goddam DMS screwing up my posts, just like old times. i was unable to fix it via AOL; maybe netscape will do the trick.
the closing passage was:...."what do these kids know? more's the pity that they >dont<, but they dont. and the in-fatigues-on-the-soapbox approach, accurately or not, is unlikely to teach them, IMHO".

write me 'off-group' if you'd like to continue this thread.
i made three unsuccessful tries to fix the original post before its posting on AOL; this is my 4th try at appending to it, first via netscape.

Hmmmmmm! Anarchy On Line! 🙂

PHIL

Think before you judge L'menexe. Read between the lines for once.Actualy he makes a very good point.

Emina

L'menexe,

Sorry to disappoint you, but I've never worn "fatigues" nor been inclined towards military-type gear and I haven't been in a mall in years. I avoid those areas where malls are usually found. I'm a Big City kind of person. I like the hustle and bustle, crowded streets, bright lights, and all the amenities a big city has to offer (and easily accessible by public transportation).

Neither do I try to rally the mall rats or preach to youth. I've experienced enough blank stares and duhs merely by saying "good morning" to understand the extent of the alienation. I'm not one to bang my head against the wall.

My point is that they are not even aware of their imprisonment/enslavement to the system, their alienation is so complete they don't even consider resisting other than in isolated, individual, and often self-destructive ways. They don't see themselves as a part of anything bigger than GenX, which is just fine with the system - just one more marketing demographic.

There's little connection to anything; the 60s are ancient history, god forbid the 30s should offer a clue as to who we are and how we got here. Maybe GenX is the first to pass those glorious portals mentioned earlier by Cerovik*, existing history into a brave new world of disposable material abundance, happiness for all and free therapy dissenters!

I apologize for the chaotic nature of this post. It's earlier AM (not my best time of day - I'm a night owl), I'm distracted by having to keep an eye on "the beast". The DO pay me to do that! :O)

Phil - "Get outta my cawwot patch, you wascle wabbit!". I can identify with Elmer Fudd. What does that tell you? :O)

tommygunns

L'menexe,

dont but they dont. and the in-fatigues-on-the-soapbox approach, accurately or not, is unlikely to teach them, IMHO". <<

On re-reading I think I just spent several paragraphs repeating what you already wrote - well, duh me! No, we're not that far apart. Perhaps just different styles.

I remember Herbert Marcuse's warning (paraphrased here) "the danger of this system is that it has the ability to co-opt all dissent and opposition. It will turn around and sell you your own dissent in the form advertising for all manner of 'revolutionary' new products".

And haven't we all experienced that, and even fell for it a few times!

tommygunns

Phil,

Uh-oh! You've managed to attract the wrath! Something you didn't say? :O)

I can just hear that AOL 'you've got mail' voice:

YOU NEED THERAPY!

He, he

tgunns

yo t-man...
wont say much; i'm on AOL at de moment, not
netscape.
but clearly (grin), fatigues and soap boxes were
figures of speech.
far be it from me to impugn a city slicker such as
yourself (grin some more)...
no worries, mate.
well actually, loads of worries, but y'know...

ps> thank you emina...nize lady (wink)

" Think before you judge L'menexe. Read between the lines for once.Actualy he makes a very good point.

Emina, I'm not judging L'menexe. Just having a little bit of fun regarding his 'internet service provider' AOL is fondly refered to as Anarchy On Line. Anyone who has been a long time customer understands. phil

Uh-oh! You've managed to attract the wrath! Something you didn't say? :O)

I can just hear that AOL 'you've got mail' voice:

YOU NEED THERAPY!

He, he

Any long time AOL customers definitely need therapy! :o) phil

>> Any long time AOL customers definitely need therapy! :o) phil <<

Agreed. That makes twice in one day I've agreed with someone. If I'm not careful, I'll ruin my reputation.

tommygunns

:o) phil

How US trained
butchers of Timor

Exclusive: Washington trained
death squads in secret while
Britain has spent £1m helping
Indonesian army

Indonesia and East Timor: special
report

Ed Vulliamy in New York and Antony
Barnett
Sunday September 19, 1999

Indonesian military forces linked to the
carnage in East Timor were trained in the
United States under a covert programme
sponsored by the Clinton Administration
which continued until last year.

The Observer can also disclose that the
Government has spent about £1 million in
training more than 50 members of the
Indonesian military in Britain since it
came to power.

Human rights campaigners claim a
number of these are likely to have links
with those complicit in the attrocities.

The US programme, codenamed 'Iron
Balance', was hidden from legislators and
the public when Congress curbed the
official schooling of Indonesia's army after
a massacre in 1991. Principal among the
units that continued to be trained was the
Kopassus - an elite force with a bloody
history - which was more rigorously
trained by the US than any other
Indonesian unit, according to Pentagon
documents passed to The Observer last
week.

Kopassus was built up with American
expertise despite US awareness of its role
in the genocide of about 200,000 people in
the years after the invasion of East Timor
in 1975, and in a string of massacres and
disappearances since the bloodbath.
Amnesty International describes
Kopassus as 'responsible for some of the
worst human rights violations in
Indonesia's history'.

The Pentagon documents - obtained by
the US-based East Timor Action Network
and Illinois congressman Lane Evans -
detail every exercise in the covert training
programme, conducted under a Pentagon
project called JCET (Joint Combined
Education and Training). They show the
training was in military expertise that
could only be used internally against
civilians, such as urban guerrilla warfare,
surveillance, counter-intelligence, sniper
marksmanship and 'psychological
operations'.

