The Meaning of the Kuta Bombing

At about 11 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, October 12th, 2002, three bombs exploded in Kuta in Bali. The first occurred in Paddy's Bar and sent drinkers and dancers fleeing into the street. The second was a massive explosion in front of Sari's Club, across the street. This, a car bomb, was a huge explosion whch devastated about 100 metres of Kuta's main street, created a huge crater, and killed over 180 people, most of them Australians. The third was a comparatively small explosion in the vicinity of the American consulate in a suburb of Denpasar.

The world's response was, of course, shock, horror and outrage. From one minute to the next Kuta was changed from a scene of raucous dancing, drinking and merriment to a scene of burning buildings and bloody carnage, burnt corpses and people horribly wounded.

Immediately some Western politicians claimed that this was another "senseless" act of terrorism, the work of some shadowy anti-Western Islamic fundamentalist group, which could strike again anytime. Some, in particular George W. Bush (desperately trying to gain support a few weeks before the mid-term elections in the U.S.), saw this as useful in their ongoing efforts to incite the West to a "war on terrorism", directed mainly at Arab and Muslim countries.

From the 1970s to the 1990s Kuta changed from a sleepy seaside village, much favored by young Western travellers for its relaxed atmosphere, fine beach and wonderful sunsets, to an over-commercialized town of tasteless hotels, McDonalds hamburger joints and shops selling trinkets to tourists, a place described by another commentator (Voxfux), somewhat indelicately but nevertheless accurately, as "a swarming tourist shithole". Every night the many bars on Kuta's main street would be filled by drunken Western (mostly Australian) revellers intent on having a good time as they understood it. To a strict Muslim this would appear as yet more evidence of the moral depravity of Western society, but Bali is a Hindu island and the locals were more tolerant, especially as the beer-guzzling tourists spent a lot of money during their visits.

When one looks for a reason for the Kuta bombing one might thus think of simple Islamic anti-Westernism. The Western women baring their breasts on Kuta beach and the drunken Australians seen every night on Kuta's main street were certainly enough to offend most Indonesians, more deeply so if they were strict Muslims. But this bombing was not simply some act of protest. It was a massive explosion which could only have been the work of expert bombers able to obtain and use whatever sort of explosive was used, and the extent of the carnage it produced indicates that there is a message here deeper than mere protest against Western decadence.

It is possible that the message was meant for those in the U.S., Britain and Australia who oppose war on Iraq, and that we shall now see the political leaders of these countries blaming "Arab terrorists" just as was done following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. If this is the case then those behind the Kuta bombing are those who wish to see war on Iraq go ahead and want to ensure the support of the majority of the populations of the three Western countries taking part. This would put the Kuta bombing in the same category as the attacks of September 11th, that is, a staged "terrorist attack" designed to whip up unthinking support for U.S. military aggression against oil-rich Muslim countries.

In recent months the Americans have revealed their new military doctrine of pre-emption, announcing to the world that in their "war on terror" henceforth they will allow themselves to launch military attacks on other countries if they feel so inclined. Iraq, Iran and North Korea are the first on the list of countries to be bombed, and George W. Bush has spent most of his time recently in talking up an attack on Iraq. Those whose understanding extends beyond taking in sound-bites on the nightly news know that this attack on Iraq is just the next step (after Afghanistan) in the American plan to establish military bases in all areas of the world of economic significance. The bombing of Afghanistan and the planned attack on Iraq show that America's military aggression is directed primarily toward Arab countries.

It is thus also possible that the bombing was also a pre-emptive attack. It could be seen as a message from the Arab world to the West: If you go ahead with your plans for military aggression against the Arab world then bombings of this sort are what you can expect. Rather than waiting for the Pentagon to send in the cruise missiles and the bombers over Baghdad to kill thousands of civilians, and then retaliating, some Arab group may have demonstrated in advance the kind of retaliation which could be expected.

Kuta was an easy target, and the intended victims were not only Australians but citizens of the U.S. and European countries. Next time, if American and British attacks on the Arab world go ahead as planned, the targets may be Westerners in their own countries: bombs in British pubs and American shopping malls, truck bombs in crowded streets ... the possibilities are endless. And as the British and the Israelis know from hard experience, there is no effective defense.

This may be the real message of the Kuta bombing, delivered with shocking effect to those Western political leaders who are gung-ho for an attack on Iraq and other Arab countries: Proceed with your plans to attack Arab countries and we shall retaliate with attacks of this sort upon your own citizens.

Would this message be enough to deter Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Powell and Co. from proceeding with their plans to take over the world by the use of U.S. military force? But why should it? They care nothing for civilian deaths in the countries they plan to attack and they also care nothing for civilian deaths in their own country and those of their allies except where this may lead to domestic opposition to their plans. But such opposition, they think, can be put down by the skilfull use of political propaganda in the mainstream media, intrusive domestic surveillance, arousal of fear of terrorist acts in the general population and the detention in camps of those who prove troublesome. Thus although such a message of the Kuta bombing to these political leaders would be clear to them, they would be likely to ignore it.

