In Reply to: ...and the news gets weirder... posted by cliff on Thursday, 29. September 2005 at 06:29 Bali Time:
As long as there is an underclass of poor disenfranchised people, young men especially will be fodder for all kinds of manipulation and indoctrination, from simply "rentamob" to serious acts of terroism. Crrrently to quote a Muslim leader who's name I forget "While most Muslims are not terrorists unfortunately most terrorists are Muslim". That's the world as it is today. In other times it has been other groups, other revolutions etc.
I also believe as long as we don't tackle poverty in the "third world" we are in no way likely to win the "war on Terrorism". I think our aid to Aceh does more for Australian-Indonesian relations and for the opinion of the ordinary Indonesian in Aceh than a million words. I wish it wasn't offset against Iraq but it is. It isn't rocket science. My old mum used to say "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar!