A READER WRITES:

I was in Indonesia earlier this year too. Two (of the very many) things that stuck out: First, a muslim man there told me that the US should send troops to close down the Laskar Jihad training camps. He was quite pissed off at LJ–and didn’t expect I’s military to do anything. Second, in Jakarta I saw several people wearing t-shirts of the American flag. No one paid any greater attention to them than to the people wearing Nike t-shirts. The general sense I got was that Indonesians are really excited about having coming out from under Suharto. They don’t want some stupid freaks–who don’t drink!–to ruin it. They’re scared of just that though.

Hmm. Well, those sentiments would explain this.