The Tragedy in Bali
This horrific bombing is now being termed "Australia's 9-11." That
seems a justifiable reaction. However, there is something in my gut that
is repulsed by national bragging rights in the atrocity. In reading the
the English-language press, you'd probably be unaware that Indonesians
were second only to the Australians in the number of killed and injured.
"Patriotizing" the Al Qaeda terrorist acts obscures clear thinking
about them. After Bali, it's plainer now that the world is facing a global menace.
Bush has long been making that argument and, although before I'd suspected that he
was brandishing the "global menace" spectre in an opportunistic way, I
now think that I was wrong and that the Administration deserves credit
for farsightedness. For an example of the Administration's efforts to
ferret out the global nature of the threat, see the
startling lead story in today's New York Times, which
begins like this:
U.S. Says It Told Indonesia of Plot by Terror
Group
The United States repeatedly warned the Indonesian government in the
weeks before the bomb blast that killed more than 180 people in Bali
that a group linked to Al Qaeda was planning attacks to kill Americans
and other Westerners, Bush administration officials said
today.
In yesterday's Times, Paul
Krugman speculated about the precise motive behind the Bali bombing.
Krugman argues that al Qaeda's aim is to undermine the Indonesian
economy -- still shaky after the Asian economic collapse of five years
ago -- by striking at tourism, one of the country's key industries.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country, and one "in which
a small ethnic Chinese minority, mainly Buddhist or Christian, dominates
the economy."
This presumed motive does lend an additional horror to the deaths of
the non-Indonesians in the bombing. The foreign victims were
calculatedly selected for their instrumental value in inflicting damage
beyond mere terror.
1:31:55 AM 
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