http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39462815...ws-asiapacific

“The safe havens are getting smaller on the islands,” said Master Sgt. Wade Christensen, a U.S. Army Special Forces instructor who came to Mindanao in 2003 on his first tour. He’s now on his second as part of JSOTF-P. “Since we’ve been here, there have been no attacks on the U.S. from terrorist organizations that originated here or terrorists that were trained in the Philippines.”

So if the mission to defeat terrorist networks and to eradicate safe havens has been successful, why are U.S. Special Forces still operating in the southern Philippines?

“The simple answer is that the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist groups are still here,” said U.S. Navy Captain Robert Gusentine, the JSOTF-P Commander. “They’re still active. They still aspire to violence. They still aspire to be a regional threat.”
I have high confidence that MSG Christensen is an educated, level headed, and very dedicated warrior, so I suspect the media took the liberty of taking his statement out of context; however, since there are those who believe this is a success metric I would like to offer a counter view. There has been no terrorist attacks on the U.S. from a number of countries where we both have troops and don't have troops. The metric in itself is completely irrelevant.

The reality is that the JI (and they're continually morphing, but done the less they retain their core ideology) and to a lesser extent the criminal/terrorist group ASG still pose a regional threat. I think the U.S. is getting a good return on its investment. If pressure is removed the problem will most likely get much worse, instead of slowly decreasing in scale. Ultimately the solution in the S. Philippines is a political solution, but JSOTF-P was immensely successful in reducing the level of violence in the region. It is time (has been time) for the diplomats to take advantage of the reduced violence and implement a sustainable political agreement.

As for the claims that JSOTF-P is there to counter China, I have a hard time buying that is the reason they're there, but if it is a collateral benefit from being there so much the better. Based on comments by a few Philippine leaders, they're as worried about China's claims to hegemony over the South China Sea as much as we are, so instead of questioning our altruism for being in the S. Philippines, I think this is just another issue that the Philippines and U.S. will agree to partner on.