No Real Independence

No Real Independence

By Erick San Juan

The U.S. has eleven aircraft carriers with attached strike group. The world now has super aircraft carriers and all but one of its twelve nuclear-powered carriers. (France has the other.) The eleven American sophisticated supercarriers are the largest warships ever built.

It has 61 guided missile destroyers and 22 guided missile cruisers, all of which are part of or can be upgraded to join the Aegis Combat System, thereby being capable of participating in Washington's worldwide interceptor missile program.

The U.S. Navy also possesses 72 submarines, 18 ballistic and 53 attack models, and 24 frigates, nine amphibious assault ships, seven amphibious transport docks, 12 dock landing ships, four littoral combat ships and scores of other vessels.

Washington has pledged to deploy 60 percent of the above to the Asia-Pacific region in the imminent future. (from the article of Rick Rozoff posted @ Global Research, June 3, 2012)

With the abovementioned statistics, will Uncle Sam be threatened by any country perceived as its enemy? Or is it the other way around?

I have chosen this excerpt from Rick Rozoff’s piece to emphasize the rhetoric by no other than the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at the 11^th annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore last week. The mere fact that the Pentagon stated that they want to establish a strategic trust between US and China, it should be reflected also in their action or plan of action.

The deployment of the 60 percent of Uncle Sam’s military might in this region is no joke and it is not only China that will be uncomfortable here but other countries that the US considers as threat to their homeland’s security.

Although, some pundits in the field of national defense and foreign policy found out that even China has its own military-industrial complex and actually selling some war materiel to other countries. Even if this is true, it is still no match to Uncle Sam’s hi-tech war machine.

As a writer and keen observer of events unfolding here and abroad, we are closely monitoring possible scenario that might lead to conflicts, may it be regional or global. That is why we will never get tired reminding the present administration to be very careful with its dealings with a perceived master and stop kowtowing to its every whim.

PNoy’s US visit should be an opportunity for clearing out things when it comes to our relationship with US and how our country should be treated as an ally in the region. Again and again, get what's due us. PNoy must not forget what happened in the recent past when our leaders betrayed our country and always think of ‘what’s in it for me’ instead of what our country’s benefits from such an alliance.

From the same article of Rozoff - AMERICA THREATENS CHINA: Pentagon Prepares for Confrontation in the Asia-Pacific, and he wrote : The Philippines is the third Asia-Pacific nation where the Pentagon is securing new bases to contain and ultimately confront China.

In April the U.S. and the Philippines conducted the latest Balikatan military maneuvers with 4,500 American Marines and 2,500 Philippine troops which included an amphibious assault at Ulugan Bay on Palawan Island to rehearse the "recapture" of an island near the Spratly Islands contested by the Philippines and China.

Out of the blue, while PNoy is in the US to meet with US president Barack Obama, the banner headline of the Philippine Star, a major daily said, that the US troops can use Clark air and Subic naval bases facilities. Defense undersecretary for defense affairs Honorio Azcueta told media after his meeting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff on Monday, June 4, 2012.

With the 13-year-old Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) still intact with the long overdue report by the VFA Commission regarding its so-called review still nowhere in sight, our country will remain as US colonial outpost and military doormat. The observation by Rozoff which I cited here may be the image we are actually projecting to the rest of the world because sad to say, the leadership of this country are perceived like puppets-on-a-string.

We must gather our act together and once and for all we have to show to the world that we are a truly independent nation. The task is not easy but if PNoy will practice transparency with all his dealings abroad, the whole nation will support him and we can free this country from the US doormat image.