U.S. Intervention in the Philippines and Korea

All the time that it has been carrying out its war of aggression against Afghanistan and then Iraq, the U.S. has been deploying its combat troops in the Philippines under the pretext of anti-terrorism and hurling threats against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under the pretext of pushing nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.  The hostile acts of the U.S. against the Filipino and Korean peoples are interrelated.  They have something to do with pushing U.S. hegemony over the whole of East Asia.

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Chief Political Consultant, National Democratic Front of the Philippines

And General Consultant, International League of Peoples’ Struggle

Posted by Bulatlat.com

First of all, let me thank all the organizers for inviting me to keynote this forum on US intervention in the Philippines and Asia.  I feel greatly honored and deeply pleased to be  among speakers who are knowledgeable about the subject and  to  speak before an audience consisting of anti-imperialist activists and ultimately reach  the people to be further reached through political work and the electronic multi-media.

I admire and salute all the Korean and Filipino organizations for working together to expose and oppose US intervention and related evil acts in their respective countries. I also appreciate the relations of solidarity and cooperation that these organizations have developed with organizations of the American people and other peoples in the course of common struggle against imperialist plunder and war.

In the face of the worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system, we can expect that the No. 1 imperialist power, which is at the same time the No. 1 terrorist force, will escalate the exploitation and oppression of the people of the world and will generate all such monstrosities as chauvinism, racism, discrimination against women, fascism and wars of aggression.

The US has used 9-11 as the pretext for internationalizing the fascist provisions of the Patriot Act, for unleashing wars of aggression, for using weapons of mass destruction against the civilian population and social infrastructure and for misrepresenting and demonizing as “terrorist” national liberation movements, countries assertive of national independence and leaders who take an anti-imperialist stand.

The Bush ruling clique is hell-bent on delivering tax cuts, public funds, contracts and subsidies to the monopoly bourgeoisie, pushing war production as stimulus to the crisis-stricken American economy, whipping up war hysteria and actually carrying out wars of aggression. These wars are aimed at seizing the sources of cheap labor and natural resources (especially oil), markets and fields of investment.

 The dream of the “neoconservatives” around Bush is to build further an incomparable empire, a Pax Americana of unprecedented scale, by maximizing the use of the sole superpower position of the US and, of course, its high-tech weapons of mass destruction and mass distraction.  A number of states is lined up as targets for aggression, intervention, blockade and pressure in order to make them yield to the global hegemony of the US.

The US has used its war of aggression against Afghanistan to entrench itself further in Central Asia and ensure that the sources of oil and oil supply routes are under its control.  It has used its second war of aggression against Iraq to gain direct control over the second largest oil reserves in the world and in effect over the OPEC and over global oil production and to further subordinate the whole of the Middle East to the US-Israeli combination.

All the time that it has been carrying out its war of aggression against Afghanistan and then Iraq, the US has been deploying US combat troops in the Philippines under the pretext of anti-terrorism and hurling threats against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under the pretext of pushing nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.  The hostile acts of the US against the Filipino and Korean peoples are interrelated.  They have something to do with pushing US hegemony over the whole of East Asia.

Let me focus first on the US military intervention in the Philippines.  The US is using its so-called war on terrorism in order to bring in military advisors, trainors and combat troops in violation of the 1987 constitution of the Manila government, to develop interoperability with the Filipino mercenary puppet troops, to elaborate on US military access rights through a logistical support agreement, to expand the facilities for the US air and naval forces and to prepare the ground for the return of US military basing rights.

US strategists see the Philippines as the center of an arc, with one wing consisting of more developed countries in Northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, North Korea and China) and another wing consisting of the underdeveloped but natural resource-rich countries in Southeast Asia. The US is giving high priority to preparations for establishment of US air and naval bases in Central and Far South Mindanao to acquire a control point over the oil-producing and predominantly Muslim countries of Southeast Asia.

The US considers the Philippines as its most reliable vantage point because this is the country in Asia that it dominates the most--economically, politically and culturally. It is also the best-located vantage point for the whole of East Asia. US military bases can oversee from here the movement of more than half of the global trade through the South China Sea.

The new shift in US military strategic thinking affects the Philippines and the rest of East Asia.  The US is eager to establish small US military bases and outposts wherever possible, under the concept of forward deployment, which veers away from the previous concept of rapid deployment.  The advance deployment of US forces on the ground are seen as effective facilitation of any subsequent deployment of large US military forces from their secure US bases at any time.

US military access and basing rights in the Philippines are considered of crucial importance.  Through these the US can pose a serious military threat to China and DPRK.  A US military position of strength in the Philippines gains even more importance as the US moves towards the reduction of US military forces in Japan due to the rising clamor of the Japanese people for the dismantling of US military bases and as it is also trying to redress the vulnerability of US military bases around Seoul and near the 38^th parallel in Korea.

In keeping with its doctrine of preemptive strike (based either on accurate or Bush-style falsified intelligence) and with its cowardly style of raining missiles and bombs upon people and buildings from a great distance, the US has already announced plans of reshaping its military force deployment in East Asia in such a manner as to make the Philippines the main frontline against China and DPRK, and Australia the main rear for US military forces.

It must be observed that the US is trying to persuade the DPRK to come to terms with US policy by using diplomacy with the participation of China.  It is highly probable that the US is now using the subtle language of diplomacy to boast of having tightened its control over oil.  The US is already heard loudly boasting that it can move back its troops from the range of any DPRK military action and attack the DPRK from a distance with cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

In the imperialist mode of thinking, especially that of Bush and his retinue of neoconservatives, high-tech weaponry can ultimately solve any problem that economic, financial and diplomatic manipulation cannot solve.  But has high-tech weaponry solved the problem for the US in Afghanistan and Irag?  It was effective only for destroying fixed structures and pushing aside the incumbent government.  The Talibans and Al Qaida are back in control of more then 40 per cent of Afghanistan by waging guerrilla warfare.

And in Iraq the anti-imperialist forces are also waging guerrilla warfare and are inflicting more and more casualties on the US occupation forces. The US will not bring home all the US troops for a long while because it cannot leave behind the oil fields and oil reserves and all  the business projects of the US monopoly firms.  The venality of the Bush regime and the greed of the US monopoly firms are placing the US in a quagmire reminiscent of Vietnam.

Are there ways for the Korean and Filipino peoples to frustrate US military intervention and related evil actions?  Yes, of course.

The entire Korean people of both north and south can unite against US imperialism, against US military bases and US nuclear weapons in the south and against the economic embargo and military threats of the US against the DPRK.  It is fine that the DPRK is standing firmly for national independence, peace and reunification and socialist aspirations and is ready to fight courageously with some powerful weapon.  Thus, the US cannot attack the DPRK like it has attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Filipino people can unite and raise the level of their revolutionary consciousness and fighting capabilities.  In the face of the US and the Manila puppet government, the people are fortunate to have the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the organs of democratic power and the mass organizations as the solid forces in the struggle for national liberation and democracy.   The current form of people’s war in the Philippines is extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass message.  The high-tech weaponry of the US is impotent against such popular resistance. 

The Korean and Filipino peoples enjoy abundant support from all anti-imperialist and democratic forces and people of the world.  The broad anti-imperialist solidarity that is developing vigorously is inspiring the people of the world to intensify their resistance against imperialism and all reaction and for national and social liberation.

Thank you. #

(Keynote Speech at the Forum on US Intervention in the Philippines and Korea,An Evening of Resistance Broadcast by WBAI/Pacifica, July 16, 2003, New York City)

Back to top

We want to know what you think of this article.