"Wretchard the Cat" over at Belmont Club, in Al-Qaeda Marches South:
"The main question facing coalition partners USA and Australia is whether to keep working with the Indonesian and the Philippine governments which seem unwilling or unable to face the forces that are slowly tearing them apart; or prepare for a scenario that accepts the failure of these two states."
Lots more good stuff over there, mate, including further briefings on the Philippines' home-grown terrorist problem and how its diplomatic foolishness in Iraq may have just made Filippinos persona non grata as employees in the region. The consequences could be noticeable in a country that exports workers, then depends on earnings sent back home.
UPDATE: "Capt. Joe" has some personal anecdotes from the Philippines that are releavant to this discussion.
I think the main problem the article is that it doesn't see the situation from the perspective of the countries involved. While muslim terrorism is a dangerous force, it's not all that dangerous compared to the situations in Aceh, Irian Jaya, or indeed East Timor. Or for that matter the economy and corruption. Fighting wars overseas is a luxury countries like these can ill afford, perhaps when either of the two countries is not fielding their own armies to ward off insurrections of their own.
As for the remedy,
"The prudent course would be for America and Australia to develop ways of directly influencing events on the ground by creating structures which bypass the existing and inutile bureaucracies in the capitals."
is just not going to happen with the support of the governments, and will take away from the democratic right of the people of both countries to decide how their countries are run.
Factory, points taken but the thrust of Belmont Club's article isn't about Iraq, it's about the very real weakness within the Philippine and Indonesian states:
Etc.
As for the remedy, the lack of consent on the part of the host governments is precisely the point. Hence the preface to the quote you included:
If the Philippine and Indonesian governments contine to take action that represents a danger to other states in their region, those neighbouring states will not sit idly by forever. Nor should they. Actions have consequences - and so does inaction.
Lost this great festival of hyperbole: we're talking about 40 people here.
Praktike - Correction.
You are talking about 4,000 Filipino civilian workers in Iraq and over one million in Saudi Arabia.
Pres. Gloria just gave her Sate of the Nation Speech this evening (Monday) her main point was "Filipino first."
Lost in all the talk about the Philippines is the fact that since June 1st they have been the President of the UN Security Council.
I have yet to see anyone speak to this.
Sorry - referring to 40 members of Jemaah Islamiah. I just don't think they're as big a threat as they're being made out to be. Their brand of Islam is just too foreign, and I see no signs of any popular support.
Note: I'm not saying that the Phillipines have made a wise decision vis-a-vis Iraq. Clearly AQ's strategy over the long term will be to force those 1 million guest workers out of the Kingdom and replace more than a few of them with its own agents. But I think the threat to the Phillipines itself is overblown.
The Phillipines is in a bit of a sticky wicket. Remittances from Filipinos working overseas&mddash;many in Gulf—accounts for nearly 10% of the GDP. I doubt that they can kiss that goodbye.
praktike:
Clearly AQ's strategy over the long term will be to force those 1 million guest workers out of the Kingdom and replace more than a few of them with its own agents.
Destabilize the KSA, yes. Start cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, and drawing baths—I doubt it. If the Sauds could get their subjects to do that they wouldn't be importing foreign workers.
As someone who spends a fair amount of time in the Philippines (wife is from there) let me add my 2 cents.
The Philippines is full of insurgency groups of all political stripes. In the south are various bands of muslim insurgents who regularly kidnap foreigners and filipinos (mostly) for ransoms to buy weapons.
In the North and central there are communist/marxist insurgents called by various names. Most powerful are the NPA (new peoples army) who like the rebels in the movie "proof of life" are more interested in money than ideology although they trot that out as their objective.
As well, in the cities they are various criminal gangs that operate kidnap gangs that often target the wealthy Chinese minority. Many of these gangs are run by memebers of the police and military and they provide a lucrative side business.
The major problem in giving in to this only increases the overall instability in the Philippines. It helps in the recruiting efforts of both the northern and southern insurgents. In fact many of these insurgent groups have started collaborating with operations, and weapons.
