by Tony Judt
Johnson administration that followed merely intensified the level of
American involvement in Vietnam even further. President Lyndon
Johnson used the 1965 Tonkin incident (where U.S. ships were bombed
by North Vietnamese forces) as a pretext to escalate America’s war
against the communists in the North. He later increased the number
of American troops in Vietnam to half a million, while authorizing a
sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam.
America’s growing involvement in the Vietnam War earned it the
scorn and condemnation of anticolonial and anti-imperial movements
worldwide. In time, the U.S. administration was also forced to con-
tend with growing disillusionment and criticism back home. As the
war spiraled out of control, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson described
the conflict as “that bitch of a war on the other side of the world.”13
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
219
He later admitted that it was “the biggest damn mess I ever saw.”14
But, despite the doubts that were being cast on the U.S. war effort in
Southeast Asia, the hawks in the Pentagon and Congress were insis-
tent on prolonging the conflict even further. General William Depuy
insisted that “the solution to Vietnam is more bombs, more shells, more
napalm,” while General Westmoreland argued that America should
“just go on bleeding them, until Hanoi wakes up to the fact that they
have bled their country to the point of national disaster for genera-
tions.”15 This trend would prevail right up to the Nixon administra-
tion, and Nixon himself would later say that he would “bomb the
bastards like they had never been bombed before.”16
Bellicose rhetoric aside, Vietnam proved to be a bigger obstacle to
U.S. hegemonic ambitions in Asia than Indonesia. The Tet Offensive
of 1968 caught the Americans off-guard and proved that the war could
not be won by force of arms. On January 27, 1973 a formal treaty was
signed between the North Vietnamese government and the forces of
the South in Paris. By then, the American government realized that a
communist victory was inevitable and that it would be pointless to
prolong the conflict (and their involvement) any further.
In 1975, the Vietnam War finally came to its messy end. On April 21,
General Nguyen Van Thieu resigned, blaming the Americans for their
lack of support to his tottering regime. Thieu then flew off into exile
in Hawaii as communist forces entered the Southern capital of Saigon
(soon to be renamed Ho Chi Minh city). By the end of the war, more
than two million Vietnamese had been killed, along with an estimated
58,000 American troops. But despite the fears of successive American
administrations, the rest of Southeast Asia did not fall into the hands
of the communist bloc, and most of the countries of ASEAN would
remain firmly allied to America and Western interests. McMahon
(1999) concludes that “in the most fundamental sense, America’s fail-
ures stemmed from its gross violations of nearly all the classic rules of
warfare.”17
Of all of America’s military ventures in ASEAN, Vietnam stands
out as the most glaring example of the failure of U.S. intelligence to
understand the nature and character of ASEAN politics and the people
of the region. The Vietnam conflict also became the rallying point for
anti-American pro-democracy activists in the neighboring countries of
ASEAN, as it was used as a major political issue by student move-
ments, Islamist groups, and pro-democracy NGOs in Thailand, Malaysia,
and Indonesia. Compared to Vietnam, America was more successful
in its attempt to construct a string of puppet regimes under its thumb
in another ASEAN country, the Philippines.
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F arish A. Noor
The Philippines: A Long Line of Washington’s
Puppets on a String
I walked into the White House and I am not ashamed to tell you that I
prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance. One night it came to
me this way . . . there was nothing left for us to do but to take (the
Philippines), and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them.
American President McKinley speaking in 1899
Quoted in William Blum Killing Hope: U.S. Military
and CIA Interventions Since World War II
(Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1995)
The Philippines is unique in ASEAN in one vital respect: it was the
only ASEAN country that had been a colony of the United States and
was, therefore, the country where the American stamp was most visible
and deeply felt.
American involvement in the Philippines began in the late nineteenth
century when America needed a trading post in Asia to guarantee the
free movement of resources between Asia and the American West
coast. After its failed attempts to gain permanent and signifi-
cant influence in Japan, Korea, and China, America began to look
to Southeast Asia for an alternative. The opportunity came with the
American–Spanish War that led to the defeat of the Spanish and the
loss of their colony, the Philippines.
