THE PHILIPPINES: Benevolent invasions
March 26th, 2008
in:
CPTnet
25 March 2008
THE PHILIPPINES: Benevolent invasions
by Dick Williams
The Philippine government calls it Balikatan (Shoulder-to-shoulder). The U.S. Military calls it "Joint Military Exercises." This year the code name is "Operation Taal" (name of a volcano near Manila.) Ostensibly, the exercises are an opportunity for 6,000 U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel, to "train" Philippine military personnel and police how to handle an "emergency such as a volcanic eruption." Very few are convinced by this deception, however.
Shortly after Filipinos ousted the Marcos regime in 1986, the legislature of the Republic of the Philippines voted overwhelmingly that the United States should begin withdrawing its military, beginning with the two bases on Luzon: Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. For residents of the Philippines, these bases were socio-political cancers, centers of violence, prostitution, moral corruption, and little more.
In the face of such strong opposition, Washington agreed to begin pulling out its military in late 1991 but warned the Philippine government that such a project would require at least five years. Early in 1991, the nearby volcano, Pinatubo, erupted. As much as three feet of volcanic ash, water and debris inundated the area on and around the bases. The U.S. military left both bases within a couple of weeks. One of my Filipino friends referred to the disaster as "liberation geology."
By 1993, the U.S. and Philippine government had signed a treaty to allow small contingents of U.S. military back in to specified locations in the Philippines each year for "training purposes." Then, following the 9/11 incident, the Philippine government agreed to allow free access anywhere in the Philippines or its surrounding waters to U.S. military for control of "possible terrorist activity," and "humanitarian missions."
Do we really need 6,000 or more troops in the Philippines for strictly
humanitarian purposes? Wouldn't it be a better solution to provide grants to support Filipino doctors and nurses, teachers, and engineers working where they are most needed? These missions conducted by U.S. military personnel are essentially military actions against purported Muslim "terrorists" and have nothing to do with humanitarian needs.
We should all have learned our lesson from Paraguay. In July of 2005 the U.S. military began a series of "joint military exercises" in Paraguay with that country's own Special Forces. Governments of both countries continued to stress the "humanitarian" aspects of the operations, especially medical relief for peasants in rural Paraguay. Besides, the U.S. had said that terrorists were using the border between Paraguay and Argentina as a training ground. U.S. troops left Paraguay in December 2007, only after peasants were hassled and persecuted for belonging to socialist groups and relations between Paraguay and her neighboring countries had suffered. The U.S. government still denies that it wanted a military base in Paraguay, but the remains of a permanent infrastructure less than 200 miles from the Argentina border tells a different story. Are the Paraguayans, the Filipinos, or we any safer or better off medically and economically for all this trouble?
[Williams, from Boulder, CO, was a member of a delegation to the Philippines sponsored by Christian Peacemaker Teams. Other members of the 14-29 February 2008 delegation were Kelly Hayes-Raitt (Santa Monica, California), Camilia MacPherson (Toronto, Ontario), Steve Ramer (Ft. Collins, Colorado) and Henry Troyer (Springfield, Missouri); and Julius Camannong, Rey Lopez, Cromwell Rabaya and Nathaniel Villareal from the Philippines.]
25 March 2008
THE PHILIPPINES: Benevolent invasions
by Dick Williams
The Philippine government calls it Balikatan (Shoulder-to-shoulder). The U.S. Military calls it "Joint Military Exercises." This year the code name is "Operation Taal" (name of a volcano near Manila.) Ostensibly, the exercises are an opportunity for 6,000 U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel, to "train" Philippine military personnel and police how to handle an "emergency such as a volcanic eruption." Very few are convinced by this deception, however.
Shortly after Filipinos ousted the Marcos regime in 1986, the legislature of the Republic of the Philippines voted overwhelmingly that the United States should begin withdrawing its military, beginning with the two bases on Luzon: Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. For residents of the Philippines, these bases were socio-political cancers, centers of violence, prostitution, moral corruption, and little more.
In the face of such strong opposition, Washington agreed to begin pulling out its military in late 1991 but warned the Philippine government that such a project would require at least five years. Early in 1991, the nearby volcano, Pinatubo, erupted. As much as three feet of volcanic ash, water and debris inundated the area on and around the bases. The U.S. military left both bases within a couple of weeks. One of my Filipino friends referred to the disaster as "liberation geology."
By 1993, the U.S. and Philippine government had signed a treaty to allow small contingents of U.S. military back in to specified locations in the Philippines each year for "training purposes." Then, following the 9/11 incident, the Philippine government agreed to allow free access anywhere in the Philippines or its surrounding waters to U.S. military for control of "possible terrorist activity," and "humanitarian missions."
Do we really need 6,000 or more troops in the Philippines for strictly
humanitarian purposes? Wouldn't it be a better solution to provide grants to support Filipino doctors and nurses, teachers, and engineers working where they are most needed? These missions conducted by U.S. military personnel are essentially military actions against purported Muslim "terrorists" and have nothing to do with humanitarian needs.
We should all have learned our lesson from Paraguay. In July of 2005 the U.S. military began a series of "joint military exercises" in Paraguay with that country's own Special Forces. Governments of both countries continued to stress the "humanitarian" aspects of the operations, especially medical relief for peasants in rural Paraguay. Besides, the U.S. had said that terrorists were using the border between Paraguay and Argentina as a training ground. U.S. troops left Paraguay in December 2007, only after peasants were hassled and persecuted for belonging to socialist groups and relations between Paraguay and her neighboring countries had suffered. The U.S. government still denies that it wanted a military base in Paraguay, but the remains of a permanent infrastructure less than 200 miles from the Argentina border tells a different story. Are the Paraguayans, the Filipinos, or we any safer or better off medically and economically for all this trouble?
[Williams, from Boulder, CO, was a member of a delegation to the Philippines sponsored by Christian Peacemaker Teams. Other members of the 14-29 February 2008 delegation were Kelly Hayes-Raitt (Santa Monica, California), Camilia MacPherson (Toronto, Ontario), Steve Ramer (Ft. Collins, Colorado) and Henry Troyer (Springfield, Missouri); and Julius Camannong, Rey Lopez, Cromwell Rabaya and Nathaniel Villareal from the Philippines.]