[Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[Tom O'Lincoln <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I?ve had difficulty keeping up with this list lately due to other
pressures. So while I was aware my little article in MRZine had opened a
prolonged debate, with Clinton displaying his always formidable
knowledge, I had to let it go  ? but I will make a couple of remarks
about the thread now.

First, if you haven?t read what I wrote, you might want to have a look:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/olincoln110606.html

I was not really writing about whether we should have supported the 1999
intervention. By now I feel that argument has turned into one of those
?Stalin-Trotsky? debates that add nothing new to this list. The article
was intended to discuss the dynamics of Australian imperialism
generally. And surely few on this list doubt that Australia behaves in
an imperialist manner in the surrounding region, including East Timor?

Even the DSP?s Peter Boyle writes that Canberra?s purpose in this
intervention is to ?maintain order in the region in its role as
regional  sheriff ? defending the general interests of imperialism and
capitalism as well as the direct interests of Australian big business in
the region.? What?s more he adds that ?Australian interference in East
Timor has been ongoing and has not just begun with the latest
intervention.?

But one issue about 1999 seems worth returning to. When someone asked
for evidence that 1999 had contributed to rehabilitating Australian
militarism, Tony offered some, including the Community Consultations
before the Defence White Paper. Clinton responded that only 2000 people
had attended 28 public meetings. Presumably he means this isn?t
representative of public opinion. Well I agree a Gallop poll would be
much better. But what does happen at such events is that people and
groups with a strong point of view do turn up to lobby. And what the
report on the consultations says is that the type of person or group
that usually turns up to lobby against the military did not do so this
time. They had been neutralised by the 1999 Timor events. In addition to
the passage Tony quotes, the report says:

?Representatives of groups which do not generally favour defence
spending seemed to be content to retain the existing level of funding.
We believe the success of the East Timor deployment, a cause that was
favoured by these groups, had much to do with this view.?

These groups are not the same as the mass of the public, but they do
both reflect and shape public opinion. Some other examples of the same
trend at the time: liberal charity figure Tim Costello said: "If
conscription is necessary, it is now socially and politically
acceptable," while leftish columnist Phillip Adams declared that "a
nation of 20 million people, predominantly white and preposterously
wealthy, needs to have first-class armed services." I doubt either would
have made such statements before the Timor intervention. (Richard Baker,
"National Service Gains Support", The Age, 25 September 1999. Phillip
Adams, "Day Of the Lap-Dog is Over", Review, Weekend Australian, 25-26
September 1999.)

At the time of the 1999 intervention, the Australian Financial Review
also editorialised: "The calls for action in Timor are ironic because
many of those who fostered the political climate in which the army was
run down were the loudest in demanding Australia intervene there. This
call to arms has, for the first time in decades, given broad legitimacy
to the proposition that Australia should be able to intervene militarily
outside its territory." (15 Sept 99)

So there is quite a bit of of evidence backing up what is surely common
sense: a popular military intervention abroad ? presenting itself as
liberation and not just accepted but DEMANDED by most of the left, from
the unions through to the DSP ? is going to legitimise militarism. It
would be strange if it didn?t.


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