On Sun, 20 Feb 2000, rc-am wrote:
> If CG or anyone else wants to defend the Australian intervention in
> East Timor, fine. As I said, I part company there. This is not news.
> I have argued the details countless time before on this.
Angela, I'm embarrassed to say I must have missed your final word on this, and I've searched your posts in the archives without finding it. (This might be because it was posted under one of those classicly non-obvious titles that LBO abounds in. Like this one, come to think of it.) I remember quite clearly your doubts beforehand that any good could come of it based on past practice. And I certainly remember your arguments that there was no reason for the CNRT not to have postponed the election for a year. And I understand your criticisms of the situation that now obtains. But taking the decision to hold the election as a given, the violence that predictably followed, the independence that ensued, and the weakening of Indonesia's military that resulted at least in part from the same crisis, do you still think things would have worked out better had the Australians had not intervened? Do you think East Timor would have become independent, and the political power of the Indonesian military weakened, even if there hadn't been an intervention? Or that the East Timorese are going to come out of the current UN protectorate worse off than they were under the Indonesians?
Feel free to point me to an earlier post. It's my fault for not remembering.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com