America’s involvement in the Philippines began soon after the
Spanish were defeated and forced to leave their colony in 1898. By
1899, American leaders like President William McKinley were openly
declaring that the United States had the right and the obligation to
intervene in Filipino affairs, and McKinley even went as far as justifying
America’s imperial adventure by citing divine providence. The American
government under McKinley openly spoke of the virtues of imperialism
when addressing the Philippine question. The Philippines was bought
from Spain at the cost of US$20 million, and a force of 50,000 American
troops was dispatched to the country to “restore law and order.” They
soon encountered fierce resistance from the Moros of the southern
Philippines, who did not take too kindly to the idea that they had been
“sold” by Spain and “bought” by the Americans.
The Americans attempted the strategy of indirect rule when dealing
with the Moros of Sulu and Mindanao in southern Philippines, and
this was embodied in the Bates agreement signed between the Americans
and the Sultan of Sulu in 1899. The Bates agreement was, however,
unilaterally abrogated by the Americans in 1905 when they began to
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
221
intervene directly in matters of government in the Moro sultanates.
The Syrian-born Christian American agent for Moro affairs, Najeeb M.
Saleeby, then proposed a new policy of tutelage and patronage that
would integrate the next generation of Moro leaders. This resulted in
the creation of a younger generation of Moro leaders who later became
civil servants, lawyers, and merchants in the American colony.18
The Americans revised their own policy toward the Moros and
attempted to woo some of the Moro leaders to their cause. The polit-
ical reforms they introduced were intended to help assimilat
e the Moro
communities and to give the traditional Moro leaders a place and
status in the colonial administrative system they intended to set up.
But attempts to introduce Western education and to disarm the Moros
merely provoked them further, leading to even more conflicts. The
five-day Battle of Bud Bagsak (where American troops were com-
manded by Gen. John J. Pershing) in 1913, led to massive Moro losses.
An estimated 500–2000 Moros were killed by the end of the battle.19
The Moros resisted American attempts to assimilate them to the end,
and some of the Moro leaders even sent their petition to the American
Congress in Washington. The Americans’ treatment of the Moros
hardly improved and when the Philippine Republic finally proclaimed
its independence on July 4, 1946, the new post-colonial government
invariably inherited the “Moro problem,” which the Americans (and
Spanish before them) had helped to create.
In 1935, the Americans created the self-governing Commonwealth
of the Philippines, but it remained under indirect control of the United
States and a colony of America. America propped up a number of pro-
American cronies and puppet leaders as representatives to the Philippine
government, and promised independence in 1945, but this was inter-
rupted by the Japanese invasion during World War II.
On July 4, 1946, the Philippines was finally granted its independ-
ence, on the same date as the U.S. independence day. This, in itself,
showed how the Philippines remained under American influence even
after it gained its nominal independence. American political, military,
and business interests remained in the Philippines, and Filipino inde-
pendence remained cosmetic and fictional. The United States remained
the de facto power behind the Philippine government and returned to
its policy of selecting and promoting crony Filipino leaders, who
would serve U.S. interests in the country and the region.
The first obstacle the Americans encountered was the Philippine
Communist Party (PCP), which had been formed in the 1940s and
had fought against the Japanese alongside the Hukbalahap (People’s
Army against Japan) that was formed in 1942. American opposition to
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222
F arish A. Noor
the PCP and Huk forces was based on ideological grounds: both the
PCP and Huks were left-leaning nationalists who included in their
political agenda a land reform program that the Americans wanted to
scuttle. In the post-war period, U.S. forces helped to reinstall tradi-
tional Filipino leaders and the feudal elite, who were used in the cam-
paign to undermine the Huk forces.20 The Americans were backing
right-wing pro-American Filipino leaders to ensure that the new gov-
ernment in Manila would always follow the American line.
Between 1945 and 1947, the Philippine-U.S. Trade Act and
Philippine-U.S. Military Agreement were passed. The latter provided
the Americans with 23 military bases in the country, and the lease was
meant to last for 99 years. The pact also ensured that the Philippines
could not turn to any other country for military aid and training, and
the Philippine government was not allowed to buy even a single bullet
from any other country without permission from Washington.21 In
1950, the United States provided the Philippines with $US500 million
worth of military assistance. The Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group
(JUSMAG) helped to reorganize the Philippine intelligence services,
and put their man Ramon Magsaysay as its new head. Magsaysay
would later be elevated to the position of president of the Philippines,
with the help of the United States and its covert intelligence units in
the Philippines.
