Embargo, lessons from history

On Sept. 30, The Jakarta Post printed the article Embargo and lessons from history by Riza Sihbudi, who attempted to analyze the threat of a U.S. embargo, the reasons why the U.S. would want to impose an embargo on Indonesia and whether we had to worry about the threat.

I found several things in the article really annoying. The writer started off by saying that embargoes rarely achieve their purpose, and gave examples of embargoes against several countries, such as South Africa and Taiwan -- both of which survived.

The examples, however, were irrelevant because the writer forgot the differences in the conditions of the two countries and ours. In addition, the writer contradicted his main argument by saying that we have to consider the U.S. threat because even without an embargo we are already broke.

Further, the writer gave four possible reasons for a U.S. embargo -- which actually were not very convincing because they focused on religious differences between the U.S. and Indonesia, and the personal feelings of some top government officials here toward the U.S. and vice versa.

It is my conclusion that the writer penned the article for his own personal satisfaction, merely expressing what he thought was right. He focused on what he believed was true while overlooking other facts.

The writer, who claimed to be a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, should have been able to come up with better, more educated explanations than those he gave.

ANGGIET ARIEFIANTO

University of Indonesia