| Angel of the Cross By Antonio C. Abaya July 15, 2003 As of this writing, only the kidnappers themselves know for certain if Angelo de la Cruz is going to live or die. But the Arroyo Government has done right under the circumstances by being deliberately vague. Deliberate vagueness is a common and acceptable tactic in diplomacy when it is felt that categorical and unequivocal hard-line obstinacy will create more problems than solve the existing one. The Arroyo Government does not want to be seen as caving in to the demands of Angelo�s kidnappers, but at the same time it wants to save his life. How to accomplish both and still come out looking relatively good, to its most important public? The key that the Arroyo Government is using to solve its dilemma is the August 20 expiry date for the Philippine �humanitarian� mission in Iraq, at which time the entire contingent, all 51 of them, is supposed to have fulfilled its mission and can thus come home with flying colors. The Philippine negotiators are trying to placate the Iraqi Islamist kidnappers with that August 20 deadline, apparently hoping that the Iraqis will agree to slide their already twice extended deadline all the way to August 20. That way, the Philippines comes out with its honor intact, as far as fulfilling its (ill-advised) commitment to its allies is concerned; Angelo de la Cruz stays alive; and the Iraqi Islamists can claim success in weakening George W. Bush�s Coalition of the Willing Accomplices in the Rape of Iraq by yet another country, after the withdrawal of Spain, Norway, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. (According to a story in the Washington Post, reprinted in Today [July 16], in the next five months, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Thailand are also pulling out. Poland follows in mid-2005.) The Philippines is in eminently good company, which US comedian Jay Leno is obviously ignorant about The Americans and the Australians criticize us for being weak in our resolve, but what do they know about suffering and humiliation? When the Americans suffer an atrocity at the hands of the Iraqi Islamists, they can always retaliate, as they have retaliated, by bombing mosques, orphanages and wedding parties, and then call their atrocities accidents. We who are powerless and have no means with which to retaliate if and when we are attacked and humiliated should not have meddled in this bruising brawl in the first place. The Americans and the British are in Iraq to corner its oil for themselves (the British used to monopolize that oil in the 1920s) and to save the Jews of Israel from possible annihilation by the Arabs under a resurgent Saddam Hussein. Proof of this is the benign, almost apologetic, US (and tag-along UK) policy towards North Korea, even though North Korea has a far more advanced (and now publicly acknowledged) nuclear weapons program than Iraq and already has its Taepodong missiles which have a 1,000-km range, that can hit US bases in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Midway, Wake and Okinawa. It is known to be developing the Taepodong-2 missiles with a 6,000-km range, able to hit the US West Coast. By contrast, Iraq�s al-Samoud missiles are limited by UN sanctions to a range of only 150 kms and cannot reach even the northernmost parts of Israel. So why have the Americans (and the tag-along British) not vented their fury on Kim Jong Il�s North Korea which, by any standard, constitutes the bigger and more immediate threat to US security than Saddam Hussein�s Iraq does? Obvious, isn�t it? The Korean Peninsula does not hold a single drop of oil; Iraq has the second largest known petroleum deposits in the world. North Korea does not pose a threat to the Jews of Israel; Iraq does, the security of Israel being a bi-partisan concern in American domestic politics. I wrote about this in �War for Oil and Israel� (Jan. 30, 2003), and other articles archived in www.tapatt.org. Even the US Senate has concluded that Bush�s invasion of Iraq was sold to the gullible and famously uninformed American public (Jay Leno�s public) with a pack of lies: weapons of mass destruction (none of which have ever been found) and Iraq�s complicity in 9/11 (which even the CIA and the FBI admit there was no evidence of). The pipsqueak Philippines sent 51 �humanitarian� troops to Iraq, not to join in the mad scramble for Iraq�s oil or to help save the Jews from annihilation, but to show the Philippine flag beside the US Stars and Stripes, with the hope of being rewarded with at least 100,000 jobs if and when the time comes that the US has to rebuild what it has destroyed. But this was a myopic view. Ultimately, the Americans will likely abandon Iraq, and ultimately the reconstruction of Iraq will be undertaken by the Iraqis themselves, using the income from their own oil, under a government of their own choosing. So it is the Iraqis, not the Americans, whom the Philippines should curry favor with. In my article �Helping the Iraqis � (May 08, 2003), I wrote that instead of sending soldiers and policemen, whose usefulness will be of insignificant value, the Philippines should send, say, �a million dollars worth of medicines for the children of Iraq, medicines that are the products of Filipino and Philippine-based pharmaceutical companies. �Properly labeled in Arabic and dispatched to the Red Crescent of Iraq in the presence of the ambassadors of Muslim countries based in Manila, this gesture will surely earn for us a lot of goodwill in the Organization of Islamic Conference and may help us peacefully solve our own problem of Muslim secession. Especially if similar aid were extended to the children of Palestine and the children of Afghanistan�.� If the Arroyo Government had followed this suggestion, chances are Angelo de la Cruz, our hapless Angel of the Cross, who has become the Filipino Everyman, would not be in the fix that he and the country are in now. But then, of course, that would have negated the chances of the Philippines being classified as a �major non-NATO ally� of the US, a dubious honor which seems to be a big deal for certain small minds.