Instead they would be likely to do what George W. Bush did on September 11th: Declare that this was the work of Arab terrorists (already Bush is blaming Al-Qaida and the Australian foreign minister has named one S.E.Asian fundamentalist Islamic group as a likely suspect), terrorists who must be tracked down (this will, conveniently, take quite a while) and punished — meaning that some country or organization has to be bombed in order to demonstrate an "appropriate" response. But this is a smokescreen, designed to conceal from the people of the U.S., Britain and Australia one possible inference from the carnage at Kuta:  If you bomb our people, we'll bomb yours. It is an old truth: He to whom evil is done does evil in return.

The American and British political leaders who do evil to others by ordering bombing raids which they know will kill and maim civilians in other countries (whole families were reduced to cinders when an American "smart bomb" entered an air raid shelter in Baghdad in 1991 and exploded within) mostly know that evil will be done in return. But they do not care, because they know that the evil done in return will not harm them, and will even prove useful in their warmongering propaganda. Only when the people of Western countries understand that they have given political power to warmongers will there be a chance for peace, provided, that is, they are able to remove them from their positions of power without allowing equally evil men or women to take their place.

Sometimes what is the most likely possibility changes when we take into account a hitherto overlooked fact. In this case the fact is that only six U.S. citizens were killed in the Kuta bombing (the total number of deaths was 125), not because there were so few Americans in Kuta but because the Americans there tended not to hang out at the Sari Club. There were other places where Americans preferred to congregate, such as the Peanut Club. Everyone in Kuta knew where the Americans preferred to gather and where the Australians did, or if not, could find out in five minutes by asking around. One commentator, Voxfux, raised the significant question: If you were an Islamic terrorist planning to detonate a huge bomb outside some club in Kuta, why would you target Australians when you could just as easily target Americans? To target Australians makes no sense from an Arab/Muslim point of view. Most of the population of Australia is opposed to the intentions of the leading Australian politicians to participate in America's plans for an invasion of Iraq. From the point of view of the Arabs it would be foolish to inflame anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment among the Australian people, thereby strengthening the hand of those politicians. But from the point of view of those who want to wage war on Iraq (i.e., the Bush administration) it makes perfect sense to try to turn the Australian people against Arabs and Muslims.

One has to ask: Who benefits? The thinking expressed above considered the possibility that the Kuta bombing was a pre-emptive strike against the West as a demonstration of what could be expected should the West (or rather, America, Britain and Australia) attack Iraq and thereafter the rest of the Arab world. But that thinking also concluded that such a pre-emptive strike would really have little effect in reducing the likelihood of such an attack, because those who are planning the war on Iraq do not care if Westerners are killed in reprisal attacks. Thus the Arab world would actually not benefit from such a pre-emptive attack.

Those who benefit most from a crime are the main suspects, and in the case of this crime it is the Bush administration and the global imperialists (with their "war on terror") behind it who benefit most.

Firstly, as noted above, the Kuta bombing has increased anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment in Australia — although the Australian public (to its credit) seems not to have reacted with the unthinking hatred toward Arabs which most of the American public stupidly exhibited following the attacks of September 11th. This is to the advantage of those who wish to persuade the majority of Australians who are opposed to the Howard government's support of U.S. war plans to drop their opposition.

Secondly, the accusations (as usual, with no supporting evidence) made by the Bush and Howard administrations and repeated in the mainstream media, that "obviously" al-Qaida was either directly to blame or had a hand in the bombing, have forced the Indonesian government into taking a harder line against "Muslim extremist terrorists", which is exactly what the Bush administration wants, since it allows it to pressure the Indonesian government into allowing direct involvement of American and Australian security and intelligence agencies in Indonesia.

Thirdly (as mentioned above), another major terrorist atrocity is good news for Bush in his attempts to ratchet up yet again the fear of terrorism in the American people just prior to the mid-term elections. The message, promoted by Bush and Powell on TV at every opportunity is: See, those evil terrorists have struck again; we must be strong and unrelenting in our war on terror, we must root out this evil; so vote for us (Republicans), since we have vowed to wage that war for as long as it takes, to hunt down these wicked killers and bring them to justice, etc., etc.

Fourthly, the ruling party in the Australian government has introduced legislation which would allow (in effect) indefinite detention without trial, indeed, even without any criminal charge, but merely "on suspicion". The standard procedure, already followed in Britain and the U.S., is to stage some heinous terrorist attack and then use this as a "justification" to pass draconian "anti-terrorist" laws, the real intent of which is to provide the state with greatly increased capacity for surveillance of and control over the lives of ordinary citizens. It looks like this tactic (successful in the past) has here been used again in support of the current legislation now pending before the Australian parliament.

The Kuta bombing was such a vicious attack, using high explosives and designed to inflict maximum damage on comparatively innocent civilians, that it is evident that it was a psychological operation, designed for maximum impact on the populations of Western countries, particularly Australia. As a psychological operation is it similar to the attacks of September 11th. Thinking through all the facts thus leads to the conclusion that, like September 11th, the Kuta bombing was probably an American operation.

