US backed Timor invasion

http://www.news.com.au/story/print/0,10119,17446576,00.html

What many of us have known for years, has finally been confirmed.

THE US knew well in advance of and explicitly approved Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, newly declassified documents say.

Released this week by the independent Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA), the documents showed US officials were aware of the invasion plans nearly a year in advance.

They adopted a "policy of silence" and even sought to suppress news and discussions on East Timor, including credible reports of Indonesia's massacres of Timorese civilians, according to the documents.

Thirty years after the Indonesian invasion, the formerly secret US documents showed how multiple US administrations tried to conceal information on East Timor to avoid a controversy that would prompt a Congressional ban on weapons sales to Indonesia.

"I'm assuming you're really going to keep your mouth shut on the subject," then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger told his staff in October 1975 in response to reports that Indonesia had begun its attack on East Timor.


God bless America.

I just got this DVD from the library, and was appalled (understatement) by the segment on East Timor. From someone explains it better than I can:

However, the most visually appealing aspect of Manufacturing Consent is the visually creative segments that break up interviews on-screen talking. The segments appeal to the visual learner not akin to grasping some of the advanced concepts and often detailed (convoluted at times) speeches of Chomsky. The best example of this learning tool is one problem Chomsky had with the New York Times after they manipulated a story from London's The Guardian concerning genocides in East Timor. The Times rearranged the story's paragraphs and cut out entire paragraphs to add a different spin to the story, as the U.S. was allegedly funneling arms and supporting the occupying Indonesians in order to make U.S. involvement appear minimal, and at best, positive. Hands appear on screen, with the newspaper article on a mini operating table, and medical instruments, shiny, reflective and lined up, are ready to dissect and take out pieces of the article. Essentially a pair of hands in white surgical gloves 'operates' on this news article, all to display the point more effectively. Similar visual segments are used during the film, all with as much of an impact as this one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104810/usercomments

I've recently reread For Reason's of State.
On page one of Chapter I he presents brief text from the British photographer-writer, Phillip Jones Griffiths. "...there is a photograph of a serious looking American pilot with a skull on his helmet, and facing it, a victim of napalm, with a brief text."
Jones Griffith wrote that some of its finer selling points were explained to me by a pilot in 1966. "We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn't so hot-if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene - now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter (WP-white phosphorus) so's to make it burn better. It'll even burn under water now. And one drop is enough, it'll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorus poisoning."

Chomsky first published this clasic in 1970 - yes 1970 and in 2005 the same old methods are being used against innocent civilians in their own country for the same old imperial ambitions. East Timor, Vietnam, Chile, wherever - same old approach and it's always Britain and the US.

Edit add parenthesis

Let's see is if the neighborhood blockbuster has it.:)