President Ramon Magsaysay was widely regarded as “America’s
boy” in the Philippines. In the 1950s, he was made the head of the
Philippines Intelligence Services by the Americans who regarded him
as a loyal and trustworthy ally on whom they could depend. The man
behind the rise of Ramon Magsaysay was Lt.-Col. Edward G. Landsdale,
who was the head of the CIA in the Philippines and advisor to the
JUSMAG. Landsdale formed the Philippines Civil Affairs Office (CAO)
that engaged in psychological warfare against the Philippine Communist
Party (PCP) and other nationalist groups.
Through the CAO, the CIA intervened directly in Filipino affairs,
shaping public opinion and developing the image and popularity of
Magsaysay. In 1953, Magsaysay won the presidential elections with
the help of the CAO and CIA, and Landsdale would later claim that it
was he who “invented Magsaysay.”22 Under constant watch and
supervision, Magsaysay proved to be a loyal servant to American inter-
ests: his speeches were written and vetted by Landsdale and the CAO.
On one occasion, it was reported that Landsdale had even beaten
Magsaysay and knocked the new president of the Philippines uncon-
scious for not doing as he was told.23 During Magsaysay’s term of
office, the United States managed to deepen and strengthen its grip
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
223
on the Philippine economy and political system even further. American
companies behaved as if the Philippines was a U.S. colony, and exploited
the Filipinos as a captive market and source of cheap labor and resources.
Magsaysay would later die in a plane crash in 1957, after which he was
replaced by another American crony, Diosdado Macapagal.24
Diosdado Macapagal (father to the present Philippines president
Gloria Arroyo Macapagal) began his career as a nationalist Filipino
politician who struggled for the national liberation of his country.
During the 1940s and 1950s, he campaigned for Philippine independ-
ence and attempted to mobilize popular support against the Americans
who had returned to the Philippines after World War II. During the
presidency of Ramon Magsaysay, Macapagal was one of the most vocal
critics of the Magsaysay government, accusing the president of being
a hostage to American business and military interests. By then,
the American presence in the Philippines was overpowering (the
CIA had helped to run and organize Magsaysay’s successful 1953
election campaign) and Filipino politics was virtually run by the
American-created CAO headed by the CIA operative Lt.-Col. Edward G.
Landsdale.
After Magsaysay’s death, the Americans began courting the support
of Macapagal, who was then working with the Americans by providing
them with information about the communists and other dissident
groups in the country. The Americans, in turn, responded by taking
Macapagal under their wing and offering him political and financial
support. Through the CAO, the CIA was able to support and sustain
Macapagal’s election campaign in 1961. After winning the presidential
elections in 1961 with U.S. support, Macapagal proved to be another
loyal crony to American interests in the Philippines. The Macapagal
administration was heavily influenced by Western and, especial
ly,
American interests. Macapagal signed more agreements that gave
American companies the right to exploit Philippine resources and
dominate the Philippine economy.
Despite his weakness and lack of popular support, Macapagal
wanted to promote the Philippines as a major country within
Southeast Asia. To this end, he promoted the idea of Maphilindo—
the merging of Malaya, the Philippines, and Indonesia. But the idea of
Maphilindo was not widely supported, and in 1963, the Federation of
Malaysia was created with the incorporation of the North Kalimantan
states of Sabah and Sarawak instead. Macapagal used this as a pretext
to declare hostilities against Malaysia. Macapagal’s leadership was
weak and his U-turn during the Konfrontasi crisis made him look even
weaker. In the same year that Sukarno was toppled, Macapagal was
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224
F arish A. Noor
voted out of office and this led to the rise of America’s longest-serving
crony and puppet in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos.
Along with the other U.S.-backed leader President Suharto of
Indonesia, Ferdinand Marcos ranked as one of the worst dictators in
the world, as well as one of the closest allies of the United States. It
was during the time of Marcos (1965–1986) that U.S.-Philippine
interests coincided most closely, and when U.S. economic, military,
and strategic links were strengthened. Ferdinand Marcos’s period of
rule witnessed the biggest volume of American aid and investment
into the country ever: between 1962 and 1983, the American gov-
ernment gave more than $US3 billion to the Philippine government
in terms of investment aid and military support. The Philippines,
which was also a major ally of the West during the Cold War, also
received $US4 billion in aid from international bodies like the World
Bank. Apart from that, the Philippine economy was also opened up
and liberalized for foreign capital penetration, thanks to the structural
adjustment policies imposed by international financial advisory bodies
like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From 1965 to 1970,
Marcos took the country down the road of extensive social, educa-
tional, and economic reform. Like his predecessors Magsaysay and
