h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1195760.htm

The Australian Embassy in Jakarta has been bombed.

I'm not entirely surprised; I'm amazed the Embassy lasted this long without a direct attack. I don't condone the bombing at all, perish the thought, but it's our foreign policy that is directly responsible for this happening.

Our ludicrous and embarrassing Prime Minister will no doubt try to make political capital out of this, during the current election campaign. This is the same cretin who claimed that dragging my country into an illegal war as an ally of the evil empire would make Australia a safer place. Yeah. Australia's perfectly safe - it's just that our closest neighbour hates us.

Once upon a time, an Australian passport was a guarantee of safety overseas. Not any more... and we have our current vile government to thank for it.

Speaking entirely from a professional point of view ( See Lil Ivan ), I have to try and pour oil on troubled waters by saying that not all of your closest neighbour hates you, only a small radical proportion, and despite the appalling loss of life in the past few years in Indonesia, more Australians were killed there by the former regimes power struggle in the late sixties/early seventies, just as seperate individuals.

The problem remains that the First world treats the rest of the planet as a playground for sorting out disputes,as a source of resources and as cheap labour to provide our luxurious standards ( and cheap VCR's..) this is as true now as it was during colonial times, if we buy into the coca-colaisation we assume part of the guilt for the dichotimies it creates.

Another atrocity another city,I yet again grieve for the families of the dead. If Maynard Keynes was alive today he'd be at the top of my assassination list, bring back Adam Smith...

Yes, I got a bit melodramatic there. Not all of Indonesia hates us - it is just a minority, which is increasingly restive. My government's policies aren't helping matters.

The local media is playing up the fact that no Australian nationals have been killed this time, as though that's a matter for self-congratulation. The fact is, people died. I don't care what their nationality was. Our embassy was the target, but these people were the ultimate victims...

Amen to that.

Two of my roommates are Indonesians who hail from Jakarta, and their mother sent them an SMS when to bombing happened. It's all over everything, and I agree with you, Ivan, when you said the PM's going to milk this for all it's worth (well, they weren't your exact words, but that's what you were impliying, right?)

Anyway, my roomies and I were discussing this last night, and they were very angry about it too. So it goes to show that not all Indonesians think we deserved it - I actually think very few of them do.

I hope the terrorists don't do any further damage that this, but fat chance they'll simply stop, right?

Oh goodness, I didn't even hear about this... but the sad thing is that I know exactly what you're talking about. Because that's just the way it happens with us - our government acts like a bunch of militaristic idiots, and then the fundamentalist maniacs on the other side blow something up and people die. And when anything happens abroad, the big question is always if there were any Israelis there, like other deaths just don't matter. I hate that.

Midnight Ice - that's exactly what I was getting at... He might say he's not going to politicise the matter, but the slimy little creep just can't help himself. If he doesn't try to exploit the matter, he'll get one of his drones to do it - Ruddock, probably, who was doing his best to get political mileage out of dead Russian children the other day.

Lady P - our media does that all the time. Earthquakes, plane crashes, whatever, the first thing they mention is the number of Aussies involved, and if there are none involved the story dies after three minutes. As for a militaristic government... *sigh* We've never had one of these before, and it's a rude shock.

I suppose it would be... well, now he and Bush can have their fun playing with their cool life-size G.I.Joes, looking for some more nasty villains to catch!

It's aweful the way it sometimes seems that nowhere in the world is safe anymore.

Traveller in Time wearing black sun-glasses
"You know the odd of being hit by the stray meteorite?

We can only survive by winning from the fear "

I'm not afraid, just sad.

And I'm not afraid, I'm angry. Angry at the vermin who go around blowing things up to make some sort of point, and angry at the politicians who provoke them.

Hear hear.

Traveller in Time after some heavy system reset
"May I suggest to join < A2944163 > ?

Building solutions from our armchair we solve all problems of the world. (even dog poo)"

I have enough RL politics to deal with at the moment, what with the federal election on 9 October and the Territory legislative assembly election on 16 October... Maybe I'll wander over and join after that.

I missed this news--probably because no Welsh people got killed.

It occurs to me that it may not be racist to mention who *wasn't* killed--it may just be to let people know the likelihood of someone in their family having been killed.

I am very ignorant of politics down under. May I ask what it is that's terrible about your government's foreign policies?

Well, we might as well start with the fact that the Prime Minister is a puppet of the appalling Dubya. He's even more of a toady than Blair is. Add to that the insensitive way we engage with South East Asia - which is actually our geographical region. The PM is a racist, to some extent, and he has a 1950s world view. He has a tendency to think that the Western way is always superior... I could go on but I'll just get angry. I might add more later.

"He's even more of a toady than Blair is."

Good lord. I didn't think that was possible. Makes me wonder what exactly *is* this hold that Bush has over them.

It is possible, and it's dreadful to behold.

I have no idea what Dubya's hold over them is. Maybe - no, I won't say it, I don't want to be yikesed on my own journal thread.

The best editorial cartoon I've seen this year featured three ostriches - UK, US and Australia. UK and US had their heads in the sand; Australia had its head inserted in the rear portions of the US ostrich.