Goodbye California - Alistair [116]
‘No. They’re hopping mad.’
‘Don’t blame them. The suggestion is ludicrous.’
‘You’re sure the fact that you already seem to have discounted evidence pointing to some Communist connection has not influenced your thinking in this?’
‘I’m sure. So are you.’
Mitchell said: ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘You wouldn’t be. Last thing you do every night is look under your bed.’
Mitchell just stopped short of grinding his teeth. ‘If not that, what?’ The words were innocuous enough but their tone left no doubt that he was prepared to fight to the death for his disbelief of every word Ryder was about to say.
‘Bear with me. It all seems to start with the Philippines. I’m sure you all know how it is out there, and I’m sure the last thing I am is a specialist in foreign affairs, but I’ve been reading all about it in the library just a couple of hours ago. I’ll briefly recap what I read, as much for my own sake as anybody else’s.
‘The Philippines are in a financial mess. Hugely ambitious development plans, mounting internal and external debts, heavy military expenditures – they’re strapped. But like a good many other countries they know what to do when the kitty’s empty – put the arm on Uncle Sam. And they’re in an excellent position to apply pressure.
‘The Philippines are the keystone of America’s Pacific military strategy and the huge Seventh Fleet anchorage at Subic Bay and the strategically crucial Air Force Base are regarded by the Pentagon as being indispensable and well worth the rent – many people regard it as a cross between ransom and extortion money – that is demanded.
‘The south of the Philippines – the island of Mindanao – is inhabited by Muslims. You all know that. Unlike Christianity, the Muslim religion has no moral laws against the killing of mankind in general – just against the killing of Muslims, period. The concept of a holy war is an integral part of their lives and this is what they’re doing right now – carrying out a holy crusade against President Marcos and his predominantly Catholic government. They regard it as a religious war being waged by an oppressed people. Whether it’s a justifiable war or not is – well, it’s none of my business. In any event, it is an intensely bitter war. I think all this is well known.
‘What is, perhaps, not quite so well known is that they feel almost equally bitter towards the United States. It’s not hard to understand. Although Congress raises its hand in holier-than-thou horror at Marcos’s long-term track record on civil liberties, they still cheerfully, as I said, ante up the rent for our bases to the tune of several hundred million dollars a year in military aid, no small amount of which is put to what the Philippine government regards as being perfectly good use in crushing the Muslims.
‘Even less known is the fact that the Muslims aren’t all that much fonder of Russia, China and Vietnam. Not, as far as is known, that those countries have caused them any harm: it’s just that the Philippine government has established cordial – and diplomatic – relations with those three countries and countries that reciprocate the Philippine government’s overtures are automatically classified by the Mindanaon Muslims as belonging to the enemy camp.
‘What the Muslims desperately lack is arms. Provided that they were armed to the same standards as the government’s well-equipped eighty field battalions – well-equipped, mainly, by the courtesy of Uncle Sam – they could give a good account of themselves. Until last year what little supplies they received came from Libya – until Imelda Marcos went there and sweet-talked Colonel Gadhafi and his foreign minister Ali Tureiki into cutting off the Mindanaon Muslims’ last lifeline.
‘So what were they to do? They couldn’t obtain or manufacture their own arms in the Philippines. Even if they didn’t hate America there was no way the Americans would supply arms to insurgents against the Philippine government. They weren’t even speaking to the Communists, and their own fellow Muslims had turned against them.