I'm sure they also wouldn't mind us backing off of hounding them for the brutal methods they've used in places like East Timor, Papua and Aceh.

I do agree with the post, however, that it's going to take sometimes icky allies like the Indonesian military to help us move the ball forward in disrupting extremists from putting down roots.  Let's just make sure that, in addition to avoiding terrorist-manufacturing debacles like the Iraq war in the future, we don't once again give carte blanche to entities like the Indonesian military whose own goals, while paying lip service to the "War on Terror," are more self-serving than not.

Posted at October 3, 2005 12:06 PM in response to Observations from Jakarta