***** The bulk of this article appears in the July 24, 2004 issue of the Philippines Free Press magazine. ***** ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. In reaction to my article �Ten Million Jobs�, UP social scientist Amado Mendoza Jr. emailed five articles written by him, part of his doctoral dissertation, on the Philippine political economy, including one that suggests a tri-sectoral model for the Philippine employment scene: the formal, the informal and the criminal. Said articles are now archived in the Reference Material section of www.tapatt.org. In reaction to the same article, American banker and Philippine-resident John Mangun emailed his article �Ten Million Jobs Will Cost Ten Billion Dollars�, which will be the start of an archive of his articles (written for the Philippine Graphic Weekly) in the tapatt website. In reaction to my article �Wow, Philippines!�, Rolf Bresler of www.encylea.com sent a copy of the book �100 Resorts in the Philippines�, written by two French ladies, which will be reviewed shortly in this space. In reaction to the same article, Elsa Bayani of Little Rock, Arkansas, emailed an article narrating her family�s ordeal with Philippine Immigration when they arrived at NAIA with her 4-yr old US-citizen granddaughter on Jan. 3, 2004. The article, titled �Tourist Boom or Doom?� will be archived in the Reference Material section of www.tapatt.org. In reaction to my articles on Namfrel and the 2004 elections, UP statistician Roberto Verzola emailed his article �Finishing Namfrel tally can help provide closure to 2004 elections� (Inquirer, June 27), which will be referred to in a future article on Namfrel�s Terminal Report. In reaction to my article �PLDT of Samarkand�, Gene Orejana of ABS-CBN emailed his litany of complaints against Mitsubishi Philippines for selling him a �Pajero Lemon� and refusing to replace it. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the many corrections I have received on the first name of the Great Khan of PLDT. It is Manny, not Mark. My apologies to everyone. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Angel of the Cross� GMA did the right. It was a reasonable move; it should not be seen as placating the terrorists or caving in to terrorists' demands. Sending a peacekeeping force was political meant to strengthen the country's ties with USA and to boost the latter international prestige; pulling the peacekeeping force early was rational. It was rational because the Philippines stands to gain nothing on an illegitimate war; moreover it made the Philippines' position awkward as a temporary member of the UN Security Council. Iraq did not have the presence of a UN sponsored peacekeeping force. PI's contingent was under the auspices of an occupying force. Dr. Nestor P. Baylan New York, USA [email protected] July 19, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I agree that vagueness is often a diplomatic cover for a hidden motive. When Aguinaldo was brought in by the U.S. Navy from Singapore to renew the fight against the Spanish colonial administration , it was clear to Aguinaldo, after being assured by Admiral Dewey, that the Americans were there to help the Filipinos achieve independence from Spain. But the occupying forces from General Merritt down to General Otis were vague about this. And as American troops continue to arrive, until the number reached 20,000, Aguinaldo asked the American generals who will the troops fight considering that the 30,000 strong Philippine revolutionary army had already defeated the Spanish army in the whole country except Manila, and is ready to take the city. The answer Aguinaldo got was from an American sentry who fired the first shot to start the grueling, atrocious Philippine-American war, and the rest is history. Yours truly, Virgilio Leynes [email protected] July 19, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww hi tony. good to know we are along the same thinking. i thought i was all alone. cheers gil Gil Santos [email protected] July 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, The decision of Malacanang, surely with GMA's approval, to negotiate with the terrorist kidnappers in Iraq, and more incredibly to give in to their demand, must be taken with total disgust by any logical thinking Filipino with any ounce of pride in his/her country. How could our leader surrender our sovereignty to a group of subhuman individuals whose word means nothing, and who would murder a million people without batting an eyelash to attain their objectives. After all that talk of a strong republic! We are instantly a nation of wimps. Worst of all, there would have hardly been any loss of popularity for GMA had she stood firm, maybe even some gain. If she does not stand up to no-brainers like the hostage crisis, there is no chance in hell she will make the really difficult moves that have to be made to solve our economic and political problems. Waiting again for the right leader, Robert Paradies [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Found this old piece. This American's perspective may interest you. [email protected] July 16, 2004 Freedom, Incorporated By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 21 June 2004 I pulled in to Nazareth, Feeling 'bout half past dead. Just need to find a place Where I can lay my head. "Mister, can you tell me where A man might find a bed?" He just grinned and shook my hand, "No" was all he said. - 'The Weight' The June 30 deadline for the delivery of 'sovereignty' to the people of Iraq is right around the corner. If the talk coming out of the administration is to believed, this will be an historic moment: The United States of America will deliver freedom to a people long oppressed by a brutal dictator. After seventeen car bombings in seventeen days, with whole sections of Iraq beyond the control of American forces, and with 840 American soldiers dead, it appears that the Iraqi people are not so sanguine about this proffered American liberty. Many here on the home front cannot understand why these people would bite the hand that is trying to feed them. After all, who would not want our brand of freedom? Perhaps the Iraqi people know more about what we define as 'freedom' than we do. Freedom, in this case, comes with corporate sponsorship: Halliburton, Carlyle, Bechtel, CACI, DynCorp, Parsons Corporation and many others. These corporations are, in many ways, the sharp end of American policy decisions in Iraq. The U.S. military has the guns, and serves often as the enforcers of this corporate policy, but these are the companies doling out electricity, food and jobs to the people of Iraq. Some of these companies - CACI and DynCorp for starters - also have guns. They are the ones running the show, and the people of Iraq know this full well. In many ways, the Iraqi people are like the citizens of newly-minted America after the Revolution. Back then, the American people had a deep and abiding mistrust of corporations. In the days when they were subject to British rule, that rule was enforced by the strong arm of incredibly powerful corporations like the British East India Company, the Hudson Bay Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company. The seminal moment of the American Revolution came when colonists defied the British East India Company's decision to tax tea, and 342 boxes of the stuff wound up adrift on the tide in Boston Harbor. