The return of the GI babies ?
UP Prof. Carolina Hernandez made some remarks yesterday about the need to have US bases again to bolster the nation's security, notwithstanding the rap that Spain got for its support for the US.

The reports by the Businessworld and the Manila Times yesterday were short and did not say whether the remarks were part of a formal talk or were merely offhand comments. Today though took Prof Hernandez to task and made a stinging shooting down of the idea.

Personally, I, too, don't see how the US bases could possibly help in countering terrorism. As Today pointed out, the US bases would only make us a hot spot, a la Spain, to be targeted and punished for our support in propping up the Great Satan.

Terrorist attacks are not deterred by great firepower. Otherwise nobody would have dared touch New York, bastion of the greatest military power known to mankind.

Terrorist attacks are characterized by stealth carried out by a handful of personnel. Cold War deterrence no longer works. What we need is a greater capability to do intelligence work--and in this aspect the Americans are pathetically ill-equipped and are in no position to lecture their Filipino counterparts.

What remains of our AFP admittedly needs reinforcement and training, but are not the Balikatan exercises enough for that ?

The bases that the US used before and left are yet to be cleaned up. Hundreds have gone sick; many have died of leukemia. The formers bases have put to risk the health security of not a few Filipinos. If it is security that the government and Prof Hernandez want, the more appropriate idea would be for pushing the Philippine government to sue at the International Court of Justice for the US to clean up the radioactive waste it left in its former bases.

THe US cleaned up its mess in Germany. Why not in the Philippines ?

We are too polite and unmercenenary in our dealings with the US; that is why we always get shortchanged. Western-trained mostly in US universities, our leaders are bad hagglers. Look at Turkey: they bled the Americans for every dollar, was initially rebuffed but was simply, the US later realized, too important to be left in the cold. We to, like Turkey, are simply too important the US cannot afford to ignore us. And besides if the US ignores us, we can always suck up to China. Let us see how the US State Department will deal with that.

The one thing nice about new US basing arrangements is that we would have more mestizas and mestizos to audition for Starstruck. The US bases, seen in this light, has more to do with psychic security than national security. On the other hand, do closer ties with China potentially mean more F4-like bands ? The Filipino people would be practically at the end of its wits were the debate on national secutiy ever to hit the mainstream.