SC. Thanks for your comprehensive response. Australia has a pitifuly small army. We are sending 4500 fighting men to East Timor; by far the largest component of the UN force. This has gutted our army. Reservists are being called up now.

Indonesia has the forth largest army in the world. I they decide to take us on - and the rumblings are there - then we are history. Our army is so small because we have lulled ourselves into complacency in the false belief that Uncle Sam would always come to our aid. At a government level, we have a sycophantic attitude to the US. 'All the way with LBJ' was the Vietnam jingle that epitomised our attitudes.No wonder that we have trouble fitting into the local Asian community. We are 'brown nosers' to Big Brother.

The Noam Chompsky article on the site that you recommended was excellent. He is a great man, whom I admire tremendously.

I see that there is no lacking in coverage of East Timor. Thanks again.

Bel. Hi! Thanks for your sentiments. My partner has a son in the Australian Army. He is in Borneo at the moment. He volunteered for that hot spot. He thinks that he is bullet proof. I advised him via his mother to keep his head down and not to volunteer for service in East Timor. I fear that it will explode into Australia's Vietnam.

I fear for the naive young soldiers who are eager to go to war. I am sure that in all wars it is the civilians, gullible youth, and their close relatives who end up paying the price. My mates from Vietnam still suffer nightmares. No one wins in a war except the fat cat arms dealers.

Wouldn't you think that we would learn the lessons of history.

All. In SC's URL reference, the statement about the mass exodus to West Timor (Indonesian territory) "where tens of thousands of East Timorese fled to escape the violence." This is simply not true. These 'refugees' were force marched by the militia into West Timor wherein the genocide can continue with immunity.
It seems that Indonesia wants to repopulate the whole of East Timor with 'real' Indonesians. The world is blissfully unaware that the same butchery is being metered out to the poor primitive New Guinea natives in the forests of West Papua. These natives fight machine guns with bows and arrows. The butchery of 'Wounded Knee'is being re-enacted a 1,000 fold.

Make no mistake, the Indonesian Army 'generals' would feel very comfortable with Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan and many other butchers in their club. They are not biased; they butcher their own citizens as well. Civil unrest, in Jakarta the capital, has brought Indonesia close to disintegration and anarchy.

Violence breeds violence. Severe trade embargos, and the withdrawl of all foreign aid, a world moritorium on the sale of arms to these butcherous regimes would seem to be a better way of 'encouraging' compassionate behaviour towards the civilian population under their control. This butchery in East Timor has been going on, with Australia and the world's complacency, for twenty odd years. Well over 200,000 of the population have been butchered. The East Timorese are beautiful peace loving people.Their only crime is that they are reluctant to give up their homeland to the Indonesian invaders and lie down and die. How inconsiderate of them.

Ho, hum FYJIAR, (F...ck You Jack I'm All Right - pronounced Fijar) all over again.