By Antonio C. Abaya
Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 07, 1941, the United States of America was basically an insular power that had little or no interest in imposing its will on the rest of the world.
Of course, even before that date, the US was already beginning to stir as a potential world power. In 1823, it unilaterally issued the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers to stay away from Latin America which was then undergoing revolutionary upheavals against the obsolescent colonial power, Spain.
In 1867, fresh from its own bloody Civil War, the US bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for the sum of $7.2 million. In 1898, the US annexed the then independent republic of Hawaii, on the instigation of American fruit growers who had settled there.
In 1898, egged on by the then Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt – “Speak softly but carry a big stick” - the US declared war on Spain, using as pretext an explosion on board the USS Maine in Havana harbor.
As spoils from that war, the US grabbed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam from Spain. The US paid Spain the sum of $20 million for the Philippines, after robbing Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and his Philippine Revolutionary Army of the fruits of their victory against Spanish colonial rule.
In 1912, using a strip of land grabbed from Colombia, the US completed and opened the Panama Canal, which allowed its emerging navy – Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘big stick’ – to shift from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans, and vice versa. Cuba was allowed its independence in 1902, the Philippines in 1946. But Puerto Rico and Guam continue to be American territory, serving as sentinels of American hegemony in the Caribbean and the Pacific, respectively.
In 1917, the US entered the Great War in Europe – later known as the First World War – as a result of the sinking of seven US merchant ships by German U-boats. The entry of US troops into the stale-mated Western Front accelerated the defeat of Germany. But after victory was achieved, the US brought its troops home from Europe.
It was the Japanese attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor that can be said to be the beginning of Pax Americana I, in the sense that it spurred not only the entry of the US into what became known as the Second World War, but also in the sense that it mobilized the entire American economy into a war economy, to supply not only its own wartime needs but also the needs of its traditional ally, the British, and even its temporary ally, the Soviets.
It also propelled its armed forces to engage the enemy – the Japanese, the Italians and the Germans – all over the world: the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans; Southeast Asia, the South Pacific islands, North Africa, Italy, Normandy, the German homeland, and eventually Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And unlike in the First World War, the triumphant Americans did not go home after victory was achieved, but instead have stayed on and on, in Asia as well as in Europe, and have even entered into other theatres of operations – Turkey, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Korea, Vietnam – to confront the new threats posed by international Communism as promoted by the Soviet Union and Maoist China.
The Americans emerged victorious over the Communist challenge, with the peaceful (except in Romania) de-communization of Eastern Europe in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the re-transformation of China into a capitalist country, These events underscored the triumph of American economic and political values and capped Pax Americana I. Just as Pax Americana I started with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Pax Americana II can be said to have started with another sneak attack, this time against the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington DC, symbols of American economic and military power, respectively, on September 11, 2001.
In a bizarre turn of events, the neo-conservatives, who are the chief architects of Pax Americana II, actually wrote in their manifesto of September 2000 – one full year before 9/11 – that for their objectives to be accepted by the American public, they needed “a new Pearl Harbor.” Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda Islamists unwittingly provided that “new Pearl Harbor,” which became the justification for going to war against Islamic extremists.
Foremost among the neo-cons’ objectives was/is to “establish full military control of the Middle East,” which explains the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, possibly soon, Iran. The goal, of course, is to control the oil. It is no coincidence that VP Dick Cheney used to be CEO of oil giant Halliburton, that George W. Bush was CE0 of two smaller Texas oil firms, and that Condoleeza Rice used to be connected with Chevron, (One Chevron tanker is named after her.)
Pax Americana II may achieve strategic victory if and when Osama bin Laden and/or his deputy Ayman al-Zwahiri are/is killed or captured, and the neo-cons want to achieve that victory in the weeks before the Nov. 4 presidential elections to ensure the triumph of the McCain-Palin team and, through them, the continuation of the neo-con agenda.
Which is why there have been a flurry of missile attacks by pilotless Predator drones in the past 10 days on targets in the Afghan-Pakistani border where the al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding, despite the angry protests of the Pakistani government about the unauthorized intrusions into their air space and their territory, and despite the collateral deaths of dozens of Pakistani civilians. The Americans couldn’t care less. They want Osama’s and Ayman’s heads, no matter the costs.
