Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
(This has paid tremendous benefits in the Southern Philippines, a primarily SOF effort, that has made visible, positive, differences in the relationship between the largely Muslim populace and the largely Christian security forces over the past 8 years).
I have some doubts about whether the changes in the relationship between populace and security forces in that environment is going to last. People I talk to from that region uniformly state that while the perception of US forces is very good, the perception of Philippine forces remains dubious at best. The positive perception of US forces is less related to development projects, which are willingly accepted but seen as payoffs, than to the perceived ability of US forces to act as a restraint on Philippine forces: apparently the Philippine forces tend to behave better when Americans are around. This is not expected to last.

The general expectation, as far as I can tell, is that as soon as the Americans leave it will be business as usual: the Philippine government will neglect the area unless someone else is putting up the funds, and the military will get back to their old ways.

We'll see. I hope to be surprised, but I have to expect that it will go on. I don't think there's any real will to address the core issues in the Philippine government, military, or the majority Christian population. We often forget (they generally don't) that the core conflict is not insurgents vs government, but settlers vs indigenous inhabitants. The settlers are politically potent (in much of the area they are a majority) and pose a major constraint on the government's ability to negotiate or to effectively manage core issues. Much of the Christian populace harbors a quite extreme level of prejudice against the Muslims, is opposed to any concession, and would prefer to see them crushed by force.

I'll be very curious to see what evolves in the Zamboanga/Basilan/Jolo area. The MNLF is I suspect terminally compromised, and since '94 Abu Sayyaf has been less a political movement than a criminal enterprise with a very nominal political facade. The criminal side has certainly cooperated with political elements, but it's been the criminal side - and the financial interests it represents - that drive the popular appeal, and that drive the long standing and thinly concealed relations between ASG and the government and military. ASG endured because it made money and distributed some of it, not because it represented the political aspirations of the populace.

In some ways the expansion of the MILF as representative of the entire Muslim populace would be the logical development, but Tausug antipathy toward the Maguindanao/Maranao leadership of the MILF is a major obstacle.

We'll see. Not to dismiss or demean the US efforts there, but I really don't see them doing more than scratching the surface, and the reports of epic success seem to me well exaggerated.