MERGED: All About RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty/ VFA-MLSA and Related Issues

[baby_grace]

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The US military is not actually intervening in the Philippines. Otherwise, that would mean an invasion of and disrespect to our sovereignty. What the US and the Philippines has right now are joint military training exercises. Under the VFA, Filipino soldiers will train with American soldiers for new military skills and tactics. That is not intervention. The participation of the American soldiers in construction projects and community services is also not a form of intervention. The Philippine government will not allow intervention of whatever form.

[Tarmac]

Correct. The title should really read "Military Presence," not "Military Intervention."

[people watcher]

"US-Philippines military cooperation" would be an even better euphemism, because after all they train together in order to maximize their cooperative capacity

[SPRINGFIELD_XD_40]

Did the U.S. Help Saddam Acquire Biological Weapons - Its working here perfectly..you should read it. ..its a genuine report taken from US Congress and ATCC.

Its still not working , unless akong pc naay deperensya hehehe .

lolz... my bad.. i have nothing against the US trainers & advisers here as ive said (again) since it will benefit to our country...

Actually bai .... I have been to 6 joint military exercises and once in Balikatan and with the world known Operation Cobra Gold with the Thai Armed Forces . There is no such thing as trainers and advisers either but just mere sharing of information , training and technology . In the Philippines , the MEU's / Rangers and other Specops trains the AFP for counter insurgency and the our SWAG/Scout Rangers and other Specop units trains the Americans in guerilla warfare . In between that ... both armed forces participates , regulates and protect HUMANITARIAN SERVICES .

I'm not in the US but it doesnt matter anyway...

It does matter ... I am assuming you being in the US or was in the US because big odds of pinoy who refers to Philippines as PI are immigrants in the US and lastly , you have to be in the US to know how the system works otherwise it will only fall back as PERSONAL OPINIONS which are all baseless even if you can copy and paste all the articles the net can provide and not even understand it .

[CaliforniaKid]

I'm no great fan of Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush, but upon reviewing the links provided I rather doubt that either leader was aware that bacterial or viral samples were exported to Iraq for study. The samples were delivered by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) to an Iraqi medical researcher who transported them to the Iraqi Department of Education with the understanding that they would be used for study and development of vaccines. Most of the samples were inert (meaning they could not directly infect someone). Believe it or not, a legitimate researcher with well-established credentials in the medical field can obtain all kinds of potentially dangerous substances. A friend of mine who was an undergraduate from India did some research where he mutated bird flu so it would attack horses and pigs as well. This was done not for weapons research but rather so a vaccine could be developed in advance just in case bird flu ever mutated that way naturally.

I'm not aware of any evidence that the American president or military leaders were aware of this transaction, or that the Iraqi government used the provided samples for weapons research. Part of the problem with the US government is that it has many branches, and sometimes one does not know what all the others are doing and thinking. The American military may have known that the Iraqis were using Sarin gas against Iranian troops, but the CDC likely did not know that when it signed off on the sale and export of these medical samples.

There's no question that backing Saddam was morally ambiguous. The US figured it was better to have a secular leader like Saddam control Iraq than the radical Iranian ayatollahs. It was a situation where we chose what we believed was the lesser of two evils: we chose to help preserve the status quo and protect Iraq's sovereignty by supplying tanks and helicopters to a failing Iraqi army. We did this even though we knew that Saddam was a cruel and unethical leader, because we believed the alternative was worse. It's a very similar situation to our arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Unfortunately in the real world sometimes a lesser evil is the best option.

[peewee_toot]

^^tnx for the info bro.

[SPRINGFIELD_XD_40]

[pridi]

aw, sa kaning gobyernoha, money speaks, next lang ang justice...

[winnie]

samok na kaayu ang pilipinas,,,,,

[grovestreet]

simply BS...