.

Try to imagine how you might feel if there was a bomb blast in the centre of Auckland or Sydney and every news report you saw talked about people from Nigeria being killed or injured, the lucky survivors from Gabon...

BTW (and almost a footnote): I'm not letting it change my plans to go to India in December.

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Midnite Toker

I did in fact say quite specifically that "I'd caution against jumping to conclusions about the source of the blast in Kuta"

Of course we all jump to conclusions - deduction of probabilities has its uses when we use it in our own lives, as you say.
"Is that the postman at the door?"
"Must be, there's no-one else calls at this time in the morning."
Postmen mistakenly identified as gun-toting, terrorist housecallers and gunned down through a closed front door are seldom reported, so something must be working right in the domestic area of deduction from limited evidence.

Dealings between states require a lot more care (or should), because the errors from false guesses simply get compounded. "Common sense" and calmly "working from statistical probability" are also seldom seen in any international affairs involving such emotional trigger words as Jew, Moslem, Arab, "American Way Of Life," Dictator, Democracy, Freedom... I'm sure anyone who reads the newspapers can add more. As I said, let's wait and see what the forensic examinations show.

I don't want to get into a prolonged argument over the conduct of the USA in international affairs here, but suffice it to say that I'm simply staggered by your ignorance of the facts, "anonymous."
The elections in Nicaragua, in which the FSLN (Sandanistas) won 67% of the vote, were agreed to be free and fair by international observers. In 1985, Captain Ray-Gun said that, "Nicaragua poses a threat to the national security of the USA," (heard that somewhere before?) and set up training camps for the Contra rebels over the border in Honduras. Over 30, 000 people died in this bloody war in a tiny country, many of them farmers who made the mistake of trying to farm collectively instead of under landlords friendly to the former Somoza dictatorship that had ruled Nicaragua for 43 years. Most of those killed were only willing combatants in that they showed an unwillingness to go back to the old regime. Wouldn't you have?

Aristotle said that man is a political animal. If you think that having drinks and dancing in a nightclub of a country with a different culture and standard of living isn't a political statement (or ten), then you have your eyes closed tight. Decency, Sobriety, Disparity of Wealth... how many of these might have been seized upon by fevered minds wanting to "teach the West a lesson"? If the Al Qaeda remit is to cleanse the world of licentious behaviour, it doesn't matter if you're an obnoxious and slobbering businessman eying every woman's cleavage over his beer-gut, or a ten-dollars-a-day backpacker having a final night blast with a few pals - you're infringing what they would see as the ordained law from God concerning human behaviour.

On my final point, you mush my example even more. The Indonesians are in second place in the sheer numbers of casualties, after Australia. Not only that, the image of Bali as a place of peace and tranquility is possibly gone forever, and very many Balinese businesses are probably ruined. This is in a country which has already devalued its currency several times, and where the future for many people is exceedingly grim. I feel very sad for the Westerners killed, horrified at the injuries many survivors received, but I'm trying not to forget the Balinese who have no airlift to Australia to help them out, nor much to help them through the lean times which must surely follow.

Mother Teresa a saint? Hmm, me thinks that you missed some of the other points of view on this one. Just put her name into Google along with the words "fascist" and "fake," and see what comes out. Or read Christopher Hitchens (a man with both left and right wings functioning) for an overview of why the West looks for someone to salve its collective guilt over the huddled masses of the poor and dying.

tracyprier

Actually Toke I live in Auckland. Indeed the nightly news DOES focus primarily on New ealand casualties BUT it has also been focussing on the New Zealand nurses and doctors who are volunteering to go over to Bali ( taking vitally needed medicine) to help the Balinese casualties. It also shows the foreign tourists who are volunteering with everything from admin stuff to sticking charred limbs into body bags and helping care for the BALINESE victims.

We have also seen that the Indo Police have arrested members of a local militant Islamic group who they strongly suspect of carrying out the attack.

Islamic or not, anyone who carries out this kind of shit is scum. Mossad or the CIA??, come on dude, that's pure fantasy.

And by the way, I am MORE than aware of the US's previous track-record! Hell the only reason GW wants to shit-can Saddam is to get at all the oil under the western Iraqi desert...as they say in Texas, "There ain't nuttin like the awl bidness!

tracyprier

Just read this...

Hunting For Clues

An international team of investigators is hunting for clues that might link radical foreign and Indonesian Islamic groups to the Bali attacks which killed more than 180 people, including as many as 119 Australians.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but suspicion has fallen on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and a regional group, Jemaah Islamiah, which some link to al Qaeda.

