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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 14, 1986
PAGE 7
the Aquino side, the craft were refueled and serviced at Clark Air Base.
Fixed-wing craft were also serviced at Clark. U.S. m.ilitary facilities
were also used to keep communications links open between units of the
defecting forces.
Some U.S. congressmen and senators pride themselves that they have helpe.
d
"restore democracy" to the Philippines. Yet, one wonders about the long
range implications of Washington's interventionism.
Other less-than
democratic governments in Asia--America's allies in a tense, strategic
region--are wary. A dangerous precedent may have been set. Within a few
days the Roman Catholic primate of South Korea, Stephen Cardinal Kim Son
Hwan, expressed open support for
opposition demands for swift
constitutional changes and early direct presidential elections. Unlike in
the Philippines, Christian-professing Koreans make up only 25 percent of
the population, most of these Protestant. But President Chun Doo Hwan did
not appreciate the Cardinal's support for South Korea's noisome political
opposition. He fears divisiveness that could wreck South Korea's fragile
unity. For South Korea, the Communist threat is far more menacing than in
the Philippines, consisting of heavily armed and fanatically indoctrinated
North Korea, whose border is only 40 kilometers from Seoul.
For the United States, the Philippines involvement highlights a glaring
contradiction in U.S. foreign policy. If it was necessary to take action
to remove Mr. Marcos in order to restore democracy in the Philippines,
some ask, why then the reluctance in Congress to restore democracy and
eliminate Communist dictatorships in Nicaragua and Angola? The editor of
COMMENTARY magazine, Norman Podhoretz, wrote th.
e following in the March 7
LOS ANGELES TIMES:
If a conservative Republican congressman like Rep. Gerald B. H.
Solomon (R-N.Y.), who had in the past seen Marcos as "a bastion
against the spread of international communism," could join with
a liberal Democratic congressman like Stephen J. Solarz (D
N.Y.) in helping to topple the Marcos government on the ground
that election fraud had robbed it of "legitimacy," by what
moral or intellectual right does Solarz now refuse to join
Solomon in trying to topple the Sandinista regime, which held
an infinitely more fraudulent election in November, 1984?•••
Clearly, the moment of truth has arrived for the Democrats in
Congress and the liberal community in general••••
Nobody really wants to say it out loud in Washington, but the truth is,
the Communists are much more difficult to dislodge, and it might--horror
of horrors!--take direct armed intervention on the part of the U.S. to do
so. Congress is simply in no mood for a fight above the level of the
Grenada action. In a mini-debate on ABC television news, columnist George
Will challenged a liberal representative from California.
"If not
Nicaragua," asked Will, "then where?
If not now, then when?"
The
Congressman replied, in part, "We don't want to get involved.• There's a
big market for ostrich feathers in Congress.
The fact is, the United States has not recovered from its shattering
defeat in Vietnam, which broke the pride in its power (Lev. 26:19).
William Safire tackled this subject in the March 10 NEW YORK TIMES article
entitled "Defeating Defeatism."