Going way OT... I'm not convinced that anything the US did was a decisive factor leading to the attacks in 2001. I suspect that the ultimate push coming to shove there was AQ's need for a foreign intervention in Muslim land to justify - and indeed to continue - its own existence.Originally Posted by Ken White
I have long ( going on 31 years...) contended that Carter's abysmal handling of the Tehran Embassy seizure, Reagan's foolish foray into Lebanon and the mishandling of that whole episode, Bush 41s failure to topple Saddam in 91 and Clinton's tail wagging (that's a celebrity buzz - pop culture reference not a veiled innuendo) led to the attacks in the US in 2001 (and others worldwide before that time). So I'm not a Reagan fan. However, while he didn't topple Marcos, he did take surprisingly and unusually (for the US outside a war) decisive action when many were urging him to not take the action he did -- that was my poorly stated point.That's always a wise course...
My impression was that Reagan was pretty much the last holdout on the Marcos issue. Of course I watched it from this side rather than that, so there may be things I didn't see. I do know, though, that from the time of the disastrous (for Marcos) snap election and the blatantly obvious cheat, both State and CIA were desperately urging Washington to back away from Marcos, and I know for sure that the embassy people here were absolutely livid (not for the first or last time) over some of the pro-Marcos comments coming out of Washington. Seemed from here that by the time Reagan came 'round almost everyone else had already figured out that it was done.
One of the big differences between Manila '86 and Egypt '11, IMO, is that Manila '86 was triggered by local events, while events in Tunisia seem to have provided the spark for Cairo. Manila was the culmination of a chain of local events that allowed foreign observers to be better prepared and local players to be a bit better organized than they might have been in a more spontaneous outburst. The response to a failed election left a rival candidate and political apparatus in the picture, however tenuously, and created a possibility for rapid transition that is less evident in Egypt. In that sense, the Cairo spark may have been slightly premature.
It's often forgotten, of course, that the showdown in Manila was sparked not by Cory Aquino's supporters but by an opportunistic attempt at a military coup, which had it succeeded would not have led to a democratic transition.
Again straying OT, but it's not entirely off (at least in my imagination) to look at key balance points in analogous situations...
It's often said that the tipping point in Manila was the refusal of the Philippine Marine contingent to fire on protesters at the EDSA/Ortigas junction on the afternoon of day 2. That was a dicey moment, and if they'd put a hundred PSG thugs in front of the Marines it would have been very different: there weren't more than 20 or 30 of us on the spot when it came right down to it... but it wasn't the tipping point, in my view. (And if anyone wonders, the story that "the nuns stopped the tanks" is a load of bollocks. There was not a nun in sight.)
I've also heard it said that the defection of most of the air force's helicopter assets early the next morning was the critical point, but again I disagree. It was a huge relief to those on the street who saw their arrival on the scene as a pretty major "this is gonna suck" moment, but it wasn't the tipping point.
The key, to me: a few hours after the helicopters landed in the opposition camp it was broadcast over radio and TV that Marcos had left the country. Often forgotten fact: up to that point, the crowds on the street weren't really all that big. Once the news of departure came out, within an hour the crowd multiplied exponentially. Pretty much all of Manila hit the street. The funny thing was... it wasn't true. I don't think it was an accident, either: it was inspired disinformation. By the time everyone realized that it wasn't true there were a million or so people on the street, and they just stayed. It was too obvious by that time that there was no way back for Marcos. That to me was the tipping point. Most of that crowd would never have committed if they thought Marcos was still there... but once they were out the outcome was just too obvious for anyone not to see it. There might be a lesson there somewhere about the utility of the barefaced lie at just the right moment.
I still wonder whose idea that was; never been able to find out.
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