Suharto

Suharto was the dictator of Indonesia for 32 years, was overthrown around ten years ago, and died earlier this week. What's sad about someone like him, and someone like Pinochet and others like them, is that they do all these brutal things, commit war crimes, have mass executions and graves, and they're able to die in relative peace. They're able to swat away activists who want to see them held accountable in court for their crimes. This is a good article outlining Suharto's brutal reign in Indonesia. My only caveat is that it downplays things like his invasion of East Timor (which Noam Chomsky, for example, has talked so much about over the years) and our support of him as a strongman. To Bill Clinton, who's running for Co-President, Suharto was "our kind of guy." So when it comes to support of brutal, repressive dictatorships, we're strictly bipartisan.