Phillippines Boots US Out

[David Guyatt]

Quite a change.

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte orders US forces out of country, cutting 65 years of military ties

Do not treat us like a doormat because you'll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China'

• Alexandra Sims
  

Rodrigo Duterte has ordered 28 annual military exercises with US forces to be halted ReutersThe president of the Philippines has promised to dismantle the nation's 65-year military alliance with the United States, warning Washington not to treat the nation "like a doormat".
Rodrigo Duterte has ordered 28 annual military exercises with US forces to be halted and an ongoing US-Philippines amphibious beach landing exercise to be the last in his six-year presidency.

"This year would be the last," said Mr Duterte, referring to military exercises involving the US in a speech on Friday in southern Davao city.



US military forces prepare for the annual Philippines-US live fire amphibious landing exercise north of Manila, Philippines (Reuters)


Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte reassesses US ties

"For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you'll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China."
In an attempt to draw back from what Mr Duterte views as too much dependence on the US, 107 American troops involved in operating surveillance drones against Islamic militants will be asked to leave the country once the Philippines acquires its own intelligence-gathering capabilities, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.
The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte

Mr Lorenzana said he would ask the Philippines Congress for $50m (£40.3m) to $100m (£80.7) a year to compensate for US military aid, The Times reports.
"We have been allies since 1951," he said. "All we got are hand-me-downs, no new equipment. The Americans failed to beef up our capabilities to be at par with what is happening in the region."
The divide in military relations with the country's former colonial master comes as Mr Duterte lashed out against US criticism of his national crackdown on drug crime, which has left more than 3,600 suspects dead in just three months.

In September, Mr Duterte launched a scathing attack on US President Barack Obama, telling him to "go to hell" and calling him a "son of a bitch" when it was suggested he would be questioned over the killings.

Mr Lorenzana said affairs could recover if criticism of the drugs war subsided. "Relationships sometimes go to this stage but over time it will be patched up," he said.
Mr Duterte's strained relations with Washington do not appear to have spread to US allies such as Japan, which has committed to deliver patrol ships for the Philippine coast guard and signed a deal to lease five small surveillance planes to reinforce its territorial defence.

Philippines: President Rodrigo Duterte's 100 days in office

Mr Duterte has also reached out to China and Russia. Mr Lorenzana said he would travel to Beijing and Moscow to discuss acquiring defence equipment from them.
Commenting on the possibility that joint manoeuvres will be the last under Mr Duterte's presidency, US military spokesman for the drills, Major Roger Hollenbek, said: "If it's the last, so be it."

"I have nothing to do with that and we are going to continue to work together, we've got a great relationship."
Mr Duterte was elected in May on the promise of preventing the Philippines from becoming a "narco-state" and vowed to kill those involved in importing or selling illegal drugs.
The scale of his crackdown has been unprecedented. A rough estimate puts the death toll around 3,600, including 1,300 suspects killed in gun battles with police an average of 36 killings a day since he took office on 30 June, which has drawn criticism from the US, the EU, the UN and human rights watchdogs.

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[Peter Lemkin]

[quote=David Guyatt]Quite a change.

[quote]
Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte orders US forces out of country, cutting 65 years of military ties

Do not treat us like a doormat because you'll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China'

[/quote]
Ah, how the USA longs for the days of the their puppet Marcos. While I have no love for Duterte [he is a thug murderer and anti-liberty and law kind of political leader], he certainly is within his rights to change the relationship, including military, between the USA and Philippines. I do think, however, that he will soon slip on a 'banana peel' planted under his feet by the US National Security apparatus. The USA doesn't give up bases and military exercises without some fightback - be it overt or covert. I think in this case it will be mostly covert. So far, I've heard very little publicly from Obama or anyone else on Duterte's radical moves - which further leads me to think something covert is (being) planned.

[Magda Hassan]

Wonder how long he will live? This is not going to go down well in Washington. They have plans to use the Philippines as their aircraft carrier in their pivot to Asia ( aka destruction of China) It will make it much harder if not near impossible to operate their navy and other military there. China have sorted their issues with the islands with the other locals and Vietnam, who owes the US fuck all, have also come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with China.

[David Guyatt]

[quote=David Guyatt]Quite a change.

