While December 7 marks the 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I'd rather reflect upon December 7, 1975. This reflection involves, among others, former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and requires a geography question: What nation has the largest Muslim population? Not Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Egypt; it's Indonesia. With a populace more than 90 percent Islamic, this South East Asian island nation has avoided America's notorious anti-Muslim bent by holding claim to the South Pacific's largest supply of oil, the world's most abundant reserve of natural gas, and a very brutal anti-communist history. While Palestinian Muslims are labeled terrorists for having the audacity to revolt against 60 years of Israeli occupation, Indonesian Muslims can get away with murder. Literally.
More geography: East Timor is another island nation—a former Portuguese colony just above Australia—that became the target of a relentless and murderous assault by Indonesia on December 7, 1975. That attack was made possible through the sale of U.S. arms to its loyal client, the silent complicity of the American press, and Pat Moynihan's skill at keeping the UN uninvolved at the request of his boss, Dr. Kissinger. Over one-third of the East Timorese population (more than 200,000 humans) lost their lives due to war-related starvation, disease, massacres, or atrocities. Proportionally, the depth of this slaughter is on par with the Nazi Holocaust.
Here's where Moynihan fits in: After having served as an advisor to Richard Nixon (an excellent venue for honing skills of genocide), Moynihan was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the UN under President Gerald Ford. It was on his watch that the U.S.-backed Indonesian invasion of East Timor took place.
In his book, A Dangerous Place, Moynihan detailed his role in the genocide: "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." At that time, Moynihan told the Australian ambassador to the United Nations that he was "under instructions from Kissinger personally not to involve himself in discussion with Timor with the Indonesians."
As Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger explained, "Foreign policy should not be confused with missionary work."
For more on the current situation in East Timor, please visit www.etan.org.
