From: "Magnus Bernhardsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Peoples War] Fwd: From Afghanistan to the Philippines: America’s New War of Agression >From Afghanistan to the Philippines: America’s New War of Aggression The Bush administration has found in Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a “friend and an ally.” Macapagal-Arroyo, who was installed into the presidency through the People Power 2 that was commemorated last week, fits well into America’s security strategy to mobilize its allies – big and small – in the “war against terrorism.” But the pact between the two presidents lays down goals that go beyond eliminating the Abu Sayyaf. BY BOBBY TUAZON Bulatlat.com There is no doubt that the scheduled arrival of American special forces ostensibly to train Filipino troops in the war against the Abu Sayyaf in southern Philippines is part of an agreement that was forged by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and U.S. President George W. Bush during her visit in Washington November last year. This particular agreement, however, takes its roots even before the Sept. 11 bombings in New York and Washington which the Bush administration has been using as a basis for launching its global war against “terrorism.” The deals that Arroyo and her defense secretary, Angelo Reyes, were trying to craft with the Americans involved expanding U.S. military presence in the Philippines as part of a larger security network in Asia poised against regional security threats including anti-US “terrorist groups” and China. Philippine defense officials, concerned with the trifling U.S. military aid going to the country - $2 million a year – were looking for more sources of security assistance, specifically, they claimed, for the Armed Forces’ modernization program. It was a coincidence that on May 27, 2001, Abu Sayyaf extremists kidnapped 20 vacationers from a tourist resort, including three Americans one of whom, Guillermo Sobero from Corona, California, was beheaded by his captors in early June. The other two, Wichita, Kansas missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, remain in captivity on Basilan island, 560 miles south of Manila. The kidnapping set off U.S. secret deals with Arroyo’s defense officials on American assistance for counter-terrorism efforts in Mindanao. Three months later, Arroyo offered to open Subic Bay port facilities for the re-supply, repair and maintenance of U.S. warships. "We have assets — real estate — that have no immediate utilization," said Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, a former Armed Forces chief. "To enable us to modernize more rapidly, we have to be creative in looking for sources of financing." Military assistance Discussions on these joint operations deepened when, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 bombings, a 25-member U.S. Special Operations assessment team visited the Philippines for two weeks in October to review Filipino forces fighting the Abu Sayyaf. The visit led to the offer of helicopters, advanced communication gear, night vision equipment, surveillance capabilities, and even bloodhounds to track and destroy the Muslim extremists. Pentagon promised a ten-fold increase in military assistance — from $1.9 to $19 million in 2002 and every year thereafter. In a subsequent Manila visit, Admiral Dennis Blair, commander in chief U.S. Pacific Command, also pledged to increase intelligence sharing. Prodded by her defense and military advisers in her Washington visit, Arroyo pledged a deeper and long-term cooperation with Bush in his anti-terrorist campaign. This deeper and long-term cooperation, which practically goes beyond fighting the Abu Sayyaf extremists – suspected by Pentagon as having links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network –led to further secret deals that, reports said, extended military rights which the American forces used to enjoy under the U.S.-Philippine bases pact. A joint statement said that the two presidents discussed "an integrated plan including a robust training package, equipment needed for increased mobility, a maintenance program to enhance overall capabilities, specific targeted law enforcement and counter terrorism cooperation and a new bilateral defense consultative mechanism." Elated by Arroyo’s commitment, Bush increased defense and economic aid commitments to $40 million. Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed the presence of 250 American military troops in the country claiming further that they are confined not only in Basilan, as earlier reported, but at many points in the Philippines. U.S. forces, he said, are training Filipino soldiers and helping them with logistics, intelligence and communications. The advance team will be beefed up next month by 660 American troops, including 160 Special Operations forces, Navy Seals and Green Berets, allegedly to participate in the U.S.-Philippine war exercises, dubbed “Balikatan” (Shouldering the Load Together) in southern Mindanao. Quoting a senior military official in Washington, the New York Times reported last week that the troops will stay in the Philippines until at least the end of the year. The same source said that the number of American forces could increase “depending on how the campaign progresses.” Nobody believes that the American forces will be in the country only to train thousands of Filipino soldiers in counter-terrorism or at most to accompany them in patrol and fire only in “self-defense.” Any basic soldier’s manual will say that if you’re in combat you’re supposed to shoot and to kill. The American forces have been picked for their expertise in counter-terrorism. They are licensed to conduct covert and overt operations given the fact that some of them are operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other U.S. spy networks wearing soldier’s uniform. In the end, they will not be bound by any standard rules of engagement. Air power Air power is expected to highlight this operation. The entire American mission is commanded by Brig. Gen. Donald C. Wurster of the U.S. Air Force, the head of all Special Operations forces in the Pacific. Wurster is a former commander of the Air Force’s elite 16th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field in Florida. “It is not a modest number,” is how Rumsfeld described the American contingent. Indeed, it is not as the U.S. girds for its major war after Afghanistan. The Philippines is the “next Afghanistan,” as the U.S.