Re: Re: East Timor: In Dire Straits
Michael Perelman : > Wierd. It speaks of a UN gravy train, but I thought that the UN joined > the US in railroading E. Timor to sign away much of the oil rights. You could be right about the US role, but please see the article Timor: Oil and Troubled Waters posted by me. Australian subscribers to the List would know more about this issue than me. Ulhas
Re: RE: Re: Re: East Timor
Heh! I assume he is! BTW, once I shook hands with JKG. Tall man, and I'm 6 foot 5" Michael "Howling Woof" Pugliese P.S. www.bobdylan.com sez new Mr. Zimmerman in stores soon. - Original Message - From: "Max Sawicky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 10:41 AM Subject: [PEN-L:15197] RE: Re: Re: East Timor > good grief. your reputation as the king of > dish & gossip is reduced to ashes. > > mbs > > >Is James K. Galbraith at U. Texas, Austin, another son? > Michael Pugliese >
RE: Re: Re: East Timor
good grief. your reputation as the king of dish & gossip is reduced to ashes. mbs Is James K. Galbraith at U. Texas, Austin, another son? Michael Pugliese
Re: Re: Re: East Timor
yes. On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 10:06:52AM -0700, Michael Pugliese wrote: >Is James K. Galbraith at U. Texas, Austin, another son? > Michael Pugliese --- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: East Timor
Is James K. Galbraith at U. Texas, Austin, another son? Michael Pugliese - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 8:59 AM Subject: [PEN-L:15194] Re: East Timor > I am surprised that you do not mention that Galbraith is the sone of John > K. Galbraith. > > On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 11:38:42AM +0300, Keaney Michael wrote: > > Yoshie writes: > > > > Forward planning indeed. I believe that the CNRT may be expected to > > become what the ANC has become. > > > > = > > > > MK: No doubt. You can add Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and, should it ever > > come to pass in Scotland, the Scottish National Party. Nationalism is no > > substitute for proletarian internationalism. Sorry if that sounds more than > > one generation out of date, but I can't think of a snappier, more with-it > > phrase that captures what I'm trying to convey here. But there's more to > > East Timor than bourgeois nationalism. Basic survival was at stake. > > > > = > > > > Now, back to the work of Peter Galbraith. His political career > > concerning Iraq, the Balkans, & East Timor has been emblematic of > > liberal internationalism. Don't let the lucrative oil deal blind you > > to it. > > > > = > > > > MK: Blind me to what? That East Timor is being incorporated into the liberal > > capitalist family? How shocking. Like his father (John Kenneth) Peter > > Galbraith is trying to engineer the best outcome within the confines of the > > status quo. It's an honourable course of action if not usually blessed with > > the likelihood of success. But compared to the policies enacted by > > Suharto/Wiranto it's a major improvement, as is the outcome so engineered. > > That does not equate to ultimately desirable. But it's better than the > > preceding 25 years. His effective rebuke of Howard/Downer is also a further > > illuminatory reminder -- as if any were needed -- of the disgusting position > > adopted by the Australian ruling class throughout this entire sorry episode. > > By extension, of course, guilty parties include Australia's partners in the > > Echelon/CAZAB network which sanctioned the buttressing of anti-communist > > geopolitics that Suharto's invasion (begun as Ford and Kissinger flew out of > > Djakarta) represented. One of the saddest aspects is that even someone as > > emblematic of progressive social democracy like Gough Whitlam -- who, like > > Harold Wilson, was not afraid of trying to assert control over his > > US-dominated foreign and security policy -- could nevertheless wash his > > hands of the original invasion as merely "an internal matter" for the > > Indonesian government. > > > > Yoshie, you've been good at pushing people for programmes of late. You've > > also been good at probing my presumed approval of the present reconstruction > > process in Indonesia. Would you have preferred the uninterrupted subjugation > > of East Timor by General Wiranto and his "citizens' militias" safe in the > > knowledge that "Empire", as depicted by Hardt and Negri, was being somehow > > thwarted? If so, and given the IMF's involvement in Indonesian political > > economy, why couldn't "Empire" be just as capable of incorporating a > > bloodily subjugated Indonesian-occupied East Timor as it is a nominally > > independent and safer one? > > > > What exactly is our disagreement here? > > > > Michael K. > > > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Re: East Timor
I am surprised that you do not mention that Galbraith is the sone of John K. Galbraith. On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 11:38:42AM +0300, Keaney Michael wrote: > Yoshie writes: > > Forward planning indeed. I believe that the CNRT may be expected to > become what the ANC has become. > > = > > MK: No doubt. You can add Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and, should it ever > come to pass in Scotland, the Scottish National Party. Nationalism is no > substitute for proletarian internationalism. Sorry if that sounds more than > one generation out of date, but I can't think of a snappier, more with-it > phrase that captures what I'm trying to convey here. But there's more to > East Timor than bourgeois nationalism. Basic survival was at stake. > > = > > Now, back to the work of Peter Galbraith. His political career > concerning Iraq, the Balkans, & East Timor has been emblematic of > liberal internationalism. Don't let the lucrative oil deal blind you > to it. > > = > > MK: Blind me to what? That East Timor is being incorporated into the liberal > capitalist family? How shocking. Like his father (John Kenneth) Peter > Galbraith is trying to engineer the best outcome within the confines of the > status quo. It's an honourable course of action if not usually blessed with > the likelihood of success. But compared to the policies enacted by > Suharto/Wiranto it's a major improvement, as is the outcome so engineered. > That does not equate to ultimately desirable. But it's better than the > preceding 25 years. His effective rebuke of Howard/Downer is also a further > illuminatory reminder -- as if any were needed -- of the disgusting position > adopted by the Australian ruling class throughout this entire sorry episode. > By extension, of course, guilty parties include Australia's partners in the > Echelon/CAZAB network which sanctioned the buttressing of anti-communist > geopolitics that Suharto's invasion (begun as Ford and Kissinger flew out of > Djakarta) represented. One of the saddest aspects is that even someone as > emblematic of progressive social democracy like Gough Whitlam -- who, like > Harold Wilson, was not afraid of trying to assert control over his > US-dominated foreign and security policy -- could nevertheless wash his > hands of the original invasion as merely "an internal matter" for the > Indonesian government. > > Yoshie, you've been good at pushing people for programmes of late. You've > also been good at probing my presumed approval of the present reconstruction > process in Indonesia. Would you have preferred the uninterrupted subjugation > of East Timor by General Wiranto and his "citizens' militias" safe in the > knowledge that "Empire", as depicted by Hardt and Negri, was being somehow > thwarted? If so, and given the IMF's involvement in Indonesian political > economy, why couldn't "Empire" be just as capable of incorporating a > bloodily subjugated Indonesian-occupied East Timor as it is a nominally > independent and safer one? > > What exactly is our disagreement here? > > Michael K. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: East Timor
