WHO WILL TELL MR. IGNATIUS?:

Gates praises Indonesian military but cautions on human rights: The Defense secretary says the U.S. is willing to sell weapons to the key Southeast Asian ally. (Peter Spiegel, 2/25/08, Los Angeles Times

During the last three years, the Bush administration has moved to lift restrictions on military ties between the two countries that were first cut after Indonesian military atrocities committed in East Timor in 1991.

Congress has moved to withhold some of the aid until past abuses by the Indonesian military were accounted for, and human rights groups have argued that the armed forces still are not fully answerable to civilian authorities.

Gates' address followed his afternoon meetings with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono. U.S. officials traveling with Gates said he pushed to deepen security ties with Indonesia, which as the world's largest Muslim country has become a key ally in the region and a model of the kind of secular Muslim state the Bush administration hopes to replicate elsewhere.

Boy, the stuff you miss while staring into the Atlantic....

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2008 4:54 PM