Gary LaMoshi, Bali – US President George W Bush's scheduled 10-hour trip to Indonesia on Monday has entailed vast security preparations and logistical inconveniences and has evoked mass demonstrations across the country calling for the visit to be canceled.

Indonesians' widespread distrust of Bush and his "war on terror" is real, while US-Indonesian relations under Bush and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are based mainly on fantasies and misrepresentations. Here's a look at a few of the leading myths in the warming bilateral relationship.

Myth number 1: US wants democratic reform in Indonesia

The US State Department says relations with Indonesia are guided by progress on human rights, democratic reform and accountability. Undoubtedly, Bush will pat directly elected president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the back and declare Indonesia the healthiest democracy in Southeast Asia and the Islamic world.

With Thailand under military rule – again – and the other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries that bother with elections essentially one party states, the local competition isn't tough. In the Muslim world, Turkey aside, the freest balloting these days takes place in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, hardly anyone's idea of democratic success stories.

In praising Indonesia's reforms, the US wants to bask in the reflected glory, as if it had something to do with democracy's nascent revival there. For three decades, the US sponsored former president Suharto's autocratic regime. To be sure, the Americans tried to blunt the worst abuses, but mainly they tried to protect their companies in the mining and energy industries and prop up Indonesia as a bulwark against communist encroachment in Southeast Asia. And stable military rule was the best recipe for that.

The US probably hopes for Indonesian politics to turn out more like Singapore's, following the forms of democracy without those pesky uncertainties over which side will win. That's the way things were under Singapore patriarch Lee Kuan Yew's good friend and golf partner Suharto.

Myth number 2: Indonesia is a global beacon for moderate Islam

For most of Suharto's 32-year tenure, Indonesia was a textbook example of moderate, tolerant Islam. That's in large part because it was the only brand of Islam the regime tolerated. About 190 million of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslims, and the vast majority practice moderate Islam mixed with traditional beliefs.

But Indonesia's political history features tension between advocates of an Islamic state under sharia law (at the very least, applicable to Muslims) and secularists. The national constitution came down clearly on the side of secularism, enshrining freedom of religion.

Democratic reforms and a more open society have, ironically, given religious groups an opening. Islamists also represent a clean break with old political corruption, as they have in the Palestinian territories, Turkey and Pakistan. Indonesian Islamists can also turn the democratic ethos to their advantage: since Muslims are a majority, they should be able to have their beliefs respected and protected. In society where the rule has been winner take all, that argument has power, and scares 30 million non-Muslims.

So, while Indonesia's politics are slowly becoming more open and democratic, Indonesian society is undergoing more rapid Islamization: in some regions (beyond Aceh, which enacted sharia law under its peace deal with the government) local laws enshrine hardline Muslim dress codes and compulsory Koran study; Muslim vigilantes attack churches and other heretics while police watch, unwilling to act against religious organizations without political cover.

Uncertainty about the role of government in religious matters isn't confined to the police. While the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, Indonesia's national philosophy, Pancasila, mandates monotheism and specifies five accepted religions. The secular legal code includes offenses for insulting Islam and other laws governing worship. Unsurprising perhaps after three decades of being told what to think, people expect the government to tell them what to believe. If the government won't, then others will, and the voices of moderation rarely speak first or loudest.

Myth number 3: US support for the military furthers US interests

Of course, that depends on what the US believes its interests are. The US resumed full military ties with Indonesia last year, based on the myth that the military has reformed. In reality, the military remains corrupt, prone to abuses and beyond civilian control, so US aid undermines the State Department's triple play of human rights, democratic reform and accountability and in effect makes America complicit in military wrongdoing.

America's zeal for closer military ties buys its silence on Indonesian human-rights abuses, such as the 2004 airborne poisoning of anti-military activist Munir Said Thalib and continuing protection of military intelligence leadership linked to it. But it's also made the US an active conspirator in the dubious conviction of seven alleged Papuan separatists in the 2002 ambush killings of two Americans and an Indonesian near the giant Freeport MacMoRan Grasberg mine.

Initial investigations linked the shootings to the Indonesian military following Freeport's termination of so-called "security payments" to commanders amounting to thousands of dollars a month. But the military insisted that Papuan separatists, who'd never attacked foreigners, were behind the ambush. Indonesia indicted alleged separatist commander Antonius Wamang, and the US followed suit. In hiding, Wamang insisted they couldn't get a fair trial in Indonesia.

So America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) struck a deal with Wamang: surrender to us and you will be tried in the US. The suspects agreed, and the FBI broke its promise, immediately turning the accused over to Indonesian authorities. The suspects got what they feared, convictions in a Jakarta kangaroo court last week. That sort of US double-cross won't win hearts and minds in Indonesia.

One US answer to the criticism is that its engagement with the military is the best way to curb abuses, through the American example of civilian control of the military, and produce enlightened officers like Yudhoyono, a former general. However that view ignores history: three decades of engagement under Suharto produced a catalogue of abuses overseen by hundreds of US-trained, stubbornly unenlightened officers.

The other answer is that US support for the military is a key plank in the global "war on terrorism". That position, too, is steeped in fantasy. First, Indonesia's police, the armed forces' rival, bear the brunt of fighting terrorism. More important, the military, eager to derail reform through destabilization, is at the root of most extremist violence. The military transported and armed Muslim jihadis to expand sectarian clashes in Ambon and Poso. Those conflicts became proving grounds for Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists who carried out the Bali, Marriott Jakarta and Australian Embassy bombings.

Myth number 4: Bush's visit will benefit US-Indonesia relations

Indonesian disdain for Bush is so widespread that not only will he dare not to appear in public, but his visit has already prompted protests throughout the country and apparently even a bomb attack on a Jakarta branch of US fast food chain A&W last Saturday.

Bush's unpopularity has provoked unprecedented security measures. More than a week before his helicopter lands, security forces claimed to have undercover teams in place to protect the area. The meeting will take place at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, beyond the throngs of Jakarta. Schools and business in Bogor will be closed, roads around the palace will be blockaded, and cell phone signals – which can be used to trigger bombs – will be jammed.

These steps may protect Bush during his few hours in Bogor but in the long run they'll alienate Indonesians as signs of US arrogance and reminders of how much of Indonesia's terrorist problem can be laid at Washington's doorstep.

When Bush stopped over in Bali in 2003, it could be argued that then-president Megawati Sukarnoputri gained stature from being photographed beside the US president. In 2006, distrust of Bush's America is so great that the summit will act to diminish the domestic standing of Yudhoyono, one of America's few friends in Indonesia. If the two leaders believe otherwise they're just fooling themselves, which is nothing new to the bilateral relationship.

[Gary LaMoshi has worked as a broadcast producer and print writer and editor in the US and Asia. Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, he's also a contributor to Slate and Salon.com, and a counselor for Writing Camp (www.writingcamp.net).]