Posted on 06/02/2006 8:56:40 AM PDT by voletti
JAKARTA: Indonesia will tell the United States not to meddle in regional anti-terrorism efforts when US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visits next week, Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono said on Thursday.
Rumsfeld is due in Indonesia from June 6-8 and was to discuss security in the piracy-prone Malacca Straits, military cooperation and anti-terrorism efforts with senior Indonesian officials, Sudarsono said.
“We will impress on the United States that the fight against terrorism in Indonesia and other ASEAN countries should be handled by respective countries and not based on the desire of the United States,” he said.
“We will tell the United States that fighting terrorism using their ways will only be detrimental to the United States because it will only create more anger and antipathy against America.”
US embassy spokesman Max Kwak said Rumsfeld’s schedule could change due to the earthquake in Java, telling AFP: “We are expecting a visit from the Defence secretary but in view of recent events in Indonesia, everything is tentative.”
The United States sees Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, as an important ally in its so-called “war on terror.”Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings blamed on militants from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) extremist network, including last year’s triple suicide attacks on the resort island of Bali which killed 20 people.
Authorities in Jakarta have arrested scores of militants linked to JI and jailed many others.
Sudarsono said Indonesia was seeking to obtain spare parts for US-made F-16 jet fighters to improve the country’s air Defence system, saying it had been difficult to keep the planes in the air due to an embargo that ended last year.
Indonesia and the United States severed full military ties in 1991 over human rights allegations against the military when Jakarta’s forces launched a bloody crackdown on pro-independence protesters in East Timor. The two countries resumed full military ties last November.
Critics have blasted the resumption, saying that Indonesia’s military has not yet taken full responsibility for its past rights abuses, particularly in East Timor before and in the run-up to its independence in 1999.
Indonesia began reforming its military in 1998 after its autocratic former president Suharto stepped down. AFP
And we will tell Indonesia that, the next time the need help after an earthquake, they can go pond sand.
Amen!
Fine, don't come to us for any kind of help in the future.
You want to do it yourself, fine.
Go 4 it.
It's in our interest for them to handle anti-terrorism activities themselves when they can.
Perhaps we should start telling them that they can
PADDLE THEIR OWN CANOE IN the next TSUNAMI, too.
Greedy, hostile ingrates.
US sees greater Indian role in Malacca Straits
http://stories.indobase.com/article_6167.shtml
May 23, 2006
The US sees a greater role for the Indian Navy in the Malacca Straits region, one of the world's busiest sea-lanes, a top US admiral said Tuesday.
"Let me make it very clear - the US is not interested in patrolling the region. It is for the littoral states (of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) to do so. India and Japan also have a more active role to play," Admiral Gary Roughead, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said at a select media briefing in New Delhi.
India and Japan are already conducting joint patrols in the region.
"Global prosperity depends on the free flow of commerce on the seas," Roughead said.
Some 50,000 vessels pass every year through the Malacca Straits, an 800-km long waterway that links Asia with the Middle East and Europe. It carries some 40 percent of the world's trade, including 80 percent of South Korea's and Japan's oil and gas and 80 percent of China's oil.
During his visit here, Roughead met Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the Indian Navy chief, Admiral Arun Prakash, to discuss greater interaction between the two navies.
"We will continue to advance our relationship. I believe we can do good things for our navies," he said, pointing out that the Indian Navy had been invited to depute observers for two major exercises - Valiant Shield and Rimpac - to be held in the Pacific later this year.
"We have also invited India to post a liaison officer at the Pacific Command headquarters (at Honolulu) and are awaiting a response on this," Roughead said.
The US admiral responded positively when asked whether the two navies had reached a stage of coordination.
"We enjoy a rather unique position in that we can come together at short notice (as happened in the wake of the Dec 26, 2004, killer tsunami)," he pointed out.
This was also reflected in the impromptu exercise conducted by the INS Viraat and USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carriers of the two navies off the Sri Lankan coast earlier this year.
"It wasn't planned. Ronald Reagan was transiting the area. Viraat was in the region. We got together for a quick exercise," the admiral said.
"As I often say - practice, practice, practice. Through exchange of methods, we will devise procedures that we both will benefit from," said Roughead, who spent two-and-a-half years of his childhood in Mumbai where his father, an executive with a US oil company, was posted.
"I was there from two-and-a-half to five. I was very young. All I remember is that the house we lived in seemed huge. I was very much taken in by the vastness and the beauty of the surroundings," he said. (IANS)
Sounds like a description of most Muslims.
Problem is, They will never be able to stop the terrorists and those insane baby killers will end up HERE!
Problem is, They will never be able to stop the terrorists and those insane baby killers will end up HERE!
- - -
I suspect that your assertion will turn out to be a lot truer than I'd ever like it to be by a trillion light years.
But we can pray and we can do what we can do--such as influence the moderates and fair-minded liberals in our social network. TODAY'S TOONS is a good tool to use.
Have a blessed weekend.
Thanks for your kind post.
“We will tell the United States that fighting terrorism using their ways will only be detrimental to the United States because it will only create more anger and antipathy against America.”
Anger and antipathy against America are far from the worst that the United States has to fear. *The destruction of innocent lives* through unchecked terrorism is far greater a harm. I think that fears about generating "anger and antipathy" should be ignored in the relentless pursuit of Islamist fanatics who seek to *murder* Americans - not just be angry at them.
I am
G. Stolyarov II
http://www.panasianbiz.com
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