Blood Debts, Duplicity and Monsters
Behind the Valentine Bombings
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
The sergeant was singing his heart out. Unfortunately, he was singing his guts and intestines along with his vocal cords, so that I had to caution an irate beermate and fellow sergeant beside me, who after downing 5 bottles of their great San Miguel beer, was ready to reach for his .45 and put the fellow out of his misery. Happily ,he obliged me. You can’t really blame them. They’ve been through a lot. This is their story.
It started as a simple chase. This southern front in the War on Terror was rife with news of four stranded Indonesians in Philippine territory who were left (or let loose?) by their notorious Abu Sayyaf comrades who themselves were scurrying for a southern exit to gather more logistics from the terror cells in Indonesia and Malaysia. The names and faces of the terrorists had already been identified and what was left was the chase. Apparently, the four had already fanned to separate directions for their task, and clearly they needed a diversion to slow down this chase.
Now, how to go about the chase. Would a focus on the southern exit yield more results ? The Southern Command of the Philippine Armed Forces thought so and concentrated on the Abu Sayyaf band, so that’s what brought them to the town of Panamao in the Sulu group of islands .
If you think of the Florida Keys, this would be geographically the same appearance of this group of islands on the southernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago as it stretches the waters demarcating Malaysian and Indonesian territory.
Another backgrounder which also can be gleaned from my previous blog (see Link) was the peace accords arrived at by the Philippine government under the auspices of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) granting autonomy to what is known as the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the autonomy to include (of all things..) the standing armies of previous Muslim separatist rebels – which are : (1)the Moro National Liberation Front(MNLF) -the 70’s variety who lost the separatist war and (2) Moro Islamic Liberation Front(MILF) – who lost the 2000 separatist war and opted for autonomy. A side issue here was that the former MNLF rebel leader who joined the Philippine government after the People Power Revolution as its first ARMM governor, Nur Misuari, a Tausug, was later replaced due to corruption charges. It was told that the entire ARMM budget supported his royal lifestyle to the detriment of economic gains that could have flowed down to the Muslim autonomous region.
Panamao, Sulu was Tausug country, an ethnic group known for being seafaring gypsies and home to the standing army of the MNLF wich was led this time by the nephew of Nur Misuari . This was where the Abu Sayyaf left their last footprints and expectedly a house-to-house search was in order for the Philippine Army. Unexpectedly, in the process, reports of initial gunfire from a female in one of the households upon opening the front door and consequent return fire from the military resulted in the deaths of a child and a town councilor. The following week in February, the MNLF led a surprise attack on a Philippine Army detachment killing scores of Filipino soldiers. The ensuing exchange of mortar, artillery and gunfire led to a withdrawal of the MNLF forces from their camp, but not without inflicting a major casualty, that of the Philippine Army’s battalion commander. The camp that was retook was renamed Camp Col. Dennis Villanueva, in honor of the slain battalion commander. The remaining cornered MNLF forces have started invoking the peace process and have called for a ceasefire.
As this was happening, the environs of Manila and other major cities were lulled into Valentine fever, where they tried to top their record of the previous year, making it to the Guinness Book of world records as the biggest or longest (whichever) mass street kissing event (Luvpalooza 2). Even as Filipinos failed to top their previous record for this year, they were treated to such barbarism as cell-phone-triggered terrorist bombs exploded a public bus in the financial district of Makati killing 60 people, simultaneously with similar explosions in the southern cities of Davao and its Tuna capital, General Santos. A fourth incident involved a man seen tossing explosive devices over a fence in a Metro Manila suburb, Paranaque. That these devices turned out to C-4 ,TNT and some blasting caps with clear military markings raised more quizzical eyebrows. Who knows? Historically, the US , along with other world powers, have taken part in covert ops before and I’m not about to rationalize those actions in this blog. Then again, disgruntled Indonesian military have access to these weapons as well. The other exploded devices were simpler (TNT+Mortar+ cellphone) but just as deadly. Will
these guerilla devices find its way to US shores? Standard answer: Not if we can help it.