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte orders US forces out of country, cutting 65 years of military ties

Do not treat us like a doormat because you'll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China'

Ah, how the USA longs for the days of the their puppet Marcos. While I have no love for Duterte [he is a thug murderer and anti-liberty and law kind of political leader], he certainly is within his rights to change the relationship, including military, between the USA and Philippines. I do think, however, that he will soon slip on a 'banana peel' planted under his feet by the US National Security apparatus. The USA doesn't give up bases and military exercises without some fightback - be it overt or covert. I think in this case it will be mostly covert. So far, I've heard very little publicly from Obama or anyone else on Duterte's radical moves - which further leads me to think something covert is (being) planned.

Yep, I can't see the Pentagon losing their control there without some fight. But what fun anyway... ::laughingdog::

[Magda Hassan]

Don't worry. They still have Australia who is always willing to be their little poodle.

[David Guyatt]

Philippines Triggers Asian Tectonic Shift Away From US[URL="http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Nov2016.php"]
By F. William engdahl
9 November 2016[/URL]
What a difference an election can make. Since his swearing in as Philippine President this past June, succeeding Washington puppet Benigno Aquino III, the outspoken, plain-talking Rodrigo Duterte has moved his strategically pivotal Asian country away from the US geopolitical orbit. Now President Duterte is on an Asian tour that has taken him to China and then Japan. Soon he has indicated plans to meet Russia's Putin too. He appears set to blow a huge hole in the Pentagon Asia Pivot aimed at encircling China militarily. And the Philippines shift is setting off tectonic shifts across the Asia space from Vietnam to Myanmar and beyond
Hints of the shift appeared to begin just after his inauguration on his very popular promise to clean up the nation's large and growing narcotics problem. When reports of bounty hunters shooting drug dealers on sight without trial appeared, the US Ambassador, Philip Goldberg and Obama Administration criticized Duterte, who clearly rejected the criticism, chilling relations. Duterte retorted that Goldberg was "a gay son-of-a-bitch," and that Obama was "son of a whore." Leaving aside the question of the veracity of Duterte's remarks, he definitely introduced a new tone into international diplomacy and signaled he was not intending, like his oligarchic predecessor Aquino, to be Washington's lap dog. You can be sure his open defiance did not go unnoticed across the developing world.
However the clear signal of the tectonic shift in alliance policy for the former US occupied republic came during President Duterte's recent visit to Beijing. There he was received by China President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square on October 20.
And in Beijing, to the apparent surprise of the Obama Administration, Duterte announced to the Chinese and to the world that he was proclaiming a "separation" from the United States. Rather than come to Beijing with confrontation over the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague on July 12 rejecting any and all claims of China to various islands or even rocks inside what is known as the "Nine Dash Line" between China's coast and The Philippines, Duterte spent four days in China talking business deals and peaceful coexistence.
During a later meeting of Philippine and Chinese business leaders in Beijing, Duterte elaborated. "I announce my separation from the United States, both in military but economics also. America has lost it" Speaking to his Chinese hosts, Duterte continued: "I realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia." Culturally, he is also close to China. His maternal grandfather was a Chinese immigrant from Xiamen, Fujian. Welcome to Asia.

Crossing the Rubicon

Duterte's statements were not off the cuff as Western media and the White House tried to portray. A month before his Beijing visit, in a private talk with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during the September ASEAN Summit, Duterte reportedly told the Russian that he was about to go past a point of no return in terms of the Philippines' relationship with the United States, revealing that he had sought help from Russia about the move: "I'm about to cross the Rubicon between me and the United States. At least for the next six years I would need your help," he said to Russia's Prime Minister.
While the White House and Western media tried to portray the remarks of the unusually outspoken new Philippine leader as posturing to get the best deal for the country, the background and ensuing developments suggest, on the contrary, that the talks with Beijing are part of a deeper Philippine geopolitical strategy.
Days before departing for Beijing Duterte told Philippine press regarding the dispute with China over the South China Sea, "War is not an option. So what is the other side? Peaceful talks." He added a note of sly pragmatism with more than a little truth, stating, "It's China that has money, not America."
By the end of the week, Duterte's Philippines business and government delegation had signed deals worth a reported $13.5 billion. Duterte also stated that he would like to bring his country into the vast One Belt, One Road infrastructure project of Xi's China. President Xi referred to China and the Philippines as Xi called the two countries "neighbors across the sea with no reason for hostility or confrontation."
Little reported in Western media was the fact that on October 25, one day after Duterte returned to Manila, Chinese military ships quietly left disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced the departure, adding, "If the Chinese ships have left then it means our fishermen can resume fishing in the area."
The Chinese move dramatically defuses a confrontation that Washington had hoped to unleash through their manipulation of a de facto illegal Hague tribunal, all as part of the Pentagon Asia Pivot military encirclement of China through its Asian neighbors. Washington neo-cons must be chewing their neckties in rage at the brilliant Chinese-Philippine moves.

