On Thu, 20 May 1999, Doug Henwood wrote:
> ... The Contra strategy supports my point - it was precisely the bodybag
> anxiety that made Reagan use proxy armies and death squads in Central
> America. Several hundred thousand Central Americans died, and Reagan won
> those wars. Just how has Indonesia's hand been stayed in East Timor,
> anyway?
Doug says there's "a hard core of vocal opposition to the Indonesian abuse of East Timor" but objects to Chomsky's calling it "strong"; and he avers that "there was a vigorous anti-intervention movement around Central America" but won't countenance "overwhelming." But that movement (based largely in churches rather than in "the left") did overwhelm the Reagan Administration's plans to put US troops in Nicaragua (as they were able to do more rapidly in Grenada); and the upcoming referendum in East Timor resulted from the brave Timorese resistance joined to a vocal opposition strong enough to bring it to world attention (as the Nobel prizes showed).
At least since Vietnam, the object of the attention of US propaganda organs has been primarily the US public. All administrations have feared that if the public really knew what was going on, they wouldn't approve. Increasingly throughout the post-WWII period, there's little concern amongst American planners about what anyone in the rest of the world thinks, and a great deal of concern about "manufacturing consent" (to coin a phrase) in the US. The US withdrawal of troops from Vietnam ("Vietnamization") in the '70s was promoted by a double failure in manufacturing that consent: the conscript army in Vietnam essentially revolted, and unrest at home was, in the opinion of Pentagon planners, growing beyond the ability of the military to contain it. They won't get fooled again.
--C. G. Estabrook