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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 13, 1985
PAGE 7
U.S. today.
Finally, we'll examine
deve � oping health crisis (and what's
furt er spread) •
the Western world's fastest
being done to guarantee its
Everywhere we look, nations and conflicting forces within nations are
locked in deadly struggles for power. Civil wars rage and governments
are overthrown. Veteran world affairs expert of the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR, Joseph
c.
Harsch, summed it up succinctly in his paper's
August 28 edition: •Most world news last week continued to be made by
people wanting, and willing, to use violence to achieve a larger share
of space and goods.• How strikingly similar to James 4:1-2.
Some specifics: The war in Afghanistan will soon enter its sixth year.
As estlmated one million people in Afghanistan (out of a population of
only 14 million> may have already lost their lives in the war against
the Soviet Union, which is determined to turn what's left of the South
Asian country into another •outer Mongolia• puppet state.
In Sri
Lanka,
negotiations between the government and leaders of a
Tamil separatist group have broken down. Observers glumly predict an
intensified civil war leading to either a more repressive state, or
partition of the island nation into separate minority Tamil and
majority Sinhalese communities--a type of Asian apartheid, or Oriental
Cyprus.
In the Far East, the
Philippines
are in deep trouble and could emerge,
reports the April 19, 1985 NATIONAL REVIEW as •the crisis point of the
1980s for U.S. foreign policy.• President Marcos is under increasing
pressure by a vocal, yet weak and divided, democratic opposition to
•reform himsel f out of office,• so to speak. Yet he may run again,
health permitting, in the 1987 national elections. He has said that
neither bullets nor ballots can remove him until he decides to step
down. The U.S. Congress recently altered its foreign-aid package to
Manila, paring back the military side of it. This perturbed Marcos and
his military men who are confronted with the biggest challenge of all-
the growing strength of the Communist New People's�.
At stake for the United States is a key Asian ally--plus two huge,
indispensable military bases. Says Dr. Claude Russ, a professor at the
Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California: •subic Bay•••is a
vital center for command, control and communications.
Clark Field,
roughly the size of Singapore and home of the 13th Air Force, is
capable of handling 400 air traffic movements per day•••• These bases
are home for some 17,000 American servicemen•••and 25,000 dependents.
These bases give direct employment to some 40,000 Filipino workers.
The direct and indirect income from American use of Philippine bases
may account for as much as 10 percent of the total GNP of the
Philippines.• There simply is no replacement location for these two
bases (and skilled local manpower> to be found anywhere in the Pacific.
Curiously, many Filipinos believe that should the Communists threaten
to overrun the country the United States will be forced to intervene
militarily. They cite U.S. self-interest, as well as provisions of the
u.s.-Philippines mutual defense treaty. They overlook, however,
Congress' penchant for weaseling out of unpleasant commitments.