When Dani bin Misra was released from prison last week after serving just three months for smashing in the skull of a member of a Muslim sect, this conservative Indonesian town let out a triumphant cry.
“He’s a hero!” Rasna bin Wildan said of the teenage killer.
The ferociousness of the attack, captured on video and circulated widely on the Internet, guaranteed no one from the Ahmadiyah group would dare set foot in Cikeusik again, the 38-year-old farmer said as others nodded in agreement.
Their reaction is part of a wider wave of intolerance against religious minorities that is challenging Indonesia’s image as a beacon of how Islam and liberalism can coexist.
[blockquote] “I do feel bad people had to die,” said Asep Setiadi, 40, as he headed out to his rice field. “But I’m grateful that they’re finally gone.”… “We had to clean our village,” added Wildan bin Satim, 72. “This is no place for the followers of a cult.” [/blockquote]
Which is worse – this act by a civilian flash mob, or the U.S. Government launching a similarly themed paramilitary operation against the Branch Davidians?
But the [i] real [/i] danger is people like Rick Perry or Michelle Bachman, right? Or so our betters say.
#1 You’re kidding??
#3–The local police could have quitely arrested David Koresh in the parking lot of the local Wal Mart where he went weekly. Instead they surrounded the place with SWAT teams, brought in tanks from Ft. Hood, burned the place to the ground killing numerous women and children (who they supposedly were there to protect) then destroyed the evidence with bulldozers. All this was done under the direction of Janet Reno, who had no authority over Ft. Hood but was illegally given it by Bill Clinton. Now, Koresh was a pretty dispicable guy, and his “religion” was pretty studip, but they could have arrested him quietly at Wal Mart and then gone to the compound and put the children there under protective custody. Being dispicable with a stupid religion was the same excuse that was used in Germany for Kristallnacht. We have a very thin veneer of civilization covering us. Its best not to put it to the test.
#3 The veneer may be thin but it is worth defending. There is a big difference between a botched operation and systemic government and community support for violence against minorities. Or to put it another way we must continue to fight for Roosevelt’s essential freedoms. Failures do not mean we should give up.
John–I agree with that, but the subtle point was supposed to be, if Bill Clinton can give illegal authority to Janet Reno to kill religious minorities, then we are only an inch away from doing what Indonesia is doing. That’s why our leaders aren’t supposed to break the law to achieve their ends. America is rapidly losing the notion that we are a government of laws. If the right person is president, he/she can develop a cult follwing who will approve anything he/she does. The truth is Bill Clinton and Janet Reno did many thigs they could have been indicted for in that incedent and everyone hoo-hummed because it was an abusive idiot with a made-up religion. The most civilized and religiously/theologically sophisticated country in the world developed Aldolf Hitler in 1932. I stand by what I said–It is best not to put our civilization to the test.
David, I think you forget that the officers that went to that compound were not there to ‘kill kill kill’. In fact, it was the Davidians that initiated the violence. Do you actually think they would have done differently if we had arrested their leader elsewhere? Perhaps they might not have started the fires, perhaps, but Koresh was not the only ‘crazy’ out there. While i don’t condone how it turned out, I don’t believe for a minute that the authorities went there with the intent to kill or destroy the compound. I’m pretty sure you don’t either (or I hope so). So do you think our religious tolerance extends to child rapist variations?
It is good to be concerned about protecting our freedoms here in the US and to make sure that the government does not trample on those freedoms but it disturbs me that we can even think to compare the situation here with the far more serious persecution that occurs elsewhere. The shrill voices about the threats that the ‘other’ party is to our freedoms inhibits reasonable dialog here in the US and makes us deaf to the desperate needs of our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world.
Years ago when a conservative friend visited Little Rock during the Clinton administration he complained that “Little Rock smells bad!” … well some areas do but it’s nothing compared to New Jersey. Years later during the Bush administration a liberal friend expressed his dismay over the highway named after Bush senior and he followed this up with a bitter complaint about the incompetence exhibited in the road signs. I know liberals and conservatives who have bought firearms not for sport or personal safety but in preparation for the imminent social meltdown that will occur in the near future.
I agree that we must not be complacent about the dangers to our freedoms here in the US but hundreds of millions of people would eagerly trade their challenges for ours. … Actually, I take that back. Some of the most persecuted Christians thank God that they have the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel and the pray for us to not be complacent about the Gospel.
In the meantime we need to pray urgently for our brothers and sisters in Indonesia and elsewhere.
