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By Dr. Farish A. Noor

(YellowTimes.org) -- Despite the appeals and protestations of millions the world over, the hawks in Washington (aided and abetted by some of their own feathered friends abroad, including a few quacks in Malaysia) seem bent on destroying that country "for the sake of its people." Washington's warped logic can be compared to over-zealous civil authorities who think that the best way to protect children from their abusive parents is to break into the house and shoot the parents in the head. From a simpleton's point of view, such drastic action would indeed make sense.

But while the world's attention is glued to the television sets, few have cared to note that America's ambitions extend far beyond the borders of Iraq.

In the wake of 11 September, we have witnessed the resurgence of American military might and hegemony the world over. Next door in the Philippines, American troops are already involved in helping Manila overcome the so-called "threat" of the Abu Sayyaf group. We are told that this bunch of teenage maverick ne'er-do-wells is a greater threat to the Philippines than anything else -- despite the fact that the Philippine economy has suffered not thanks to a few bombs being detonated in Mindanao, but rather thanks to the workings of transnational corporations and foreign investors (many of them American) who have stripped the country of its natural resources and assets. Not to be forgotten is the fact that the Philippine economy has also suffered more at the hands of successive corrupt and inefficient leaders, from Ramon Magsaysay to Ferdinand Marcos and the latest stooge propped up by American economic and political interests.

Some of us may think that the USA is a force for peace and good in the world. Some may even welcome further American intervention in other countries -- including Malaysia -- to help them further their own short-sighted political agendas. But we should not forget that America's own record as far as its aggressive foreign policy is concerned is far from rosy. For them, we offer this short lesson in American-ASEAN relations.

Remember Vietnam?

If you look at the map, you may notice a country called Vietnam somewhere to the northeast of Malaysia. A few decades ago, this country was at the receiving end of American attentions and it is still paying the price for it today.

Following the collapse of French colonial rule in Indochina, Vietnam was swept by the wave of anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist politics that was the norm in the 1950s and 1960s. As the French forces were forced to vacate their colony (their fate was sealed after the humiliating defeat of French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu), the de facto "right" to control Vietnam was passed over to the Americans who propped up a number of ailing and decrepit regimes led by a number of ailing and decrepit dictators in order to "save" Vietnam from Communism.

Though America's leaders claimed that they would not embark on a military adventure in that country, it was precisely what they did. It was President Kennedy who committed U.S. troops to Vietnam and his policies were maintained by his successor, Lyndon Johnson. America's growing involvement in the Vietnam War earned it the scorn and condemnation of anti-colonial and anti-imperial movements worldwide. In time, the U.S. administration was also forced to contend with growing disillusionment and criticism back home. As the war spiralled out of control, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson described the conflict as "that bitch of a war on the other side of the world." He later admitted that it was "the biggest damn mess I ever saw."

But despite the doubts that were being cast on the U.S. war effort in Southeast Asia, the hawks in the Pentagon and Congress were insistent on prolonging the conflict even further. Prominent American warmongers like General William Depuy insisted that "the solution to Vietnam is more bombs, more shells, more napalm," while General Westmoreland argued that America should "just go on bleeding them, until Hanoi wakes up to the fact that they have bled their country to the point of national disaster for generations." This trend would prevail right up to the Nixon administration, and Nixon himself would later say that he would "bomb the bastards like they had never been bombed before."

The Americans were not satisfied with blasting the North Vietnamese to oblivion (in the same way they bombed Iraq not too long ago): American intervention in Vietnam also meant that the U.S. was interfering in the country's domestic politics. In his book The Limits of Empire (1999) Robert McMahon notes that "after [President Kennedy] grew disillusioned with Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem, he even encouraged the South Vietnamese military to assume power by extra-legal means." The first coup attempt was foiled, but a second attempt on 1 November 1963 led to the killing of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Following the death of Diem, Vietnam was thrown into turmoil. Within a space of one year, nine different governments tried to take control of South Vietnam, all of them proving incapable in one way or another.

