BOOKED

on the day of the historic september 11 event when the twin tower was brought down by the 'islamic terrorists' i was in mulia hotel jakarta and like most others all over the world i was transfixed by the event unfolding. and just like the rest of the world for months afterword i couldn't make sense why this happened. just a year after, i was with a japanese, vietnamese and filipino collegues travelling up from kuta to besakih temple at the foot of bali's mount agung. and on the way i explained to my japanese friend in particular why this happened and tried to explain how these ' muslim terrorists' justified their act . and my filipino collegue commented... i timed you, and you spent more than 1 hour talking non stop....she didn't comment whether my explanation make sense or not though...

and a few weeks back i was with a thai friend travelling down from ubon ratchathani at the eastern thai-laos border and on the way back to bangkok we stopped over for a quick visit at the 'minor angkor wat' ruins of prasat phanom rung in buriram and all the way from buriram to bangkok while he did the driving i explained to him about 'muslim extremism' and when we arrived i checked in into the imperial queens park hotel on sukhumvit road - just a few minutes walk away from soi cowboy, the naughty place frequented by ugly farangs - and the first thing i saw on bbc was the news about the marriot and ritz carlton bombing in jakarta...

and today we read the news that nordin muhammad top , the alleged perpetrator of this act was 'finally' killed by the indonesian crack force. except we're not sure yet and may wait a little longer for confirmation. in any case the news is greeted with sighs of relief by many in indonesia and a lot more everywhere are very happy with the news. one of my indonesian fb friends is completely elated by the news but not me. and to be true to myself i sent a small post explaining to her why he was moved to choose this path and may Allah have mercy on him.

and not to repeat myself i'm copying below a comment i sent out to malaysian insider how i feel about this...

written by greengreenbottle, August 08, 2009

the US sends hundreds of thousands of troops to muslim countries and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent muslims and still killing them now...and yet when the syahids nordin and azahari killed a few to show their opposition to the US opressions of the muslim land they were villified as evil...

i don't condone what nordin and dr Azahari did but i sure as hell understand their anger... may Allah show his mercy upon their souls...

ps Dr Azahari was educated in Australia and not some obscure kampung madrasah... almost all the so called muslim terrorists who are worth their salts have some form of western education in western lands...so go figure...