Back to GI Joe

"YOU’VE JUST mentioned Subic Bay. Clark Air Base, we -- we do maritime domain awareness flights monthly with the Philippine armed forces. That might be a potential.”

Potential. The operative word for US forces re-basing in the Philippines, highlighted in a Pentagon media briefing two weeks ago by Admiral Jonathan Greenert, US Chief of Naval Operations.

Actual. Greenert’s conceding that the US has present "access to an extraordinary number of places" in the Asia-Pacific and is considering the procurement of supplies, repair and maintenance services for US ships, aircraft, and troops visiting countries in the region, not the least of which is the Philippines.

Supplies and services. The R&R kind, most definitely included, if not topmost priority.

"I think in the best interest of each nation, we'll continue to -- to work on and see where that might go," furthered Greenert.

Where it will – not might – go. Why, the re-establishment of the American military bases, not in any place in the Asia-Pacific other than the Philippines, dummy. The strategic importance of the Philippines in geopolitics, an unvarying given.      

Thus, in the current scheme of things – as in the past – the Philippines best serves American interests in the Asia-Pacific.

The row with China over the Panatag/Scarborough Shoal and the uneasy waters of the West Philippine Sea while still far from a casus belli is already enough cause for US intrusion.

The US not the least assuming an aggressive stance or a posture of belligerence. What with the President of the Philippines practically begging for US intervention in his appeals for America to launch surveillance and monitoring flights over the West Philippine Sea, as well as for military hardware. The latter, the US readily answered with an aged naval vessel.

There is a twist though in America’s re-establishment of itself in the Asia-Pacific. This time around it comes not as the lonesome Imperial Eagle of old, but – just like in Iraq and Afghanistan – in some sort of collegial fraternity, read: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or in George W. Bush’s time, the Coalition of the Willing.

NATO’s Asian counterpart, SEATO – the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization – long dead though, its last gasps heard at the height of the Vietnam War yet, the US needed to craft a similar alliance that need not be formalized and therefore required to pass congressional approval in the US as well as in the other countries joining such alliance.

All the US had to do is work on existing treaties and re-purpose them to the issue at hand, to current needs, with the Philippines, of course, as focal point. And US interests as express goals.  

Thus, the “Statement Of Intent On Defense Cooperation And Exchanges” between the Philippines and Japan signed last July 2 in Tokyo.

Thus, Australia’s avid pursuit of a Status of Forces Agreement with the Philippines, nothing more than a copy-paste of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US.

Thus, South Korea likewise expressing interest in some bilateral defense cooperation with the Philippines. Recent recollections in the media of the Philippine participation in the Korean War serve as mind-softeners to generate acceptance and ultimate approval of some SoKor-PHL defense pact. While at it, throw in the exploits of the teen-aged Ninoy Aquino as the youngest correspondent in that war, to tug at the heartstrings of his son. 

South Korea. Australia. Japan. All staunch allies of the US. All serving US intent to put in place what the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan termed a “seamless interface” among all its treaty partners.

Furthered BAYAN Secretary General Renato Reyes, Jr.:  “With Japan now wanting to do port calls and military exercises in the Philippines, and with Australia seeking a Status of Forces Agreement to be able to conduct military exercises, our country becomes one giant military hub for the US and its treaty partners.”

Re-balancing of US forces in the Asia-Pacific. Re-basing of US forces in the Philippines. Back to us being a vassal state of America.

Back to Clark and Subic then.

Thus, Santayana: “Those who do not remember the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.”

 Thus, and better yet, an old Irish maxim: “There is no present. There is no future. Only the past happening over and over, again and again.”

What the heck, GI Joe’s back. Happy days are here again.

We are ever f**ked up.