Late on Thursday night Indonesian police said they had summoned Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, believed by some countries to lead Jemaah Islamiah, for questioning in relation to a statement from a confessed al Qaeda member.

Bashir has denied any terrorist links and says he has no knowledge of Jemaah Islamiah but had no problem with meeting the police on Saturday.

"I will come to the police office for questioning," he told Reuters.

Police said Bashir was being called in over a statement from a self-confessed member of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, Omar al-Faruq. Al-Qaeda is blamed by Washington for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

A leaked US Central Intelligence Agency report said al-Faruq was an important player in the al Qaeda network's regional terrorism activities and was involved in a series of bombings and unsuccessful plots to kill the Indonesian president and attack U.S. embassies.

The CIA also reportedly linked al-Faruq with Bashir, who denies any such ties.

Underlining Southeast Asia's vulnerability to militants, at least six people were killed and about 150 wounded on Thursday when bombs believed planted by Muslim extremists hit the main shopping area of a mostly Christian city in the southern Philippines

indiamike

I remember a few years ago on the main bazaar in Delhi when a guy blew up half of a hotel there, right on the main strip. I was there. Nobody was killed and even with the huge pile of rubble blocking the streets business still went on as usual. So this happens in India to.



Mike

abracax

I was in Delhi when that happened. Funniest part was the wild stories the authorities tried to float before the truth finally came out. It was definitely targetted at tourists, and Paharganj was also a well-known hunting ground for terrorists seeking hostages.

tlotoxl

While I agree with that sentiment, I also feel a bit like 'get myself killed by a terrorist and I have lost'. I'm not sure that I'm ready to take one for 'the team'. Especially not this team. And if you want to help the Balinese, wouldn't it make sense to try to help projects which reduce their reliance on tourism? I'm sure tourism can be great business, but surely they have more to offer the world than just serving holiday goers.

BTW, thanks for the link on Mother Teresa, Toker. I've read an article (maybe even the same article, blasted memory) about the Mother Teresa controversy, but I couldn't remember the details and when I replied to my girlfriend's Mother Teresa adoration with a bit of skepticism I had no information to back me up.

Midnite Toker

You're welcome. You might also want to look at this one. (About Bali.)

Alan D

This thread has broadened out considerably since the first posts and so it should. I still think that this was a horrific act of terrorism, as was the attack on the WTC and the people who committed these, under all international law, are murderers. It is one thing to fight back against oppressors when there is no alternative but the slaughter of innocent workers and holiday makers cannot be justified, except by fanatics with homicidal tendencies.

As others have pointed out, atrocities have also been committed, directly and indirectly, by nation states in recent times with no one being held responsible e.g. the oil blockade on Iraq, supporting repressive dictatorships and overthrowing legitimate democracies in the "national interest", failure to address the problem of Third World debt and selling arms to anyone who has the cash to buy them. We should have learnt from history, even from the point of view of enlightened self interest, that where there is great inequality, violence often follows.

We travelled through Indonesia shortly after the coup against Sukarno. The country seemed peaceful enough even though inflation had reached a ridiculous level. There were banknotes lying in the streets. It wasn't until months later in Australia that we realised we had been there shortly after 500,000 members of the PKI had been rounded up and executed. The PKI had been seen as a threat to "democracy" by various Western nations. Instead we chose to support a military dictatorship. As far as I know, and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, no one has been brought to trial for these massacres

The "victory" in Afghanistan is a hollow one. The Taliban have either melted into the local population or moved across borders into friendly areas, as has Al-Queda and nobody knows if Osama Bin Laden is alive or dead. The promised amount of aid has not materialised and a new target has been chosen - Iraq.

I wrote to my local Labour MP about British support for a non - UN sanctioned attack on Iraq. I know the guy well. He used to live close by and was a regular customer in our music shop for many years. In return I got a letter which said that he would not support any unilateral military action outside the auspices of the UN.

Midnite Toker, I think the rise in support in the opinion polls for action against Iraq is surprising but temporary. There are no proven links between the Bali bombing and Saddam Hussein. Many people seem to have made a connection in their minds. I think the British Government is going to find it very difficult to sell a joint USA - British military intervention in Iraq to the British public. Of course, Tony Blair can always take the decision and then face the consequences.

Finally, the question of personal safety. Paharganj has been targetted in the past but it's not the only potential target in India. I could think of other places that would probably produce a higher body count of foreigners. I'm nearly 62, if it happens I've led an interesting and enjoyable life but I think Paharganj will be ok for a couple of nights. Others will have to make their own decisions.