. .
So where does the Philippines fit in Pax Americana II? We have the dubious distinction of .being the nexus where the al-Qaeda tectonic plate and the oil tectonic plate converge, and where therefore the neo-cons are trying to re-arrange the map to serve US interests under Pax Americana II, if need be with a minor earthquake here and there.. The US needs permanent bases in Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan to monitor the activities of the al-Qaeda franchise holder in Southeast Asia, the Jemaah Islamiyah, as well as the activities of the Chinese in the possibly oil-rich Spratly islands. Additionally, there is probably oil and gas in the Sulu-Tawi-Tawi area since their continental shelf is part of the oil province of oil-and-gas rich North Borneo.
But it is not possible to get those permanent bases as long as the quarrelsome politicians in Manila hold all the cards. If the Bangsamoro were to be made into a federal state, with its own right to enter into agreements with other sovereign states, then it can be convinced to allow permanent US bases in its “ancestral domain.”
Which is probably why the US has been wooing the Bangsamoro since at least 2003 and why US Ambassador Kristie Kenney has been shuttling back and forth to Mindanao, supposedly 20 times in the past 12 months. The US has found in the Bangsamoro an ally that it can work with, to achieve its strategic goals in Southeast Asia as defined by the neo-cons, as long as the Bangsmoro do not resort to terrorism.
In a prescient article that he wrote in August 2006 (and which is included in toto in Reactions to “Mindanao Peace or in Pieces”), Italian journalist Fabio Scarpello reported on conversations between the United States Institute for Peace and the MILF for the establishment of permanent US bases in MILF-controlled territory in Mindanao.
Said Eid Kabalu, MILF official spokesman, in one interview with Scarpello in Cotabato City: “We have nothing against the Americans. As a matter of fact, in our 30-year struggle, we have never hurt (even) one American. If they help, they are welcome.”
Although the Americans make pro forma references to the government in Manila as their ally, my sense is that they have decided that the Philippines under Gloria Arroyo is a lost cause that is best left for the Chinese to corrupt to their hearts’ delight.
Are we hearing right? The Arroyo government has awarded a contract for 90 per cent of the gold output from the Diwalwal mines in Davao to a Chinese firm named ZTE Corp. Why does that sound familiar? Pax Sinica begins here and now, in Malacanang.. *****.
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in acabaya.blogspot.com. Tony on YouTube in www.tapatt.org.
Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 07, 1941, the United States of America was basically an insular power that had little or no interest in imposing its will on the rest of the world.
Of course, even before that date, the US was already beginning to stir as a potential world power. In 1823, it unilaterally issued the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers to stay away from Latin America which was then undergoing revolutionary upheavals against the obsolescent colonial power, Spain.
In 1867, fresh from its own bloody Civil War, the US bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for the sum of $7.2 million. In 1898, the US annexed the then independent republic of Hawaii, on the instigation of American fruit growers who had settled there.
In 1898, egged on by the then Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt – “Speak softly but carry a big stick” - the US declared war on Spain, using as pretext an explosion on board the USS Maine in Havana harbor.
As spoils from that war, the US grabbed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam from Spain. The US paid Spain the sum of $20 million for the Philippines, after robbing Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and his Philippine Revolutionary Army of the fruits of their victory against Spanish colonial rule.
In 1912, using a strip of land grabbed from Colombia, the US completed and opened the Panama Canal, which allowed its emerging navy – Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘big stick’ – to shift from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans, and vice versa. Cuba was allowed its independence in 1902, the Philippines in 1946. But Puerto Rico and Guam continue to be American territory, serving as sentinels of American hegemony in the Caribbean and the Pacific, respectively.
In 1917, the US entered the Great War in Europe – later known as the First World War – as a result of the sinking of seven US merchant ships by German U-boats. The entry of US troops into the stale-mated Western Front accelerated the defeat of Germany. But after victory was achieved, the US brought its troops home from Europe.