Michael Keaney posted: >(Thanks to Alan Bradley on the Marxism list for the following.) > >The following article appears in the current issue of Green Left Weekly >(http://www.greenleft.org.au/): > >Who gains most from New Timor gap treaty? > >On July 5, representatives of the East Timor Transitional Cabinet, the >United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor and the Australian >government met in Dili and signed the Timor Sea Arrangement, concluding 10 >months of negotiating and wrangling over a new deal to replace the Timor Gap >treaty. > >The new agreement represents a moral and political victory for East Timor, >with the Howard government finally conceding to the demands pushed by UNTAET >representative Peter Galbraith and East Timorese negotiators Mari Alkatiri >and Jose Ramos Horta that East Timor receive at least a 90% share of the >royalties from oil and gas developments in the area currently covered by the >"joint zone of co-operation". > >The new agreement will mean East Timor will receive an estimated $7 billion >in revenue from royalties over a 20-year period, providing a crucial source >of income for the devastated and newly independent nation. > >>From the outset, the Howard government negotiating team - headed by foreign >minister Alexander Downer, resources minister Nick Minchin and >attorney-general Daryl Williams - have sought to obstruct East Timor from >asserting its rights under international law. > >The back down by the Australian government was not motivated by concerns of >helping East Timor. It was primarily motivated by the desire to safeguard >the interests of oil and gas companies operating in the Timor Gap and the >financial windfall for itself and the Northern Territory government ensuring >that Darwin becomes the transit port for the export of East Timorese oil and >gas. > >On top of this, the Howard government was also keenly aware that with East >Timor gaining a better royalty deal, this offered another justification not >to provide more humanitarian aid and assistance to East Timor. Both the >Coalition government and the Labor opposition want to diminish as much as >possible responsibility (and any notion of compensation) for the part played >by Australia in supporting the 24-year-long Indonesian military occupation. > >How "generous" really is this new agreement? Certainly the royalties will >make a big difference for East Timor, but the spin-off for US and Australian >oil companies operating in the Timor Sea (and for the Northern Territory and >Australian governments) is enormous by comparison. > >Some $13 billion is expected to be invested in new pipelines and downstream >processing in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory treasury >department estimates that these projects will generate $50 billion in >economic activity in the NT over the next 20 years. > >Downer asserts that the new deal "is a fair and just" agreement, "an >agreement with a true basis in international law". An article by Alkatiri >and Galbraith in the July 6 Sydney Morning Herald gives a more accurate >appraisal of the agreement. They wrote: > >"The new Timor Sea treaty is a fair deal for East Timor and an even better >deal for Australia and the companies developing oil and gas in the Timor Sea >... [the agreement] also rights a historic wrong. > >"It will not make East Timor rich. However, if the money is well spent, it >will give the people of East Timor the opportunity to escape the grinding >poverty that is the legacy of occupation and war". > >They added that: "Under international law, East Timor is entitled to a >seabed boundary at the mid-point between East Timor and Australia. This >would give East Timor not 90 per cent, but 100 per cent of the oil and gas >in the Timor Sea. > >"Thus while it may look like Australia is making a major concession in >moving from the 50/50 revenue sharing it had under the Indonesia treaty to >the 90/10 split in this new treaty, it is more than fair for Australia". > >And, as Galbraith noted following the signing of the agreement, "it provides >a hell of a lot more certainty than they [energy companies] had under a >treaty with Indonesia in which they were in effect making investment in >stolen property". The Green Left Weekly is quite right to point out that Australia is not being generous in signing the new Gap deal. As the Vancouver Sun says below, there is even more: * The Vancouver Sun July 7, 2001 Saturday FINAL EDITION SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. B6 Jonathan Manthorpe HEADLINE: Minority oil interest means hope for E. Timor BYLINE: Jonathan Manthorpe ...When Australia negotiated the first treaty with Indonesia in 1989, it included a requirement that Jakarta give financial incentives to the oil companies because of the risks involved. Canberra insisted on the same incentives -- $2.27 US back to the companies for every $1 US invested -- in the new agreement. East Timor's negotiators were forced to agree, but have promised they w
Re: Re: East Timor/United Nations
A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique William Finnegan Annotation Powerful, instructive, and full of humanity, this book challenges the current understanding of the war that has turned Mozambique-a naturally rich country-into the world's poorest nation. Before going to Mozambique, William Finnegan saw the war, like so many foreign observers, through a South African lens, viewing the conflict as apartheid's "forward defense." This lens was shattered by what he witnessed and what he heard from Mozambicans, especially those who had lived with the bandidos armado, the "armed bandits" otherwise known as the Renamo rebels. The shifting, wrenching, ground-level stories that people told combine to form an account of the war more local and nuanced, more complex, more African-than anything that has been politically convenient to describe. A Complicated War combines frontline reporting, personal narrative, political analysis, and comparative scholarship to present a picture of a Mozambique harrowed by profound local conflicts-ethnic, religious, political and personal. Finnegan writes that South Africa's domination and destabilization are basic elements of Mozambique's plight, but he offers a subtle description and analysis that will allow us to see the post-apartheid region from a new, more realistic, if less comfortable, point of view. "A brilliant, sometimes devastating eyewitness report of the civil war . . . that has killed a million Mozambicans." (New York Times Book Review) "Vivid and arresting. . . . [A] sense of balance and insight distinguishes this book from the many tract-like accounts that have previously been written about Mozambique." (Michael Massing, Times Literary Supplement) "Writing about a country asphysically and intellectually inaccessible as Mozambique takes courage, patience, and especially a willingness to pay attention to the particular. Finnegan has all of these. He brings to his subject a reporter's instinct for the facts of the story and a writer's sensitivity to character and language." (George Packer, Los Angeles Times) "This engrossing, sensitive account . . . details the results of a savage war that began in 1975, a year after Mozambique gained indepence from Portugal. . . . A small classic about anarchy and the difficulties of nation building in post-colonial Africa." (Publishers Weekly) Author Bio: William Finnegan is the author of Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid (1986) and Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters (1988). He is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Cold War Guerrilla: Jonas Savimbi, the U. S. Media and the Angolan War, Vol. 31 Elaine Windrich >From the Publisher This is first book on U.S. policy in Angola during the 1980s. It shows how the Reagan administration led the U.S. media to inflate the importance of Jonas Savimbi as a "freedom fighter" and to intensify the civil war in Angola. This well-researched and moving case study shows how the Reagan administration adopted Savimbi as an ally in the crusade against Third World governments supported by the Soviet Union and how the mainstream media followed the administration's agenda and right-wing views about the civil war in Angola. This text provides insights about how the U.S. media covers African and Third World issues in the 1990s during the Bush administration as well. The State, Violence and Development: The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975-1992 Mark F. Chingono - Original Message - From: "Jim Devine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 7:15 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14198] Re: East Timor/United Nations > Michael the K wrote: > >The crumbling of the Portuguese empire at this time led the Kissinger State > >Department and the CIA to instigate some of the most disgusting "foreign > >policy" ever perpetrated by the US, as civil wars were deliberately created > >in Angola (with the creation of UNITA under the psychotic Jonas Savimbi) > > for what it's worth, UNITA wasn't "created" from above. Rather, it arose as > part of the war of liberation against Portugal. Savimbi was probably > corrupt from the start, but he sounded like a revolutionary for awhile. > Maybe he's an example of power corrupting. In any case, Kissinger found him > to be a worthy representative of the "free world." Also, China supported > him for quite awhile. > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine >
