RALPH PETERS SAYS that the Bali attack is actually more evidence that Islamist terror is on the ropes. Excerpt:

After suffering devastating losses around the world, Islamic terror networks are attempting to return to the offensive, to prove they are still viable. But the half-dozen targets they recently struck in Asia illuminate their weakness and rage, not an intelligent global strategy. Far from striking major governmental or military targets, the terrorists have been reduced to sloven assassinations and, now, the calculated mass murder of young people. Once again, the terrorists have chosen targets that strengthen the hands of their enemies. . . .

The Megawati government has been reluctant to antagonize fundamentalists by taking on domestic organizations associated with terror, such as the Jemaah Islamiyah. Now the government will have the motivation, the evidence, and the anger necessary to take action at last. Jakarta needed a good excuse to crack down hard. The terrorists themselves just provided it.

Part of a desperate, world-wide attempt by Islamic terrorists to resume the offensive after the beating they’ve taken for the past year, these bombings brought global terrorism on a grand scale to Indonesia. A combined effort between the home team and foreign terrorists, the Bali massacre is doubtless being greeted as a triumph by terror’s fugitive overlords. But the provocation was too great. This is a moment of truth for Indonesia, but its ultimate result is going to be the further destruction of terrorist networks and their active exclusion from one more significant country. For the human devils who planned the slaughter and placed the explosives, these truly were suicide attacks.

Another crack suicide squad from the Judean People’s Front. Last words: “That’ll show ’em!”