Posting has been very, very light indeed over recent weeks. Still I have been reasonably active via personal e-mails and dropping comments on other people's blogs. I've been thinking - maybe I should post some of that stuff here.

Anyway, here's something I dropped in response to this post by Gary Sauer-Thompson. Sort of a standard "let's do what the terrorists want" line only a bit more intelligent, in some respects. Unfortunately, it also contains all the expected lame anti-Amercianism that seems to define the left these days. These were my comments:

Hi Gary,

I was relieved to reach your final comment and discover that you do, in fact, understand what JI are trying to achieve in their own unique way. It goes a little further, in fact - they want to create a strict Islamic capliphate operating under sharia right across the Muslim population areas of South-East Asia. Indonesia is only the start but establishing a sharia state there is a necessary step.

Their basic motivation for attacks like the other day is that they want all westerners out of Indonesia and they want western influence within that country to cease. That pretty much automatically makes Australia target number one, given our location and levels of engagement and interchange.

There are other complex motivations for JI operatives on several different levels. One is the desire for a glorious matrydom while fighting for Allah. Strange as it may seem to western secularists, militant religious faith can make people see this as a great attraction.

While I agree with your point that our involvement in Iraq can only anger JI further, I think that the neocons are right in the sense that we would still be a top target without it.

Much of the discussion of "blowback" in this context is based on a false premise. The claims on the Arabic language Islamist website mentioning our involvement in Iraq are very likely *not* a genuine statement on behalf of JI who, despiste their al Qaida links, have not been known for posting in Arabic to these websites in the past. Instead, this sounds like middle eastern al Qaida associates or sympathisers seeking to exploit an opportunity created for them by their JI "brothers".

In contrast with the spurious claim in Arabic, we have something else where the link with the perpetrators is beyond doubt - the "warning" received by Indonesian police 45 minutes before the explosion. The demand was to release Abu Bakr Bashir and you must admit that the targeting of the Australian embassy in this context makes a lot more sense than retaliation for our minor role in distant Iraq. It is widely understood in Indonesia that Australia has led the international pressure to put and keep Bashir behind bars.

Were we wrong to do so? I don't think so. The man leads a murderous and fanatical organisation and justice demands that he brought to account. Were we worng for the role we played in liberating East Timor? No again. And yet - if you are honest with yourself - you must admit that these two things are going to deliver a thousand times the "blowback" that our involvement in Iraq does, regardless of what JI recruiting propagandists or their buddies in the middle east say about it.

Yes, you are right that our involvement in Iraq has been and will continue to be thrown back in our faces by Islamist terrorists as long as we stay engaged there. There is "blowback" from Iraq. But my argument is that it is nothing compared to the "blowback" from our presence and engagement in the region.

As for not "dismissing what JI says" - well, nothing should be dismissed but it sure needs to be interpreted on the basis of a clear-headed understanding. I don't think you were going as far as Brian Deegan and calling for actual "negotiations" with JI. Unfortunately for poor Brian, the tragic loss of his son appears to have quite unhinged him. JI is trying to overthrow the legitimate government of Indonesia and bypass the popular will of the Indonesians who elected it. It is a declared enemy of the state that the state itself has for too long tried to ignore, deny and appease. Not any more. Indonesia is stirring and any suggestion that Australia try to "negotiate" with this organisation in the face of the Indonesian Government and people is frankly in cloud cuckoo land, even if we regarded it as desirable.

Thankfully, most Australians would not contemplate negotiating with JI, even if it were practically feasible. I disagree with you that the JI program is rational. They are seeking something that the majority Indonesians do not want, they are seeking to achieve it by disgusting but ultimately futile and tokenistic actions of extreme violence and they are partly motivated by a fairly insane deathwish grounded in an extreme religious fantasy that is in reality a cruel hoax (don't get me started on religion!). I'm sorry, that is not rational in my book.

Thanks for the webspace and your brief attention. Sometimes I just feel like cursing when I read posts like yours - but if I am going to actually pop up on your blog, I am careful of minding my manners. Us neocons are just put together that way, I suppose!

Cheers,TFK