Re: Re: East Timor/United Nations
>We shouldn't treat the UN as merely a puppet of US foreign policy (as Louis >seems to do, just as he sees the "black bourgeoisie" in the US as mere >puppets of Nixon). This is one of those sentences that Michael Perelman says are "not necessary". Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: East Timor/United Nations
Michael Keaney says: >Yoshie, having gone upmarket with the FT and the Oil and Gas Journal: Upmarket? You're such a snob, Michael! :-> >The "integrity" of Indonesia was its preferred option, >rather than risk the fragmentation of a multi-ethnic state and thereby all >its investments there, as well as lucrative arms contracts. The USA initially thought the same thing with regard to Yugoslavia. However, times change, and quick. Indonesia is becoming ungovernable by either the local despot (like Suharto) or the local democrat (like Wahid), due to the continuing fallouts of the Asian financial crisis that have added to decentralizing dynamics of ethnicized conflicts (provinces against the central government). * The Times (London) April 2, 2001, Monday SECTION: Business HEADLINE: Ethnic violence threatens world energy security BYLINE: Carl Mortished Mortars fired at its Indonesian liquefied natural gas plant have forced Exxon to shut it down EXXONMOBIL's gasfield on the island of Sumatra was hit by mortar fire last month. Live explosives landed inside the compound of a gas control centre, but its staff escaped injury. Exxon's operations in Aceh, the northern tip of Indonesia, are being targeted in a guerrilla war waged by separatists against the Indonesian state. An Exxon plane was fired upon, wounding two local staff, company buses have been targeted with remote-controlled bombs planted in the road and other vehicles have been hijacked. There have been 28 attacks over the past month - firefights, bombings and assaults on vehicles - but the mortar attack early last month was particularly frightening, Bill Cumming, information officer for the oil company in Indonesia, says. "The facility was not designed to withstand military attack,'' he said. "If they had hit certain bits of equipment, there would have been a catastrophic explosion." The control unit collects natural gas from Exxon's wells and cleans it for delivery to PT Arun NGL, a liquefied natural gas plant owned by Pertamina, the Indonesian state energy company. The plant lowers the gas temperature to minus 160C at which point it liquefies. It is then loaded on ships destined for power stations in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. No one knows what might happen if an LNG plant were hit with explosives. A study on a receiving terminal in Boston suggested that the liquid fuel could spread for miles, freezing everything in its path. Only then would it vaporise and ignite. Exxon is not hanging around to find out what really happens. On March 9 the company announced it was shutting down its operations in Aceh and pulling its staff out of the area. Last week the conflict escalated, with the army accused of murdering three human-rights workers on an official visit to the region. It is a bitter blow for the Americans. The PT Arun NGL plant was a "company maker" for Mobil, which discovered the Arun gasfield. At its peak in the early 1990s, Arun was shipping 13 million tonnes of LNG and the plant was delivering a quarter of Mobil's profits. Since then, production has been on the wane but last year the company loaded 117 cargoes, totalling some 6.5 million tonnes. Deutsche Bank's analysts reckon that ExxonMobil would have earned Pounds 500 million this year from its Sumatra operation, until the shooting began. "They must be devastated (the plant) has stopped," Paul Sankey, oil analyst for Deutsche, says. "The plant is paid off. It's a money machine." This is no local difficulty. LNG is critical to the world's energy security and Indonesia, racked by civil strife, is a big exporter. TotalfinaElf, the French oil and gas company is a big investor in Bontang, Indonesia's largest LNG plant, located on the eastern side of the island of Borneo. Exporting 20 million tonnes of LNG per year, worth some $ 7 million (Pounds 4.9 million) per day in revenues, the plant is vital for Indonesia's financial security. However, the state of Kalimantan is no tropical paradise. Ethnic rivalry has led to a murderous campaign by indigenous Dayak tribal people against immigrants. So far the Bontang plant has escaped the mayhem. East of Borneo, another troubled island is awaiting a big foreign investment. Our own BP wants to develop Tangguh, a gasfield in Irian Jaya. It is reputed to contain 18 trillion cu ft of reserves. An LNG plant will convert the gas molecules into dollar bills for BP. The market is likely to be China, where BP has just won a contract to build an LNG receiving terminal in Guangdong. Unfortunately, Irian Jaya is a political and social pressure cooker. General Suharto, the former dictator, sought to dominate the remote islands of Indonesia's archipelago by colonising them with settlers from Java. The policy has brought open warfare to East Timor, guerrilla fighting to Aceh and civil strife in Borneo. Many believe that Irian Jaya could become the next East Timor, with the local, Christian Papuan p
Re: East Timor/United Nations
Michael K. wrote: >But East Timor is not the Korean War, and the UN has long ceased to be >synonymous with US foreign policy. Even the Korean War's use of the UN as a fig-leaf for US intervention was an exception, the result of the USSR's representative's walk-out from the Security Council. We shouldn't treat the UN as merely a puppet of US foreign policy (as Louis seems to do, just as he sees the "black bourgeoisie" in the US as mere puppets of Nixon). Given the way the Security Council dominates, it represents the balance of forces between the big powers, so that it usually reflects the collective interests of the center, with the US riding herd, especially nowadays, with the USSR off the stage. Divisions within the imperialist bloc allow for some good things to happen. And the General Assembly does have some power, so that people like Jesse Helms have to fight to increase US influence. The role of the US & UN in East Timor seems to be a matter of: "we messed this place up" (by allowing our ally a free hand), but "there's no other force to clean it up. Take it or leave it." Until the left actually has force on the international level, we're stuck with that horrible choice. Until then, we have to ferret out and tell the truth about what's happening there. It's not the UN that will do good things in East Timor as much as the left's efforts to countervail the greedy power of the US and similar forces. Even that pressure can be perverted, however, as seen in the leftist veneer that was sometimes used to dress up the war against Serbia. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: East Timor/United Nations
Michael the K wrote: >The crumbling of the Portuguese empire at this time led the Kissinger State >Department and the CIA to instigate some of the most disgusting "foreign >policy" ever perpetrated by the US, as civil wars were deliberately created >in Angola (with the creation of UNITA under the psychotic Jonas Savimbi) for what it's worth, UNITA wasn't "created" from above. Rather, it arose as part of the war of liberation against Portugal. Savimbi was probably corrupt from the start, but he sounded like a revolutionary for awhile. Maybe he's an example of power corrupting. In any case, Kissinger found him to be a worthy representative of the "free world." Also, China supported him for quite awhile. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: East Timor/United Nations
Michael Keaney wrote:
>The UN has
>taken the rap for countless failed peace missions, which failed because they
>were not properly supported by the countries, led by the US, that supposedly
>sponsored them in the first place.
