Philippines bends over and spreads 'em wide

[Pekka]

Lancer, I'm there with you.. there's that abu sayef or what ever they call themselves, kidnapping people on regular basis, in the jungle they keep them for ages, we had a case where two of our citizens where kept hostage for a LONG time and they had many other nationalities too, basically they said the made contact with the army every now and then, however it seems to me as if they had cut a deal in terms of not ever getting beat by the army. There's no decisiveness.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JohnT
CNN is reporting the same, Lancer:

Source: Abductors promise to release Filipino hostage
Monday, July 12, 2004 Posted: 9:09 PM EDT (0109 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A source in the Philippine embassy in Baghdad said Monday that abductors holding a Filipino truck driver have promised to release him Tuesday. It was not clear how that message was conveyed.

The news came moments after the Philippine government said it would withdraw its 50-member humanitarian force from Iraq "as soon as possible" to save the life of Angelo de la Cruz, a 46-year-old father of eight....

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

I trust CNN less to get its facts straight than I do the CBC.

A lot less, actually.

[JohnT]

Note that I was talking to Lancer.

No offense, Lancer, old buddy.

[Agathon]

This thread title is a slur against catamites.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
How long until Abu Sayaff et. al. take a group of Filipinos or Foreigners hostage and demand something like the withdrawl of troops from Mindinao?

Yeah this makes absolutley no sense whatsover


You guys remember who started this whole beheading people and put it on tape to make demands?

ABU SAYEFF!!!!!!!!

They were chopping heads off off people years before Al Queda did 9/11

So this whole thing strikes me as so odd, as Filipinos have been dealing with this thing, as Lancer said, "forever."

I fear the long term effects of this.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Apparently years of Spanish influence on the Phillipines had a greater effect on that country's psyche than I had thought.

[Imran Siddiqui]

This is what happens when you pay for your coalition members participation instead of using loyal old allies.

Do you have any clue about history in the slightest or are you, once again, talking out of your ass? The Phillipines ARE a loyal old ally. Look at Fillipino-US relations after the Spanish-American War and Aguinaldo's revolt. In particular focus on how American colonial rule treated the Filipinos as equals, easy and peaceful independance, and World War II.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Apparently years of Spanish influence on the Phillipines had a greater effect on that country's psyche than I had thought.

[Boris Godunov]

Imran, "benevolent assimilation" is highly mythologized in many respects. The Philippine colony wasn't treated as an equal, there was a tremendous amount of racism, and the "revolt" was a full-scale revolution. At least 30,000 Filipino's died in it, in addition to over 4000 Americans. And it was one that enjoyed popular support until the largescale losses and political fragmentation of the Filipinos led to capitulation with a vastly better-armed American occupying force.

I suggest:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300030819/102-6888684-4632107?v=glance

And

http://www.wooster.edu/history/jgates/book-ch3.html

The best thing that ever happened for Filippino-American relations was WW2, because the brutality of the IJA made them long for the good old days of merely being forcibly converted to Christianity rather than mass murdered on a nightmarish scale. The American occupation wasn't at all brutal or particularly repressive, but it wasn't skittles and beer.

[Ted Striker]

While that much is true, their treatment was far better than it would have been had it been left to the Spanish or Japanese. The only other powers available to secure it were France and Britain, and even those two countries were still doing all sorts of terrible imperialist things.

[Boris Godunov]

But the point is, calling relations pre-1941 as an example of "loyalty" is preposterous. They were an occupied colony that had been forcibly subjugated by a bloody war. Conquered territories aren't allies.

[KrazyHorse]

Boris:

[Drake Tungsten]

Ted:

[Bosh]

While that much is true, their treatment was far better than it would have been had it been left to the Spanish or Japanese.

Well the Spanish didn't have the capacity to treat the Philippines to much of anything...

[Ted Striker]

Actually I take what I said back.

Your characterization of the American occupation of the Phillipines is UTTER CRAP.

Not only that it is refuted by the article you posted!

The article shows a balanced look at the war and praises the US Army and it's occupation leadership for winning over the population by improving their lives and giving them security.

It shows that many of the texts written showing the Army as scorched earth, terror occupiers was written by those who were anti-imperialists.

Considerable evidence exists, however, to support the argument that atrocious acts of war, for all their widespread publicity, were neither the major nor the most important feature of the army's approach to pacification, as the leaders of the Philippine revolution recognized at the time. They feared what they called the army's "policy of attraction," the term used to describe such army activities as the establishment of schools, municipal governments, and public works projects. The leaders of the revolution feared that the Americans would succeed in winning Filipino acceptance of American rule through such an enlightened policy, and many guerrilla leaders ordered acts of terrorism against their own people in an attempt to counter it. Terror, however, did not prevent all Filipinos from collaborating with the Americans as the army created a positive image of the benefits of colonial rule by the reforms implemented in the occupied towns.

The reform orientation of the army's leaders, not brutality, was the most significant element in the American approach to pacification. Literally from the moment they occupied Manila, American officers had begun efforts to reform the city's government and improve the lives of the people in their charge, initiating their work at a time when many of them assumed that the United States would not be retaining the islands. Later, as tension between the Americans and the Filipino revolutionaries mounted, General E. S. Otis, the second commander of the expeditionary force, hoped that many of the reforms implemented by his military government would obtain Filipino acceptance of American rule and avoid war by demonstrating the sincerity of McKinley's pronouncements stressing America's benevolent intentions in the islands. After hostilities began, Otis continued in his belief that enlightened government was a more important tool of pacification than forceful military operations. Even when condemned by some of his own men for being too cautious, Otis persisted in a policy of pacification emphasizing good works instead of more draconian measures, leading one correspondent to remark that the Americans were "humane to the point of military weakness."

A number of officers shared the General's views, and as units of the army occupied territory outside of Manila, commanders organized public schools, municipal governments, public health measures, and many other projects with a reform orientation. General Arthur MacArthur, who succeeded Otis in May 1900, continued the commitment to a pacification policy relying upon the good works of the military government to bring an end to the war by convincing Filipinos that an American colonial government would have a sincere interest in their welfare and could be trusted. MacArthur consistently rejected the recommendations of those subordinates who urged him to adopt a highly repressive policy, even after he concluded that some harsher measures would be needed to break the link between the guerrillas and their noncombatant supporters. Fortunately for MacArthur, a number of officers in the field took a similar view, and during even the most frustrating period of the guerrilla war, at a time when some Americans were engaging in deplorable acts of brutality, others continued the reform-oriented work of the military government