Okay, okay. There, our demonstrators joined the worldwide howl of street protesters. Brought us into the swim of things.
But when all is said and done, we’ve long been at war already. Whether we like it or not, the New People’s Army has for decades been fighting to overthrow the government on the heels of its predecessors, the Hukbalahap and the HMB. The Moro rebels have been rebelling for over a century and a half, except in recent years they’ve got a lot of help from sympathetic Islamic countries, al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, and other sponsors.
Of course, there’s consternation over the fact that in the past two weeks, Moro Islamic Liberation Front saboteurs and other terrorists, like a group calling itself "Al-harakatul al-Islamiya" (they love giving themselves heroic titles), have been blowing up or downing transmission towers or power pylons of the Central Mindanao grid in an attempt to plunge Mindanao into brownout. For the most part, by energetic emergency measures, the government had managed to restore electricity.
Certainly, the rebel and terrorist attacks will continue. Destroying power lines is a customary guerrilla tactic. The Leftist Sendero Luminoso guerrillas used to do this frequently, along with murdering thousands of hapless civilians and villagers, until former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori crushed them with merciless efficiency.
The FANC insurgents and other Marxist or druglord-subsidized paramilitaries blow up power lines and other facilities in Colombia in a never-ending battle to destabilize society.
What’s happening in Mindanao is an escalation of the MILF’s campaign and that of other Moro rebels to cause and spread pain, so civilian misery will force the government to cave in. It’s not a new tactic suddenly invented by the terrorists: During the guerrilla war against the Japanese occupying forces, the Filipino underground used to cut electric cables, and telephone/telegraph wires. (Methods in those days were more primitive).
The reason our government never seems to win the fight is because we always withdraw from military victory by bleating that "peace must be given a chance". This is exactly what happened to former President Joseph Estrada. No sooner had his troops overrun Camp Abubakar and 20 other MILF camps than he, the military, and PNP stopped to celebrate – with lechon, included. Then the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping of 21 hostages from Sipadan occurred, and Javier Solana of Spain and the European Union, Jacques Chirac of France, Joschka Fischer – Germany’s foreign minister – and the president of Finland (Erap said she rang up frequently), warned Estrada not to attack the Abus since their hostages might be killed in the firefight. Erap et al., cowed by international meddling, surrendered to the naggers and transmogrified from a fighting tiger to a meek pussycat by ordering our frustrated armed forces and police to maintain a "hands-off" policy and not put the hostages at risk by hitting the ASG. No ransom? Sanamagan, more than $20 million in ransom was eventually paid – after the Abu Sayyaf had humiliated our government for a year and half – and, aba, Erap and our leading Cabinet negotiator were accused of having pocketed a big chunk of it (by the same Europeans who had "ordered" him to stop, and who profusely thanked Libya’s strongman Moammar Ghadaffy for having come forth and paid much of the ransom – along with the Malaysians, who also ransomed their own hostages! Aren’t these the same guys who’re now angrily warning Bush, Blair, and those doggone American imperialists not to invade Iraq without their permission and that of the United Nations Security Council?). Methinks Bush won’t agree to be humiliated in the same way as poor Erap.
Hostages were beheaded, others murdered, women were raped incessantly, and the Abus even managed to "get away" mysteriously from what was supposedly to be a military cordon of steel in Lamitan, Basilan. By the time the government finally got going in June 2002, the Abus had been jerking us around for more than a year (generating maximum bad publicity). Our Scout Rangers and army units finally smashed into the main band of Abus in Sirawi, Zamboanga del Norte. In the exchange of fire, the long-suffering American Christian missionary Martin Burnham and nurse Ediborah Yap were slain, but Gracia Burnham, though wounded, was rescued. We were again roundly condemned internationally for our clumsiness, except by the wonderful, saintly Gracia Burnham, who wept for her husband (never over her own brutal tortures) and thanked our government, our soldiers, and our people.
Once again, there’s an outcry for us to beg for "peace" from the MILF, when we’ve already got them scampering – just because they’re resisting with tooth and fang, and blowing up our power transmission lines. We never learn. Will we allow those ruthless Muslim fanatics and Islamic separatists to pick us off one by one – as they’ve been doing, with their ambushes and assaults on isolated camps (during "ceasefire" periods, mind you), the kidnapping and murdering sprees conducted by their Pentagon Gang, and their mad-bomber activities? No thanks to Hashim Salamat – or no Salamat to Hashim!
During "peace talks" they shoot, kill, and bomb. When they’re fleeing military attack, they continue to shoot, kill, and bomb. And we think that if we go on our knees to them and secure more "peace talks" (they now sneer that we must ask Malaysia to intercede, gaddamit!) they’ll stop kidnapping, killing and bombing? And they’ll leave our power lines alone?
We have to decide once and for all. If it’s fight, then we must fight to the inevitable conclusion of the battle: Total victory. If we blink once again, and grovel before them, and beg to negotiate, then we’ll have to give them what they want: An independent Islamic State of Mindanao.
Are we willing to do this? There’s no in-between.
Does this indicate, for instance, that the US is going to attack Baghdad soon? Despite the last-minute "announcement" by Saddam Insane that, mumkin, he will . . . uh, destroy his 120 al-Samoud 2 missiles as ordered by United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix, the US is unconvinced. He’s been jerking the UN and the US around for 12 years, Washington, DC, growls.
Millions may march for "peace" around the planet, but the Americans will go for the jugular, nonetheless. The Texas Ranger, US President George "Dubya" Bush is in no doubt. He said so to visiting Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who’s being criticized by 80 percent of his own Spanish population for joining Bush’s "coalition of the willing". In response, Aznar indicated he’ll stay the course.
Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair has been confronted by a major "revolt" within his own Labour Party, with 120 out of the 410 Labour MPs breaking ranks and opposing Britain joining the war because the case for war "is unproven" – and the poll surveys are heavily lined up against him. Yet, Blair also declared he’ll stay the course.
Bush has already been talking about "liberating" Iraqis and having no desire to dominate and control Iraq after Saddam. Is any message clearer? The Yanks will punch in. There is no "if" any longer, only a "when".
When the US already has 150,000 men in the Gulf, backed up by four aircraft carriers and their battle groups in the Gulf and next-door Mediterranean, with a fifth, the USS Kitty Hawk arriving (they snatched it away from Japan and the Pacific), and when Turkey is reluctantly poised to approve – against massive street protests and opposition in Parliament – the deployment of 47,000 more US troops, what’s there left to say? That Washington, DC will tell all these fellows to pack it up, and come home again?
Of course, Saddam won’t quit. He won’t resign. He won’t go into exile. He’s already said that "we will die here". (A Filipino maid even overheard him.)
The 22-member Arab League met in Sharm-al-sheikh in Egypt and called for "peace". But politely enough. Oh, well. Those cheeky Americans are already worrying about what happens "post-war".
The price of crude in New York City hit close to $40 per barrel the other day. That’s the real imperative. It was less expensive in California and elsewhere, but still $35 to $37 per barrel is too much. The suspense is killing everybody – including us. Don’t you think that, by this time, war would be better than suspense? Let’s be logical about it. At least, when war erupts, we’ll know the worst – or, unexpectedly, come out of this "end of suspense" far better off. Movement is preferable to stagnation, and right now, everything is frozen in anxiety. Dubya, if you’re going to do it, do it. That’s what I say.