Forget Iraq. How about some good old-fashioned jungle combat patrols against guerrilla insurgents?[/i]
Abu Sayef isn’t that large or formidably a military organization. Just a bunch of guerillas and terrorists. The Philippine Army hasn’t been able to crush them because of just how poorly trained and equipped they are. When we assisted them last year, we had to give them encrypted radios, because they used such old radios that anybody could listen in on them, including Abu Sayef. So they’d go marching along in the jungle and talking on their radios and Abu Sayef would just listen in and ambush them over and over again.
Abu Sayef doesn’t exactly have a lot of popular support. The vast majority of the Philippines is fervently Catholic, so much so that they make the Poles and Irish look a bit tame. (Seriously, every Easter, the Philippines is the only nation in the world where they have folks volunteer to actually get crucified with nails, so they can share the experience that Jesus had.) Even on the southern island, which has the largest Muslim demographic, the Muslims are still a minority.
Abu Sayef are just pros when it comes to kidnapping tourists on a beach, or raiding a hospital for hostages. But, hey, give Asher and Chick a couple of guns and I bet they could do that shit to. And they’re the poster children for not rewarding terrorists and kidnappers. Remember how they kidnapped all those European and American tourists a couple years ago. After getting about $10 million in ransom money, they just did it again. And that’s mainly how Abu Sayef gets its funding. It doesn’t have a state sponsor, like Iran. Just a bunch of heavily-armed crooks.
This won’t be another Vietnam, for the reasons I’ve mentioned. Abu Sayef is a Muslim terrorist organization that lacks popular support in a largely and fervently Christian nation. They’re not really military regulars or military irregulars, rather than just a heavily-armed gang that got some pointers from Al Queda. They’ve been able to flourish for so long because of various reasons, including the rampant corruption amongst civil servants as well as the poor state of the Philippine armed forces. But they were dealt major setbacks last year when the Filipino army actually got serious, thanks to help and training from us.
I don’t think we need to go into combat over there. We should just go back to what was working, which was training and keeping the morale of the Philippine army up. Our problem was that we stopped last year, and when we pulled out our assistance, Abu Sayef started acting up again. Plus, it’s hard to stop car bombs with military troops, car bombs being the tactic of choice for Abu Sayef currently. Just ask the Marines who were in Beirut.
And the really annoying thing is that young Filippinos will bitch and moan and protest about American troops in their country. But they nevermind the Abu Sayef bastards who go around kidnapping women and then beheading them if they don’t convert to Islam, which is just another one of those delightful things this group does.
I always thought Abu Sayef were a bunch of unemployed thugs who take happy juice on a daily basis. Saying they are Muslims was just a lame-assed way of legitimising their “Front”.
They seem to specialise in terrorising foreign tourists, local villagers, and kidnapping company directors for cash to support their addiction.
I wonder if the MILF - Moro Islamic Militant Front, will take part in any fighting between the Abu Sayyaf and US Special Forces.
Oh, and considering many films that take place in Vietnam were actually shot in the Philippines, it’s somewhat appropriate that the comparison is made. Then again, > 95% of the Philippines is Catholic, and very opposed to the MILF and Abu Sayyaf, so there isn’t a great deal of native support for them.
Here’s some more info about the MILF. They seem much more of a long-term threat, but they don’t want to draw too much attention to themselves right now, for the obvious reasons.
rimshot
That link didn’t seem to work, but I found some good info here.[/quote]
Now THAT’s entertainment! :lol: