reynold montero

SCOTT RITTER is an external Contributor to Energy Intelligence. He is a former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer whose service over a 20-plus-year career included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control agreements, serving on the staff of US Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and later as a Chief Weapons Inspector with the UN in Iraq from 1991-98. “Just so you know, I have a little bit of background in the Philippines. In 1986, I was deployed there as a platoon commander to reinforce the Subic garrison. After the fall of the Marcos regime, there was concern about the new people’s army. “So I have a warm spot in my heart for the Philippines. Let’s build upon what Colonel Wilkerson had said earlier. The United States is incapable of fighting a sustained conflict against a peer-level force. “The United States cannot fight and engage China and win. We will not beat the Chinese. We cannot beat the Chinese. “And we know this, and yet we’re using the Philippines to create the conditions of potential conflict with the Chinese. Please understand that for the Filipino people, this is a recipe for disaster. You think America is your friend. “So too did the Ukrainian people, and they are dying by the hundreds of thousands. Friends don’t let friends die in those quantities. The Ukrainians have been displaced by the tens of millions. “Friends don’t let friends have their cities destroyed in this manner. Friends don’t let friends have families separated, have mothers and children destined to a life of refugee status in perpetual poverty. That’s not how friends behave. “America has never been the friend of Ukrainians, and we are not the friends of the Filipinos. We don’t like you. If we did like you, we wouldn’t be doing this to you. “We are using you. You are a tool, nothing but a tool. And when the tool ceases to be useful, we will discard you. “And discard you means usually after a war that devastates you. We are using you to gain some sort of momentary leverage over the Chinese. We will fail. “The Chinese will win, and you will be destroyed. End of story. It’s high time the Filipino people pressure their government to start sitting down and engaging the Chinese government responsibly. “China is not your enemy. China is your neighbor. China is your friend. “China doesn’t want war. And if you would engage China in diplomacy, and as we’ve all indicated here, America has long since lost the skill set necessary to carry out diplomacy. But the Filipinos, the Philippine people can reignite this, to relearn it, to use this skill to prevent a war. “But if you continue to behave as colonial subjects, and I know that’s a sore, sore, sore subject of the Filipino, because you were the colonial subjects of America. We still view you as our colonial subjects. We don’t like you. “We don’t care about you. We just want to use you. Grow up. “Grow up and act responsibly. Take control of your own future. America is not here to help you. America is here only to use you until there’s nothing left. And then we will discard you on the trash heap of history.”