Saddam is not more progressive than Milosevic or Habibie. The occupation forces of the Iraq are not more benign than those of Indonesia. Nor for that matter is it true that America's actions are self-serving in one case and selfish in the other.
The only real difference is that the left has become ever more disoriented following the end of the Cold War. By degrees it has moved closer and closer to the idea that the only agency of progressive change in the world is the imperialists' club of the United Nations.
Against all evidence, it has to be said, the prejudice that 'only the United Nations is capable of acting for the good' has become entrenched. Against all the evidence of Iraq, Somalia (funny how that one gets left out), Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo that military intervention is more destructive than constructive, that is.
And why does this prejudice persist against all evidence? It persist because the alternative routes of political change have been closed off. It is for that reason that radicals are prepared to embrace the imperialist's club as the agency of change, and for no other.
The intervention against Indonesia will end disastrously, because the very forces that are being called upon to act are those that have done most to frustrate the democratic wishes not just of the East Timorese but of all East Asian peoples. The condition of the intervention is not one of self-determination, but dependency, a dependency that could not result in anything but further domination.
More destructively it has the capacity to open up the whole of the Indonesian nation to a cycle of ethnic conflict.
In message <37E51330.588DC99A at ee.cornell.edu>, Enrique Diaz-Alvarez <enrique at anise.ee.cornell.edu> writes
quoting Nathan
>> I would be interested to hear more general comments on these distinctions
>> and if there are other categories worth comparing the three interventions?
>
>Right off the top of my head.
>
>- East Timor intervention would respect international law. The US intentionally
>and gleefully wiped its ass with it in Kosovo - in fact, I see this ass-wiping
>as a major goal of the intervention. US to world: don't ever think that
>international law will protect your water plants from cruise missiles.
>
>- Intervention in East Timor has a good chance of stopping an existing
>humanitarian catastrophe. Intervention in Kosovo caused a humanitarian
>catastrophe much wrose than the ugly counterinsurgency campaign it allegedly
>tried to stop.
>
>- Intervention in East Timor will involve ground troops, rather than terror
>bombing of civilians from 15,000 feet.
>
>- There seem to be no ulterior motives for intervention in East Timor. In
>Kosovo, there was the issue of rescuing NATO from obsolescence.
>
>Enrique
>
>>
>>
>> --Nathan Newman
>
-- Jim heartfield