Abu Bakar Bashir, Southeast Asia’s Leading Terror Mullah
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

I get a visceral reaction every time I see this guy.

I first heard of Abu Bakar Bashir, the leading terror cleric in Southeast Asia, in early 2002 from Sidney Jones, who was then with Human Rights Watch. She knew her stuff on Indonesia and she sounded the alarm loudly about this bastard well before the first Bali bombings in October 2002. She was absolutely adamant about the danger he posed as leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and the sleepiness of the Indonesian government to the threat he posed. She was a voice in the wilderness at the time, she wouldn’t back down when others challenged her, and she was right. And guess what? Nothing’s changed.

Bali was bombed in October 2002, the Australian embassy was attacked near the end of that year, the Jakarta Marriott shortly after that, then Bali was attacked again … and they were all the result of this Yemeni-born thug who set up shop in the Javanese royal city of Solo, opened a pesantren (it was really a madrassa) and then began to preach Islamofascist hate utterly alien to the real Indonesian culture. His establishment is known as “the ivy league” of Islamofascist rabidity in Indonesia.

The evil thing got put into the dock for the Jakarta Marriott attack, the one that killed poor Indonesian cab drivers waiting for fares mostly, some of them fathers and the only breadwinners to many Indonesian children, and … he was acquitted by an easily influenced Jakarta judge. Don’t ask.

Then the terror cleric got put in the dock for instigating the Bali attacks which killed 202 … and in the heat of thingsm he got all of two years’ jail, or, about three days per dead victim. After all, they were only Australians.

Australian Schapelle Corby got 20 years for smuggling pot in her bodyboard bag.

Some justice.

What’s bad is that terrorists all notice how cheap the price is for bringing terror to Indonesia. And how the cost is primarily borne by decent people, not themselves. Bali lost its tourism industry, thousands of people were put out of work, the island was besmirched with the taint of terror, something utterly alien to the hospitable and splendid Balinese way, and the price for the Balinese came to billions of dollars in their earnings. And the terrorists? Nothing in the way of cost, and their spiritual leader got all of a two-year stretch in the clink.

Jubilant militants came out to greet Abu Bakar Bashir as he was released from the Jakarta jail and then put their Islamofacist preacher on a 12-hour police-escorted convoy to make a triumphant return to Solo in central Java. That happened yesterday and these militants, now knowing that terrorism paid, vowed bigger celebrations as the US and Australia voiced cautious concerns.

Abu Bakar Bashir vowed to continue preaching hate from his old redoubt and now is taunting the West. He insisted that the Bali bombings were “God’s will.” Obviously, he considers himself God.

Meanwhile, how’s this for a disgusting side story: Abu Bakar Bashir’s group managed to get a cash contract from the United Nations to distribute earthquake aid to the Yogyakarta earthquake victims. Even if they didn’t steal the money or use it for more terror bombings, the damage is immense because the group buys unearned political goodwill, something all terror groups seek with ‘the people.’

The UN yanked the contract in the wake of Bashir’s release from prison, claiming they didn’t know whom the funds were going to, but that is a pretty hollow excuse.

What makes this so pernicious is that Bashir’s group was out there advertising and recruiting and making an unearned good name for itself distributing aid with UN money (mostly paid for by the U.S.). And the UN went right along with it, enabling this mullah! How many terrorists did Bashir recruit with this UN aid? That’s what I want to know.

Because the one thing I know for sure is that there will be more terrorism in Indonesia as a consequence of this Abu Bakar Bashir travesty of justice.