Failed in what sense, though? That UN missions haven't definitively
solved conflicts & brought peace? That's not the point of the UN
missions, however. The point is to construct Empire as discussed by
Hardt & Negri & others (however partial their discussion may be): the
end of old sovereignty (however compromised by imperialism), & the
beginning of Empire legitimated now as an enforcer of human rights &
guarantor against genocide, with its police, judges, social workers,
etc.
>Sure thing -- the UN is handy for the US as a means of socialising the costs
>of its global security policies. The powers concerned can look forward to
>mild sops in return. But the issue here is not one of either/or. More like
>both/and. Let me explain. The US itself is torn between wanting to control
>everything and the costs that would involve. The UN is a useful mechanism of
>spreading costs (i.e. financial, bodybags), and is delegated lower priority
>tasks like Africa, East Timor, cleaning up NATO's mess in Kosovo, and
>Southern Lebanon (though, pointedly, not Palestine). This was apparent in
>the US's efforts to screw wads of cash out of Japan during the Gulf War. But
>where the US really wants to ensure an outcome commensurate with its wishes,
>it's NATO that is now assuming the privileged role of preferred instrument.
>Even within NATO, there are tensions about control and costs, as the
>controversy over the proposed European Rapid Reaction Force reveals. But we
>should not confuse the contradictions of US foreign policy with a regard for
>the UN as retaining a status commensurate with that which supposedly
>legitimated the Korean war. And NATO, as a separate vested interest, with
>its own quasi-autonomous organisational capability, is eager in this
>post-Cold War world to find a new role for itself. NATO would be a good case
>study for the public choice people in this respect.
It's indeed both/and. NATO to punish the truly recalcitrant, the UN
for the rest, under Empire.
You said earlier:
At 12:19 PM +0300 6/28/01, Keaney Michael wrote:
>Putting my cards on the table, I stand with Rob in his assessment that
>Gareth Evans is a major improvement on General Wiranto
At 12:19 PM +0300 6/28/01, Keaney Michael wrote:
>Louis continues:
>
>>The only answer really is to overthrow the US government and send all the
>>criminals like Clinton, Bush Sr. and Jr. to prison. That's how world peace
>>will be achieved, not by providing left apologetics for their criminal
>>behavior.
>
>Absolutely true, but, let's face it, a distant dream, however noble. At
>least many East Timorese can now live to fight another day.
In this regard, Hardt & Negri capture an aspect of how Empire comes
into being (though they neglect others). H & N do not think of
Empire-building as a project unilaterally imposed from above by the
ruling class & the imperial elite. In a typical Autonomist &
post-modern fashion, they see the Empire rising from below: "In our
time this desire [for the internationalization and globalization of
relationships, beyond national boundaries] that was set in motion by
the multitude has been addressed (in a strange and perverted but
nonetheless real way) by the construction of Empire. One might even
say that the construction of Empire and its global networks is a
_response_ to the various struggles against the modern machines of
power, and specifically to class struggle driven by the multitude's
desire for liberation" (43).
The multitude's desire for liberation, in this particular instance of
Empire-building, includes the East Timorese' righteous aspiration for
independence from Indonesia supported by sympathy & solidarity of
good people like you, Chomsky, activists for ETAN, trade unionists in
Australia, and so on. The same goes for the Balkans, Rwanda, etc.
In the process, however, new precedents for future interventions get
set, new frameworks for managing the fallouts of old & new conflicts
(many of them fallouts of the SAPs) formed, new structures of
feelings ("international bureaucrats & peacekeepers are better than
local despots") come into being. National sovereignty is coming to
an end (except for the USA) because the multitude want human rights
under capitalism (an impossibility), & rights cannot be enforced
without military powers -- hence the birth of Empire.
