: But Rex if the U.S. goes in and helps East Timor then later we will be criticized for going into yet another country and meddling and making things worse by trying to help. i agree there are a lot of knee-jerk responses that criticize evry American foreign policy action, regardless of its merits. Of course, there are plenty of occasions when the US did the wrong thing (e.g. in Nicaragua, Laos, Uruguay, etc.) but that doesn't mean that every US action oght to be condemned in a blanket fashion.
Nevertheless, I don't think that if the US intervened in a fairly black-and-white scenario such as this one, that they would attract much criticism. after all, we went into the Persian Gulf war with all the world either behind us or abstaining. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe there was no real opposition except from Jordan, Yemen and Mauritania, whose support we certainly don't need.
Perhaps a multilateral force incolving America as well as India and Australia, the two regional powers, and maybe Vietnam, might be in order. that way no one would be ale to say that the US is "imposing its will", etc.
None.
