REVIEWS:
“DIRTY WAR” A DOCUMENTARY (VIDEO) BY ALAN CARTER, 2005 by Jeremy Agar
Peace Researcher 33 –
November 2006
In 1991 popular opposition in the Philippines
forced the Senate to cancel the US
lease on its bases. Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base were huge,
the main American presence in the vital Asia-Pacific area. The Americans had to
decide what might replace the Philippines.
Filipinos, whose client and corrupt ruling elite prefers to ignore the plight
of the lower orders, were dumped with the problem of cleaning up the mess that
the Americans had left behind. “Dirty War” looks at three interlocked themes:
Philippine society, and military and environmental issues.
It’s mostly to do with the
environment, because the Americans messed up. One reason that bases are sited
offshore is to avoid regulation. Consider that the US
military has successfully lobbied against exemption from various controls back
in the US, and
then take note of the history of its relationship with the Philippines.
America bought
the Philippines
off the Spanish at the end of the 19th Century, at the conclusion of
the Spanish American War, so the islands were literally their private property.
In 1946 the Philippines
was granted independence, but a legacy of exploitation and dependence had been
established. As this coincided with the intensification of the Cold War, it’s
not as if Washington had lost
interest in the western Pacific. The US
knew that it could rely on tamed Philippine governments. Amongst other things,
it got a 99-year lease on the bases it was building.
Of all polluters in the US,
the military is the worst, so when this film documents the results of nearly a
century of unfettered contempt for a distant people and their land, the
information is almost as unsurprising as it is nasty. We are shown children
with deformities; we are told there are no fish in Subic Bay.
Toxic waste oozes from weapons dumps. The US
has 2,000 bases in 140 countries; it spends $US450 billion a year on making
more guns and bullets, so the filth is global. The Philippines
might well be the most abused of all the allies.
A spokesman for the Navy explains
that, in striking a balance between the needs of the military and the
environment, there must be “trade-offs”. Yet as the film notes, George Bush
Himself said that “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”. A
Bush mindset that justifies any and all of its whims as part of its holy war
against foreign “terrorism” does not pause to consider the plight of a distant
archipelago of diminishing strategic value.
The Americans looked for a more
dependable host and came up with Australia.
Compared to the Philippines,
John Howard’s Australia
recommended itself as stable, reliable and “fairly bloody regular”. That’s the
plus side. The negative is that the preferred site. Shoalwater
Bay, near Rockhampton, is in a
picturesque part of Queensland
which the Aussies don’t look forward to filling with toxic waste.
Enter the inevitable local
politicians talking up the need for a richer rates take. Enter the spin doctors
with their soothing words. It’s not a base, it is being said, it’s just a place
where a bunch of mates can land their planes. The residents are sceptical. They
suspect that their town is regarded as an out-of-the-way hicksville, keen for
attention and investment but short of political savvy.
The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition (whose spokesperson, Hannah
Middleton, appears in “Dirty War)”, is organising the “No Bases, No War Games”
actions at Shoalwater Bay
in June 2007. Visit www.anti-bases.org
for more details. Ed.
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