More On Our Ally, Suharto

The United States government gave Suharto a free ride, right up until the end. I'm afraid this is sounding more and more like every other "we supported the lesser of two evils" story I have heard over the course of the past twenty years.

The United States declassified documents Monday detailing how Washington propped up ex-Indonesian leader Suharto, who died at the weekend, at the expense of democracy and human rights.

The documents, declassified following requests under a freedom of information law, showed the US administration did not use its leverage to bring Suharto to account during his 32-year reign until his last months in office.

"One thing that is clear from the tens of thousands of pages of which we had declassified concerning US ties with Suharto from 1966 to 1998 — at no moment did US presidents ever exercise their maximum leverage over his regime to press for human rights or democratization," Brad Simpson of the National Security Archive told AFP.

How disgusting. I know, I know, we've done it before, and we'll do it again. I'm just sick and tired of hearing about them all. How many more evil power hungry dictators are there in the world?

We should be ashamed of ourselves. It's one thing to bring hope and freedom to people around the world, it's another to stifle it for our own gain.