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The case of convicted rapist, US Marine Lance Corporal, Daniel Smith, has important strategic ramifications for the far flung empire of US military bases around the world. Sentenced by a Manila court to life imprisonment for raping a 22 year old Filipino woman, Suzette Nicolas with what the court described as "chilling, naked sadism", reports say he showed "no emotion" while being led away. He is now in a Philippine jail awaiting appeal. You may ask, what is so important about a rapist being in jail? The problem would be if the rapist were not in jail, no? Well, not quite, because Lance Corporal Smith as a US Marine has special privileges in the Philippines under the "Visiting Forces Agreement". Here is how Wikipedia describes the agreement, "The primary effect of the Agreement is that it allows the U.S. government to retain jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel accused of committing crimes in the Philippines, unless the crimes are of "particular" importance to the Philippines. This means that for crimes without this significance, the U.S. can refuse to detain or arrest accused personnel, or may instead prosecute them under U.S. jurisdiction. The Agreement also exempts U.S. military personnel from visa and passport regulations in the Philippines." This sort of agreement is being questioned all over the world and there have been many ugly incidents recently in South Korea and Okinawa. These agreements are viewed as extremely humiliating wherever they are in effect and the popular pressure to rescind them is growing stronger by the day. To understand the potentially enormous significance of the Smith case and other cases like it, I strongly suggest reading Chalmers Johnson's ground breaking book, "The Sorrows of Empire". To end this post, I'll include this quote from an article in today's Financial Times, "The question of custody over L. Cpl Smith could develop into a sore point and weaken US-Philippine military co-operation against terrorism, analysts said. A legislative panel overseeing the visiting forces agreement voted to terminate the arrangement and stop all joint military exercises for the duration of the rape trial after the US refused Manila's request to take custody of the four servicemen after they were arraigned in February. Lawmakers were likely to revive moves to scrap the agreement if Manila gave up custody of L. Cpl Smith and allowed him to be confined at the US embassy again, said Theodore Te, a law professor." And to follow the updates to this important story as it develops, here is a link to Google News. DS