Specific commanders trained under the
US programme have been tied to the
current violence and to some of the worst
massacres of the past 20 years, including
the slaughter at Kraras in 1983 and at
Santa Cruz in 1991. The US-trained
commanders include the son-in-law of the
late dictator General Suharto, Prabowo
Subianto, and his mentor, General Kiki
Syahnakri - the man appointed last week
by the so-called 'reform' government as
commissioner for martial law in East
Timor.

The secret programme unveiled in the
document became the focus for military
training when above-board aid was
curtailed by Congress after the Santa
Cruz massacre. Congress had stepped in
after up to 270 peaceful protesters - many
of them schoolchildren - were murdered
by Kopassus shock troops as they
paraded through Dili.

American sponsorship of the Indonesian
regime began as a matter of Cold War
ideology, in the wake of defeat in
Vietnam. The left-wing movement in East
Timor was feared by Jakarta and seen by
the US as an echo of those in southern
Africa and of Salvador Allende's
government in Chile. Jakarta's harassment
of the Timor government and the invasion
of 1975 were duly encouraged by the
United States.

The training of Indonesia's officer corps
peaked during the mid-Eighties. In 1990 a
former official at the US Embassy in
Jakarta cabled the State Department to
say US sponsorship had been 'a big help
to the (Indonesian) army. They probably
killed a lot of people and I probably have a
lot of blood on my hands'.

But the horror of Santa Cruz in 1991,
when trucks were seen dumping bodies in
the sea, was too much. The US decided
that the training, while still available,
should be paid for by the recipient nation -
in other words, it would no longer be
military aid. The covert programme then
became the main means of training
Indonesia's military - still at the American
taxpayers' expense.

In an undated prospectus, the Pentagon
says the prime mission was to 'to
develop, organise, equip, train, advise and
direct indigenous militaries'. The scale
was small, to offer concentrated
'significant special training' which would
create 'self-sufficient small units'. In 1996,
for instance, 10 exercises involved 376 US
personnel and 838 Indonesians or 'loyal'
Timorese.

Britain also made a significant
contribution to Indonesia's military
training. The Observer has established
that, since May 1997, 24 senior members
of Indonesia's forces have been trained in
UK military colleges. This included
training in running military units efficiently
and how to used technical equipment like
guided missiles. In addition, 29
Indonesian officers have studied at
non-military establishments.

Revelations of the extent to which Labour
has used taxpayers' money to aid the
Indonesian military has angered many
MPs, who claim it makes a mockery of
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's 'ethical
foreign policy'. In the last four years of the
Tory Government, only one Indonesian
soldier was trained in the UK.

Ann Clwyd, the Labour chair of the
all-party group on human rights, has
previously shown that Indonesian military
trained here have subsequently committed
atrocities. She said: 'It is simply not
acceptable that we have been training
these people. We know the police, the
army, the militia are all interlinked. How
many of those trained by this Government
are now involved in the East Timor
operation?'

Last week both America and Australia
suspended military co-operation with
Indonesia.

Funding for the military training would
have been made available by the Foreign
Office and Ministry of Defence through the
Defence Military Assistance Fund. Earlier
this year Defence Minister Doug
Henderson admitted that training one
Indonesian navy officer at the Joint Service
Command and Staff College and another
on the International Principal Warfare
Course at HMS Dryad cost the
Government £170,000.

Many of the Indonesian officers were
trained at the Royal Military College at
Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, as part of a '
private and commercial initiative' by
Cranfield University. As well as courses
on managing army units, the training
includes map-making and electronics.

In the past two years the Foreign Office
has also given £200,000 to eight
Indonesian high-flyers through its
Chevening scholarship programme. This
included two policemen, two from the
army and two from the navy. On Friday,
the Indonesian authorities stopped three
servicemen taking up their scholarships.

Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign
Office defend the training given as
'constructive engagement'. A spokesman
for the MoD said: 'It is a way of ensuring
professionalism in foreign armies. It
encourages higher standards, good
governance and greater respect for human
rights.'

The Foreign Office points out that many of
the Indonesian officers on non-military
courses are studying subjects such as
international law and human rights.

Last summer seven members of
Kopassus finished a post-graduate course
in defence studies at Hull University. The
Ministry of Defence arranged the deal after
liaising with General Prabowo. Although
the course was initiated before the general
election, it started after Labour's victory.
George Robertson, then Defence
Secretary, was happy for it to continue.
Despite Prabowo's links to atrocities in
East Timor, Robertson once described
him as 'enlightened'.

The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook,
meanwhile, says in today's Observer that
'there is a mopping-up operation to be
done in Britain on the myths that have
mushroomed among commentators who
have only discovered the plight of East
Timor in the last fortnight'. He denies that
Britain has 'armed Indonesia to the teeth',
or provided weapons to the militias, and
says that Britain has not given fresh
subsidies to buy Hawk trainers.

Amnesty International's East Timor
country specialist, Deborah Sklar, traces
the regime's 'over-reliance on thuggish
military operations' as being due to the
demands of the foreign investment
community and even from the World
Bank.

She cites a blueprint called The East
Asian Miracle, written by US Treasury
Secretary Lawrence Summers, in which
he urges governments to 'insulate'
themselves from 'pluralist pressures' and
to suppress trade unions. This, she says,
became a primary Kopassus role during
the years of training by the United States.

'If the US,' says Sklar, 'has supplied to the
Indonesians equipment that has been
concerned in the perpetration of human
rights abuses, then that is an outrage.'


http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/international/story/0,3879,83772,00.html

tommy g/phil

velly velly simple why i'm on AOL...
...the access call is local/free

""

L'menexe, those are the best kinds of calls. :o)
My MindSpring account is local also. So with OnLive Traveler (half duplex) or buddyPhone2 (full duplex,) I can talk to the whole wide world for a 'dime.' phil