Without attracting much attention in the American press, Indonesia is staging a re-run of its brutal crushing of East Timor. This time the tiny victim is Aceh Province. World opinion finally forced Indonesia to give East Timor its freedom. What makes the Indonesian government think things will be any different this time? Turns out the Bush doctrine does… Today’s story in the Times shows how George W. Bush has become an international enabler. The Times story gave little background, and the current bloodletting in Aceh will be unfamiliar to most Americans. Only the left press has been following the story with any regularity. Z Magazine has paid particular attention to Exxon/Mobil’s use of the Indonesian army as brutal security guards for its oil facilities in the tiny province. More recently the Guardian has a good piece on how the Indonesian military is terrorizing and murdering defenseless villagers in Aceh. For general background and lots of links, go to Melbourne Indymedia. :m: Peace.
Goofyfish , I don't know much about this present Indonesian situation and only briefly read about the 1975 massacre with Kissinger / ford involvement . I will read the links you posted . What strikes me as odd is your including T. Roosevelts quote . While one of his better quotes , he was a main participant in the trickery we pulled on the rebels ( Cuban and filipino ) fighting against the Spanish . We had promised them self-determination if they helped fight the spanish . Only thing is that when we wouldn't leave their country and our intentions of stealing natural resources became clearer they turned against us . Gee , how ungrateful .
the reason i think america are so freely able to go to war with other nations is because they haven't experienced prolonged wars in their own country. europe had good reasons not too back the war, centuries of battle, occupation and slaughter would make anyone apprehensive about war. then again, even though america went to war with iraq with lies and have done a crap job of stabilising the nation afterwards, they still did a favour to the iraqi people. its a two side coin that's not going to land on its edge.
The situation in Ajeh is a horrific one , the military has entered the villages for "terrorists" and is slaughtering innocent peoples as usual . The Mujahiddeen in Ajeh are fighting since the Dutch colonists were there , and after that with their western-sympathizing replacements . Indonesia has the largest Muslim population world wide (180M !!) , yet they suffer from a hositle government led by Megawati , who resembles the hostile Suharto government , who resemble the hostile Dutch colonists .....and there we have it . Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! FREE AJEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many countries in the world that have known centuries of war are still at war and do not seem to develop any apprehensiveness towards violence.
true, but then that comes down to culture i reckon. and besides, war is paritially are barbaric practise, and in more modern countries i think that is why war is so abhorred.
So, goofyfish. Have you purchased your plane ticket to Aceh Province to work actively in their defense, at some personal risk? Or are you amply happy to merely spectate from the relative safety of your tower of editorial sanctimony? Talk is cheap. How about some respectable, personally actionable investment in your "cause of the moment"?
At least goofyfish is making an attempt to get people informed. I shouldn't make any assumptions about you, but It sounds like you're happy to sit back at critisise others for caring. I'd actually rather people like goofyfish inform people, who otherwise would not hear these things, than not. The first step to action is understanding. There is no wisdom is acting without thought. This is a means of truely understanding what there is to act upon. How do any of us know? Maybe on reading this, someone will write a letter to their ruler demanding they act on the situation. I don't know, and I'm sure you don't have the capabilities to do so either. So give him (or her, I don't know) a break. I commend goofyfish for making an attempt to inform others. Good work. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You have to remember that this was the Great Power period to understand the thinking of men like Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, both strong proponents of taking the Philippines. They rightly or wrongly believed that the Filipinos were not ready for self-rule and that to allow Aguinaldo's independent government to rule independently would mean that the waning Spanish might retake the islands, or even worse greater powers, such as Germany, Japan or Britain. The US had no sphere of influence in China as the other Great Powers did, so the Philippines and Guam, with recently annexed Hawaii gave her stepping stones into the China trade. There were no real natural resources to steal in the Philippines. The US sank millions into the Philippines without ever drawing any profits from the islands. Roosevelt was also a disciple of the naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who was an admirer of the British Empire. Mahan said that if the US wanted to be a great power such as Britain she needed to have a great ocean-going navy. Such a navy needed coaling stations strategic located around the globe, and that meant either friendship treaties for use of bases, as we originally had with places like the Samoas and the Hawaiian Islands, or either the acquistion of new territories (as we would end up doing with with both those island groups). It was Mahan who had also stressed the need for an isthmus canal, which had prompted Roosevelt to offer aid to the Panamanian revolution against Colombia. Which led to another classic Roosevelt quote when asked about his decision: "I could have taken the idea to Congress and let them debate it for 50 years; instead I decided to take immediate action and let them debate me for the next 50 years." As far as Cuba, they were granted independence in 1902. Unfortunately the original Teller Amendment, which stated that the war with the Spanish was not a war of aggrandizement, was replaced with the cruder Platt Amendment, which stipulated that the US maintained poseession of Guantanamo Bay on a 99 year lease (which was later made permanent) and reserved the right to intervene in Cuba in times of internal crises. This was done mainly as a protection for American business interests in the lucrative sugar industry. Puerto Rico has remained a US commonwealth for over 100 years by their own choosing, as has American Samoa.
Coldrake, excellent post . So the reasons were geo-strategic (navy) as well as for profit (asian trade)? "Natural resources: timber, petroleum, nickel, cobalt, silver, gold, salt, copper " http://www.photius.com/wfb2000/countries/philippines/philippines_geography.html -------------------------- http://www.irtk.org/aceh.html http://www.veteransforpeace.org/war_is_a_racket_033103.htm
Definitely those were two of the major reasons. There were some Americans who did believe in the idea of mercantilism and wanted to extract the natural resources of the Philippines. McKinley sent in surveyors, geologists, and meteorologists into the islands, so it was at least considered. But it either wasn't considered feasible, or there was not enough to make it profitable, to fool with extracting resources. The US spent millions on building a government infrastructure, a transporation system, an education system, and a health system, without ever really extracting enough resources to make it a profitable venture if that had been their goal. Anyway, this is getting away from the theme of Goofy's thread.