It seems that those behind the September 11th attacks decided that since it worked so well on the people of the U.S. they'd run the same number on the Australians, thereby providing assistance to those politicians in Canberra whom they see as their tools to carry out their assigned function in the global game plan. So look for a repeat in Australia of what we have seen post-9/11 in the U.S. under the guise of the "War on Terrorism". The only uncertainty is whether the Australian people will be, as most Americans apparently were, dumb enough to fall for it.

Following some violent ASIO raids in late October 2002 on the homes of Muslim families ("it's OK for the government to be a little ruthless" says the cryptofascist Australian foreign minister, preparing the citizens for ruthlessness by the Australian government as normal operating procedure) some attention-seeking academic has called for police "special branches" in all states to seek out "terrorist sympathizers" (and lock them up?). It looks like the beginning of the end for basic freedoms in Australia — if the people don't have the presence of mind to stop this. Jokes about Australians having only half a brain used to be common. Now we shall see whether their intelligence has improved in the last twenty years or, as may well be the case, they have hardly any more understanding of their situation than sheep, and as little courage.

And in late December 2002 the Australian Prime Minister confirmed his low opinion of the intelligence of the average Australian by running ads on TV and in newspapers urging them to watch out for "terrorists" and to call a national hotline if they see anyone acting "suspiciously". What counts as "suspicious" is not explained, except by means of the catchy slogan, "If it doesn't add up, call up." The Prime Minister is thus urging all Australians to start spying on their neighbors, to begin observing their activities and trying to identify exactly what they are doing so as to decide whether it "adds up". If it doesn't "add up" then an Australian diligently performing his patriotic duty is supposed to report his suspicions to the authorities. This is the sort of thing that happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and in post-war communist East Germany under the Stasi secret police. Up until now, according to all reports, Australians have been an easy-going and friendly lot. Now that they know that their neighbors may call the federal police at the slightest hint that something doesn't (in the eyes of their neighbors) "add up" you can be sure that social and personal relations are going to become corrupted by mutual distrust. Australian society is going down the tubes quicker than you can say "1984". It is no longer a place where a freedom-loving person would (if they had the choice) choose to live.

Research topic:  Document the parallels between post-9/11 events in the U.S. and post-10/12 events in Australia, beginning with:

U.S. officials blame hitherto little-known Muslim extremist group for attack Australian officials blame hitherto little-known Muslim extremist group for attack
U.S. President's popularity surges in wake of 9/11 Australian Prime Minister's popularity surges in wake of 10/12
U.S. Vice-President warns of further terrorist attacks Australian Foreign Minister warns of further terrorist attacks
The Director of the FBI announces that future terrorist attacks on the U.S. are almost a certainty. The Director-General of ASIO announces that future terrorist attacks on Australians are "certain".
New powers are to be given to FBI and CIA "to fight terrorism". New powers are to be given to ASIO and ASIS "to fight terrorism".
U.S. President announces policy of "pre-emptive" attacks against countries "harboring terrorists". Australian Prime Minister announces policy of "pre-emptive" attacks against "terrorists" in S.E.Asia.
The U.S. government initiates the TIPS campaign to enlist 20% of the U.S. population to monitor and report on any "suspicious"activities of their fellow citizens. Australian Prime Minister sets up hotline capable of handling 2000 calls an hour to allow Australians to report "suspicious" activities of their fellow citizens.

(a) Discuss the proposition that high-level Australian government officials are following a script laid down in Washington.
(b) Compare news presentation and commentary in the the post-9/11 U.S. media with that in the post-10/12 Australian media.

If the U.S. attacks Iraq the carnage at Kuta will seem a small affair compared to the slaughter inflicted upon the Iraqi people. Instead of a few hundred dead and wounded there will be hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. We know this because:

A new report on urban warfare by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff is a blueprint for the use of America's overwhelming military and technological supremacy ... to destroy Iraq's major cities.  ... The military commander of an urban assault "shapes the battlespace ..." ... In plain English, [this] means leveling buildings to improve mobility, destroying the infrastructure to deny water, electricity and other systems to the defenders, and driving out (or killing) the civilian population so that they don't get in the way. — Report on urban warfare points to US plans to destroy Iraqi cities

But, in contrast to the worldwide media attention given to the atrocity in Kuta, the atrocities to be committed by the U.S. in Iraq will not reach the awareness of most Americans because

the US military is counting on the servile American media to whitewash the upcoming devastation of Iraqi cities, to downplay the casualty toll, and to obediently retail such official lies as the claim — frequently made after US atrocities — that civilian victims were being used as "human shields" by the enemy. — Ibid

If, as seems likely, the U.S. goes ahead with its plans to take over the world militarily, attempting to destroy any country that stands in its way, future historians will look back and view the U.S. — and any countries which assist it — with the same loathing and contempt with which we now view the German Nazi government of the 1930s. History will judge America's war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the willing support and participation of Australia and Britain will surely not be overlooked.

Related web pages of some interest:


Last modified: 2003-03-12 CE

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