Indonesia -- Good News in the War on Terror

A major strategic concern in the War on Terror has been Southeast Asia. There have emerged in recent years in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia, strong Muslim radical movements that have in various ways and to varying degrees organized opposition to their national governments, non-Muslim minorities, and the West, particularly the United States.

Some strategists have argued that US gains in the Middle East were more than offset by the emergence of this strongly anti-American radical Muslim movement in Southeast Asia and have predicted that the future center of the war against terror will be in that region.

The US response to the tsunami disaster was one of the great humanitarian efforts of modern times. US forces decended immediately on the region, dispensing aid rather than bullets. The UN and other NGO's were marginalized and clearly incapable of dealing with disaster on such a scale. It was the US, and the Australians, who stood in the forefront, dispensing food, drinking water, money, and medical care to local populations. This magnificent effort has had an effect, altering the political culture of the region.

James Dunnigan at the Strategy Page reports that "peace" has broken out in Indonesia. He writes:

April 10, 2005: The large and dramatic U.S. Navy relief effort in Aceh also delivered a lot of good will for the United States, and reduced the appeal of Islamic radicalism. Islamic terrorists were never very popular in the first place, and several years of arrests, bloody terror attacks and news of Islamic terrorist activities elsewhere in the world have further tarnished their image. Thus there is less religious violence. Even the separatist rebels in Aceh are pushing for a negotiated settlement. The separatists are also Islamic conservatives, and can see which way public opinion is blowing.

Read it here.

Slowly but surely the rest of the world is beginning to realize that when Dubya talked about "compassionate conservatism" he meant it.