The price for freedom

“Having fought for our independence, we know that a price must be paid for freedom,” US President Barack Obama said in a policy speech on terrorism last May 23.

“For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over $1 trillion on war, exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build here at home,” he said. “Our service members and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home.”

Among those who have paid the “price for freedom” were many Filipino-Americans, migrant Filipinos who wanted to share the American Dream, not only by risking life and limb in the battlefield but also by losing their homes and their jobs because of the deficit and recession caused by the wars.

If I were an American, I would probably ask: “Why should I and my fellow Americans pay the price for freedom everywhere or anywhere in the world?”  But being a Filipino, I ask: “Is it fair and proper for my own sake to have the Americans pay for my freedom?  After all, in fighting for their freedom, the Americans did it all by themselves.  They paid their own price.”

Also, would it be fair to say that only the Americans have paid the price for freedom? What about the hundreds of thousands or millions of Iraqis, Libyans, Afghans and Pakistanis who died while being handed the gift of freedom by the United States? And before them, the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians who were killed while being gifted with their freedom at the cost of 50,000 American young lives and trillions of dollars in American taxpayers’ money?

Did the price for freedom paid by the United States for Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan actually result in the prosperity, happiness and social stability of the lucky recipients of those gifts? Did it “nation-build,” as Obama put it, these countries?  Or do they not daily experience terrorist bombings, the death of scores of innocent civilians, in a gyration of death and destruction that continues after a decade of war?

In previous eras, Americans also paid the price for freedom in Latin America where military and oligarchic dictators were financed by US money and arms, like Rios Montt, former dictator of Guatemala, who was found guilty of genocide by a Guatemalan court.  But it seems that the higher price was paid by the indigenous tribes who were victims of the genocide.

I suppose that as a Filipino, I should also thank the Americans for paying the price for my freedom and for generations of Filipinos since the start of the 20th century, when our forefathers were already paying their own price by waging a revolution against Spain and resisting conquest by America.  The price for the Americans in the war against Filipino fighters for independence in 1901-1905 was more than 5,000 dead; for Filipinos, the price was a million dead.

Aside from generously paying our price for freedom, the Americans also “taught” us democracy.  Now, of course, if our democracy turned out to be a tattered democracy, it may only mean that either they are poor teachers or we are bad students.

Never mind that before the American conquest, we had already established the Malolos Republic, with a democratic constitution and a representative parliament. Still, the Americans insisted on paying the price for our freedom by overthrowing the Philippine government under President Emilio Aguinaldo. It was the United States’ first regime change in history.

At any rate, because of our status as the proverbial “sick man” of Asia, the question arises whether the United States, after 100 years of direct and indirect colonialism, has actually “nation-built” us.

What does America get out of paying such a high cost for the freedom of other countries? A big dose of ingratitude. According to a recent poll by the Pew Global Attitude Surveys, “Publics of … largely Muslim countries continue to hold overwhelmingly negative views of the United States. In both Turkey and Pakistan, only 17 percent hold a positive opinion.”

In a commentary last Feb. 15, the Guardian, a popular British newspaper, explained: “What accounts for this pervasive hostility toward the US is clear: US actions in their country. As a Pentagon study concluded: ‘Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.’ In particular, it is ‘American direct intervention in the Muslim world’—justified in the name of stopping terrorism—that ‘paradoxically elevate[s] the stature of and support for Islamic radicals.”

And so what should we learn from all these?  I think the lesson is that nations are better off paying their own price for their own freedom. The United States did, as did Japan, which fought a civil war for national unity under the Meiji, as well as all the other great nations like Britain, France and Germany. South Africa paid for its own freedom in its struggle against apartheid, and today it is on the way to becoming a nation of inclusive prosperity.

If it wants to stop the “shadow of battle” or of terrorism from blowing back, the United States must stop paying for the freedom of others. Filipinos, too, must shed their mentality of depending on the United States to pay the price for their nation’s development. To grow strong, a nation must build its own muscle.

Manuel F. Almario, a semiretired veteran journalist, is the spokesperson of the Movement for Truth in History, Rizal’s MOTH. E-mail:

mfalmario@yahoo.com