THIS COLUMN IN THE GUARDIAN says that among the casualties of the Bali bombing were self-blaming Australian intellectuals:

According to the prepared text, the attack was really America’s fault because of its bad behaviour elsewhere in the world. For insular Americans, the attack was a salutary illustration of what the Australian pundit Janet McCalman called their “lowly place in the affections of the poor and struggling”.

Australia, unashamedly America’s ally, was effectively an oppressor, too. If you took into account the behaviour of the Australian government when faced with the crisis engendered by the arrival, or non-arrival, of a Norwegian container ship full of Afghan refugees, Australia was even more guilty than America. Australia (perennially a racist country, as John Pilger’s historical researches have incontrovertibly proved) was a flagrant provocation to the wretched of the earth. Imperialist America was not only treating the helpless Middle East as its personal property, it had racist Australia for its lackey. No wonder al-Qaida was angry. . . .

Such was the consensus before the nightclub in Bali turned into a nightmare. . . . Not just the majority of the intellectuals, academics and schoolteachers, but most of the face-workers in the media, share the view that international terrorism is to be explained by the vices of the liberal democracies. Or, at any rate, they shared it until a few days ago. It will be interesting, in the shattering light of an explosive event, to see if that easy view continues now to be quite so widespread.

There’s much more. Well worth reading.