This is a continuation of my previous posts regarding Indonesia, and is in response to Mikey_Capital's remark to it.
I agree that Indonesia is VERY important to Australia, but the way the Howard government is doing things is not in Australia's best interest. Howard has managed to undo all the good that Keating had done in regards to Australia's relationship to Indonesia (in fact much of the south-east Asia region).
Keating was building bridges to these countries in a manner that encouraged mutual respect and economic cooperation. Then Howard comes along and undoes it all.
Howard doesn't seem to know much about proper, effective democracy, as is you scratch my back - I'll scratch yours. His method of diplomacy seems to focus on manipulating opponents into positions of weakness. The problem with this is, that when you opponents find themselves in positions of power, they exploit it to you detriment. Now, I don't know the full situation of Howard's relationship with Indonesia (and I'm sure Mikey_Capital could fill me in), but it wouldn't surprise me if that is the situation we find ourselves in: Howard has effectively burnt bridges to Indonesia, so now the only form of discourse he understands is threats and intimidation - exactly the sorts of tactics used by the Bush administration.
DPS
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I suppose. But Indon went through a big birthing pain into democracy and so far so good it seems to be working. Howard's move on ET with the letter was dumb, and a lot of people got hurt. But then a lot of people became free. So on balance good or bad? Not sure.
I don't like Howard. And I don't like what he stands for. But we're pretty lucky indon didn't go tits up 10 years ago.
As for Uncle Paul, I loved his work. But he did get in bed with a dictator for a long period of time, but then so did everyone before him.
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