Yoshie
Re: East Timor/United Nations
At 12:19 PM +0300 6/28/01, Keaney Michael wrote: >Putting my cards on the table, I stand with Rob in his assessment that >Gareth Evans is a major improvement on General Wiranto, and that the >intensely worrying events still unfolding in West Timor ought to be >attracting much wider attention than it ever has during this entire crisis. >This, despite Evans' own prior complicity in the actions of Wiranto and his >boss, Suharto, as he brokered the Timor Gap Treaty "entitling" Australian >companies a large share of the spoils of whatever oil was recovered from >East Timorese waters, effectively sealing the recognition of the illegal >occupation of East Timor by Indonesia that in 1975 was so casually dismissed >by the otherwise progressive Gough Whitlam as "an internal matter" for the >Indonesian government. > >Evans, in his new guise as chief of the International Crisis Group (see >http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/2001II/msg03042.html) is presently conducting >a holding operation, trying to protect his Timor Gap Treaty in a clear >conflict of interest that is being undermined by the UN's own Peter >Galbraith. Of course you might expect Galbraith to be merely acting in the >interests of his ultimate US masters in bringing under their control the >spoils that would otherwise accrue to the Australians. * Financial Times (London) May 17, 2001, Thursday London Edition 1 SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 10 HEADLINE: Hope for Timor Gap agreement GAS EXPLORATION EAST TIMOR AND AUSTRALIA HAGGLE OVER RESOURCE-RICH WATERS: BYLINE: By VIRGINIA MARSH and TOM MCCAWLEY DATELINE: SYDNEY and JAKARTA Australia and East Timor are edging towards agreement on a critical new treaty to govern the Timor Gap, paving the way for development of the substantial gas deposits in the resource-rich waters that divide the two neighbours. Speedy conclusion of the treaty is vital for East Timor - which in late 1999 voted to secede from Indonesia - because revenues from the developments will provide the impoverished new state with its main source of income. Based on exploration to date, the Timor Gap fields contain 500m barrels of oil equivalent, worth some USDollars 17bn (Pounds 12bn) at today's prices. East Timor has a budget this year of USDollars 60m, is entirely reliant on foreign aid and is being run by a United Nations-led transition government (Untaet) ahead of elections for a national assembly due later this year. Negotiations on a new treaty began eight months ago and there has been concern among oil companies working in the region over delays in reaching agreement. But Peter Galbraith, Untaet minister for political affairs and East Timor's chief negotiator in the talks, said in an interview yesterday there had been "substantial progress" in the negotiations. Australian officials added that further talks were due to take place in Dili, the East Timorese capital, next week. After initially proposing to split revenues on a 60:40 basis, Australia is now believed to be offering the state an 85 per cent share. East Timor, however, is holding out for 90 per cent. "If we had applied international law, we would have won 100 per cent of the revenues," said Mari Alkatiri, a senior East Timorese official involved in the talks. "We are negotiating to maintain a good relationship." Australia has been under pressure to give East Timor a far greater share of the revenues to help the former Portuguese colony become a viable, independent state. Depending on the outcome of the negotiations - which also cover sea boundaries - Untaet expects the fields to generate USDollars 100m-USDollars 500m in annual revenues a year, transforming East Timor's economic prospects. Gross domestic product in the territory is about USDollars 250 per capita with most of its population living on subsistence farming. The two sides are under pressure to agree a framework for the treaty by early July to enable development of Bayu-Undan, the first field, to proceed. Phillips Petroleum, the US group that operates the field where production is set to begin in late 2003, has a July deadline to give the go-ahead for construction of a 500km pipeline to Darwin. It also needs to finalise cornerstone supply contracts in the coming three months, including a deal worth up to ADollars 7bn (Pounds 2.6bn) to supply liquefied natural gas from the Timor Sea to El Paso, the US energy group, mainly for use in California. "This is not a new deadline. It was known nine months ago," said Jim Godlove, the company's Darwin area manager. "The entire set of gas export contracts could be jeopardised (if the treaty is not agreed in time)." For more reports see www.ft.com/globaleconomy * * Copyright 2001 PennWell Publishing Company Oil & Gas Journal April 9, 2001 SECTION: TRANSPORTATION; Pg. 62 HEADLINE: Australian LNG coming to California Phillips Petroleum Co. and El Paso Corp. plan to deliver Timor Sea LNG to southern California
Re: East Timor/United Nations
> No Welcome For the World In Utah Towns > BY THOMAS BURR [EMAIL PROTECTED] > (c) 2001, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE > Tuesday, June 26, 2001 > > Most city councils have enough to do keeping the streets clean and > safe. Not La Verkin and Virgin. The rural southern Utah towns have > taken on the United Nations. > > The international organization has not exactly overrun them, but the > two town councils are considering ordinances that would erase all > traces of the United Nations in their communities, citing concerns the > body is usurping the sovereignty of the United States. > > "We've been pushed far enough, and long enough," La Verkin Mayor Dan > Howard said Monday. "We're tired of marching to [the U.N.] agenda. > Maybe now we can start to march on our own agenda. Maybe La Verkin is > the crucible to get the rest of the cities and the national government > to listen." [snip] > http://www.sltrib.com/2001/jun/06262001/utah/108851.htm - Original Message - From: "Keaney Michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 5:44 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14183] East Timor/United Nations > Yoshie forwards the following trash from Thomas Friedman: > > * The New York Times > May 29, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final > SECTION: Section A; Page 15; Column 5; Editorial Desk > HEADLINE: Foreign Affairs; > 95 to 5 > BYLINE: By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN; Gail Collins is on vacation. > > Ever since the U.S. got voted off the island at the U.N. Human Rights > Commission three weeks ago, Congress has been hopping mad and the > U.N.-haters have been on a tear. So I have an idea: Let's quit the > U.N. That's right, let's just walk. Most of its members don't speak > English anyway. What an insult! Let's just shut it down and turn it > into another Trump Tower. That Security Council table would make a > perfect sushi bar. > > No? You don't want to leave the U.N. to the Europeans and Russians? > Then let's stop bellyaching about the U.N., and manipulating our > dues, and start taking it seriously for what it is -- a global forum > that spends 95 percent of its energy endorsing the wars and > peacekeeping missions that the U.S. wants endorsed, or taking on the > thankless humanitarian missions that the U.S. would like done but > doesn't want to do itself. The U.N. actually spends only 5 percent of > its time annoying the U.S. Not a bad deal > > ...