In an article – The nation builder – in today's Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Keating attempts to justify his attendance at Suharto's funeral last week.

Suharto's "judgment, goodwill and good sense" is to be greatly admired: "Had (his) New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different."

The word "displaced" is Keating's euphemism for the murder of up to a million – possibly many more – PKI members and suspected sympathisers in 1966. Such good judgement, goodwill and good sense! Keating blames "East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media", particularly the Fairfax press and the ABC, for Australians regarding Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century. He believes that "the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life... can be attributed to the 'get square' policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor."

Mr Keating:

[a] a democracy cannot function properly if its citizens, and government, are denied the truth. The Balibo Five were in East Timor to tell the truth about Indonesia 's covert invasion. It wasn't their bosses who were irresponsible, it was Whitlam's Labor government for not putting pressure on Indonesia not to invade.

[b] I don't believe that there was ever a "misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life". The media were simply asking for the truth behind the Balibo murders – but successive governments, including yours, refused to allow this to come out. What were journalists, whose colleagues were shot, to do? Simply say "Right-oh, then, let's drop the matter"? What if one of your children had been murdered in similar circumstances? Would you have argued vehemently that Australia's national interest – its "strategic stability" – was more important than your child's life?

[c] Do you also believe, as you appear to be saying, that Australia's national interest was more important than the deaths of 200,000 or more East Timorese people whose country Suharto illegally invaded with great brutality? Those deaths, incidently, apparently came from Suharto's "goodwill towards neighbouring states".

Keating relies on the old communism bogey to justify Suharto's invasion. In fact a few naive young Timorese leaders romantically wore berets and called each other "comrade" – but that was enough to justify wholesale slaughter, the theft of Timorese property, land and resources, and, now, a basket case for a neighbour that will cost Australia dearly in future. We're told that allegations of Suharto's corruption are "errant nonsense". His kids might have been "rapacious", but this was because he, unfortunately, was not a disciplined father. He distrusted the political classes, not wanting to hand over to them because, in part, he feared they were corrupt! Finally, what would we know? Keating saw thousands of Indonesia n citizens – survivors – mourning the death of their former leader. Therefore he must have been a good guy. Keating "felt honoured... to have known him" – to have known a man with the blood of millions of innocent people on his hands.

I despair.

Columnist Mike Carlton, in the same newspaper, quotes Keating as saying that you deal with the Indonesia you are given, not the Indonesia you would like to see. I don't have a problem with that. But when you're a private citizen and no longer in government, and you don't have to observe official protocol, then you don't, if you have any shred of decency, get into bed with a vicious murderer.

Carlton: "Despite the blood-letting – the purge of the communists, the occupation of East Timor – and beyond the monstrous kleptocracy, the plain truth is that Keating was right, (Suharto's) New Order government was indeed a huge plus for Australia." Out the window goes principle – except for the one that says that the end justifies the means. Out goes any pretence of morality. Out go "Australian values", including the quaint one that says fair go, cobbers, you really shouldn't kill people. But if it's good for Australia, apparently anything goes, including the cold-blooded murder of Australian citizens.

Finally, let us turn, as we so often do, to The Australian's Greg Sheridan for elucidation and understanding:

"Indonesia's Suharto was an authentic giant of Asia, a nation-builder, a dictator, a changer of history. He was also, for Australia, the most important and beneficial Asian leader in the entire period after World War II..."

There's an unlikely band of brothers for you: Keating, Carlton and Sheridan. They're part of the Jakarta Lobby, whose policy on East Timor proved so disastrous for that country and, ultimately, for Indonesia and Australia. Not only do they refuse to admit they might have got it wrong, they don't seem at all fussed about the millions of deaths ordered by their hero (including genocide in West Papua) or his legacies, which include paralysing corruption, massive environmental destruction, a culture of greed, and an army that is out of control.