Storm Track Disinformation: Winning Battles but Losing the War on Terror

The on-line edition of Time Magazine carries a story by Joshua Kurlantzick paying homage to Indonesia's unequalled track record in the continuing war on terrorism. Too bad they and the writer don’t have a clue as to the real conflict before them.

The article chronicles recent devastating blows dealt to home-grown and imported terror cells, citing Indonesia as "one of the world's few triumphs in fighting terrorism."

Relating how police and anti-terror units have "arrested or killed some 300 alleged militants," Indonesia has also become a front-line member on the world effort to curtail money laundering and terror, earning praise from the U.S., Great Britain and Australia along the way.

The whole thrust of the article plays up the success of treating the war as a criminal problem and totally unaware that the strategic struggle between a 21^st century civilization and a 7^th century one is about ideology not terrorism.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono has pursued a policy of winning hearts and minds, persuading young Indonesians that extremism and radicalism have no place in Indonesian society.

And how well has he been ‘winning hearts and minds’?

As Reuters reported back in October, just 10 percent of Indonesian Muslims said they backed jihad and supported bomb attacks on the island of Bali aimed at foreign tourists. But Indonesia is home to more than 200 million Muslims, so while 10 percent may sound like a small number percentage-wise, it is actually quite large in absolute terms. It means there are some 20 million Muslims in Indonesia alone who are willing to say out loud that they support the use of violence and terror against innocent human beings.

So what do the numbers tell us? That terrorism is not the only jihad that the Islamists use to advance their agenda of Islamatizing the world.

The figures above, taken from a variety of nations, continents and contexts, all point in one very ominous direction. They demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the global jihadist movement enjoys a wide and broad base of political support that extends far beyond just a minuscule number of violent supporters. And that far beyond includes the many different types of jihads used by the Islamists – media, litigation, financial, economic, demographic and cultural jihads.

Another poll gave these results.

More than two-thirds of Indonesians favor the country's current secular system of law, according to a privately funded nationwide survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle, a pollster. If that seems like good news, read it this way: This means there are "only" about 82 million Indonesians who favor Shariah. Approximately 216 million out of Indonesia's approximately 246 million inhabitants, or nearly nine-tenths of the population, are Muslims. And while Indonesia's religious and cultural climate is justifiably regarded as moderate in comparison to much of the rest of the Muslim world -- and its government is a very useful ally against terrorism -- the numbers still leave plenty of room for concern.

Just over two-thirds of respondents disapprove of the death penalty for those who renounce Islam, according to the survey, which was first reported by Rupert Murdoch's www.news.com.au. More than three-quarters of Indonesians disapprove of mandatory head scarves. Nearly two-thirds oppose stoning for adultery. More than 75 percent are against severing the hands of thieves. When the aggregate numbers of people are factored in, the study looks considerably more disturbing. If one-quarter of Indonesians favor cutting off the hands of thieves, it suggests that upwards of 60 million Indonesians favor the practice. If roughly 164 million Indonesians oppose stoning adulterers, it means that more than 80 million favor doing so.

And there’s more proof of the support in Indonesia for political jihad just this last week.

Shouting "Allah is great", and waving black and white flags, about 80,000 members of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir gathered in a sports stadium in Jakarta yesterday to call for the creation of a Muslim state spanning the Islamic world.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in several countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, has a strong following in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state. Delegates at the Bung Karno Stadium had also come from Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Yes. Indonesia may be winning battles on terrorism but have no idea that they are losing the war to the real enemy – political Islam.

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