Editor,

I have come across some articles in the online version of your Matangi Tonga about Tongans soldiers mission to Afghanistan. Please allow me to join the discussion by looking from a different perspective at this military cooperation between our small nation and the World Superpower.

Tonga's siding with the U.S. and Allied Force is not something new. Her Majesty Queen Salote Tupou 111 gave her full pledge to England and the Allied Force as soon as the World War 11 broke out in Europe in the 1940s. Part of U.S navy fleet stationed in Tonga to safeguard the marine routes to Australia.

Few decades after the WW11, floodgates open up and Tongans started arriving in the Pacific coast of United States and Hawaii. Some went back home but many made U.S their home. Even today, our people still arrive at U.S borders in search of better life and education in United States. I am not aware of any formal international economic cooperation signed between Tonga and U.S or Tonga becoming a U.S territory. Although education was already becoming a valuable commodity to the Tongans, it was still negligible from the American viewpoint. Today Tongans in America sends home plenty of money to their families and relatives. U.S. embassy let Tongan groups come inside Unites States to raise funds for their community benefits. American ships arrive at our ports with meats, cars, computers and everything, you name it. How about the knowledge, skills and entrepreneurship our people have gained from working and education in America. Consider an ordinary hardworking American who employ a Tongan landscape contractor in East Pal Alto to fix things at his or her home in return for a reasonable amount of money that may end up in a personal bank account of a man or a student in Tonga. Inner city Police obsessed with our second and third generation Tongans who become burden to the juveniles criminal system in California or Salt Lake City.

In order for the world to function efficiently and effectively, we have to pay for something. We the Tongans keep enjoying things from the Superpower; shall we keep doing it for free. In this case where the Allied ask for help, shall we keep enjoying the luxury without giving something in return? Like the environmental issue of Global warming, human keep exploiting the environment to a point that environment need something back from human race. U.S, England and Allied Forces need help from Tonga this time. China and major trading partners of United States eases the economics downturn in United States by buying a substantial portion of U.S. government bonds. When U.S trading partners take up bond from U.S. government, it help in some ways stablised the international trade between them and U.S so the economics playing field is fair for both party.

Some of us may not see the mutual benefit that Tonga, U.S. and Allied force reap from each other. It is 2010, the world has become globalised and we cannot function efficiently and effectively without the company of each other. Tonga's military is part of the Allied. There may be a cost of being part of the Allied Force and going to Afghanistan, but in the long run, benefits still outweigh the costs.

Sincerely,

Siosaia Mila

skmendevor [at] hotmail [dot] com