Ripsnort: Bingo. Nothing like toejamting in the dish you eat out of.
Did it seem to you that Taliban had been that much interested in expanding Afghanistan's tourist economy or even increased material well-being of the populace?
If the Indonesian militant fundamentalists wanted to increase inflow of corrupting, fornicating, night-club-attending, western-culure contaminating tourists into their country, blowing up a bunch of them indeed does not seem like a right move.
But somehow I believe the terrorists got exactly the effect they desired - less foreign tourists in their country and fewer indonesians attending nightclubs.
Those poor dumb australians and other victims were told that muslim fundamentalists resent everything western - people, religion, culture, customs, etc.
They were also told by politicians that people around the world just do not like americans because americans are arrogant, greedy, pushy, exploitative, pro-israeli and our president is a modern-day Hitler and while americans may or even should be killed, the other liberal westerners are not in danger, even in a country which just engaged in mini-xenocide of their own (remember that East Timor thingy?).
I guess now we know who was right.
In my view the bomb blasts that killed them were just symptoms. The real cause of their death was stupidity, ignorance and wishfull thinking.
If you want to visit a muslim country and have fun there, join the Marines. You may not get to enjoy as many underage asian prostitutes, but at least you will be the one doing most of the blowing up...
miko
