Caring more

PINOY KASI


Caring more
By Michael Tan
Inquirer

Last updated 01:27am (Mla time) 03/21/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- It’s been four years since the United States sent troops into Iraq, but it could well have been 400 years ago -- as far as Filipinos are concerned.

Intervention or invasion. That event now seems so distant; yet, back in 2003 we too were caught in the frenzy around Iraq. I still remember the angry letters I got four years ago, mostly from Filipino-Americans, because of the columns I wrote opposing the invasion of Iraq. At that time, so many people believed George W. Bush and his claims that Saddam Hussein was part of al-Qaeda. Saddam was the devil incarnate, supposedly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that he was ready to unleash on the world.

Courtesy of international cable TV channels, we saw, live, the “shock and awe” invasion and the collapse of Saddam. Who could forget the footage, replayed many times, showing a statue of Saddam being toppled in Firdos Square in Baghdad, to show how the Iraqis so welcomed American intervention? A year later, The Los Angeles Times wrote about how US Marines had instigated the toppling, even providing an American flag to wrap Saddam’s face, until they realized the Iraqis weren’t exactly impressed by that move. An Iraqi flag was brought in, and Iraqi children and youth were encouraged to cheer as the statue was finally brought down.

The Philippines jumped on the bandwagon, joining the United States in a Coalition of the Willing. Early on, the government organized a humanitarian and peacekeeping team, called the “Task Force on Philippine Participation in Post-War Rebuilding of Iraq,” with 175 members and a budget of P141 million.

But there was more to this than humanitarianism. Government officials talked shamelessly, about how we could profit from Iraq, by sending overseas workers. A task force called “Philippine Public-Private Sector Partnership for Reconstruction and Development of Iraq” was formed to assist local companies to try to corner contracts from the US government for Iraq’s “reconstruction.” But the lucrative contracts didn’t quite materialize. Filipinos were blacklisted after a group of workers, assigned to build the US prison for suspected terrorists in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, tried to organize a union.

But never mind. When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited the United States in May 2003, she pledged loyalty to the US cause and came back boasting of more rewards, oops, more development assistance. Meanwhile, Filipinos were finding their way, on their own, into Iraq. In 2004, Islamist militants kidnapped one Filipino truck driver and threatened to execute him if we didn’t withdraw from Iraq. We blinked, and American friends tell me that the US government has never forgiven us for that.

Comma in history

We need to be more conscious about the historical parallels between Iraq and the Philippines. We forget that we, too, were invaded in 1898, supposedly, to be taught democracy. We forget we were collateral damage in the Spanish-American War, just as the Iraqis got Bush’s vented rage after 9/11 and al-Qaida.

Saddam was captured in December 2003, hastily tried and sent to the gallows on Dec. 30, 2006. No WMDs were found and even Bush has stopped referring to it. Instead, the new propaganda is that the US occupation is there to bring democracy to Iraq. In September last year, President Bush told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is—my point is, there is a strong will for democracy.”

Yet Iraqi resentment against the Americans has increased. The latest BBC/ABC public opinion poll conducted between Feb. 25 and March 5 showed that 50 percent of Iraqis find the country’s situation “somewhat worse” or “much worse.” Asked how the presence of US forces affected security, 69 percent answered “worse.”

Iraq has plunged into a bloody civil war since the invasion. One estimate from the Johns Hopkins University is that some 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the invasion. The death toll for American soldiers has climbed too: 500 in January 2004, 1,000 by September that same year. The new year saw the American death toll passing the 3,000 mark, more than the number killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York.

The financial costs have been escalating as well. During US congressional hearings last January, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said that the cost of the “war on terror” (mainly Afghanistan and Iraq) was about $4.4 billion a month in 2003, but that this has climbed to $8.4 billion this year.

And is the world safer? Certainly not. Islamist fanaticism has been further fueled by the American occupation of Iraq, and the reports of American soldiers’ violations of human rights, from the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison to murder and rape cases.

Soldier named Caleb

Four years ago, I wrote, with some disgust, about how CNN and other cable channels were glamorizing war, with rosy reports of one US victory after another coming from journalists “embedded” with the invading forces.

These days the coverage has become gorier. One CNN special, “Combat Hospital,” followed the maimed bodies of soldiers and civilians brought into American military hospitals. I tend to turn away, and turn to National Public Radio on the Internet radio, but there too, it’s hard not to pause and listen to reports about America’s war dead.

I can understand there’s patriotism and idealism among these young soldiers, but the US mass media acknowledge how the casualties also tend to come from small, poor American towns, with military service providing some economic relief. One soldier had saved enough money for college and for a family, but he was killed before he could come home to his fiancée and two kids, including a baby son he had never met.

On New Year’s Day, CNN featured the story off Pvt. First Class Caleb Lufkin, who was killed in May 2006 at the age of 24. I found his obituary on the Internet, where he was described as an “avid banjo player and enjoyed fishing, hunting and motorcycles.” He had only finished high school, and gotten a volunteer firefighting certificate from the community college.

CNN featured a letter Lufkin’s mother had written to say goodbye to her son:

“You were still smiling on your first day of kindergarten when I found it so hard to let go of your hand. I’ll be okay, mom, you said over your shoulder at me as you trotted alone into the school with your new school backpack. It was almost more than I could bear let going of that little hand and releasing you into the world. And you said the same thing again when you went to Iraq. I’ll be okay, mom, with your army pack on your back.”

She ended the letter simply with “You are forever in my heart.”

A few days after CNN featured the Lufkin story, Bush announced his intention for a new troop surge—more soldiers will be sent to Iraq.

We need to care more about Iraq -- and America.