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To: Copenhagen Smile
Well...there is the minor fact that the Filipinos kicked us out of their country over 20 years ago.
8 posted on 06/02/2012 10:52:17 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
Well...there is the minor fact that the Filipinos kicked us out of their country over 20 years ago.

Exactly, I have some issues with calling them "allies" considering how anxious they were to have us out.

11 posted on 06/02/2012 11:25:58 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
Well...there is the minor fact that the Filipinos kicked us out of their country over 20 years ago.

The amusing thing is that every important Filipino pol probably had dibs on a slice of the land around the bases that they figured would become extremely valuable once it was opened up for commercial development. While I believe it's important to prevent the Chinese from getting too big for their britches, what the Filipinos want is for their rich Uncle Sam to perform the janitorial duty of sweeping away the Chinese while leaving Pinoys the luxury of criticizing us as imperialists who still owe them big-time for the Philippine-American War.

What is extremely annoying about this "ally" is the fact that its defense budget is $2.4b compared to Vietnam's $3.3b despite the fact that the Pinoys have almost double Vietnam's GDP. In addition, the Philippines have no jet fighters, whereas the Vietnamese have over 200. Vietnam's flagship is a several year old Soviet frigate armed with Harpoon clones, Gatling clones and SAM's, whereas the Philippines has in that role a 40-year-old gun-armed US Coast Guard corvette that is capable of mounting anti-ship, CIWS and SAM's but was never ordered in that config because the Filipino government was too cheap to pay for it. Bottom line is that they are little more than military welfare dependents who will be jeering from the sidelines while we're taking casualties in the course of tangling with the Chinese.

12 posted on 06/02/2012 12:03:29 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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