U.S. empire menaces Asia
By Greg Butterfield
President George W. Bush's May 1 speech aboard
the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln declaring U.S. victory
in Iraq was more than just an arrogant proclamation of
colonialism to people in the Middle East. It also signaled new
dangers and challenges for independent governments and people's
movements further east, in Asia and the Pacific.
Increasingly, the White House and Pentagon warlords are
pushing, prodding and projecting their military prowess
throughout the region, especially in Korea and the
Philippines.
This was the subject of a very different speech given at a
mass demonstration in Pyongyang, North Korea, celebrating the
May Day workers' holiday. Ryom Sun Gil, leader of the General
Federation of Trade Unions of Korea, urged workers there to
"form regiments and divisions so that they may be fully ready
to defend the country from the enemy's invasion." (Korean
Central News Agency, May 2)
Seeing how Iraq's people are now subject to brutal colonial
occupation, people in North Korea and throughout Asia are
standing up against the proliferation of U.S. bases, Pentagon
intervention in sovereign countries' affairs and outright
threats of war.
Socialist North Korea, in particular, has been the target of
increased U.S. belligerence since the Pyongyang government
announced plans to reactivate its nuclear program and use any
means at its disposal to defend the country from a U.S.
invasion or attack.
The White House and corporate media are working hard to
portray this small country of 25 million people as a global
threat because it dares to say it will defend its sovereignty
and independence. Bush even included North Korea, along with
Iran and Iraq, in the so-called axis of evil.
But for 50 years North Korea has been trying to get
Republican and Democratic presidents to sign a formal peace
treaty ending the state of war between the two countries. Every
president--from Eisen hower to Bush II-has refused.
Both the Clinton and Bush administrations egregiously
violated a 1994 agreement to build light-water nuclear reactors
and provide heating fuel in exchange for Pyongyang ending its
independent nuclear project. Yet Bush has the gall to accuse
North Korea of breaking the agreement.
On April 30, the North Korean government said it would view
any U.S. moves to impose United Nations sanctions over the
resumption of its nuclear program as a "green light for
war."
The May 2 Arab Times reported, "Pyong yang regularly reports
the number of U.S. spy flights it says were carried out in the
previous month, but Thursday's tally on the official KCNA news
agency was particularly detailed and came at a time of
heightened tension with the United States. KCNA quoted an
unidentified military source as saying various types of U.S.
reconnaissance aircraft had flown at least 220 missions to spy
on military targets, coastlines and front line positions along
the Demilitarized Zone border with the south."
The U.S. has 37,000 troops across the border in South Korea.
An additional 42,000 U.S. troops are stationed in nearby
Japan.
In 1992, when the senior George Bush was president, the
Pentagon admitted to having 2,400 nukes in the south aimed at
North Korea and People's China. Bush claimed these were
withdrawn, but there was no independent verification. Many
South Korean and U.S. anti-war activists believe the nukes are
still there.
Spread of bases in Asia
Progressive and anti-war forces in Asia joined the people of
Vieques, Puerto Rico, in celebrating their righteous eviction
of the U.S. Navy from the small island. For more than five
decades, Pentagon war games rained toxic poison, environmental
devastation, injury and death on the people of Vieques.
While much remains to be done--like forcing the Pentagon to
clean up its mess and pay reparations to Vieques' people- their
victory gives hope to others, like the villagers of
Maehyang-ri, South Korea, who also face these bombardments and
all the ills that accompany them.
But despite the victory in Vieques, the U.S. is expanding
its military operations globally--especially in Asia.
Anger against the U.S. occupation in South Korea has grown
so intense that the Pentagon is moving one of its largest bases
from the capital city of Seoul to a less populated area. Other
bases may be moved as well. (UPI, April 9)
Protests have grown stronger in recent years as U.S.-led
massacres from the 1950-1953 Korean War have come to light. The
killing of two Korean schoolgirls by recklessly-driving U.S.
military personnel has further inflamed anti-Pentagon
sentiment.
The Korean people, north and south, want to see their
country reunified on the basis of peace and independence, and
they see the 37,000 U.S. occupation troops as the main
roadblock to that goal.