President Kennedy's inept meddling in Vietnam was brought to an end by his own untimely death on 22 November 1963. But the Johnson administration that followed merely intensified the level of American involvement in Vietnam even further. President Johnson used the 1965 Tonkin incident (where U.S. ships off the North Vietnamese coast were bombed by North Vietnamese forces) as a pretext to escalate America's war against the Communists in the north. He later increased the number of American troops in Vietnam to half a million, while authorizing a sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam. In response, both Russia and China came to Vietnam's aid and, in 1965, the two Communist countries contributed arms and aid to North Vietnam worth an estimated $400 million. Between 1965 and 1969, China had also moved approximately 320,000 of its troops to Northern Vietnam to support the Communist forces there. The other leaders of Southeast Asia were also angered by America's growing military involvement in Vietnam. In 1965, Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia broke off all diplomatic ties with Washington, thereby isolating the U.S. even more in the region.

Those of us who may be persuaded by the laughable claim that U.S. intervention abroad works should reconsider some of the brutal facts of history: By 1973, America's military adventure in Vietnam had done little to stop the advance of the Communists (who were instead transformed into heroic martyrs thanks to the persecution they suffered at the hands of the Americans and their South Vietnamese crony allies) and had cost that country dearly. The only thing they left behind was a monumental body count of nearly two million Vietnamese killed as a result of U.S. ambitions abroad. Among the other things they left behind were fields littered with landmines and laced with chemical poisons like Agent Orange -- till this day, Vietnamese villagers are giving birth to children that are deformed, born without arms, legs, eyes or other vital organs, thanks to the U.S. use of weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction.

And don't forget Indonesia…

Look at the map again and you will notice this huge country called Indonesia to the west, south and east of us. This neighboring country was also an unwitting and unwilling recipient of U.S. attentions till not too long ago.

In the 1950s, the prevailing wisdom in the West was that whichever country controlled Indonesia would be in control of the rest of Southeast Asia. Indonesia was the most coveted prize of all: it was rich in raw materials and human resources, and to win the support of Indonesia meant ensuring that the rest of the region would not fall into the hands of the Communists.

But the Indonesian leaders had ideas of their own. President Sukarno wanted to steer his country as far away as possible from the warring Eastern and Western blocs. In April 1955, Indonesia hosted the Bandung conference that brought together the leaders of the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa. Both the United States and Soviet Russia were apprehensive about the move, while China was more inclined to support the idea since it could identify itself with the newly emerging forces in Asia. The Russians were keen to ensure that they would not be sidelined from the discussions of the conference.

The United States was more openly critical of the whole idea behind the Bandung conference, and many of the key strategists in Washington were certain that the conference was nothing more than a leftist-nationalist plot to bring together the countries of Asia and Africa in an instrumental coalition against the West. The American establishment was particularly worried about how some Asian and African nations seemed eager and willing to accept Russia's and China's aid and military assistance packages with few questions asked. At that stage, however, Washington's fears of a Communist take-over in Indonesia were vastly exaggerated, for just a few months after the conference (in August 1955) the Left-leaning government of Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo was toppled.

Washington turned to the old carrot-and-stick method of primordial diplomacy: It courted the Sukarno administration in the most blatant manner, to the point of even offering women to key Indonesian leaders. In May 1956, President Sukarno of Indonesia was invited to America by the Eisenhower administration. Sukarno's visit was hailed as a success by Eisenhower, who was particularly impressed by Sukarno's willingness to be taken on a tour of Disneyland by none other than Walt Disney himself. Sukarno was also given the opportunity to make the acquaintance of a number of Hollywood actresses during the evenings when he was free.

McMahon (1999) notes that "So impressed were U.S. officials with the results of the Sukarno trip that in the summer of 1956 the Eisenhower administration quietly approved $25 million in developmental assistance for Indonesia's struggling economy." This optimism was off the mark once again. If the U.S. administration really believed that by giving the President of Indonesia a private tour of Disneyland and the casting couches of Hollywood he would tilt in favor of the United States, they would be proven wrong. Soon after he returned to Indonesia, Sukarno reached a tentative agreement with Soviet Russia that would allow the transfer of $100 million worth of aid for a number of unspecified developmental projects. To make things worse, the elections that were held in Indonesia had allowed the leftist Ali Sastroamidjojo to come back to power with the backing of the PKI party that was stronger than ever.

