Article

2003-02-21 Southeast Asia

1,700 U.S. troops to fight in Philippines

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Posted by Steve 2003-02-21 08:40 am|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 We won the original Moro war by dropping tons of money (for the time) on rewards for turning in the rebels. It worked. The actual fighting part of it went on like this has, or the fight against the Viet Cong. As long as the guerrillas can blend in at will with the locals, we can't get all of them. A "Making Mulims Rich" program, on the other hand... MMR forever!

Posted by Chuck 2003-02-21 09:05:26|| [blog.simmins.org] 2003-02-21 09:05:26|| Front Page Top

#2 phillipines is like VN - jungle convered, mountainous
so no good opportunities to use armor and air power to control the battlefield, an infantry war, where our comparative advantage is least.
PI is unlike VN - its a chain of islands, so the battlefield can be subdivided and the opposition supply lines broken by our control of the sea. This makes the campaign against Abu Sayaf (on small islands) easier than the campaign against MILF (on the large island of Mindanao)(US not in the MILF campaign - at least not yet) . Of course we can still surround Mindano and cut it off from the world, something we couldnt do in VN. So its winnable in a way VN wasnt, but still likely to bemessier than Afghan, probably even messier than Iraq will turn out to be.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-02-21 13:50:41|| 2003-02-21 13:50:41|| Front Page Top

#3 Good luck, good hunting, and get home safe.

Posted by Mike 2003-02-21 19:58:24|| 2003-02-21 19:58:24|| Front Page Top

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