'Kamikaze' style

'Kamikaze' style

From Koran Tempo

I think that the kamikaze style (the Japanese suicide flight
style) adopted when two airplanes rammed into the twin towers of
the World Trade Center in New York last week had the smell of
Osama bin Laden's method.

Osama might have hired his fanatical, suicide-ready followers
for this attack and did not make any demands such as the release
of detainees, freedom and so on. The attack on icons of the
United States (U.S.) power was spectacularly carried out to
inflict the largest possible losses on the U.S. The same attack
was also carried out on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the U.S.
military base in Dahran (Saudi Arabia) and the U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi.

If it is true that Osama bin Laden is the mastermind behind
this action, Tuesday's attack has been the most spectacular blow
ever dealt the U.S. to date, in the very center of America.

We fear that the American people will indiscriminately
associate Osama bin Laden's extremist group with Arabs or
Muslims, just as they did towards the Japanese in World War II.
Obviously, this attitude will disrupt the peaceful lives of
Arabian and Muslim communities in the U.S.

Hopefully, here in Indonesia, Arabs will not be associated
with Islam in the same way as otherwise we will be carried away
by the wrong perception.

KARTONO MOHAMAD

Jakarta