Note that this was Muslim violence against a Muslim offshoot, not a Christian village that refused to allow Muslims, as thought it might be from the opening sentences of the story. Muslim violence against Christians tends to be even more common in Indonesia and that area of the world than in the Middle East.
#6–When did I say that? You are missing the point entirely. I don’t know what would have happened if they had arrested Koresh at the Wal Mart and gotten a protective order for the children. I actually don’t really care that they killed him. Where I come from we joking say its still a defense in a murder trial the somene needed killin’. I do know Bill Clinton allowed Janet Reno to declare martial law in a compound outside Waco, Texas. Do you really want someone like Eric Holder to have the authority to declare martial law at his whim? Quit focusing on what a jerk Koresh was and focus on the necessity for our leaders to follow the law. BTW, when has anyone in your community been arrested with an M1 Abrahams? Never. Its like killing a flea with an atomic bomb. It will work everytime; but its wasteful and clearly unnecessary!
Agreed. Any sectarian violence is wrong.
Well, David, what you said was:
[i]Being dispicable with a stupid religion was the same excuse that was used in Germany for Kristallnacht. We have a very thin veneer of civilization covering us. Its best not to put it to the test. [/i]
so how then should we approach ‘religions’ like the one that was in Waco? From your comment, I thought you were advocating simply leaving them be.
And when was the last time someone with fully automatic weapons shot up an ATF team serving a search warrant? As I recall, several of the ATF agents were killed (along with a number of the Davidians) when they tried to server that warrant. So, how would [b]you[/b] have arrested these folks? Given the proximity to a military base, and the level of resistance that had already occurred, I don’t think it unreasonable to involve a vehicle that was impervious to their weapons. The organizations that were conducting the raid were Federal, not local, and given a large number of heavily armed people, already proven to be willing to kill, not sure that declaring martial law for that isolated incident was not appropriate.
#11–You are mixing apples and oranges. Killing Branch Dividians is not what my comments are about. Of all the people who comment on this blog I am probably the least concerned about bad people being shot. I don’t care if they shot Koresh or not. The issue I am addressing is that you can’t have a government of men and expect to survive. Our leaders have to follow the law. That said, since you asked, I am a great respecter of life of the good guys. I would have cut off the head of the snake, by arresting Koresh at Wal Mart. I then would have starved them out. The State has all the time in the world. My suspicion is that when Koresh was arrested it would have been an easy matter to get the rest to surrender. It was a cult afterall. The other question you need to ask is why ATF was there in the first palce when the crime in question was child abuse; or why AFT attacked the in the first place once they were there. There was no immenient danger to anyone. The place was surrounded. They weren’t going anywhere. My suspicion is they were in “cowboy” mode a White House which for some totally unknown reason was pressuring them to do something. It turned out very badly for all concerned. Also, proximity to a military base isn’t really relevant to whether what Reno and Clinton did was legal, because it wasn’t. As I said before, when is the last time someone in your community was arrested with an Abrahams tank? Do you really want Eric Holder, or any other attorney general for that matter, to be able to arrest you, for any crime they choose with an armored infanrty battalion whenever they feels like it? I prefer a govenrment of laws.
Hey, Dave, I think we are actually a lot closer than you might believe. Just comparing this to Kristallnacht (a country wide mob scene) seemed a bit extreme to me. I go with all your other points, am not advocating a rule of men. Had I been King then, I would likely have done as you suggested and starved them out. I don’t believe the ATF was there about the children, I think they were there because they had reason to believe the Davidians were illegally modifying semi-automatic weapons to automatic, and I believe that was actually the case. They were there to search for those illegally modified weapons.
And I struggle with what your tank analogy… Suppose the house next door had 30 heavily armed drug dealers, who were resisting arrest, had killed multiple officers of the law, and showed no sign of any interest in negotiating? Bullets from the exchange are hitting your house. I’m not saying that there is carte blanche for the authorities to call out the armor, just think that there are exceptions to every rule/law…. If one of the drug gangs over the border in Mexico started having shootouts in our cities, would you still say that is no reason to bring in the military?
Again, I think we are actually on the same page for most of this, just trying to make the point that there ARE times when something like an Abrams might be appropriate. Many large cities have armored vehicles in their bag of tricks. But I also agree that the cowboy mentality ruled the day for this tragic event. But I would also argue that the cowboy mentality killed Osama Bin Laden, so not sure that the cowboy mentality is always wrong. In this instance it just ended badly.