[no subject]

["Tom O'Lincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Keaney:
>>In this part of the world the crowing is much less audible.

I assumed you were somewhere in or near Australia. So where are you you
then? :-)

>they were hardly crowing about  it at the time.

Howard wasn't crowing? Come on. He made a meal of it. As any politician
would who gets a surge in the polls.

>>Intervention in East Timor was very much a last resort -- had the Habibie
regime been able to guarantee the safe continuance of the Timor Gap Treaty
there is no question that Australian imperialists would have been happier
to leave it to the Indonesians to sort out their "internal matter"<<

Yes of course, but Habibie wanted out, so Howard went to plan B:
imperialist troops. (Let me elaborate. Habibie was Suharto's successor, but
much less linked to the military. For him as head of the government, East
Timor was a net drain on resources. That is, the government subsidisied ET.
It was quite different for the Indonesian military - they only get 30% or
so of their budget from the government, the rest comes from business,
rake-offs, extortion, whatever. They made a lot of money out of ET. This is
why the military and their militia proxys wrecked  East Timor - they were
losing the local business franchise and they were very pissed off. In other
words, Habibie's interests did not coincide with those of the military,
which created instability, which was resolved by imperialist intervention.)

>>We must not confuse what people say now with what they did then. Of
course it makes sense for Howard to milk it for all it is worth now<<

But I have pointed out to you how Howard benefittted THEN. Most notably, he
was praised by Shirley Shackleton at the biggest of the rallies. [Shirley
Shackleton is the widow of a journalist killed by the Indonesian military
in East Timor in 1975.)

>>it would take is a little digging by the suitably inclined to reveal what
a shabby morality he has evinced with respect to East Timor,

Yes of course. The question is: why does he get away with it? One reason is
that most of the left endorsed his policy of sending imperialist troops.

>>The reconstruction of East Timor was overseen by the UN, whose chief
negotiator, Peter Galbraith, oversaw a massive repatriation of oil
revenues<<

Yes of course. This is why we should oppose imperialist interventions, from
East Timor to Iraq.

>>Perhaps we should wait to see just how many people are swayed by Ramos
Horta's arguments before we rush to conclusions about how effective they
are in sidetracking the anti-war movement.

His article and its influence will pass. What is important is that Marxists
reflect on the lessons. Here is someone most ordinary Australians will find
very credible, who tells us: "Howard sent imperialist troops to East Timor
and it was a wonderful thing; so stop demonstrating against the war on
Iraq." Those who agree that sending imperialist troops to East Timor was a
good thing really ought to contemplate this.

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