. If one examines the terrorist hits in the Southeast Asian region, along the equator, one finds more of the lethal hits occurring above the equator, in the island of Muslim Mindanao, southern Philippines and the environs of Metro Manila, the seat of its Christian-led government . The lone exception being the terrorist blast in Bali, Indonesia which was aimed at Westerners and another at a Philippine embassy in Jakarta. Even the traditional ideological enemies of the Philippine government – the Maoist New People’s Army – had, in its most brazen military attacks – taken care to lessen collateral damage – since it wanted to win sympathy from the people. The latest attacks, which follow the tenor of most current terrorist projects, were wanton, 60 Filipinos blown up in a Manila bus, with explosives triggered with cellular phones. The simultaneous bombs that were blown in two other southern cities could easily have been handled by a push of a send button from another mobile phone using broadcast dialing. Singapore had an aborted terrorist attempt at exploding a US Base owing to its good intelligence work, The only incident in Malaysia was the hostage taking in one of its island tourist spots that also ended up in Philippine territory.
Wanton damage in the Philippines. Only selected targets in Indonesia and Malaysia. Clearly, the Terror war is being directed from the Muslim states below with the epiequatorial Roman Catholic Philippines on the defensive. Even the usually quiet mostly Buddhist Thailand was rocked with a bomb near its Malaysian border.
In this war fought in the shadows, deception plays a key element and clearly the tactic of diversion, baiting the enemy to fire at the wrong target, capitalizing on collateral damage and blood debts for recruits, have succeeded in making the option to play into the enemy’s hands more tempting. Somehow, the trigger finger moves more briskly. Add to that the death of a commander. In the Philippine Army’s case, this was a Philippine Military Academy(PMA) graduate, an equivalent to the value in the US of a West Pointer. In the ears of his fellow classmates( or ”mistahs”) who are well-positioned in the Philippine military , the voice of an avenging angel is louder. It really hits them big time.
Who said war could be “civilized”? I remember a trainer asking new recruits once what they understood by war. When nobody could come up with a satisfactory answer, he came out with “War is the art and science of managing violence”. Then it hits me. The violence is not suppose to manage you, it’s you who should control it. That’s where the discipline comes in, more in controlling your urge to not push the destruct button rather than to push it. Between guys who show a normal distaste for war and someone who seems to be enjoying himself immensely with all the senseless destruction, I’d rather trust the guy who hates the war with the planning. It’s simply because the guy who hates the war will find the most efficient way to get the mission accomplished and get it over with while the sicko will come up with all kinds of Abu Ghraib type perversions to delay the mission simply because he gets a kick out of the war. It’s probably the similar high one gets in being called a war politician, war senator or war whatever. It’s scenarios such as these when you grieve over brothers-in arms ,and you hear loose talk of “napalm “ and “pulverize” when soldiers are transformed beyond accomplishment of the mission and accomplishing something else. The set-up makes for a monster factory where the phrase “the dogs of war” are set loose, not literarily, but literally.
The Al Qaeda together with its Jemayah Islamiya minions in Asia has long allowed violence to control them rather than the other way around. Recently, they left the bodies of 3 ambushed Filipino soldiers in 3 or more pieces each. The previous accounts of genital amputation of sleeping soldiers by the enemy in Jolo during the ‘70’s war made for a lot of sleepless nights and could really push some to out-perverse them. It’s really an invitation from the enemy to out-brutalize them and come out with military options that would increase one’s collateral damage. The truth of the matter is that the Abu Sayyaf needs recruits so badly that they have to outsource their terrorist projects to nearby Indonesians and Malaysians. This must have been sensed by the (still) standing armies of past Muslim separatist wars who are now calling for a ceasefire.
Even the Manila-based Muslim community ,whose initial source of income came from CD piracy, courtesy of Malaysian connections, before they diversified into jewelry, have mounted a movement for peace, even as Abbu Sayyaf-inspired text messages to “Muslim brods” proliferate in the south warning them to stay away from public places.
The Manila government has played it cool, announcing its steadfast support for a national ID system while encouraging local governments to come up with security-friendly systems of their own in the interim period. The US has officially come out thru its Ambassador, Richard Ricciardone, as encouraging economic and tourism activity in the region. A couple of parting questions might interest you as they intrigue me : Isn’t the Philippine constitution against foreign troops in its soil? How do they know the MILF or MNLF troops aren’t even half-Indonesian or half-Malaysian? Or two-thirds foreign for that matter? How do they know that the Abu Sayyaf isn’t a foreign covert ops squad ? Just asking. And hey, I’m just visiting.
The islands really are lovely. As I leave my buddies to their rites for a jog out to the beach, I can’t help but think how great life would be when the monsters have all vanished and this is all over . One could pick one of these islands to retire on . Then, maybe something closer to home. Florida Keys ? Hhmm.
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