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 freed the colonists not only from British rule, but from the rule of these corporations. For nearly 100 years afterwards, the citizens of the United States were profoundly suspicious of corporate power. Corporate charters were created by individual states as a legal convenience, and were automatically dissolved if they violated those charters. Corporations were not allowed to participate in the political process, could not buy stock in other corporations, and were destroyed out of hand if they were deemed to be behaving contrary to the public trust. While these corporations played an important role in the development of the nation, they were subservient to the rule of the people. Even so, their power worried even the greatest minds of that age. President Abraham Lincoln, in a letter written to a Col. William Elkins on November 21, 1864, wrote, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." What made Lincoln fear corporate power? He feared it because he saw that power growing before his very eyes, despite the controls which had been put in place. He feared it because he watched first-hand a process which haunts us to this day: War allows the power of corporations to grow explosively. During the Civil War, corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts to supply the federal government with everything it needed to keep a massive army functional and on the move. Those profits, and the disorder of the time, gave corporations the muscle to buy legislatures and courts. By the time Lincoln wrote his letter, corporations had very nearly achieved the cancerous supremacy which had been so feared and despised by the colonists before the Revolution. That supremacy was achieved on May 10, 1886, with a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case titled County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394). The matter before the court turned on taxes and assessments which Santa Clara County believed it was owed by Southern Pacific Railroad. The court found for the railroad company, and enshrined the following words into the annals of American law: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does. The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This was the birth of corporate personhood, the idea that a corporation has the same rights and privileges as a single individual. From this point on, in the argument over how much power any single company or group of companies could gather, all bets were off. The court's decision in 1886 essentially created what could be described as super-citizens. Kalle Lasn, in his book 'Culture Jam', describes it this way: "Considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution - that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates - had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that it 'could not be supported by history, logic or reason.' One of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea of democratic government." By 1919, corporations employed more than 80% of the American workforce and produced most of America's wealth. Because they were so financially powerful, it became impossible to challenge their supremacy in court: Any challenger would be spent into the ground. Their ability to manipulate domestic and foreign policy via financial largesse to political leaders created a nation where virtually every decision purportedly made in the name of the people was, in fact, an extension of corporate desire. In every way imaginable, a slow coup d'�tat had taken place in the United States. And war, as ever, increased their fortunes. In the aftermath of World War II, corporations were rolling in the profits earned through procurements from the federal government, exactly as they had during the Civil War. The difference between 1865 and 1946 was the personhood granted by the Santa Clara decision. The power enjoyed by corporations after the war, augmented by the military ramp-up of the Cold War, motivated another American President to voice another warning. President Eisenhower, in his farewell speech on January 17, 1961, said: "We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense without peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Eisenhower's warning, like Lincoln's, went unheeded. Revenues from government procurements to fight the Cold War, along with several actual shooting wars in places like Korea and Vietnam, further strengthened corporate rule in America. Corporations merged, expanded, became stand-alone economies more powerful than many sovereign nations. During the administration of Ronald Reagan, which worked day and night to further deregulate the controls placed upon corporations, and which spent untold billions on further expanding the American military, what can only be described as total victory over democracy was achieved by the corporate powers-that-be. The people of Iraq probably don't know this history, but they can see and feel the effects every day of their lives. Thus, they fight and resist. We Americans also see, feel, breathe and eat the affects of this coup. Thankfully, we have television and the supremacy of rampant materialism to salve the disquiet in our souls. When it becomes too much, we have Prozac and Ritalin to tame the inner rebellion. When airplanes come from the sky and blast our self-assurance into flaming bits, we are counseled by our President to go shopping. Words like "freedom" and "democracy" lose their truth as they are transformed into marketing vectors. The 'War on Terror' fills the coffers of corporations with umbilical ties to those who run the country. Those in office today purportedly serve in the interest of the citizenry. In truth, it is the super-citizens who benefit. War increases their power, which in turn makes war inevitable. It is an old story, too often repeated. To do, think or say anything else is unpatriotic, you see. Such is life under freedom, Incorporated. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
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