It was the Japanese attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor that can be said to be the beginning of Pax Americana I, in the sense that it spurred not only the entry of the US into what became known as the Second World War, but also in the sense that it mobilized the entire American economy into a war economy, to supply not only its own wartime needs but also the needs of its traditional ally, the British, and even its temporary ally, the Soviets.
It also propelled its armed forces to engage the enemy – the Japanese, the Italians and the Germans – all over the world: the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans; Southeast Asia, the South Pacific islands, North Africa, Italy, Normandy, the German homeland, and eventually Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And unlike in the First World War, the triumphant Americans did not go home after victory was achieved, but instead have stayed on and on, in Asia as well as in Europe, and have even entered into other theatres of operations – Turkey, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Korea, Vietnam – to confront the new threats posed by international Communism as promoted by the Soviet Union and Maoist China.
The Americans emerged victorious over the Communist challenge, with the peaceful (except in Romania) de-communization of Eastern Europe in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the re-transformation of China into a capitalist country, These events underscored the triumph of American economic and political values and capped Pax Americana I. Just as Pax Americana I started with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Pax Americana II can be said to have started with another sneak attack, this time against the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington DC, symbols of American economic and military power, respectively, on September 11, 2001.
In a bizarre turn of events, the neo-conservatives, who are the chief architects of Pax Americana II, actually wrote in their manifesto of September 2000 – one full year before 9/11 – that for their objectives to be accepted by the American public, they needed “a new Pearl Harbor.” Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda Islamists unwittingly provided that “new Pearl Harbor,” which became the justification for going to war against Islamic extremists.
Foremost among the neo-cons’ objectives was/is to “establish full military control of the Middle East,” which explains the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, possibly soon, Iran. The goal, of course, is to control the oil. It is no coincidence that VP Dick Cheney used to be CEO of oil giant Halliburton, that George W. Bush was CE0 of two smaller Texas oil firms, and that Condoleeza Rice used to be connected with Chevron, (One Chevron tanker is named after her.)
Pax Americana II may achieve strategic victory if and when Osama bin Laden and/or his deputy Ayman al-Zwahiri are/is killed or captured, and the neo-cons want to achieve that victory in the weeks before the Nov. 4 presidential elections to ensure the triumph of the McCain-Palin team and, through them, the continuation of the neo-con agenda.
Which is why there have been a flurry of missile attacks by pilotless Predator drones in the past 10 days on targets in the Afghan-Pakistani border where the al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding, despite the angry protests of the Pakistani government about the unauthorized intrusions into their air space and their territory, and despite the collateral deaths of dozens of Pakistani civilians. The Americans couldn’t care less. They want Osama’s and Ayman’s heads, no matter the costs.
. .
So where does the Philippines fit in Pax Americana II? We have the dubious distinction of .being the nexus where the al-Qaeda tectonic plate and the oil tectonic plate converge, and where therefore the neo-cons are trying to re-arrange the map to serve US interests under Pax Americana II, if need be with a minor earthquake here and there.. The US needs permanent bases in Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan to monitor the activities of the al-Qaeda franchise holder in Southeast Asia, the Jemaah Islamiyah, as well as the activities of the Chinese in the possibly oil-rich Spratly islands. Additionally, there is probably oil and gas in the Sulu-Tawi-Tawi area since their continental shelf is part of the oil province of oil-and-gas rich North Borneo.
But it is not possible to get those permanent bases as long as the quarrelsome politicians in Manila hold all the cards. If the Bangsamoro were to be made into a federal state, with its own right to enter into agreements with other sovereign states, then it can be convinced to allow permanent US bases in its “ancestral domain.”
Which is probably why the US has been wooing the Bangsamoro since at least 2003 and why US Ambassador Kristie Kenney has been shuttling back and forth to Mindanao, supposedly 20 times in the past 12 months. The US has found in the Bangsamoro an ally that it can work with, to achieve its strategic goals in Southeast Asia as defined by the neo-cons, as long as the Bangsmoro do not resort to terrorism.
In a prescient article that he wrote in August 2006 (and which is included in toto in Reactions to “Mindanao Peace or in Pieces”), Italian journalist Fabio Scarpello reported on conversations between the United States Institute for Peace and the MILF for the establishment of permanent US bases in MILF-controlled territory in Mindanao.
