Jemaah Islamiya: Who?

On Tuesday in this space I revealed that the experts in al Qaeda consider Jemaah Islamiya to be an arm of the terrorist group. Today, the news sources are reporting that Islamist cleric Bashiyar is wanted for questioning, is hiding in hospital, is a holy man, yadda, yadda, yadda. Let's establish something right now. Islam has no clergy. Sorry to tell you, media gods, but this dodge is a fraud. Calling inhuman monsters cleric doesn't change what they are. The Qaran is crystal clear in demanding that no man is above another in the eyes of Allah, and any believer can lead the prayers. Words like mullah, ayatollah, pir, and the like are sobriquets of respect, but there is no ordination, no standards, no organization to appoint, train, or otherwise confer special status upon these people. These men appoint themselves, and gather followers as they may.

This particular cleric has been revealed as a subhuman monster who is complicit in bombings, shootings, and mayhem going back years, including a string of thirty bombings of Christian churches in Indonesia in the so called Millenium Bombings, Christmas 2000, that occurred soon after Ayman Zawahri and Mohammad Atef met with Bashiyar in Irian Java. Luckily some of the bombs failed to go off, but the 30 that did killed 18 and seriously wounded 82. The impotent response of the Megawati government to the Millenium Bombings is given as a principle reason for the growth of al Qaeda operations in Indonesia in 2001 and 2002.

I get this stuff from a book that is, alas, not online (Inside al Qaeda by Rohan Gunaratna) but UNC has Ambassador Ronald Palmer's article since July. Of course, check out FAS.org here. So how is it that everyone but the mainstream media knows this, but they have it as a cleric, a man of the cloth, who is suffering terribly at the hands of the meanies? This bombing in Bali is the work of al Qaeda. This guy Bashiyar, or Ba’aysyir as some have it, is the ringleader. If Megawati won't, or can't do anything, expect more, much more, in Indonesia. Luckily for us, the majority of Indonesian Islamists can be satisfied with the imposition of Sharia (Islamic Law) in Indonesia. Happily for them, the antiwar left in this country wants to give them that victory. But now, the Australians are fully involved. I can hardly wait to see just what their "strong, but measured response" will be.