my newest caption contest

Trolling the news this afternoon, the item 'Gates Seeks Closer Ties With Indonesia' crawled across the news ticker. Stunned by the big day Indonesia was having in world affairs ('rocking' quakes, tsunami warnings, bank scandals), I immediately thought of Bill Gates and his billions and though I was wrong, it is not like Defense and Development do not already hail from the same alphabetic enclave.


Anyhow, while I had no idea our Defense Secretary was in Indonesia, I am delighted by the news. While here, Gates has pledged to help Indonesia reform its military, support democracy, and provide airlift/maritime support. As anyone who I have buttonholed on the strategic importance of Indonesia can attest, it is really important Indonesia's nascent democracy succeeds, both because of its wealth of natural resources (read: commodities) as well as to disprove all the haters that claim Islam and Democracy are less than halal. Easy to miss, but I promise that what we seem to have here is a real, live, kicking, and civil war free democracy—absolutely chock full of Muslims!


One of the more interesting things about Indonesia as a democracy is not only that it came into existence with an unusual amount of spontaneity (in 1998 then-President Suharto had to interrupt a state visit—he was playing golf—in Egypt to come home and resign the Presidency), but that in spite of broad religious homogeneity, Islamists hold nothing close to a political monopoly. Muslims in Indonesia do not poll as any sort of monolithic bloc: in the last legislative elections the best performing Islamic party (PKS) polled just over 7.3% (7th best overall), running largely on a staunchly ‘we are the only party who can deliver you the anti-corruption goods’ plank and opposing syariah (Islamic) law. Political pluralism is seemingly alive and well in Indonesia.


Anyhow, having verged from my original train of thought, Defense’s interest in Indonesia is truly good news. Even if all they really want is the same thing they wanted in the early 1960s: a firewall against the Chinese and a place to sell military hardware (evidence that the Bush administration is taking the economic backslide seriously: Gate’s itinerary—Indonesia, Turkey, India), it is still an important and somewhat overdue gesture.






Anyways, I found this awesome photo, of Gates and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (or SBY), the President of Indonesia, and had to figure out a way to get it into wider dissemination (i.e. my grandparents, people in my mom’s office whom I have never met, Winslow Pogue). So, I want to announce my first caption competition since the abortive 2004 Colby Echo Joke Issue Caption Contest. Just to clarify, I am not joking; I really hope people send in entries (yes, Sahil Mahtani, looking at you), mostly so I do not have to make up the winners myself. And because Steven and Noah (not to mention the McCaferty Challengees) are unavailable for shot-gunning in the dark room.

So here are a few just to get things started:

“Sorry, about that whole supporting 33 years of brutal totalitarianism thing. Yeah? He got you this job? Get. Out. Of. Here.”

“Soo, using covert military force to resist an internationally sanctioned democratic election and in the process inciting an attack on a UN compound was just a one time thing, right? You guys! Now, how about buying some fighter planes?”

“I hope this doesn’t end up on the internet: just think what happened to Rumsfield and Sadaam.”