American connection

Ben Contreras

PUPPIES are cute because they are small and harmless. When they grow up and become their natural selves, except for those that are well-trained, they are capable of biting even the hands that feed them. When bitten, the masters dispose them. To the extreme, kill them.

America is rich(?), considered a land of honey and greener pasture by many. Some of those who made it big there profess love for America than their own land of birth.

America is powerful. It has the most powerful armaments in the world, the known and the unknown. It is capable of helping and destroying a nation. Thus, if a country is in trouble, she goes to America for help. Help, America gives but not without strings attached. Alliance is entered into, adherence and obedience is a must and when one makes America unhappy, then be afraid of the consequence. World history is replete with this.

Today, we rejoice over the victory at the Arbitrary Court. But let us not prematurely be jubilant that America is with us. For one simple reason, why did America allow China to do her things in South China Sea and didn’t nip it in the bud if the US is really with us? Did America allow it to become a monster so we would be running to her for help?

America is a kingmaker. Be her lackey and she will make you a leader of your nation. Defy her and you become like Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Bashar El-Assad of Syria.

Many dictators in the world were America’s lackeys before they became the dogs that bit the hands that fed them. Remember what US President Ronald Reagan said about Marcos? “I don’t care if he (Marcos) is a sonofab@#$% for as long as he is our sonofab@#$% .”

We’ve been under the US for long that we adopted the American way of life, education and their kind of democracy. When we ousted Marcos, the nationalists (kuno) in us drove away the American bases. When the Americans left, the Mount Pinatubo erupted, burying a wide area with mud and boulders.

For curiosity’s sake, have we ever thought of asking what’s under those mud and boulders? One wild theory is that a nuclear facility was buried there somwhere. It’s more expensive to bring it home than destroy it.

Over the years that we have been loving America, what have she been doing in our land? Building military facilities beyond our knowledge?

American facilities are made for her own protection, not for the host nations. America will never allow anything (war) to reach their homeland so she needs satellites as shock absorbers.

Poor countries love gifts, grants and anything free. But no, there is nothing free. There is always a string attached. Loans for relaxed economic and political policies, vintage war materials that would need spare parts at the donor’s dictated prices and a more subservient government to America.

The Visiting Forces Agreement came about after President Erap Estrada was ousted. Was US behind it? We will never know. But the fact is, VFA is just the beginning of America’s return to our land, and I mean to control our land again.

I got a load of education when I branded China as a bully. At a time when China’s economy boomed, when the joke “God created the world but everything is made in China” was no longer a joke, I found the acts of China in the South China Sea unusual, to say the least.

Why would China risk being repudiated by the world as she is now being ganged up by neighboring countries? Has China been careless and errant in her judgment? (to be continued)