Said Eid Kabalu, MILF official spokesman, in one interview with Scarpello in Cotabato City: “We have nothing against the Americans. As a matter of fact, in our 30-year struggle, we have never hurt (even) one American. If they help, they are welcome.”
Although the Americans make pro forma references to the government in Manila as their ally, my sense is that they have decided that the Philippines under Gloria Arroyo is a lost cause that is best left for the Chinese to corrupt to their hearts’ delight.
Are we hearing right? The Arroyo government has awarded a contract for 90 per cent of the gold output from the Diwalwal mines in Davao to a Chinese firm named ZTE Corp. Why does that sound familiar? Pax Sinica begins here and now, in Malacanang.. *****.
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in acabaya.blogspot.com. Tony on YouTube in www.tapatt.org.
1 comment:
WHEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OPPOSES YOUR RIGHT TO BE FREE!!
Puerto Ricans, whether they are called Independents (independentistas), Patriots or Nationalists or Freemen, who desire to be free, must always know that the federal government, here in the States has no “subject matter jurisdiction” over the person, case or location and should be challenged to proof it. These are magic words to learn when in Federal Court for desiring freedom for your/our Country.
You won’t be told this in court but: All jury members, judges, attorneys, and employees working in federal court, must reside in federal territory to legally be a federal juror or touch your case or they can be commercially sued, disbarred and financially ruined for violating your constitutional rights etc.
Your God given right to be free is not wanted by the USA, it will oppose your desire for independence and freedom, because the Federal USA is a profit based Corporation.
The Federal Government is a District of Columbia “Corporation”, as are all the States of the USA. What you know of as the USA, is NOT a Republic, but a multi-based Corporation acting as a Country. These Corporations were formed for the benefit of the real owners. Since June of 1933, everything since then, is under Contract law or commercial law, aka Admiralty law, to benefit your masters in power.
The Federal Government owns Puerto Rico as an ASSET, because it is a slave colony—whether you like the idea or not. But the Federal Government takes orders from those who own and run this (Corporation) Country, but are not of this country. The International Bankers, who really own the corporations called the USA and also the Federal Reserve, will let the slaves of PR be free, only if enough real men of Boricua blood wish to be free, by reserving their rights under the Constitution. Their books will be adjusted and we will be free.
The answer to your freedom lies in your Constitutional rights --- To win --You must always reserve your constitutional, commercial rights and know what they are and how to do so.
A Puerto Rican without a desire for independence and/or freedom from alien control has no heart and soul of a man.
The fact that the public does not know that we are NOT free, makes no difference, to the desire to be free. The PR that wants Statehood is a Gringito, who has no soul of a man left in his traitor's heart. Freedom is happening all over the world and yet we allow Gringitos to kill our right to be free.
A Gringito is a non-Anglo THING, IT is not really a “person”, just like a mass murderer is more like an animal than a person, who internally is so inferior, that he desires to be what he can not be—thus Gringito means little gringo.
The Gringito is like an Uncle Tom to blacks or a collaborator and traitor to many others. To us he/she is all three and much worst. The “It or thing” I call Gringito, is the enemy of freedom -- all thru out HUMAN history.
We allow the Alien Invaders to kill, harm, abuse, rape, and scam us and yet the Gringito wants to give our Country away.
This abuse must end. No man or woman is a real Man or real woman who is too scared to fight for their souls and be free. If you listen to the Gringito, you will lose your soul.
Thru out eternity, humanity owes its freedom from slavery, ONLY TO BRAVE SOULS who fought and DIED for your right to be free.
The fight will NOT succeed if you don't fight the Gringito enemy/traitor/collaborator at home first. He is there next door and claims he is a real man and tries to give you many excuses of why PR can't be a free Country.
To give away your/our/my Country is not a right of alien invaders, visitors or foreigners with NO Puerto Rican Blood.
The right to vote on THIS ISSUE should NOT be given to NON-Puerto Ricans.
The fight for the independence of Puerto Rico is now non-violent and will be won in the hearts of real men around the World.
The Ronbothunter,
A proud freedom loving Puerto Rican.
All Rights Reserved
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