Posted on: Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Latest Jakarta bomb shows U.S. dilemma

As if the Bush administration didn't have enough on its plate, yesterday's bombing at a luxury hotel in Jakarta underscores its paucity of options for dealing with the deteriorating situation in Indonesia.

The paradox that hinders Washington's response reflects Indonesia's uneven transition from strongman rule to democracy: The sort of effective police power needed to defeat terrorist organizations inspires popular dread of a return to the disappearances, torture, summary executions and mind-boggling corruption of the Suharto era.

Thus when Washington — or the U.S. Pacific Command's headquarters here at Camp Smith — contemplates helping Indonesia's military become more effective in confronting terrorism, it risks being seen as aiding and abetting a backslide from the country's budding democracy.

In a timely column in Sunday's Focus section, Richard Halloran wrote of the U.S. International Military Education and Training program that flourished in Indonesia from 1989 to 1992 but was then halted by Congress.

While the Pentagon reasonably feels such programs establish understanding and transparency between the two countries, lawmakers correctly perceived that American training had the unintended consequence of making the Indonesian military much more effective at carrying out its abuses.

The dilemma for Washington is to recognize the danger of allowing terrorism to thrive amid growing chaos in Indonesia, while resisting the temptation to engage in the sort of heavy-handed interference that gave the CIA such a bad name following coups in places like Vietnam and Iran in the 1950s.