[T]here are now 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions. > > For the past decade, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Fiji and Nepal have been > doing U.N. peacekeeping that the U.S. wants done but doesn't want to > do itself. These poor countries do U.N. peacekeeping to earn extra > cash, and have been paying the salaries of the U.N. peacekeepers > themselves, while waiting for years for the U.S. to pay its dues. So > the world's richest country has been taking interest-free loans from > the world's poorest, dollar-a-day economies. That's embarrassing. > > All these problems would exist whether the U.N. were there or not. So > what the U.N. provides 95 percent of the time is a body for > coordinating our response to problems we care about. And it does it > in a way that ensures that the burden of costs is shared, so that the > U.S. doesn't have to pay alone, and that the burden of responsibility > is shared, so that wars the U.S. wants fought, or the peace accords > the U.S. wants kept, have a global stamp of approval, not > made-in-U.S.A * > > All in all, the U.N. is a pretty good deal for the U.S. > > = > > It pains me greatly that you, of all people, should bring to the fore the > unspeakable garbage perpetrated by someone Louis P., with great > understatement, calls the New York Times "superpimp". Words fail me in my > efforts to record the feelings of revulsion and disgust that cause me to > swoon every time I clap eyes on his strenuously laboured efforts at wit, > reason, persuasion, propaganda. I'm having great difficulty composing myself > sufficiently to put together this reply. > > Nevertheless, let's try to look beyond Friedman's dysentry -- always a good > policy, and particularly effective in this case. > > The "new world order" of Bush Sr. was painstakingly constructed and, once > completed, immensely fragile. So much so, that it shattered almost > immediately, with the "coalition" of forces ranged against Saddam Hussein > steadily shrinking. Getting UN endorsement of the necessarily limited > actions undertaken by the US against Iraq was both time-consuming and an > affront to aforementioned notions of divine right/manifest destiny. Ever > since that experience, the US has been engaged in a campaign of undermining > the UN, using it only as a fig-leaf of legitimacy when it suits. The UN has > taken the rap for countless failed peace missions, which failed because they > were not properly supported by the countries, led by the US, that supposedly > sponsored them in the first place. Thus we hear now of the UN's "last > chance" in Sierra Leo
Re: East Timor/United Nations
Michael Keaney says >Of course, now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, the United Nations >is more than ever a tool of territorial and economic ambitions by the USA >and its allies. Put in old-school Marxist terms, the UN is not an >expression of Empire but imperialism. Power grabs by big fish in the ocean >at the expense of smaller fish--rather than Kantian pieties--is the only >way to understand the United Nations. >(see http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/2001II/msg03491.html) > >... we should bear in mind that many of a distinctly different political >persuasion, and at the very heart of US power, would disagree, precisely >because they regard the UN as out of control. > >Now of course, thanks to Senator Jeffords, Senator Helms no longer sits from >on high throwing his cardboard thunderbolts at maps highlighting Cuba, >China, North Korea and Venezuela. But it's a safe bet that the largely >insulated (from Congressional scrutiny) process of foreign policy will >enable the noticeably unilateralist Bush administration carry on in Uncle >Jesse's fine tradition. And that tradition involves both circumventing and >undermining the credibility of the UN, precisely because it is not under the >sort of control that large sections of the United States power elite regards >as its divine right/manifest destiny. * The New York Times May 29, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 15; Column 5; Editorial Desk HEADLINE: Foreign Affairs; 95 to 5 BYLINE: By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN; Gail Collins is on vacation. Ever since the U.S. got voted off the island at the U.N. Human Rights Commission three weeks ago, Congress has been hopping mad and the U.N.-haters have been on a tear. So I have an idea: Let's quit the U.N. That's right, let's just walk. Most of its members don't speak English anyway. What an insult! Let's just shut it down and turn it into another Trump Tower. That Security Council table would make a perfect sushi bar. No? You don't want to leave the U.N. to the Europeans and Russians? Then let's stop bellyaching about the U.N., and manipulating our dues, and start taking it seriously for what it is -- a global forum that spends 95 percent of its energy endorsing the wars and peacekeeping missions that the U.S. wants endorsed, or taking on the thankless humanitarian missions that the U.S. would like done but doesn't want to do itself. The U.N. actually spends only 5 percent of its time annoying the U.S. Not a bad deal ...[T]here are now 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions. For the past decade, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Fiji and Nepal have been doing U.N. peacekeeping that the U.S. wants done but doesn't want to do itself. These poor countries do U.N. peacekeeping to earn extra cash, and have been paying the salaries of the U.N. peacekeepers themselves, while waiting for years for the U.S. to pay its dues. So the world's richest country has been taking interest-free loans from the world's poorest, dollar-a-day economies. That's embarrassing. All these problems would exist whether the U.N. were there or not. So what the U.N. provides 95 percent of the time is a body for coordinating our response to problems we care about. And it does it in a way that ensures that the burden of costs is shared, so that the U.S. doesn't have to pay alone, and that the burden of responsibility is shared, so that wars the U.S. wants fought, or the peace accords the U.S. wants kept, have a global stamp of approval, not made-in-U.S.A * All in all, the U.N. is a pretty good deal for the U.S. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
I am sure that my history is unreliable, by the lights of the history of former Yugoslavia according to Milosevic and his apologists. No doubt my history of Rwanda is also unreliable, by the lights of the history of Hutu Power and their apologists. And so on. I have yet to learn of the perpetrators of acts of genocide who did not find some reason to blame their victims, from the American campaign against the indigenous people of this content to the Nazis' denunciations of Jews to the genocidal Hutus' complaints against the Tsutsis. There is always some historical event, no matter how remote [Serbian ultra-nationalists love to go back centuries], which can be presented as justification for blood baths. Too bad that anyone who knows the first thing about the recent history of Kosova knows that prior to the repression begun by Milosevic, the Albanian majority in the province was organized behind a non-violent movement seeking national autonomy and full rights. >The problem is that your history is unreliable. For example, the first >occurrence of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia was directed against the >Serbs of Kosovo. Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 212-98-6869 Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- .
