OK, who do we back in the Middle East conflicts? I mean,
we’ve got to back SOMEONE, haven’t we? We have to remain true to our values,
don't we?
This year is the 50th anniversary of little-discussed, but classic example of these values, when the US backed the genocide of about a
million “Communist” villagers by the Indonesian military, with the CIA supplying
lists of names to the perpetrators. The genocide was celebrated by many over
here, and by Time Magazine as “the West’s best news for years in Asia.” 10
years later we went one better, supplying not only political backing but also
90% of the military equipment Suharto needed to massacre another 100-200,000,
this time in East Timor. And it wasn’t
just a Cold War anomaly, because Western support for that regime continued well
after 1990, into the Clinton years.
Don’t expect our choice of who to back in the Middle East to be influenced
by such petty considerations as the potential genocide of those who live there.
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