Indonesia plans 'ideological war' to prevent terrorist acts

[bmolsson]

Maybe this is the right approach if they succeed to keep it running.....


Indonesia plans 'ideological war' to prevent terrorist acts

JAKARTA (Bloomberg): Indonesia, which has suffered from suicide bombings each year since 2002, plans to wage an "ideological war" against terrorists to prevent them from influencing its people, the country's vice president said.

Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, plans to set up a panel of Muslim clerics next week that will attempt to counter terrorist ideology through their sermons, said Vice President Jusuf Kalla, 63.

Kalla " is trying to provide some sort of leadership," after criticism the nation lacking direction in its fight against terrorism, said Bruce Gale, a political risk analyst at Hill & Associates Ltd. in Singapore. "I would say that this is apositive stance."

The move comes after police found videos left behind by three suicide bombers who detonated bombs in Bali on Oct. 1 that killed at least 20 people, claiming their attacks would help them get into heaven, and amid indications that terrorists are planning further attacks.

"Most important, is the ideological war," Kalla said in an interview on Saturday at his official residence in Jakarta. "You can win the ideological war only if you know their thinking, and know why our" thinking is better.

The clerics will be asked to ensure that correctinterpretations of Islam reach every province in the world's largest archipelago, Kalla said.

[Prodigal]

This has allegedly been put into practise already in a different form, (can't remeber off the top of my head which country), but, apparently there has been some form of success by taking militants into an "environment", where their ideology is confronted by muslim clerics. Essentially the same kind of deal as looking at the bible as a whole rather than taking a line or two here & there to suit whatever fire & brimstone you want to incite.

Sure there's a name for places that do that kind of thing.

[Rodion Romanovich]

This sounds promising. It will have a good chance of solving the fundamentalistic types of terrorism, which is a big threat also to neutral nations in the WOT (and perhaps even a threat to nations against the US way of fighting WOT), by simply eliminating the reason for it and nothing else. If the propaganda chance that comes with this preaching isn't abused, I have high hopes for this to be very effective indeed.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In the long run, such efforts are central to winning a war against terrorism, particularly of the pan-national fundamentalist islam variety. Only an idea can best another idea.

A unified democratic Iraq would also serve as a counterpoint to the "islamo-fascist" fringe, and a long term hammer to beat down an inferior and violent sect. I do wish Bush was enough of a speaker to have sold the effort on this basis in the first place, rather than backing into it when other threats were revealed to have been less well grounded than thought. Ultimately, that is the cause for which it is worthwhile to spend precious lives.

[Soulforged]

Is the best that we've.... At least it's not war (it wasn't in response to anybody).

[Tribesman]

Since Indonesia has many different terrorist groups of different faiths what is it doing to address the non fanatical muslim ones ?

Ah Seamus spotted that alreadyparticularly of the pan-national fundamentalist islam variety.

[bmolsson]

Indonesia is trying hard to outroot sectarian violence as well as separatism. The agreement with GAM has been very succesful so far, even if it in long term might create a sharia based province, similar to Malaysia, that could create problems in the future.
This is an attempt to start reforming islam, which is crucial for stopping fundamentalistic islam and the following terrorism.....

[Red Harvest]

Indonesia is getting an awful late start. In the past the military was supporting the fanatics attacking other faiths...going to take awhile to break the bonds.