Posted to the Mindanao Examiner blog site (Aug 15):
Letter to the Editor: No to US Drone Warfare in Mindanao and Elsewhere! US Troops Out Now!
WE WELCOME the pronouncement of Mayor Rodrigo
Duterte of not allowing Davao City to be used as a launching pad for US
military unmanned aerial vehicles or drones nor for the basing of so-called
‘permanently rotational’ military troops.
UAVs, commonly called drones, are the latest military
equipment-robots boasted by the US
for giving it superior advantage in warfare over its enemies. This has given
rise to ‘drone warfare’ as a US
component in its ‘war on terror.’
But what American President Barack Obama portrays as its
prized war materiel possession, the realities in the battlefield and in
communities betrays as its loss. Robots do not have discernment, a fundamental
flaw in war and in any other human activity. Thus, this drone warfare has
killed so many civilians, most of them women and children. In countries where
drone warfare has been relied upon by the US
as its most effective weapon to track down terrorists, it is the US which has
gained notoriety as the world’s No. 1 Terrorist.
Aside from clearly being an issue of human rights, the US-led
war of terror against the peoples of the world is an aggression against the
sovereignty of nations. Drone surveillances and attacks are particularly
directed at countries where the US
has strategic economic and political interests, and where there is armed
resistance.
We repudiate the US-led war of terror. Mayor Duterte
correctly points out that it is the US which is capable of sowing
terror, the way CIA agent Michael Terrence Meiring was exposed to be in
possession of high-powered explosives. The bombs he was carrying self-detonated
at Evergreen Hotel in Davao City in 2002, the year preceding the deadly Davao airport and wharf
bombings. Those bombings were then exposed by junior military officers to be
the handiwork of top officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The bombing and bomb scare situation in Mindanao, as in the
string of terror in the past, show a pattern of scenario-building in order to
justify US
military aid and intervention. It does not escape scrutiny that while Mindanao was rocked by bombings, Malacanang was
shamelessly asking for an increase in the number of US military rotational
forces in the country, aside from justifying the continuing US-Philippine joint
military exercises.
That Mayor Duterte was approached by the US to use the old airport as a military base,
starting with its drone program, speaks of a US
military design in Mindanao as part of the US
pivot to Asia. It also exposes President
Aquino’s backdoor compromises and sell out of the national sovereignty by
expanding the coverage of the Visiting Forces Agreement and optimizing the
master-and-lackey relationship between the US
and the Philippines
under the US-RP Mutual Defense Treaty.
We say No to US Drones in Davao,
Mindanao and in the world! Junk VFA and MDT!
InPeace Mindanao
Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao
Rm. 101 Kalinaw Center for Interfaith Resources
13 Francisco Avenue, Juna Subdivision, Matina, 8000, Davao
City
Philippines
telefax: +63.82.299.4964
email: inpeace.info@yahoo.com
web: www.kalinaw.com.ph
facebook: inpeacemindanao
http://mindanaoexaminer.blogspot.com/2013/08/letter-to-editor-no-to-us-drone-warfare.html
Initiatives for Peace or InPeace is a Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) umbrella "peace advocacy" front organization. Most of the groups/individuals associated with InPeace are CPP fronts. However, there are several sympathetic non-CPP organizations/individuals that belong to InPeace. They serve as window dressing to legitimize the group's activities.
ReplyDeleteInPeace is active mainly in Mindanao and has been a consistent opponent of the US military presence in the Southern Philippines. In the past, the group has participated in several Mindanao-based anti-US military propaganda campaigns.
The letter above insinuates that US and/or the Philippine military is behind the spate of bombings in Mindanao in order to justify and increased US military presence in the Philippines. This is ludicrous and has been/is part of an ongoing CPP disinformation effort.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there are no armed US "drones" deployed to the Philippines. Nor have there been any stationed there in the past. The US has used intelligence gathering unmanned aerial vehicles to assist the Philippine military but these have been unarmed.
Second, the Michael Meiring incident is a red herring. He was not a CIA agent but rather an eccentric American who blew himself up in a Davao hotel room. The commies have used the Meiring incident as "proof" of US involvement in both past and present bombing campaigns in the Southern Philippines. These allegations are patently false.