ERAP TOLD OFF IN HAWAII?   A US diplomat in Asia sounds off: "In this position I got the up close look at the imperial staff at Pacific Command. While I have my troubles with them, my main concern was the colonial approach they take with the Asian nations. It really seems to have gotten worse under ADM Blair. This will explain it: When President Estrada of the Philippines visited Hawaii last week, one of his stops was at PACOM headquarters. During the meeting, ADM Blair put up a list of military equipment that the US has provided the Philippines over the years. Then he put up a list of the equipment that is still operational. ADM Blair told President Estrada that that the Philippines will not get any more equipment from the US until the Philippines learns to take care of what they already have been given. Basically, you had a US flag rank officers lecturing the head of state of a US treaty ally. I could have understood his approach if he was talking to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, but he was addressing the head of state. This is in the best tradition of the ADM Dewey  when he sailed into Manila Bay and paid the Spanish $20 million to surrender to the US. As it has been said, "We stole the Philippine independence fair and square." There are a couple things troubling this: 1) I know this is not the US State Department or US Embassy position in regard to the Philippines. Pres. Estrada worked very hard to get the Visiting Forces Agreement passed in the Philippine Senate and he succeeded. The Philippines also stepped up to assist the US in East Timor when it was not in their national interest. The Government of the Philippines has worked hard with the US and there is no restriction on the US providing equipment to the Philippine Armed Forces. 2) There are many US defense contractors who are very actively marketing their equipment to the Philippines. Having a US ADM lecture the Philippine President is not helping them. The Philippines has been suffering from the same financial problems other Asian countries have been going through. However,they are going to modernizes their Armed Forces and this does not put the US companies in good standings. The other thing that the PACOM staff fails to recognize is the Armed Forces of the Philippines is the way they are because we trained them to not care about maintenance. The maintenance, logistics, and purchase of equipment was done by JUSMAG while the bases were here. We told them to take care of the internal security operations, we would continue to provide the equipment and logistical support, and the US would take care of the external security. This was funded by the bases compensation money and as a result we neglected to develop or train the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in maintenance operations. Now the PACOM staff believes the AFP should be like they want them to be, instead of how we trained them to be. The way to move them to be a more responsible Armed Force in maintenance operations is engage them, not withdraw from them. Another plan that ADM Blair has that is causing great concern in all the Asian countries is his desire to go away from bilateral exercises to multilateral exercises. All the bilateral exercises are based in treaty obligations and the Asian countries are reluctant, for a number of reasons, to participate in multilateral exercises. ADM Blair is forcing the countries to combine exercises under a multilateral operation that is not sitting well with the Asian nations. They say their treaty does not call for multilateral exercises but bilateral exercises. The multilateral exercises will probably be beneficial, at least to the US, but it should be handled in treaty negotiations and not forced on the countries." Hack's Weekly Mail, 2000-09-27 FEEDBACK back