Re: Re: Re: Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
Leo is relatively new here, so he probably does not know that we have been over this a number of times. I don't think that there is much need to repeat it again. On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 11:25:09AM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: > Leo Casey wrote: > >Let us suppose, for purposes of argument, that this little syllogism is > >correct in its premises, and that one can reduce genocide to capitalism, > >and capitalism to the USA. [I can't help but point out, however, if only in > >passing, that the formulation has the effect of allowing one to elide all > >of the instances of genocide we have faced in the immediate past, from the > >slaughter of Tsutsis and non-genocidal Hutus in Rwanda to the rapacious > >'ethnic cleansing' undertaken by the forces under the command of Milosevic > >in the former Yugoslavia; it also manages to avoid discussions of such > >little matters as the death of millions of Ukrainians, Crimeans, Baltic > >nationalities of Estonians, etc. under Stalin, and the auto-genocide of Pol > >Pot.] > > The problem is that your history is unreliable. For example, the first > occurrence of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia was directed against the Serbs > of Kosovo. > > Extra! (www.fair.org) > > May/June 1999 > > Rescued from the Memory Hole > > The Forgotten Background of the Serb/Albanian Conflict > > By Jim Naureckas > > In times of war, there is always intense pressure for media outlets to > serve as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the > journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, giving the public > as much information as possible so as to facilitate a democratic debate, > the propagandist simplifies the world in order to mobilize the populace > behind a common goal. > > One of propaganda's most basic simplifications is to divide participants in > a conflict into neat categories of victim and villain, with no > qualification allowed for either role. In the real world, of course, > responsibility cannot always be assigned so neatly. Both sides often have > legitimate grievances and plausible claims, and too often genuine > atrocities are used to justify a new round of abuses against the other side. > > In presenting the background to the Kosovo conflict, U.S. news outlets have > focused overwhelmingly on the very real crimes committed by Yugoslavian and > Serbian forces against ethnic Albanians. In the process, they have > downplayed or ignored the ways that Albanian nationalists have contributed > to ethnic tensions in the region. These one-sided accounts have reduced a > complex dynamic that calls for careful mediation to a cartoon battle of > good vs. evil, with bombing the bad guys as the obvious solution. > > In order to eliminate any moral ambiguity from the NATO intervention, media > attempts to provide "context" to Kosovo generally start the modern history > of the conflict in 1987, when Slobodan Milosevic began using Serb/Albanian > tensions for his own political ends. A New York Times backgrounder (4/4/99) > by Michael Kaufman basically skips from World War II until "1987, when > Slobodan Milosevic, now the Yugoslav president, first began exploiting and > inflaming the historical rivalries of Albanians and Serbs." In Kaufman's > account, "the conflict was relatively dormant until Mr. Milosevic stirred > up hostilities in 1989 by revoking the autonomous status that Kosovo had > enjoyed in Serbia." > > The revocation of autonomy was a crucial decision, one which greatly > destabilized the multi-ethnic Yugoslavian system and contributed to the > country's breakup. The loss of autonomy was a grievance that helped pave > the way for the rise of an armed separatist movement, in the form of the > Kosovo Liberation Army. > > But the decision to end Kosovo's autonomous status did not come out of > nowhere, or out of a simple Serbian desire to oppress Albanians. To get a > more complicated picture of the situation in Kosovo in the '80s, Kaufman > would only have had to look up his own paper's coverage from the era. > > Origins of "ethnic cleansing"? > > New York Times correspondent David Binder filed a report in 1982 > (11/28/82): "In violence growing out of the Pristina University riots of > March 1981, a score of people have been killed and hundreds injured. There > have been almost weekly incidents of rape, arson, pillage and industrial > sabotage, most seemingly designed to drive Kosovo's remaining indigenous > Slavs--Serbs and Montenegrins--out of the province." > > Describing an attempt to set fire to a 12-year-old Serbian boy, Binder > reported (11/9/82): "Such incidents have prompted many of Kosovo's Slavic > inhabitants to flee the province, thereby helping to fulfill a nationalist > demand for an ethnically 'pure' Albanian Kosovo. The latest Belgrade > estimate is that 20,000 Serbs and Montenegrins have left Kosovo for good > since the 1981 riots." > > "Ethnically pure," of course, is another way to translate the
Re: Re: Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
Leo Casey wrote: >Let us suppose, for purposes of argument, that this little syllogism is >correct in its premises, and that one can reduce genocide to capitalism, >and capitalism to the USA. [I can't help but point out, however, if only in >passing, that the formulation has the effect of allowing one to elide all >of the instances of genocide we have faced in the immediate past, from the >slaughter of Tsutsis and non-genocidal Hutus in Rwanda to the rapacious >'ethnic cleansing' undertaken by the forces under the command of Milosevic >in the former Yugoslavia; it also manages to avoid discussions of such >little matters as the death of millions of Ukrainians, Crimeans, Baltic >nationalities of Estonians, etc. under Stalin, and the auto-genocide of Pol >Pot.] The problem is that your history is unreliable. For example, the first occurrence of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia was directed against the Serbs of Kosovo. Extra! (www.fair.org) May/June 1999 Rescued from the Memory Hole The Forgotten Background of the Serb/Albanian Conflict By Jim Naureckas In times of war, there is always intense pressure for media outlets to serve as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, giving the public as much information as possible so as to facilitate a democratic debate, the propagandist simplifies the world in order to mobilize the populace behind a common goal. One of propaganda's most basic simplifications is to divide participants in a conflict into neat categories of victim and villain, with no qualification allowed for either role. In the real world, of course, responsibility cannot always be assigned so neatly. Both sides often have legitimate grievances and plausible claims, and too often genuine atrocities are used to justify a new round of abuses against the other side. In presenting the background to the Kosovo conflict, U.S. news outlets have focused overwhelmingly on the very real crimes committed by Yugoslavian and Serbian forces against ethnic Albanians. In the process, they have downplayed or ignored the ways that Albanian nationalists have contributed to ethnic tensions in the region. These one-sided accounts have reduced a complex dynamic that calls for careful mediation to a cartoon battle of good vs. evil, with bombing the bad guys as the obvious solution. In order to eliminate any moral ambiguity from the NATO intervention, media attempts to provide "context" to Kosovo generally start the modern history of the conflict in 1987, when Slobodan Milosevic began using Serb/Albanian tensions for his own political ends. A New York Times backgrounder (4/4/99) by Michael Kaufman basically skips from World War II until "1987, when Slobodan Milosevic, now the Yugoslav president, first began exploiting and inflaming the historical rivalries of Albanians and Serbs." In Kaufman's account, "the conflict was relatively dormant until Mr. Milosevic stirred up hostilities in 1989 by revoking the autonomous status that Kosovo had enjoyed in Serbia." The revocation of autonomy was a crucial decision, one which greatly destabilized the multi-ethnic Yugoslavian system and contributed to the country's breakup. The loss of autonomy was a grievance that helped pave the way for the rise of an armed separatist movement, in the form of the Kosovo Liberation Army. But the decision to end Kosovo's autonomous status did not come out of nowhere, or out of a simple Serbian desire to oppress Albanians. To get a more complicated picture of the situation in Kosovo in the '80s, Kaufman would only have had to look up his own paper's coverage from the era. Origins of "ethnic cleansing"? New York Times correspondent David Binder filed a report in 1982 (11/28/82): "In violence growing out of the Pristina University riots of March 1981, a score of people have been killed and hundreds injured. There have been almost weekly incidents of rape, arson, pillage and industrial sabotage, most seemingly designed to drive Kosovo's remaining indigenous Slavs--Serbs and Montenegrins--out of the province." Describing an attempt to set fire to a 12-year-old Serbian boy, Binder reported (11/9/82): "Such incidents have prompted many of Kosovo's Slavic inhabitants to flee the province, thereby helping to fulfill a nationalist demand for an ethnically 'pure' Albanian Kosovo. The latest Belgrade estimate is that 20,000 Serbs and Montenegrins have left Kosovo for good since the 1981 riots." "Ethnically pure," of course, is another way to translate the phrase "ethnically clean"--as in "ethnic cleansing." The first use of this concept to appear in Nexis was in relation to the Albanian nationalists' program for Kosovo: "The nationalists have a two-point platform," the Times' Marvine Howe quotes a Communist (and ethnically Albanian) official in Kosovo (7/12/82), "first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the mer
Re: Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
Let us suppose, for purposes of argument, that this little syllogism is correct in its premises, and that one can reduce genocide to capitalism, and capitalism to the USA. [I can't help but point out, however, if only in passing, that the formulation has the effect of allowing one to elide all of the instances of genocide we have faced in the immediate past, from the slaughter of Tsutsis and non-genocidal Hutus in Rwanda to the rapacious 'ethnic cleansing' undertaken by the forces under the command of Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia; it also manages to avoid discussions of such little matters as the death of millions of Ukrainians, Crimeans, Baltic nationalities of Estonians, etc. under Stalin, and the auto-genocide of Pol Pot.] What is proposed is that the East Timorese should lie down and accept slaughter at the hands of the Indonesians, rather than call for UN intervention, in order to maintain an ideological argument for building an alternative to American capitalism. The thought that an ideological alternative based on the sacrifice of entire peoples to genocide might not be very attractive to the great mass of working people does not seem to have crossed this mind. >The main cause of genocide in the world is capitalism. The main capitalist >power in the world is the USA. By providing legitimacy to its adventures >overseas, we undercut our ability to present ourselves to working people >as a political alternative. For an interesting take on "humanitarian >interventions", I recommend an article by Steve Shalom on znet at: >http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/ShalomHumnCri.html. Here is an excerpt >on the classic instance of the dubious character of such interventions. Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 212-98-6869 Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- .
