The Philippines Divorces the U.S.

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I participated in the October 26, 2016 “Libertarian Angle,” podcast sponsored by the Future of Freedom Foundation, with the Foundation’s president, Jacob G. Hornberger, on the topic: “The Philippines Divorces the U.S.”

This week we discuss the Philippine President’s “separation” from the United States. Since his election, Rodrigo Duterte, as the Philippine head of state, has carried out a sternly violent policy of being “tough” in that nation’s “war on drugs.” This led to a rebuke from the United States government, followed by Duterte using offensive and “colorful” language in describing Barack Obama.

The U.S. government and the media have primarily focused on Duterte’s declaration of breaking away from U.S. influence and his seeming shift towards the Chinese, both diplomatically and in trade agreements. What has been given far less attention and notice is the history behind this degree of resentment and anger against the United States, and not just by a strong-willed and emotionally charged foreign leader.

The American relationship with the Philippines began with broken promises and brutal force. In 1898, the U.S. promised Philippine rebels fighting their Spanish rulers independence for their country if they assisted the U.S. Navy’s attack on Manila during the Spanish-American War. Instead, the peace treaty ending the war transferred colonial control over the Philippines to the U.S. from Spanish hands.

When the Philippine freedom fighters continued to resist American rule, the U.S. military used methods of “pacification” so brutal that American reporters covering the insurrection had their dispatches back to the U.S. heavily censored or prohibited. Finally, the rebellion was suppressed by 1902 through force and deception and double-dealing by the American political and military authorities.

For the U.S., the Philippines remains a useful outpost from which to extend its political and military interventionism into the affairs of East Asia, as it continues to play its role of policeman of the world against all those the political central planners in Washington, D.C. label as “enemies” of world peace and U.S. attempted domination and manipulation of global affairs.

Such presumptuous resistance and criticism of the United States by a pipsqueak loudmouth such as Rodrigo Duterte, who is supposed to “know his place” and that of his country, in the grand American scheme for the world, is more than the Washington “experts” can stand.

Best,
Richard