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.Another anchor to the security schemewas the 1971 five-power agreement, a British-led consortium linkingAustralia and New Zealand to protect Malaysia and Singapore fromIndonesia and other regional threats.Australia s confrontation with Asia reached its height in the waragainst Vietnam.Following WWII the dynamics of the Cold Warrepeated the Korean situation and partitioned Vietnam.The HoChi Minh independence movement s defeat of the French at DienBien Phu in 1954 led to further Western intervention in Vietnam,bisecting the country along the 17th parallel.US intervention in thecivil war that ensued escalated in the early 1960s and by late 1965the US had more than 500,000 troops in the region.In the earlydays of US involvement in South Vietnam the Menzies governmentlobbied Washington to escalate the conflict and invite Australia tosend troops.Australia s conservative regime built up the myth thatVietnam s communists were proxies of China.According to formerpolitician Don Chipp, China was  fanatical and  dedicated to thedomination of the world and Australia was  undeniably in thesights for conquest by this nation at a relatively early date (Sexton1988:118).The Menzies government 1965 military intervention in Vietnam scivil war destroyed the credibility of Australia as an independentcountry in the Asia-Pacific.Australia s next prime minister, HaroldHolt (1966 67), told US president Lyndon Johnson that Australia  wasan admiring friend, a staunch friend that will be all the way withLBJ.John Gorton (1968 71) followed with an oath of fealty when heassured Richard Nixon that Australia  will go Waltzing Matilda withyou.In the end the US was defeated and Australian troops returnedhome unwelcomed and unfêted with many veterans subsequentlyprone to debilitating depression.Between 1960 and 1975 some 2.8million Vietnamese were killed, most were northern Vietnamese.Thecountry was devastated by US chemical aerial attacks which to thisday inflict death and suffering on the civilian population.Some sixtymillion litres of Agent Orange containing dioxin, one of the deadliestpoisons known, were used by the US to strip away the jungle andkill food crops, but they also caused genetic mutation and a varietyConfrontation with Asia 183of cancers in the population.Between 1965 to 1971 the countrywas bombarded with about  twice the tonnage used by the US in alltheaters of WWII (Westing and Pfeiffer 1972:20) and the crateringof the landscape by bombing and shelling caused unquantifiabledamage to Vietnam s environment and people.Secret US carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos was directlyresponsible for the rise of the Pol Pot regime and the mass killings thatfollowed.The Khmer Rouge regime is estimated to have killed morethan 1.5 million people.The legacy of the West s war on mainlandIndo-China can be readily observed in the extent of poverty andhuman suffering in the region.In recent years, Robert McNamara,former US defense secretary and key Vietnam war architect-planner,declared to the world that the war had been a big mistake and shouldhave been avoided.He admitted that the people in charge did notunderstand the situation, exaggerated the threat to the United States,and deceived the press and the American public about the war.Beforethe US coalition attacked Iraq in 2003, Australia s then chief of theDefence Force General Peter Cosgrove declared that Australia s rolein Vietnam had been a mistake.Australia s obsessive support for Suharto s dictatorship enabledIndonesia to invade and gain control of East Timor following thedeparture of the Portuguese in 1974.The incorporation of East Timorinto Indonesia was encouraged by Australia s Labor government.Suharto s discussion with Australia assured him of a green lightfor the invasion plan.Australia s national security establishmentdecided that East Timor was not viable as a sovereign entity andif independent would fall under the influence of the Soviet Unionand threaten Australia s security.Government records show that secret briefings by the Indonesians kept the Australian governmentclosely informed of Indonesian intentions and operations at everystep of their invasion and annexation of East Timor in 1975 (Monk2001).For over two decades thereafter Australia under Hawke andKeating legitimised a government in Indonesia which killed morethan 200,000 East Timorese.NEW WORLD ORDERWith the end of the Cold War Australia s partnership with the UnitedStates broadened to support the consolidation of US hegemonyin Eurasia and the expansion of a capitalist world system.In theaftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union the Yugoslav184 Little Americafederation broke apart and erupted in violent ethnic wars.This ledto the occupation of the region by NATO forces, with the help ofAustralia, to maintain peace and order in the Balkans.The main arenaof action however, has been in West Asia where the United Stateswas intent on restructuring the region s political order.Iraq had been a useful ally to the US in its strategy against Iran,and fought the latter in a costly war between 1980 and 1988.Iraq smilitary might was built using oil money to buy all the instruments ofmass destruction from Western regimes [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]