By Bill van Auken, wsws.org
In a brief statement last week on the impact of Typhoon Haiyan on the Philippines, President Barack Obama declared it a “heartbreaking reminder of how fragile life is.”
As the head of a government that has visited death and destruction upon impoverished peoples from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Libya, Yemen and Syria, the US president hardly needed to wait for nature’s fury to be visited upon the Philippine people for such a reminder.
[pullquote]The disaster has become a huge p.r. opportunity for the Pentagon, corroborating (for the benefit of American audiences) what a generous, compassionate nation the United States is. See the Appendix for an example of this type of jingoist boosterism, courtesy of the Huffington Post. [/pullquote]
The US military, the principal instrument for carrying out this carnage—inflicting 100 times the number of deaths caused by Typhoon Haiyan during the last dozen years of aggressive wars waged by Washington—is now being promoted as the indispensable Good Samaritan in the Philippines.
Some 50 US warships and military aircraft and 13,000 American sailors, airmen and marines have been brought into the relief effort, led by the naval battle group of the nuclear-powered super-carrier, the USS George Washington, along with the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
“We will be present as long as we are needed—no longer than required,” Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Wissler, the commander of the US military operations in the Philippines, said on Monday.
The people of the Philippines have ample reasons, rooted in both their country’s tragic history and its present geo-strategic position, to treat such promises with extreme skepticism.
There is perhaps no more egregious example of the US military overstaying its welcome than in the Philippines. It was there, at the end of the 19th century, that US imperialism first cut its teeth, becoming a colonial power by means of military conquest and savage repression.
In testifying before the US Senate Tuesday on relief operations in the Philippines, a State Department official cited the “close historic ties” between the two countries. Neither government officials nor the media, however, show any inclination to examine these “ties” in any detail, for the obvious reason that it would serve only to expose a historic crime.
The US military’s first appearance in the Philippines came in the form of a navy squadron commanded by Commodore George Dewey, who sailed into Manila harbor on May 1, 1898 and within hours sank the entire Pacific fleet of Spain, which had ruled the territory as a colony for the previous 300 years.
Brought back from exile aboard Dewey’s warship was Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of a nationalist movement that had been fighting to end Spanish colonialism for three years before the US armada arrived. US forces were able to take Manila only because it was surrounded on land by these independence fighters. Washington posed as their ally and the liberator of the Philippines just long enough to secure control of a territory it coveted as a market, a source of cheap labor and raw materials, and a base for the projection of US power in the Pacific, particularly toward China.
It then turned savagely against the Filipinos and signed a treaty with Spain paying it $20 million for a land the Spanish no longer controlled. The Filipinos, who had proclaimed an independent republic, the first to be formed in Asia as the result of an anti-colonial rebellion, were excluded from these negotiations.
What followed was the imposition of a US colonial regime and over a decade of bloody counterinsurgency operations that would claim at least several hundred thousand Filipino lives. In 1901, Gen. Franklin Bell, who commanded US forces in Luzon, the island group that included Manila and roughly half the country’s population, told the New York Times that there alone some 600,000 had been killed in military operations or died from disease.
As another American general put it, “It may be necessary to kill half the Filipinos in order that the remaining half of the population may be advanced to a higher plane of life than their present semi-barbarous state affords.”
Mark Twain, the most prominent and passionate opponent of the US war in the Philippines, defied the “support our troops” rhetoric of the day, denouncing the US military for massacres that left “not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother.” The celebrated American author referred to US occupation forces as “Christian butchers” and “uniformed assassins.”
The Philippines campaign was among the first counterinsurgency operations waged by the US military, and it introduced all of the atrocities that would later be visited upon Vietnamese, Afghans and Iraqis, from massacres, to torture, to “re-concentration” camps.
US colonial rule continued until the end of World War II, after which Washington backed a series of semi-colonial governments, including the hated martial regime of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the country for two decades. Until 1991, the Pentagon maintained control of the massive Subic Bay naval base and Clark Air Force base, which played crucial roles in both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
This is no mere ancient history when it comes to the plight of the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. The widespread poverty, social inequality, inadequate housing and government corruption that are the legacy of colonial and neo-colonial oppression played at least as great a role as the blind forces of nature in inflicting so much death and destruction.
Nor are US designs on the Philippines a matter of a bygone era. Reuters news agency noted Wednesday: “As US ships deliver food, water and medicine, they are also delivering goodwill that could ease the way for the United States to strengthen its often-controversial military presence in one of Southeast Asia’s most strategic countries.”
If the US military first came to the Philippines as the instrument of a rising imperialist power seeking to secure new markets in Asia, it now returns as the spearhead of a waning one, determined to encircle and contain a rising regional and global rival, China.
The Philippines is strategically crucial to the Obama administration’s so-called “pivot” to Asia. Its government, having closed the giant US military bases in 1992, has since allowed US special operations troops to return for training and for carrying out joint operations and has hosted visits by 72 US warships and submarines at Subic Bay during the first six months of this year alone. Meanwhile, negotiations are ongoing to secure US rights to bases for ships, planes, supplies and troops.