The American government felt that this was the best time to intervene in Indonesia's domestic affairs, with the hope that by doing so they could tip the balance of power in the country and foreclose the possibility of a Communist takeover once and for all. By September 1958, President Eisenhower and the American National Security Council (NSC) prepared the way for what McMahon later described as "one of the most misguided, ill-conceived and ultimately counterproductive covert operations of the entire Cold war era." In an effort to strengthen the anti-Communist forces within Indonesia, the Americans began actively to support the anti-government forces that were waging a war against the central government of Sukarno. Arms and aid were soon sent to the anti-government forces that were based in Sumatra and Sulawesi.

But the Americans' efforts came to naught in the end. The Indonesian army under the command of General Abdul Haris Nasution managed to defeat the rebel forces in the interior, and in time were able to reveal the extent of U.S. involvement in the whole debacle. After defeating the rebels, Indonesian troops found numerous caches of U.S.-supplied weapons. They even managed to shoot down a U.S. pilot (Allen Pope) who was a CIA agent and was flying bombing missions on behalf of the insurgents. Sukarno cited this as proof that the U.S. was bent on recolonizing Indonesia by whatever means necessary, going as far as supporting anti-government rebels who had declared war on the state.

In the wake of the failed rebellions, Indonesia-American relations plummeted to an all-time low, which would only recover after the 1965 failed coup that brought the Pro-Western General Suharto to power. The rise to power of General Suharto would not have been possible without the help of the Americans and their covert agencies: It has been well documented that the CIA was directly responsible in the mopping-up operations following the mass killings of Leftists, Unionists, writers, student activists and NGOs in 1965. Suharto and his cronies were instead elevated to the level of respectable leaders, and even when Indonesia forcibly annexed East Timor in 1974, the United States turned a blind eye to the atrocities that were committed there.

Indeed, it could be argued that the U.S. has been the best friend, confidant, supporter and patron of practically all the important despots, tyrants and mass murderers in the ASEAN region. Dictators like Suharto and Ferdinand Marcos were allowed to literally get away with murder, as long as those killed, tortured, raped and made to "disappear" happened to be the enemies of the U.S. as well: Leftists, Islamists, Unionists, Communists and anti-imperialist intellectuals and activists.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when human rights abuses in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand were at their peak, none of the pro-American governments of these countries were described as "evil" or deserving of U.S. intervention. In fact, the U.S. actively helped these regimes maintain their hold on power by supplying them with financial aid, weapons and arms training. Hundreds of Southeast Asian security personnel were also taught the finer points of torture, assassination, blackmail and covert operations tactics by their American friends. The human costs of U.S. indirect intervention in the region were astronomical: Thousands of ASEAN citizens were persecuted by their own governments with the backing of the U.S. Among those who suffered were the Thai intellectual Jit Pumisak (author of the political critique Chom Na Sakdina Thai) and the Indonesian writer Promoedya Ananta Toer who was incarcerated on Buru island. Where was the U.S.'s concern for human rights then?

Under these circumstances, what hope is there for a meaningful "regime change" in Iraq should the U.S. have its way? The fact is that the U.S. is a superpower today neither by accident nor divine intervention. The ascendancy of the U.S. as the world's greatest power was due to the deliberate, calculated and often indiscriminate use of force and violence to get its way. If the U.S. seems like a bully in the U.N. today, it is only because it has developed its muscles by exercising its might on weaker nations all along. The so-called "security experts" and "strategic analysts" among us may think of the U.S. as the land of hope and promise, but a closer reading of American history will show that it is the U.S. -- and not Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, the Taliban or aliens from Mars -- that has robbed the ordinary citizens of the developing world of their hopes and ambitions for a just world order. And that, Mr. Bush, is why we don't believe you anymore.

[Dr. Farish A. Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist. This article was originally printed in the well-known Malaysian publication MalaysiaKini.com.]