East Asia Affairs

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On October 1st, Bali was once again the victim of Jamal Islamia, an Indonesian offshoot of Al Qaeda, so far only three Australians have been confirmed dead and 17 have been injured, John Howard has also noted that several other foreigners including Japanese and Koreans were also injured in the attack, but the majority of the victims were Indonesians.

The aftermath of this attack will be the hardest to bear, the victims’ loved ones will have to endure the heartache of never seeing their loved ones again and the fact that the victims did nothing to provoke the terrorists would make the pain that little more unbearable. All I can say is, grieve and make it to the next day, every time a day passes, the unbearable pain will slowly but surely subside, little by little you will learn to live with the pain though the scars will never disappear.

Though the human race have been and still is responsible for the killing of our own for misguided and senseless reasons, please do not give up on us. Once the world sees that fundamentalism of all shapes and form promotes intolerance and violence, from the left to the right, religion and culture, fundamentalism closes the mind to alternative ideas. We can and will get past this, it may take a year or a thousand years, but we will get there.

As life goes on, the aftermath comes into mind, the United States was a free democratic country, after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act has bartered those freedoms away for a little more security. Britain was a free democratic country, until the London attacks, Blair has introduced Draconian measures to protect British citizens but is also taking their freedoms away.

Previous to this attack, John Howard was in the process of passing draconian anti terrorist laws of his own, which include detaining suspects without charge for a longer period of time and the use of tracking devices for suspects, similar to ankle bracelets for parolees. The true victim during these attacks is not the people but our constitutional freedoms, with every attack, the government is forced to draw up new tougher anti terrorism laws to protects us so in the end the real victims are you and me.

The reason why these measures are needed is because the terrorists are not soldiers, we cannot distinguish them from a normal person because they look, walk and talk just like your friends, they hide and conceal themselves as innocent civilians until the last moment, just like the 11th century Islamic fundamentalists, Assassin founded by a man named Hasan Iba Sabbah.

This is not an attack on Howard, Blair or Bush and their Draconian measures, I believe they are desperately needed. But we must monitor these laws and ensure that these new laws are not abused by their respective governments.
Have you ever asked yourself, why in hell would a person be willing to strap a bomb to his chest, find a good crowd of innocent civilians and end as many of their retched lives? The following exert is from Willard Hogeboom is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Dowling College, New York:

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The Western public finds it difficult to understand the idea of the suicide assassin. "How do they get people to willingly do that?" is the question usually asked. The media often cite the promise of Paradise where beautiful virgins will serve such "martyrs". During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Iranian troops would often recruit large groups of young boys to go out over roads or fields suspected of being mined. Around their necks they carried keys which would open the gates of Paradise. The night before the September 11th attacks, Muhammad Atta, the alleged leader of the suicide pilots sent a message to the others that they would meet tomorrow in Paradise.

The idea of the suicide assassin in the Middle East goes back more than a thousand years. During the 11th Century, a Persian scholar of great wealth and charisma founded a fundamentalist Islamic sect called The Assassins. His name was Hasan Iba Sabbah and he operated out of a mountain fortress called Alamut, in northern Persia, or what is today Iran.

Up to that time, Arabs had dominated Islam but by the mid-11th Century a tribe from the East called the Seljuk Turks had begun to take over. Hasan regarded them as enemies of the True Faith and he set out to make war against their leaders by assassination.

One of the few Western accounts of the Assassin sect comes from Marco Polo's book of travels. Polo visited Alamut several centuries later and wrote that Hasan began the practice of recruiting local youths to join his sect. He trained them and disciplined them as fierce fighters who could secretly stalk and kill a victim, even if the victim was well guarded. Then, instead of trying to escape, the assassin would stand his ground and be killed himself. Later, some historians claimed that the term assassin came from the Arab word hashish, which the killers may have taken just before they attacked their victim.

According to Marco Polo, Hasan built a breathtaking secret garden at Alamut, modeled after Muhammad's description of Paradise in The Koran. When it was time for one of his followers to be sent on a mission, Hasan would have him drugged and taken to the secret garden. When the youth woke up, he would find himself in the magnificent garden, surrounded by beautiful flowers and bountiful fruit, with waters of flowing milk and honey, and all served to him by beautiful virgins called houris.

After a day or so, the youth would be drugged again and taken to Hasan. When he awoke, Hasan would tell him that Allah had allowed him to spend some time in Paradise because he had a mission for him. After successfully killing his victim, the youth would then return to Paradise, forever.

The targets of the assassins were not always other Muslims. During the period that European crusaders had established a Latin Kingdom along the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and some of their leaders were similarly targeted. England's King Edward I narrowly escaped assassination while on a crusade to the Middle East, before he became king. In 1197, a crusader leader named Henry of Champagne sought an alliance with the assassins and he visited one of the sect's fortresses. During the course of their discussion, the Grand Master in charge demonstrated the absolute obedience of his followers by ordering two of them to throw themselves off the ramparts of the fortress, which they did without hesitation. Henry quickly concluded the alliance.

Since those days, historical evidence have been hard to come by, because of this, historians have had to rely on legends and stories to reconstruct a history of the sect. As a result, The Assassins have become even more mysterious that perhaps they really were. Nevertheless, the idea of suicide killers in the Middle East is still very much with us to this day.
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Through the advancement in weaponry, they no longer use knives and swords, they do not even use guns, they hate us with the utmost intensity, they want the “godless infidels” to be wiped out of existence, they want to take out as many of us as possible, that’s why they use bombs and not bullets, their mentality is, a bomb to kill one person is a waste of a bomb.

The enemies we are facing in this fight do not value life like we do, they are more than willing to kill their own and others. Before you dismiss all Muslims as cold blooded murders, remember this, “Islamic extremists is to Islam is what the KKK is to Christianity”, we all have our demons, while we have dismissed most of our demons, our demons are still there, hiding in the shadows, waiting for an opportunistic time to rear their ugly head.

Whenever a Democratic politician is attacked and feels threatened, they run to the left, whenever a Republican is attacked they run to the right for support, when the whole of Islam feels threatened by our prejudice based on the demented acts of a select few, we are in danger of them running to those select few for support.

John Howard has continued to highlight the fact that the real objective of the bombers in this case was the toppling of the moderate Islamic leader and President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president has continued to promote racial and religious tolerance, something Jamal Islamia despises. John Howard has vowed to support President Yudhoyono and has been described by him as a good man and a good leader.

The Koran promotes peace, religious tolerance and condemns all violent acts. The Assassins, Al Qaeda and Jamal Islamia have distorted the Koran’s true message. The rest of Islam should not be punished for it.

 http://hnn.us/articles/1750.html