In Reply to: 60 minutes story posted by leelee on Monday, 15. November 2004 at 09:30 Bali Time:
Based on the theory that after a few brews, anything can make sense...
SBY has just become President.
The West supported him all the way, rubbing their hands with glee at new investment prospects and new security pacts that would get their troops strategically placed in South East Asia.
SBY publicly embarrasses John Howard by rejecting an Australia/Indonesia security pact in favour of wider dialogues within ASEAN.
SBY seems more interested in Chinese and other Asian investment than in Western investment.
...and then what happened?
Alexander Downer starts shooting his mouth off about JI using nukes. (Coincidentally at the same time the US wants to start selling weapons to Indonesia again.)
The least surprising story in the world breaks... Indonesia spied on Australia and bugged the embassy. Wow! Who'da thunk? Of course, ASIO has no spies in Indonesia, and no bugs in their embassy, have they? (And if they don't, what the hell do they do all day?)
And a bright young woman is arrested for smuggling drugs into a country where she could sell them for a fraction of what they're worth at home, and is facing the death penalty because of Indonesia's draconian laws.
...so a possible conclusion is this:
The Australian Government doesn't want Australians going to Indonesia. If you read the DFAT warnings, it's pretty clear they've been trying to scare us into staying at home for years. They want us to spend our dollars in Australia. So they've launched into a series of ridiculous actions to turn Aussies against Indonesians. Of which planting drugs on a tourist is just one event.
So there. John Howard did it. Let's get him.
Well... it makes more sense than JI having nukes...