Naval base construction is proceeding at Oyster Bay on the island province of Palawan. Officials are referring to the facility as a “mini-Subic,” and plans have been reported for stationing both US warships and Marines there. Situated on the country’s western-most island, it is in close proximity to the Spratly Islands, the site of a provocative territorial confrontation between Manila and China egged on by the United States.
Thus, the “humanitarian” operation of the US military in the Philippines is inextricably bound up with war plans that could well drag the country into a global conflagration.
The predatory calculations of the US ruling class aside, there exist among the masses of American working people genuine feelings of sympathy and solidarity with the workers of the Philippines. The deep ties are expressed most concretely in the estimated presence of 4 million Filipino-Americans in the United States.
The catastrophe wrought by Typhoon Haiyan only underscores the necessity of a united struggle to sweep away the conditions of poverty and inequality in both countries, along with the capitalist profit system that has created them.
Bill Van Auken is a senior analyst with the SEP, publisher of wsws.org.
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APPENDIX
U.S. Military Relief Efforts In The Philippines Will Inspire & Make You Proud (PHOTOS)
The Huffington Post
When super typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on Nov. 8, devastating the city of Tacloban and leaving a huge storm surge and widespread flooding in its wake, the U.S. military was ready to help.
At the request of the Philippines government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel directed U.S. Pacific Command to support humanitarian relief operations in the Philippines, and the response so far has been an extraordinary show of America’s military capabilities.
The situation in the Philippines is still dire — rebuilding and relief efforts will undoubtedly continue for years — but below are 9 facts about the U.S. military’s relief efforts that will both inspire you to help and make you proud to be American:
By Nov. 11 (Veterans Day), roughly 90 U.S. Marines from Japan were on the ground in the Philippines and, by that evening, they had successfully delivered 107,000 pounds of relief supplies. There are now more than 250 Marines on the ground.
U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher E. Pring coordinates the loading of palletized water with the Philippine air force for transport at Vilamor Air Base in Manila, Philippines, Nov. 12, 2013.
More Marines, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, and several smaller U.S. Navy ships soon followed. The USS George Washington has about 80 aircraft aboard it and it canproduce an astonishing 400,000 gallons of fresh water per day.
The nuclear-powered USS George Washington Nimitz-class aircraft carrier arrives in Manila for a goodwill visit on October 24, 2012.
Due to the earthquake-prone “Ring of Fire” and weather patterns in the region, more natural disasters occur in the Asia-Pacific region than anywhere else in the world. Since 1990, the U.S. government has responded to more than 40 disasters in the Philippines alone, ranging from volcanic eruptions to drought and population displacement.
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Alan Randall and a Philippine airman assist an injured Filipino woman off a KC-130J Super Hercules at Vilamore Air Base, Manila, Philippines, Nov. 11, 2013.
“The Philippines is a treaty ally, and the United States stands by its friends and allies in times of crisis,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said of the U.S.’s commitment.
American servicemembers help an injured man off the plane, Manila, Philippines, Nov. 11, 2013.
In between assisting with actual disasters, the U.S. military istraining governments around the world on how to prepare for disaster relief, including an annual training exercise with the Philippines. “We constantly train for just these types of contingencies,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. “Coincidentally, personnel from China’s People’s Liberation Army are in Hawaii now conducting a [Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief]-focused exchange with our forces.”
Soldiers from United States Army Pacific, Hawaii Army National Guard and Army Corps of Engineers along with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency participate with the People’s Liberation Army in a Disaster Management Exchange, Nov. 12 -14 in Hawaii.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, the Pacom commander, said last week about the U.S. military’s response efforts.
U.S. Marines and sailors deploy to the Phillippines aboard a KC-130J Hercules aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan, Nov. 11, 2013. The Marines are assigned to the 3rd Expeditionary Force.
Eight Ospreys are currently in the Philippines, providing a unique and valuable resource: The Osprey can convert between a rotary-wing and a fixed-wing aircraft. The rotary-wing allows for vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, which is incredibly useful in austere environments. The fixed-wing capability provides greatly increased speed and range, which is also necessary in such a large-scale area.
U.S. Marines, assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 4, load relief supplies onto an MV-22 Osprey in support of Operation Damayan, in Tacloban, Philippines, Nov. 14, 2013.
As of Nov. 13, a U.S. official said that, although there is still a lot of work to do, they are starting to see results: “I would say we are cautiously optimistic that we are starting to turn a corner on some of the logistics challenges. In the last 24 hours we have seen some improvements in the coordination at the airport … but also very critically, an overland route to Tacloban City has now been opened.” He described the original conditions as being like trying to squeeze an orange through a straw, and said that now they have more and bigger straws.
Typhoon survivor Rosel Honrado, 24, carries her one-day-old son Ian Daniel as they take a flight on a C-130 military plane out of Tacloban on November 13, 2013.
Over 1,000 Marines could be deployed to the affected area by the end of the week, and the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship with 1,000 patient beds, is preparing for possible deployment as well. “The Department of Defense is continuing to work closely with the Department of State and the Philippine government to determine what, if any, additional assets may be required,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said.
USNS Mercy off the coast of the Philippines during a Pacific Partnership deployment, July 1, 2012.
Want to help? The organizations listed here are mobilizing and deploying major disaster relief efforts. See how you can lend support, and check back for further updates.