Re: Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
Nathan Newman: >Actually, what is amazing about the condemnation of support by the West for >the East Timorese is that for decades Chomsky and others have made the fact >that the West did nothing back in the 1970s to stop the initial invasion and >mass murder as proof that it had a double standard of letting its allies >commit genocide while condemning others like Cambodia. Actually, Chomsky stresses that there is a single standard: mass murder in the name of corporate profits. >If the US and Australia had done nothing and let Indonesia slaughter the >East Timorese, I guarantee that those like Louis and others who condemned >intervention would use the lack of intervention as proof of the willful >indifference of the West to genocide. (Note Louis's post on the failure of >the West to save the Jews from the Nazis). I am opposed to US intervention in principle. Period. Although I would have supported Vietnam's intervention into Cambodia or Tanzania's into Uganda against Idi Amin. There is a class difference. >Creating damned-if-you-do rhetorical attacks on opponents is all fine as >propaganda, but it ultimately has little intellectual heft and eventually >the hypocrisy does undermine the credibility of those playing the game. >The US is condemned for failure to intervene against allies, except when it >does take out allies or support movements that the Left supports (see East >Timor or Haiti), well that is just ideological justification to support the >broader interventionist policies. The only answer really is to overthrow the US government and send all the criminals like Clinton, Bush Sr. and Jr. to prison. That's how world peace will be achieved, not by providing left apologetics for their criminal behavior. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: East Timor ( was Abundance (was Naderism)
- Original Message - From: "Rob Schaap" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> G'day Lou, > This is an excellent publication, although I sharply disagree with > their > support of UN troops in East Timor and the Mideast. -*What I can't come at* is damning the west for going in to prevent actual -slaughter from turning into almost inevitable genocide, no matter how much the -west helped to produce the constituent circumstances. Actually, what is amazing about the condemnation of support by the West for the East Timorese is that for decades Chomsky and others have made the fact that the West did nothing back in the 1970s to stop the initial invasion and mass murder as proof that it had a double standard of letting its allies commit genocide while condemning others like Cambodia. If the US and Australia had done nothing and let Indonesia slaughter the East Timorese, I guarantee that those like Louis and others who condemned intervention would use the lack of intervention as proof of the willful indifference of the West to genocide. (Note Louis's post on the failure of the West to save the Jews from the Nazis). Creating damned-if-you-do rhetorical attacks on opponents is all fine as propaganda, but it ultimately has little intellectual heft and eventually the hypocrisy does undermine the credibility of those playing the game. The US is condemned for failure to intervene against allies, except when it does take out allies or support movements that the Left supports (see East Timor or Haiti), well that is just ideological justification to support the broader interventionist policies. Which may be true, but that is convincing only to those already agreeing with the analysis that whatever the US or the West does must by definition be bad; for everyone else, opposing interventions like East Timor does more to make left opponents look hypocritical than undermine support for the Western regimes. -- Nathan Newman
[PEN-L:11266] Re: East Timor, Kosovo, and Kuwait
I don't know how one could get a dependable nose count on the questions Nathan raises, but I will report on my own count among those whose history I know. Without exception (that is, among those with whom I am still in contact) the people I worked with in Central America Solidarity in the '80s have all agreed with me in condemning all three of the interventions. There is no instance since WW 2 in which U.S. intervention of any sort and of any kind outside its borders has not been disastrous both for those attacked and those allegedly aided. I see no reason that this should change at any time in the foreseeable future. A study of any give U.S. intervention in the future should not be for the sake of reaching a judgment on it but for the sake of gathering ammunition with which to attack it. Carrol
[PEN-L:11267] Re: East Timor, Kosovo, and Kuwait
Nathan, The difference between Kosovo and the other cases is that the aggressor is a client state. We have no need to call for military intervention. All the U.S. needs to do is to call off its dogs and they will comply. Several of us have mentioned that we think that the introduction of foreign troops will not help. In the case of Kuwait, if April Glespie had told Saddam not to invade, I suspect that it might not have happened, especially if the U.S. would have agreed to support some of Saddam's grievances concerning oil. In the case of Kosovo, intervention was a total and ongoing disaster. The U.S. and the EU countries had put pressure on Yugoslavia, weakening the state and supporting seperatist movements. We have had all of this discussion before. What can be gained from repeating it? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10866] Re: East Timor
G'day all, 'Turns out that someone in Djakarta had arranged for huge holding camps to be set up in West Timor at least four days before the referendum (camps that are apparently 'processing' 2 people a day - some dying mysteriously and many being sent to other islands). Making news also is an unconfirmed phonecall to Australian media that a huge mass killing if taking place in a town south of Dili. Just cleaning up before the humanitarian mission finally comes in, I expect. Hope they find some humans to be caring and sharing about. We can only hope that the 40 or so who apparently made it into the hills haven't already starved to death. And we can only hope some mechanism might be instituted by which the forcibly removed can get back home. This latter is the less likely, as I expect the media won't make too much noise about it. Sigh, Rob.
