Dissident Voice

March 27, 2003

"We have lost a great American, an extraordinary senator, an intellectual and a man of passion and understanding for what really makes the country work." Hilary Clinton was speaking of the man she replaced in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Murderer, um, Moynihan.

We'll surely be inundated with maudlin eulogies in the coming days, but I read enough about Senator Murderer when he retired in 2001.

"Consistently ahead of the curve," crowed Al Gore.

"Larger-than-life," added Bill Clinton.

"Quite simply a great man," concluded pundit Michael Barone.

Even the New York (com)Post declared Pat, "a gentle genius."

To begin the deconstruction of such malodorous myth-making, I'll begin with a geography question: What nation has the largest Muslim population? Nope, not Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, or Saddam Hussein's Iraq-it's Indonesia. With a populace more than 90 percent Islamic, this Asian dictatorship has conveniently avoided America's notorious anti-Muslim bent by holding claim to the South Pacific's largest supply of oil and the world's most abundant reserve of natural gas. Therefore, while Palestinian Muslims are labeled terrorists for having the audacity to revolt against more than fifty years of Israeli repression, Indonesian Muslims can get away with murder. Literally.

Some more geography: East Timor is an island nation, a former Portuguese colony just above Australia, that has been the target of a relentless and murderous assault by Indonesia since December 7, 1975-an assault made possible through the sale of U. S. arms to its loyal client-state, the silent complicity of the American press, and Pat Moynihan's skill at keeping the UN uninvolved. Over one-third of the East Timorese population (more than 200,000 humans) has lost their lives due to war-related starvation, disease, massacres, or atrocities. Proportionally, the depth of this slaughter is on par with the omnipresent Nazi Holocaust and like the Chinese "liberation" of Tibet, the culture of entire people is slowly being erased.

Here's where the "gentle genius" fits in. After having served as an advisor to Richard Nixon (an excellent venue for honing skills of genocide), Moynihan was appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President Ford. It was during this time that the U.S.-backed Indonesian invasion of East Timor took place. Taking orders from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, our Moynihan bragged to the Australian ambassador to the UN that he was "under instructions from Kissinger personally not to involve himself in discussions on Timor with Indonesians."

In his book, A Dangerous Place, Senator Pat further detailed his role in the East Timorese 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."

"He's the kind of senator the founding fathers hoped we would produce-a philosopher-politician," Michael Barone opined. When one contemplates the genocide perpetrated upon African slaves and Native Americans by the rich white land-owning men Barone reveres, I must concur: The late great Senator Daniel Patrick Murderer would have indeed make them proud.

Mickey Z. is the author of The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet (www.murderingofmyyears.com) and an editor at Wide Angle (www.wideangleny.com). He can be reached at: mzx2@earthlink.net.