Ramos' quiet diplomacy

More interesting still is the man who behind the scenes prepared the Xi-Duterte meeting. In one of his first acts as President this past July, Duterte announced that he had named former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos as his Special Envoy to China. At the time, tensions between the two countries over the Hague tribunal ruling were very high. Ramos was on record proposing that Duterte set aside the recently announced award in the South China Sea arbitration and resume bilateral talks with Beijing.
Ramos, the man who played a key role in deposing dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980's, together with Washington, is one of the senior statesmen of Asia. A decorated military hero who graduated from the West Point Military Academy and was even briefly on the international advisory board of the nefarious G.H.W. Bush-linked Washington Carlyle Group, the 88-year-old Ramos in recent years has worked to improve ties between Beijing and Manila.
As President from 1992 to 1998, Ramos worked successfully to improve Philippine relations with China in all areas. Ramos was chairman of the Council of Advisors to the high level China Boao Forum on Asia when Duterte named him as his China Special Envoy three months before Duterte's successful Beijing visit.
In his subsequent visit to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a bellicose US ally who has been increasingly aggressive towards China, rather than repudiate his pro-China remarks as some in the West and even his own Foreign Minister clearly hoped for, Duterte announced that he wanted all foreign (read US) troops out of the Philippines within two years. His predecessor, pro-Washington Benigno Acquino had invited the US forces back in, allowing them to use Clark Air Base again after the Philippines Congress in 1991 refused to renew the lease of the US Air Force.

Tectonic effects beginning

What can only be called the defiance of the new Philippine President towards the once-feared American Superpower, has already begun to set off a tectonic geopolitical shift in the Asia region.
The next Asian nation to sho signs of tectonic geopoliticl shift is Vietnam. Vietnam until recently appeared in the grip of Washington's anti-China campaign, as part of the US Asia Pivot.
Prof. Zhang Baohui, Professor of Political Science at the Hong Kong Lingnan University notes that "the US needs a narrative that paints China as an aggressor. More importantly, the narrative needs a victim' of China's revisionism to highlight the needs for regional countries to boost their defense and seek closer ties with the United States."
"Duterte's pivot to China' fundamentally undermines that narrative." Zhang Baohui adds that, "If the Philippines and China could resolve their tension through a cooperative win-win formula, others in the same position, countries such as Vietnam, also may be motivated to forsake the balancing strategy and opt for accommodation with China."
Indeed, Vietnam, also an historic ally of Russia from the Cold War era, has already begun to move closer to Beijing. On August 30, Vietnam's Defense Minister, General Ngô Xuân Lịch, paid a highly unusual visit to the mausoleum of Mao Zedong in Beijing and laid wreaths there. He stated that Vietnamese people never forget the "selfless" contributions that China rendered to their country's war of independence. Then, on September 12, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, stated that his country sees Sino-Vietnamese relations as the top priority of Vietnam's foreign policy.
Add to this the recent fact that Thailand, until recently in the grip of a US -backed Thaksin Shinawatra oligarchy, has moved, since the military took over in May, 2014 as the National Council for Peace and Order, towards increasing ties economically and militarily with China.
As Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci recently noted in the NEO journal, Thailand, Washington's longstanding ally, has recently "incrementally dismantled American influence over it." Thailand's trade now is focused primarily on Asia with the majority of its imports and exports "divided equally between China, Japan, and ASEAN" nations. Perhaps more significantly, "What used to be a military dominated by American hardware and military exercises, is transforming with the acquisition of Chinese tanks, European warplanes, Middle Eastern assault rifles, Russian helicopters, and Thai-made armored vehicles as well as joint drills held with a variety of nations, including for the first time, China."
As Duterte expressed it in his recent Asian tour, diplomacy is better than war to resolve disputes. And besides, it's much more fun to build up nations and entire continents as China is doing through its vast One Belt, One Road than it is to make war and to destroy which is Washington's bankrupt alternative these days. Everywhere we look in today's world, wars and rape of nations is becoming boring for more and more of the world. People want to grow, to build a safe, prosperous future and live in peace. Washington, only a few years ago the Sole Superpower, is today, as the title of my newest book puts it, "The Lost Hegemon."
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook"

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