Hypocrisy and Mystification Galore
In a “Focus on the Philippines” Special Report, Herbert Docena has summarized from various news reports and documents the characteristics of the US “unconventional warfare,” among them, the mixture of covert combat actions with humanitarian projects, training, and other civic actions, which are viewed as “integral” to “foreign internal defense.” Static defense garrison forces have also been replaced by “mobile expeditionary operations,” as shown in the US operations in Sulu and Mindanao. Such counterinsurgency schemes are conducted “under the guise of an exercise,” as a US official stated (Unconventional Warfare, 2007, p. 24). Further, massive documentary evidences now exist that confirm US troops handling military equipment, defusing landmines, and using military equipment during actual hostilities. Post 9/11 US military doctrine and practice form part of a larger global war effort to repair and buttress US hegemony in various parts of the world, including the Philippines and other “friendly” nations. To achieve military and political supremacy, the US cannot accept the limitations imposed by orthodox diplomacy, treaties, and formal agreements.
The fraud of “humanitarian” succor has been repeatedly exposed. Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo, chair of BAYAN (the largest federation of nationalist groups), addresses this pretext in her commentaries in Business World (9/20/2008). She asserts truth to power: “The Arroyo regime deliberately obfuscates the unbending aim of US geopolitical and military strategy in the Philippines and elsewhere: the pursuit of its own Superpower interests. These include securing areas with strategic communication and supply lines and resources, primarily oil (such as in the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia), trade routes (such as the South China Sea) and other geographically strategic areas that will ensure its achievement of unrivaled global power. Domestically, the US has a keen interest and long history of interfering in the country’s internal affairs, most especially countering the growing strength and influence of the local anti-imperialist, patriotic and democratic movement.”
No one today is fooled by the alibi that the miniscule ASG militants numbering 400 (wrongly identified as an al-Qaeda affiliate) constitutes a real threat to US internal security. The real targets of US intervention are the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines, classified on 8/9/2002 by Colin Powell’s State Department as “terrorists.” In 2005 then Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz stated that the Maoist NPA is the “greatest internal security threat,” requiring the government to enter peace talks with the larger insurgent MILF (Gary Leupp, “Maoist and Muslim Insurgencies in the Philippines,” Bulatlat 5/22-28/2008). This view dovetailed with the belief of Admiral Timothy Keating, chief of the US Pacific Command, who confirmed that the US priority targets included not only the ASG and the Jemaah Islamiyah but also the NPA: “If the government of the Philippines tells us that they need help on the New People’s Army, we would consider and respond. So, yes,” the US would lead the military assault on the NPA” (Christine Avendano, Inquirer.net, 6/28/2007).
Keating recently participated in the meetings of the RP-US Mutual Defense Board and the Security Engagement Board, two agencies directing joint war games and planning counterinsurgency agendas. In response, Fidel Agcaoili of the National Democratic Front called Keating’s remarks “interventionist,” adding that US military support for the puppet government has failed to quell the 37-year old insurgency. Communist Party spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal said that the US military has long been directly engaged in unconventional, covert combat operations against the 13,500 NPA fighters in 120 guerilla fronts, backed by several thousand militias and mass partisans. Using humanitarian missions as cover, US military conducted intelligence-gathering activities in Bicol and Quezon, as well as gave training, technical assistance, weaponry and intelligence information to the Arroyo regime (Inquirer.net 6/29/2007). This may also explain the acrobatics of Arroyo’s stance toward the MILF and the US willingness to support MILF notions of “ancestral domain.” In short, US military presence is meant to help preserve the Philippines as a neocolonial dependency, a bastion of US hegemony, by supporting the corrupt and morally bankrupt ruling elite (landlords, compradors, bureaucrat capitalists) as their faithful agents in exploiting and oppressing 90 million Filipinos.