Much has been said about the Pentagon plan to withdraw from
its bases in Saudi Arabia in favor of what are called
"temporary" bases in occupied Iraq. But that's just part of the
story.
On April 22, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported on a
strategy paper making the rounds in Washington. The report
"expresses the candidness of key Amer ican policy makers to
'eventually seek access to Indian bases and military
infrastructure.'" The strategy document was based on the views
of 42 individuals, including 23 U.S. military officers, 10
Indian military officers and five senior U.S. officials.
U.S. military bases in India would form a dangerous
beachhead for Pentagon aggression, both to the East, against
Korea and China, and to the West, against Iran and
Pakistan.
In an April 30 Reuters feature entitled, "Saudi Move Part of
Broader U.S. Military Realignment," Jack Spencer of the Heri
tage Foundation, a right-wing think tank with close ties to the
Bush regime, said, "The Middle East and Europe are important,
but the Pacific is where the future action is going to be.
You're not going to see a global base restructuring that
diminishes U.S. presence in Asia."
The article added that the Bush administration is
maneuvering to recapture its strategic bases in the
Philippines, a former U.S. colony where a militant people's
movement forced the Pentagon's eviction in 1991.
Christopher Hellman of the Center for Defense Information
told Reuters he "expects the United States to secure a basing
agreement with the Philippines by the end of the decade."
Real targets in Philippines
The transparent attempt to return U.S. military forces to
the Philippines has prompted mass outrage, like a demonstration
of 50,000 in Manila on Feb. 28. The Filipino people have
vehemently rejected the Pentagon's return and President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo's support for the U.S./British war and
occupation in Iraq.
Last year, U.S. and Filipino troops engaged in attacks on
Muslim villages in the country's southern islands under cover
of fighting terrorism, specifically the tiny Abu Sayyef group,
which Washington claimed was linked to Osama Bin Laden and
al-Qaeda. The aggression sparked protests throughout the
Philippines.
At the time, the communist-led New People's Army, which
characterizes the Abu Sayyef group as "bandits," said U.S.
actions were really aimed against larger national liberation
groups like the NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
On April 25, some 1,200 U.S. troops began new
"counter-terrorism" war games with the Filipino armed forces.
The exercises had been delayed because of popular
opposition.
The war games are being conducted from three points on the
northern island of Luzon, including two former U.S. military
bases that Washington desperately wants back: Subic Bay and
Clark Air Base.
Later this year, U.S. troops are scheduled to again join in
"anti-terror" exercises in the southern Sulu islands, although
technically U.S. forces are prohibited from engaging in combat
by the Philippine Constitution.
The largely Muslim south is home to the 12,000-strong Moro
Islamic Liberation Front, a group that has been fighting for
independence for 30 years.
The U.S. and Philippine governments are now moving to make
the MILF a target of their "anti-terror" campaign. During
recent talks between Arroyo's administration and the MILF, the
government accused the guerrillas of harboring "al-Qaeda cells"
in its ranks. (Gulf News Online, March 27)
The U.S. officially added the MILF and the NPA to its list
of "terrorist organizations."
But, as Prof. Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the
Communist Party of the Philippines, pointed out: "U.S.
imperialism is the only force that has used atomic bombs to
incinerate entire civilian populations. It has the largest
stockpile of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile weapons
of mass destruction. And it maliciously boasts of the barbaric
doctrine of first use and preemptive strike.
"It has killed millions of people through so many wars of
aggression, as in the conquest of the Filipino people [during
and after the Spanish-American War], in the Korean War, in the
Vietnam War and in the recent wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia and
Afghanistan. In the underdeveloped countries, it has instigated
puppet regimes of open terror, such as those of Chiang, Mobutu,
Suharto, Park, Pinochet and Marcos, to repress and massacre
millions of people. ...
"Let us expose and oppose the super-terrorism of U.S.
imperialism. The Bush administration has used the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks as a pretext for whipping up extremely repressive
and bellicose policies for the purpose of aggrandizing the U.S.
oil monopolies and the military-industrial complex and
preserving a world capitalist system that devours billions of
people even in the absence of a shooting war."
Reprinted from the May 15, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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