no comment on attempted assasinations in East Timor?

[Proud Pies]

I would have thought many would have jumped on it.

[spoljar]

A country that we keep peddling this "we are going there to help through the goodness of our hearts" garbage, but its really about our own strategic objectives and hip pockets!

A severe case of Rape IMHO!

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

what happened?

[sherrife]

[Zakal]

No its just not possible. Every capitalist has a chip implanted in their brain by the Supreme Controller, Magna Capilatus, which makes any kind of human emotion, feeling or degree of compassion physically impossible.

In fact...ive heard rumours that if a capitalist even starts to think these thoughts...the chip explodes and decapitates them....mhmm...its true!.


Only non-capitalist countries truly know how to respect human rights, and humanitarian effort...you know, like China...and Cuba. Apparently the USSR was big on humanitarian aid.


hehe

[sherrife]

It isn't actually THAT funny, because you've totally missed my point, and attacked countries that I consider state-capitalist or simply totalitarian dictatorships.

I don't think individuals are incapable of humanitarian thoughts and feelings at all! All I'm saying is that that no military has ever been sent anywhere for humanitarian reasons, and furthermore, they never will be. There are always economic or geo-strategic reasons.

[Proud Pies]

well, i pray for peace in East Timor and i also pray for Jose Ramos-Horti to recover

[Proud Pies]

http://tinyurl.com/yrm522


Man of peace gunned down by renegades
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili, Brendan Nicholson and Jill Jolliffe
February 12, 2008

PRESIDENT Jose Ramos Horta had left his hillside residence outside Dili just as dawn was breaking, as is his custom.

Walking along the beach below has been a habit of years, to keep his weight down and gather strength for the day ahead. Accompanied by two bodyguards, he was well into his walk when the shooting started. Unbeknown to the president, a gunfight had erupted at his house.

A jogger, who had seen armed men at the President's gate, stopped Mr Ramos Horta and told him about the gunfire. He offered to get his car and give the President a lift.

"I suggested it could be an exercise by the military," the jogger said. "However, no one had been advised. Certainly not him."

He said Mr Ramos Horta declined his offer, saying: "It should be OK."

Mr Ramos Horta kept walking, until the gunmen opened fire on him near his gate. He fell to the ground after being hit by as many as three bullets as men in two cars — one of them the renegade major, Australian-trained Alfredo Reinado — fired shots.

Remarkably, it would be at least another half an hour before the badly bleeding President received medical attention.

Presidential guards, who live at the Ramos Horta residence, and nearby soldiers returned fire, killing Reinado and possibly wounding other members of his gang. Soldier Celestino Gomes was wounded and taken to hospital in a gun battle that witnesses said lasted 20 minutes.

The United Nations international police force soon secured the area.

Somehow, Mr Ramos Horta either staggered or was helped to his room where, according to his brother-in-law Joao Carrascalao, he lay unassisted — despite the presence of the UN — for at least half an hour.

It was reportedly only after Portuguese paramilitaries arrived that he was evacuated.

A security clampdown caused more delays as the vehicle was stopped at security force roadblocks, but the badly wounded President survived the journey.

An hour-and-a-half later, armed men attacked a convoy in which Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was travelling near his home at Balibar, south of Dili. One of his security cars was hit, the back windscreen shattered and the left headlight smashed in. Mr Gusmao said they were under fire for 15 minutes.

According to one of his bodyguards, Abilio dos Santos, Mr Gusmao's home also came under prolonged gunfire. The guards returned fire, and are believed to have wounded several of the attackers.

Clinton Fernandes, a former Australian Army officer who now lectures at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, is in Dili and said the gunmen who attacked the convoy appeared to avoid hitting the vehicles' occupants.

They were so close they could easily have killed everyone, he said. "The fact that they did not do that suggests that they may have been planning to kidnap the Prime Minister rather than to assassinate him," Dr Fernandes said.

Former Australian consul in Dili James Dunn said last night that several aspects of the attacks made little sense. With large numbers of international and East Timorese troops and police in Dili, Reinado must have known he had no hope of carrying out a successful coup, said Mr Dunn, a close friend of Mr Ramos Horta.

He said Mr Ramos Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner, was a brave man who never carried a weapon. He had never shrunk from meeting his enemies face to face.

Mr Ramos Horta told The Age last year that he refused to move from his thatched house in the hills above Dili harbour into the pink-walled presidential palace, which offered much greater protection.

"I will be president for the poor of my country," he said, shrugging off concerns about his safety. "I've moved too often in my life. I like my house."

He was also not afraid of Reinado, the swashbuckling renegade who became East Timor's most wanted man after leading a mass escape from Dili's main jail in August 2006.

More than once Mr Ramos Horta has driven unarmed into the mist-shrouded mountains of central Timor to secretly meet Reinado to try to convince him to give himself up and face justice.

This time, Reinado came to him, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

[spoljar]

[David]

[Alec. J. Hidell]

[Zakal]

[sherrife]

In the tradition of socialism from below that I am a part of, there are no non-capitalist states, nor have there ever been (apart from important but all too brief historical incidents such as the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution, and Russia for a short period after the October Revolution). Does that clear my perspective up?

Now, there has never been a humanitarian intervention actually motivated by primarily humanitarian reasons in the history of this system, you seem like you agree with that.

But I challenge you to think of an example where it COULD happen. Because I'm happy to list examples of where a sincere effort at humanitarian assistance (if it were even theoretically possible in this system) SHOULD happen, and explain you why they can't and haven't happened.

Palestine, Sudan, Somalia, Haiti, Kenya, Congo, Myanmar, Egypt, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, the list goes on.

[stui magpie]

[sherrife]

Yep, number one is right on the money. There's no immediate strategic or economic benefit to be gained, only millions of dollars spent, and potentially, soldiers' lives lost.