The most uninteresting food from SE Asia. Won't miss pancit and greasy lumpia. I'm sure everyone is craving a balut.Meh...we really don't need the Philippines any more. Demolish (completely) all our military bases...and any other US government owned buildings/facilities...then GTFO and send all non-US citizen filipinos back. let Duarte cozy up to China...then sit back and listen to him whine when China takes the islands.
You do know how WWII started right? Remember how people said Hitler and Nazi Germany would just do this and that (bullying smaller neighbors and nothing else) and Imperial Japan would just leave the US alone after they took over weaker neighbors. We all know how things turned out.
And guess what after bully china takes over the whole SCS? It take on Japan ( Senkaku islands) and by treaty, the US will have to get involve.
Linky - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139
The calamansi juice we buy is from the Philippines. If defending the supply of calamansi juice requires the wholesale destruction of peoples and civilizations, well, it's pretty darn good juice.The most uninteresting food from SE Asia. Won't miss pancit and greasy lumpia. I'm sure everyone is craving a balut.
The most uninteresting food from SE Asia. Won't miss pancit and greasy lumpia. I'm sure everyone is craving a balut.
Being the dominant naval and air power in the world confers certain advantages that helps to maintain our interests, to realize these advantages you have to sail. Allowing China's unchallenged ascent to total regional dominance in Asia is not in our interest or that of our political/military/economic allies in the region.
You must be kidding. America was the primary catalyst for China's rise. It is now the world's greatest manufacturer and every year the gap between it and the rest of the world increases. Having ships there does not change this underlying truth. America WILL lose influence over there, that is a matter of physical reality and having ships over there won't do a damn thing to slow or stop it in any way.
Quite frankly, with all the rape and sex slavery being done by the US soldiers in the Philippines, I'm with Duterte on this one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...history-with-prostitution-gets-new-attention/
Maybe having your soldiers rape women with impunity isn't such a good idea.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has clarified his comments that seemed to call for a split from the United States, saying he was advocating a "separation of foreign policy" rather than "a severance of ties."
Addressing a press conference in Davao City after his return from a state visit to China, Duterte said:
"It is not severance of ties. You say severance of ties, you cut the diplomatic relations. I cannot do that.
"Why? It is in the best interest of my country that we maintain that relationship. Why? Because there are many Filipinos in the United States. Well, Americans of Filipino ancestry.
"Why? Because the people of my country [are] not ready to accept. I said separation -- what I was really saying was separation of a foreign policy. "
The US and the Philippines have been parting ways for awhile now.
Subic Bay was shut down in 1992.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Naval_Base_Subic_Bay
This was largely due to Mt. Pinatubo erupting and wiping out Subic Bay and Clark Air Base. There was some discontent with the presence of the U.S. Military mainly because a few years prior Ferdinand Marcos was ousted a president. He was basically a dictator who got very wealthy off U.S. support while doing very little for the country over many decades. He also spent most of the money of projects in his home province while punishing any opposition. With the cost of rebuilding the bases the decision was made to close them.
I think you will find a majority of Filipinos are not pleased with Duterte cozying up to China.
Good to know. Thanks.
However, his shaky stance on this issue seems to reflect a kind of naivete or lack of experience/situational awareness in dealing with foreign affairs.
Such being the case, I can see him saying things with bravado and then having to "clarify what he really meant to say" more often than not.
Quite frankly, with all the rape and sex slavery being done by the US soldiers in the Philippines, I'm with Duterte on this one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...history-with-prostitution-gets-new-attention/
Maybe having your soldiers rape women with impunity isn't such a good idea.
This was largely due to Mt. Pinatubo erupting and wiping out Subic Bay and Clark Air Base. There was some discontent with the presence of the U.S. Military mainly because a few years prior Ferdinand Marcos was ousted a president. He was basically a dictator who got very wealthy off U.S. support while doing very little for the country over many decades. He also spent most of the money of projects in his home province while punishing any opposition. With the cost of rebuilding the bases the decision was made to close them.
I think you will find a majority of Filipinos are not pleased with Duterte cozying up to China.
This was largely due to Mt. Pinatubo erupting and wiping out Subic Bay and Clark Air Base. There was some discontent with the presence of the U.S. Military mainly because a few years prior Ferdinand Marcos was ousted a president. He was basically a dictator who got very wealthy off U.S. support while doing very little for the country over many decades. He also spent most of the money of projects in his home province while punishing any opposition. With the cost of rebuilding the bases the decision was made to close them.
I think you will find a majority of Filipinos are not pleased with Duterte cozying up to China.
They where very pissed off about China building those islands in the scs...I have confirmed this with every Filipino friend I have asked. Most are in a quandary over their liking the strong arm Duterte is flexing over his attempting to get rid of the huge illegal drug problem they have, but are afraid of how Duterte may make long established relations with the USA rot on the vine.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Prostitution ― widespread in Korea ― has long been an issue at “camptowns” outside bases such as Osan Airbase and Camp Humphreys in Songtan and Pyeongtaek, and Camp Casey in Dongducheon as a remnant of the 1950-53 Korean War.
In the decades following the war, scholars and former Korean prostitutes say the Korean government encouraged the activities as a source of hard currency and a safeguard against the U.S. leaving the country.
But with the nation’s economic rise, the jobs have largely been outsourced to foreign women, now mostly Filipinas, said You Young-nim, director of My Sister’s Place, a group that offers them counseling.
She estimated that thousands of them now work in “juicy bars” outside the bases, saying soldiers ― despite the military’s “zero-tolerance policy” toward prostitution ― buy glasses of juice in order to spend time, flirt and dance with the women. Those women who fail to meet a quota for juice sales are often subject to “bar fines,” meaning they are told to sell their body to account for the shortfall, she said.
last week a Pentagon spokesman pledged to keep McCain and other lawmakers as informed as possible as the investigation proceeds.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the armed services committee, said he doubts that the military is enforcing its strict prostitution rules.
"The honest truth is probably no," said Graham, a former Air Force lawyer.
...
The order spelled out offenses and penalties and gave the military a tough enforcement tool - if it chose to use it - for behavior that, as Graham said, had "been around military bases as long as there has been a military."
Lawrence Korb, a former defense official, said that while he has heard stories of wayward military personnel since his time in Vietnam, "we've never heard anything about the Secret Service before."
Korb, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said it is unclear how often the military services impose the harsh written policies for personnel using prostitutes.
"I've never seen anybody go to jail," he said.
...
Graham said one reason for the effort is that military personnel assigned to other countries must adapt to local customs and morals. "If there was an effort to visit prostitutes in Afghanistan, we would come down hard. Simply because it's a cultural no-no in Afghanistan, it would bring wrath upon us," he said.