Analysis
GMA’s New Defense Talks with Bush Favor U.S.

It is wrong to assume that the “major non-NATO ally” (MMNA) status given to the Philippines will qualify it to receive new types of military equipment and other forms of assistance. What it means rather is that, by designating the country as a MMNA – and as a new major U.S. military ally – the United States will now have more legitimate reasons to expand its presence and slip in new military equipment (including nuclear weapons) into the Philippines for the use of its own armed forces and in the name of the new defense relationship without even going through the rigors of legislative scrutiny.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

By agreeing to upgrade the Philippines’ defense commitments with the United States, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo virtually places the country in the frontline of U.S. wars of aggression throughout the world particularly in Asia. Aside from this, the presence of U.S. forward deployed forces in the country is expected to increase in the months ahead.

In her visit to Washington last week, Macapagal-Arroyo is said to have received pledges from U.S. President George W. Bush more than $90 million in military aid and equipment to the Philippine armed forces. The aid pledges and support for training and military equipment are supposed to accelerate the Philippine armed forces’ war against terrorism which both presidents have insisted is linked to the international network of terrorism led by Al Qaeda.

These pledges are nothing new and only represent renewed packages of assistance that Bush himself offered in his first meeting with the Philippine president in November 2001 in Washington.

What is new, however, is that both presidents formally have agreed to use the new military assistance not only against the Abu Sayyaf bandits but also against other “terror groups” such as the ideologically-oriented New People’s Army and the separatist Moro rebels. U.S. forces will be deployed in areas suspected to be crawling with NPA and Moro guerrillas for training and other forms of military support. But they will also shoot on the pretext of “self-defense.”

Defense review

The talks also formalized the review of the Philippines’ security needs leading to a more aggressive U.S. role in the local armed forces’ modernization program and reform efforts. Giving push to this new level of U.S.-Philippine military relationship is the elevation of the Philippines to the status of a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) that is supposed to allow both countries “to work together on military research and development and give the Philippines greater access to U.S. defense equipment and supplies.”

Bush’s announcement regarding the MNNA status of the Philippines, however, should be taken with a grain of salt – it was conferred without even getting the nod of U.S.’ NATO allies and, if at all, it should have been given instead by the Atlantic alliance’s own secretary-general.

Inevitably, just the same such key agreement will further entrap the country’s military program to the U.S. defense program which is increasingly using the “war on terror” to colonize sovereign states, suppress liberation struggles, build new bases and consolidate the U.S.’ concept of a “new world order” principally by military force. Note that in recent years, using the veneer of fighting terrorism and “rogue regimes,” armed attacks by the United States in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries led to the prolonged military occupation by U.S. forces, the establishment of nearly 16 new military bases and the installation of pro-U.S. client regimes.

It is wrong to assume that the “major non-NATO ally” (MMNA) status given to the Philippines will qualify it to receive new types of military equipment and other forms of assistance. What it means rather is that, by designating the country as a MMNA – and as a new major U.S. military ally – the United States will now have more legitimate reasons to expand its presence and slip in new military equipment (including nuclear weapons) into the Philippines for the use of its own armed forces and in the name of the new defense relationship without even going through the rigors of legislative scrutiny.

U.S. military expansion

Specifically, the new level of military relationship will support the Pentagon’s bid for greater access by U.S. warships, aircraft and other combat forces in the event of what the Americans perceive as a conflict in the (Southeast Asian) region. This was reiterated by U.S. Defense Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld himself during Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent visit.

This greater access by the U.S. military in the Philippines is probably already in the pipeline amid recent reports circulated by Washington’s spin doctors and paid hacks in the U.S. media that the region – particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Philippines - has become a flashpoint for “terrorist activities.” In the months ahead, Filipinos will witness the increasing presence of American warships, aircraft and troops in southern Philippines, as well as in the former U.S. military bases at Subic in Olongapo and Clark in Angeles City.

Today, there is greater awareness among an increasing number of Filipinos that Bush’s “war on terror” is nothing less than just a façade to support America’s 21^st century drive for new colonies and tighten its military hegemony in more countries particularly in the Balkan region, Afghanistan, Iraq as well as in Central and East Asia. Bulatlat.com

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