-based “Friends of the Filipino People” as well as major American and European newspapers and military analysts put it. Bush and Rumsfeld, advocates of strong U.S. military engagement worldwide, have targeted the Philippines as the next phase of the “war against terrorism.” "If we have to go into 15 more countries, we ought to do it to deal with the problem of terrorism so we don't allow this problem to damage and kill tens of thousands," the defense secretary said. The Bush administration has found in the Sept. 11 bombings and the “war against terrorism” a pretext for increasing American military presence worldwide and expand its security ties with nations large and small. Aside from the Philippines, American military advisers are now in Indonesia and Malaysia to train local forces in counter-terrorism. The training of large armies and war games are also underway across the Middle East, Africa, South America, the former Soviet republics of Usbekistan and Kyrgystan, Central Asia and other countries in that region. To keep on expanding, Rumsfeld has even proposed a pullback in some countries, for instance, a cut of about one-third in NATO troops in Bosnia for assignments elsewhere. Let it not be said, however, that it is only now that the U.S. is brandishing its sword of war. Even before Sept. 11, the U.S. military had a presence in 140 countries. And if the new security thinking in Pentagon – to protect every vital American interest against “terrorism” - then the military presence would grow beyond these 140 countries. "Overall, the American military global presence is more pervasive today than at any point in American history," said John Pike, a military analyst in Washington. Not just al Qaida In the Philippines, it is hard to believe that the entry of big contingents of American special forces is only designed to eliminate the local network of al Qaida – the Abu Sayyaf. It definitely goes beyond this goal. A defense analyst, former Philippine Navy Capt. Dan Vizmanos, offers one answer: American military intervention in southern Mindanao is but a step towards a basing operation in the region to be used not only for counter-insurgency purposes but to project U.S. power in Southeast Asia. Built ahead of this scheme is an airfield in Gen. Santos City which, earlier reports showed, had been funded by USAID purposely for future American combat use. U.S. air and naval bases in Japan – particularly in Okinawa – are also imperiled by mounting homegrown opposition sparked by a series of rapes and other crimes committed by American personnel on the island. Anti-base opposition in Japan has also demanded, at the minimum, troop reductions, fewer training exercises and lesser basing rights. (Another threat to U.S. military bases is the move to reunify South and North Korea. This was scuttled by Washington chiefly because of the fear that a reunification could give rise to a demand for U.S. troop withdrawal in South Korea.) Alternative fixed bases This growing Japanese demand has stimulated in Pentagon a renewed search for alternative fixed bases. The pro-American posturings of ousted President Joseph Estrada and, now, of Macapagal-Arroyo have enthused U.S. defense authorities to set their sights on the Philippines. Furthermore, even if Washington has tightened its economic ties with China it has not ruled out this big country as a major power contender in the next few years – if not globally, at least in Asia. This U.S. strategic perspective sits well with current Philippine government hostilities with Beijing over the Spratlys territorial dispute. Philippine defense authorities have been assured tacit American support in case of war with China over this thorny issue. Defense officials have been eager to acquire long-range maritime and reconnaissance aircraft, fighters, radars, communication equipment and fast coastal patrol boats. Overall, the renewed military cooperation between the two countries hatched by both Bush and Arroyo only attests to the current congruence of interests between the two governments. The Arroyo administration is concerned with eliminating security threats to its government posed not only by the Abu Sayyaf but also by the New People’s Army (NPA, another “terrorist organization,” according to the U.S. state department) and the Mindanao-based Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It remains boxed in in the Cold War relic that a strong defense alliance with the United States would accomplish this security goal. In turn, Washington is more than willing to chip in – help modernize the Philippine armed forces – in return for the restoration of strong American military presence in the country in order to project U.S. aggression in the region. No wonder, as both Bush and Rumsfeld have said, they have found in the Arroyo government a “friend and an ally.” Bulatlat.com _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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