New imperialist intervention in East Timor follows 1999 precedent

This morning's papers report the dispatch of 1300 Australian and New Zealand troops to East Timor. Clearly this is reactionary. Just as clearly, the precedent for it was set by the earlier intervention in 1999.

Murdoch's "Australian" says in today's editorial:

"Australia was present at the creation of East Timor as an independent country, and we are morally obliged not to abandon the struggling state."

I would expect the Howard government to appeal repeatedly to the precedent of 1999, because Howard is aware how much 1999 changed Australian attitudes to the military and imperialist interventions. In fact 1999 was important
in laying the ideological basis for the 2000 Defence White Paper which
foreshadowed major increases in the Australian armed forces (see below).

Now we have Australian troops and cops all over the region, most recently observed protecting corrupt politicians from popular anger in the Solomons.

Even inside Australia, the other day we had a call for troops to be sent a troubled Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. Nowadays the
Australian "Defence Force" is are the "solution" to everything.

Here is a section of my review of the White Paper
http://redsites.alphalink.com.au/militarism.htm

In the past, such a big spending boost would have met sharp opposition. This time the government was so confident, it could even hold a limited
"community consultation" and be supremely relaxed about the outcome. The reason can be summed up in two words: East Timor.

For years Australian governments were indifferent to the fate of the Timorese. In the run-up to the 1999 ballot, Howard ignored quite pointed
intelligence warnings that Jakarta-backed militias planned to wreck the place. While the killing was going on after the ballot, he did nothing.
When it had largely subsided, he seized the opportunity to send in troops and turn East Timor into an Australian colony.

The colonisation process has been quite disgusting, with expatriates grabbing business opportunities, while UN administrators treat the East Timorese as second class citizens in their own country. As I write this, there are accusations of torture against Australian soldiers. One charming Aussie capitalist is shifting his battery hen business to Dili to escape humanitarian laws in Queensland. An aid worker reports conversations in which Dili-based UN staff remark that the Timorese "have the IQ of a dog -- well at least I can train my dog", and: "they don?t need electricity because they don?t read or wash".

Yet large sections of the Australian left have cheered it on, swallowing the lie that Australia was somehow standing up to the Indonesian
oppressors. In fact Canberra was collaborating with Jakarta, as it always does. INTERFET commander Cosgrove himself has pointed out that:

"the mission in East Timor was accomplished with the co-operation of the Indonesian armed forces not, as has been wrongly described by some
commentators, [despite] them or in opposition to them ... There was a shared understanding by General Syahnakri and the Indonesian commanders ?
that it was in everyone?s interests to stabilise East Timor ... We all co-operated in a common purpose."

The losers were the Timorese; among the winners was the Howard government, which gained a huge new legitimacy for militarism. The Financial Review saw this point immediately, explaining in September 1999 how demands for
"peacekeepers" would "dispel the idea that the sole legitimate role for Australian forces is to defend Australian territory":

"The calls for action in Timor are ironic because many of those who fostered the political climate in which the army was run down were the
loudest in demanding Australia intervene there. This call to arms has, for the first time in decades, given broad legitimacy to the proposition that Australia should be able to intervene militarily outside its territory."

And so it proved. Almost immediately, figures associated with the political left began saying the most ghastly things. A news report citing Bruce Ruxton as approving of conscription, also quoted the Reverend Tim Costello as saying: "If conscription is necessary, it is now socially and
politically acceptable." Meanwhile Phillip Adams was declaring that "a nation of 20 million people, predominantly white and preposterously
wealthy, needs to have first-class armed services."

By the following year, there was a strong consensus for military spending.
The report on the "community consultation" makes this quite clear:

"Representatives of groups which do not generally favour defence spending seemed to be content to retain the existing level of funding. We believe
the success of the East Timor deployment, a cause that was favoured by these groups, had much to do with this view."

Commenting on the considerable public support for higher expenditure, one Defence Department official told a journalist for The Australian that 18 months earlier the government wouldn't have had "a prayer" with such spending proposals. But East Timor, adds the journalist, "marked a sea
change in public interest and support for the military."