On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Doug Henwood wrote that he forwarded Angela's comments on Noam Chomsky on East Timor to the man himself, who responded:
> My own view was that no peacekeeping forces would have been necessary
> in this Portuguese-administered terrority under effective UN
> jurisdiction if the US had informed its friends among the INDON
> generals that the game is over. That judgment was in fact confirmed in
> mid-September when Clinton finally made some ambiguous gestures, and
> the generals turned tail within a few hours -- something that could
> have been done for the previous 24 years. An Australian-led UN
> peacekeeping force then entered the territory, after the Indonesian
> military pulled out.
This is the only part of Chomsky's analysis that seems off to me. He makes it sound as if the Australian-led UN force had no independent effect. Whereas it seems to me that they were crucial. That is, before they went it they existed as a threat to go in that had never existed before. The force was threatening to go in without Indon approval. A deadline was approaching. The US's ambiguous gestures indicated that it would support the Australian-led UN force morally in such a case. I think it was this combination that convinced the Indons that retreat was the better part of valor -- that while they might engage and defeat the Australian-led force, would be a pyrhic victory, because then they really would finally lose the American connectition.
This small trip wire part seems essential to explain Why now, rather than another time, which Chomsky (and Nairn) leave as inexplicable. And since the US's final gestures were so ambiguous; and since we provided almost no physical support for the military operation despite Australia's numerous attempts to presume and pretend we would (starting with joint military operations 2 months prior to the elections); it seems to me that Australia's willingness to invade -- and willingness to claim publicly that it would do so even without permission, even if a bluff -- was the sine non qua of the Indon retreat. Without it, I think the Indon army would have continued to believe that that US gestures would be reversed once the matter fell off the international radar screen -- as they have, of course -- without needing to call the militias off and retreat from the province. From the outside, it seems that the threat of the Australian-led UN force forcing a conflict, and forcing the US to choose sides, was decisive -- that even if it was a bluff, the army finally decided it was too dangerous to call. And that that was what was different this time around. The UN, with the crucial cooperation of the Australians (giving it, almost uniquely in its history, an armed force for a moment), together dragged the US just enough to make it look like it would be forced to get behind them, and thereby leveraged their effect.
Of course I could be wrong. I admit I feel funny disagreeing, even slightly, with both Chomsky and Nairn, who both have forgotten more than I will ever know on the subject. I look forward to reading Chomsky's upcoming article.
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com