I went to visit my brother in law on the first trip I made many years ago. He is a member of the National Police (PNP). In the Philippines, all policeman are members of the PNP and there are national standards for training, etc. His was in charge of a detachment and performed a job similiar to a county sheriff. I noticed on his wall various certificates he had. As I perused over them, my eyes widened at the titles. These were counter-terrorism, intelligence gathering, etc. I asked him if he was in charge of some special detachment and he replied that with the problem of the NPA, all policeman had to learn these sorts of things. He them showed me his standard kit which included grenades, automatic weapons, etc.
I then asked him how bad was it and started to be concerned for the security of my family. He said that there usually wasn't many problems. The NPA lived by getting bribes off the govt and public officials (every campaigner had to paid the local NPA rep for permission to run) and so long as that was not disturbed, they keep to themselves. Without significant backup, he certainly was not going to stir things up.
Without the remittances that are sent back from around the world, the country would have become a failed state a long time ago.
Cranial (#25477): They put Libya in charge iof the UN Human Rights Council. They were going to put Iraq and then Iran in charge of the Non-proliferation group (never followed whether they went ahead and did this with Iran). Syria, a terrorist state, has been head of the Security Council.
Why not extend the joke, and put the Philippines in charge of the Security Council? Can't be more ridiculous than the stuff they've already done.
Joe,
I agree with the list of absurdities at the UN. Given this list, why does anyone in the first world care about these clowns? Or do you think most people don't hear about this stuff?
Looks like Indonesia is going to take care of beeswax no matter what.
Abu Bakar Bashir's plans for an 'Islamic super state'are too pathetic to be discussed seriously.Though Jemaah Islamyah can be a dangerous nuisance as far as isolated acts of terrorism are concerned it has no hope in hell to seriously destabilize governments in the region.
Jemaah Islamyah traces its origin to the Darul Islam but there is no comparison between its puny forces and those its alleged parent could muster in its heyday. The Darul Islam was indeed a seriously dangerous movement in the forties, fifties and early sixties but after the capture and execution,in 1962, of its founder and leader, S.M. Kartosuwirjo, by the Sukarno regime it rapidly declined.
When it was still fully operational however it kept substantial parts of the Indonesian army tied up in fighting them. Many years ago I visited the Museum of the famous Siliwangi division, in Bandung I think it was, and to my surprise there were very few exhibits about the struggle with the Dutch but a great many about the campaign against the Darul Islam.
I can't see that the resistance movements in Aceh and West Papua constitute a great danger to the region either. People in Aceh are too preoccupied with local problems and the murderous onslaught of the Indonesian army there to dream about an Islamic superstate. And West Papua is altogether a different kettle of fish.The rebellion there mainly comes from an indigenous population that was largely christianized by Dutch catholic and protestant missionaries. Its aspirations have to do with the independence that it found withheld through the dodgy 'act-of-choice' (locally called the 'act of no choice') stage managed by Indonesia (with U.S. and U.N. complicity) in 1969. Christian Papuans have very little sympathy for Islam, the religion of their oppressors.
I found the comments on the Philippines on this blog somewhat lacking in local perspective. Arroyo had no choice in the De La Cruz case. If she had allowed his head to be sacrificed hers would have been next. Her position, after a recent rather dubious election, is weak enough as it is and would have been untenable if she had disregarded the sentiments of the tens of millions of relatives of the roughly seven million overseas workers. There are in the Philippines bad memories concerning the lack of action by the government of its then President, Fidel Ramos, when another overseas worker, Flor Contemplacion, was hung in Singapore after a trial that, in her home country, was widely regarded as unfair. It is said that Ramos'position seriously declined after this event and people certainly wouldn't have let Arroyo get away with inaction versus De la Cruz on behalf of a mission that was rather unpopular from the start and seen by some as evidence of Arroyo's servility towards the U.S.
The comments of Alexander Downer, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, on all of this have been rather unhelpful to say the least. 'Lord Downer of Baghdad', as one satirist calls him, has only managed to enrage the Filipinos, people whose very cooperation is needed to keep taps on undesirables in the region. The Belmont commentator talked about 'punctilious' diplomats in Canberra. On this occasion we haven't seen much evidence of that puntiliousness but then, as one Filipino commentator wisely remarked, Downer is a politician and not a diplomat.
Arie Brand