Chomsky Reader (Continued)

From "Chomsky Reader":

By systematically creating conditions under which existence is reduced to virtually the zero grade, Western power has attained its primary ends throughout Indochina. The West has once again taught the lesson that European civilization has offered to the world for centuries: those who try to resist the technologically advanced but morally primitive Western societies will pay a bitter price. (p. 302, Punishing Vietnam, 1982)

By early September [1975], [East Timor] was in the hands of Fretilin.... International relief officials, journalists, and other observers praised the moderate and constructive efforts to move toward development and independence. But Indonesia had other ideas in mind, and the United States and its allies were happy to oblige, as long as the profits kept flowing.
... Secret cables, leaked in Australia, reveal that the U.S. embassy in Jakarta was under instructions from Henry Kissinger not to involve itself in the matter and "to cut down its reporting on Timor" (Australian Ambassador Woolcott).
... The U.S. government claimed to have initiated a secret six-month arms moratorium; as later exposed, the moratorium was so secret that Indonesia did not know about it, and during this period arums continued to flow and the United States even made new offers of equipment particularly useful for counterinsurgency operations. By 1977, Indonesia had actually begun to exhaust its military supplies in this war against a country of 700,000 people, so the Carter administration took some time off from its pieties and self-acclaim about its devotion to human rights -- "the soul of our foreign policy" -- to arrange a large-scale increase in the flow of arms to Indonesia, in the certain knowledge that they would be used to consummate a massacre that was approaching genocidal proportions. (pp. 305-306, East Timor, 1985)

The U.S. government also lent diplomatic support to the Indonesian invasion. It was particularly important to block action at the United Nations to deter the aggression in the early days, when such action might have been effective. U.N. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan was assigned this task, and described his success in performing it with much pride. In a secret cable of January 23, 1976, to Secretary of State Kissinger, he cited his success in blocking U.N. action on Timor as part of the "considerable progress" he had achieved by arm-twisting tactics at the United Nations. In his memoirs, he explains the reason why the U.N. was unable to act in a meaningful way:

The United States wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.

On December 12, 1975, when Moynihan was carrying out his assigned task with much relish, he received the highest award from then International League for the Rights of Man (now the International League for Human Rights) in honor of his role as "one of the most forthright advocates of human rights on the national and international scene." (pp. 308-309, East Timor, 1985)

The Grand Area was a region that was to be subordinated to the needs of American economy. As one planner put it, it was to be the region that is "strategically necessary for world control." The geopolitical analysis held that the Grand Area had to include at least then Western Hemisphere, the Far East, and then former British Empire.... This is what is called "anti-imperialism" in American scholarship. The Grand Area was also to include western and southern Europe and the oil-producing regions of the Middle East; in fact, it was to include everything, if that were possible.

... One of the clearest and most lucid accounts of the planning behind this was by George Kennan [who] was the head of the State Department policy-planning staff in the late 1940s. In the following document, PPS23, February 1948, he outlined the basic thinking:

We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population.... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity.... We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction…. We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

Now, recall that this is a top secret document. The idealistic slogans are, of course, to be constantly trumpeted by scholarship, the schools, the media, and the rest of the ideological system in order to pacify the domestic population… (pp. 317-318, Intervention in Vietnam and Central America: Parallels and Differences, 1985)

... [I]n a briefing for Latin American ambassadors... [Kennan] explained that one of the main concerns of U.S. policy is the "protection of our raw materials." ... How will we protect our raw materials from the indigenous population? Well, the answer is the following:

The final answer might be an unpleasant one, but... we should not hesitate before police repression by the local government. This is not shameful, since the Communists are essentially traitors.... It is better to have a strong regime in power than a liberal government if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by Communists.

Well, who are the Communists? "Communists" is a term regularly used in American political theology to refer to people who are committed to the belief that "the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people." I'm quoting the words of a 1949 State Department intelligence report which warned about the spread of this grim and evil doctrine, which does, of course, threaten "our raw materials" if we can’t abort it somehow. (p. 319, Intervention in Vietnam and Central America: Parallels and Differences, 1985)