What I said. We desecrate the quran, every day, in our hearts if not in reality. It's freedom of speech. We do that here. We are not going to stop.

Deal with it.

No muslims. No mosques.

Posted by: Havoc at May 26, 2005 10:28 AM

So, all US diplomatic missions in Indonesia shutting down? My guess is that the country's ready to go belly-up. Be prepared for a bunch of new states emerging. Javanese colonialism is dying.

Posted by: Kepha at May 26, 2005 10:34 AM

Wonder how much of that donated tsunami money is now funding Indoneasian jihadist's?

Posted by: duh_swami at May 26, 2005 11:19 AM

These "Indonesian Muslim activists, including those from hard-line Islamic groups" would do well to spend some quality time listening to 19,500 of their brethren in Aceh and what the USA did for them....

Later, Indonesians witnessed the compassion of the doctors and nurses of the USNS Mercy as they treated over 19,500 Acehnese patients and performed more than 250 operations. I do not think that any other government in the world would have been able to provide such an enormous quantity of aid so rapidly. No other government is equipped with the enormous war machine that the United States has, and we watched that great war machine being used for something totally different. It was being used to save and heal thousands of lives, and, quite frankly, at first we Indonesians watched with suspicion and then in puzzlement but finally with gratitude and fondness.

During the last days before the departure of the ship, patients were returned to shore to finish their final recuperation at Indonesian hospitals, many of which are just starting to fully function again. It was an emotional time for me because I translated as patients and doctors and nurses bid each other farewell. Over and over again this is what the patients have been saying: ''I do not know how to thank you. I cannot repay you for what you have done. I have nothing with which to repay you. It is only God who will be able to repay you for what you have done ."

It is one thing to heal people and give them medical aid, but I think that there is another element in all this that you may not be aware of. These people you have been treating are the poorest of the poor. They eat chicken or meat perhaps once a year. If they eat fish twice a week, that is really good. Normally their meal will be a plate of rice with some chili peppers and a bit of swamp spinach or other vegetable. There has been an insurgency going on here for many years. The military extorts money out of them and burns their houses. Then the separatists come and kidnap them, extort money out of them, and burn their houses. They are frequently caught in the crossfire between the military and the separatists, and it doesn't matter, because they are just garbage -- people of no value. If they go to a hospital for help, they are not kept waiting for hours; they are sometimes kept waiting for days, and they are treated with arrogance and without care. Indifference is often the best they can expect.

And then they came here. Here you not only healed their bodies but you treated them with such gentleness, such compassion, and such great courtesy. For the first time in their lives they were treated as human beings who have worth. You see a man who has lost an arm, a patient who has lost a leg, and yet when they leave the ship they are all smiling. The joy in them is overwhelming. They are perhaps happier than they have ever been in their lives because for the first time they are aware of their worth as people -- that their thoughts and feelings and lives count. When they leave here they know that they are valuable. They leave with self-esteem.

In Indonesia the words for ''thank you" are ''terima kasih," which, if you translate them literally, mean ''accept love" for what it is. So allow me, on behalf of my country and my people, to express to you our gratitude and to give you our love.

Posted by: yadayada at May 26, 2005 11:53 AM

It's nice to see that someone actually appreciates the US efforts, post tsunami in Indonesia. Heroism does not always happen on the battlefield...sometimes it occurs in an operating room...

Posted by: duh_swami at May 26, 2005 12:29 PM

this book, the quran, is where the problem lies. we are being shown this clearly by the behavior of the indonesian rioters in protesting the alleged quran-flushing. i do not even have to read the quran to know that the quran is the problem. the quran is what muslims get emotional about. may we concentrate our intellectual, ideological efforts on somehow declawing or rendering the quran invalid for today's world in order to win the battle of ideas which eventually could defeat terrorism. the whole culture of islam, which rests on the quran, needs to be changed into freedom. the quran needs to be changed to reflect the principles of freedom, not violence and conquest. that is one way we could win the hearts of muslims. change their holy book to reflect positively upon freedom and democracy. otherwise, if we cannot convince muslims to give up the quran and become reasonable, how can we ever hope to change muslim behavior?

Posted by: listen to realanswers.net at May 26, 2005 3:09 PM

In order to change Quran into a decent civilized writing, it would be necessary to condense it down to about two pages. Maybe one...

Posted by: duh_swami at May 26, 2005 3:26 PM

"Wonder how much of that donated tsunami money is now funding Indoneasian jihadist's?"

That is the multi-billion dollar question that I have had all along. I would guess these dirtbag jihadists look at the tsunami as a great gift from Allah due to the money they are getting.

Posted by: Chi85 at May 26, 2005 4:50 PM