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World News See other World News Articles Title: Operation Pacific Eagle: Duterte Falls in Line with US Plans for the Philippines Operation Pacific Eagle: Duterte Falls in Line with US Plans for the Philippines Whatever anti-imperialist intentions the notoriously zig-zag Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte may have begun with, his natural affinity for the like-souled Trump has quickly brought him around to the traditional symbiosis with the U.S. and its use of his country for a regional launchpad. by Elliott Gabriel February 15th, 2018 By Elliott Gabriel In the second part of this MPN exclusive, we examine the U.S. military’s latest intervention in Asia, its 120 years of imperialist domination in the Philippines, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s half-hearted push for independence from Washington. We speak to exiled Filipino revolutionary Jose Maria Sison and Professors William I. Robinson and Roland Simbulan. In Part Three, we will conclude with a comparison of Operation Pacific Eagle to the notorious counterinsurgency initiative “Plan Colombia,” and look at how the new Pentagon mission enables the U.S. to continue encircling China with its military bases. In Part One, we spoke to Ka Oris of the New People’s Army and the professors about the armed struggle on the southern island of Mindanao and its nearly trillion dollars in mineral deposits — a crucial motive for Washington to prioritize the Philippines as a major military theater on the same scale as Syria and Iraq. MANILA, PHILIPPINES — By all appearances, Operation Pacific Eagle — the U.S. military’s new overseas contingency operation to team up with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to fight so-called “extremist” groups — is a mission conceived to never end. Packaged as an extension of the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) group’s Southeast Asian cohorts, Operation Pacific Eagle has been confirmed by a U.S. government report as entailing that U.S. special operations personnel accompany AFP troops in all of its military operations, especially on the large southern island of Mindanao. A virtually limitless sum of money will also be allowed to fund the mission, which will be prioritized on the same level as Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq and Syria. As MintPress detailed in Part I of this series, the alleged presence of so-called “ISIS-P” (Islamic State group in the Philippines) militants in Mindanao, which remains under martial law, provides a convenient excuse for the entrenching of U.S. Armed Forces to assist the AFP in halting “radicalization and violent extremism” in the country. Launched last September but only announced last month, the mission ensures that the U.S. will play a direct role in armed operations aimed at quelling the nearly half-century-old insurgency of the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), who were tagged as “terrorists” by President Rodrigo Duterte after peace talks between Manila and the leftists dramatically fell apart last year. The multi-faceted armed struggles and mass movements of the country’s poor majority have been the main engine of the Filipino peoples’ long push for national self-determination, genuine independence and a democratically-run economy — a fight that dates back to the era of Spanish theocratic rule. It was precisely the demand for an end to the U.S. stranglehold on the Philippines that paved the way for Duterte, who promised to forge an independent foreign policy, to be elected in 2016 in a tactical alliance with the anti-imperialist left. Poster Comment: Mindanao has a Trillion dollars in mineral deposits. All the more reason for the U.S. to be there. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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