first of all, what happened in East Timor i was taught about by a friend named Julie, to whom i am grateful.

i have the impression that what happened there is that the American CIA, working with local Indonesian people, compiled lists of labor leaders and other potential Communists, and then gave those lists, along with $$$, to the Indonesian military. the Indonesian military used more of a "shotgun" approach than a "rifle" approach, and the eventual death toll came to about 200,000 human beings.

however, i do a search at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_timor

and i find that the country is ... Roman Catholic.

i just thought that the US wouldn't kill a group of Christian people.

so, my new understanding is ... the predominant religion in East Timor is and was Roman Catholicism, and they did have normal labor organizing and other social welfare related movements, and the US did use the Indonesian military as a proxy to kill about 200,000 East Timorese, over a period of years.

i thought i had a basic understanding of the history of the island country, but i'm feeling a need for edification after reading the Wikipedia page.

anybody here who might be willing to educate me about East Timor ?

thanks !

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* where the US drops bombs and kills people directly, as in Iraq, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

and Panama, and i don't want to remember :-(

** where the US works through proxies. the US determination to quash Socialist movements in South America during the '50's, '60's, '70's, '80's, '90's ... etc. ... involved giving money to locals who were willing to do the US bidding.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
The US, itself, murdered some 600,000 Filipinos, most women and children and burnt entire villagee, during the Spanish American war.

As a former Catholic, I have little but utter contempt for that organization of supplicants to empire.

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"Guerrilla forces were operating in the Philippines, and had been present in Cuba since before the 1868-1878 Ten Years' War."

i hadn't realized how corporatized Wikipedia has become.

in later years, people's names would go on a list for being the wrong kind of -ist, socialist, accused/potential terrorist.

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in the case of the US invasion of the Philippines in the Spanish-American war, what was their "criteria for execution" ?

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