RP, the next front?

There’s no need for President Arroyo to announce that she wants to limit the recreational activities of American troops in the Philippines. At the rate both local and foreign journalists, cameras and microphones in tow, are chasing every American soldier all over Zamboanga City, Clark Field and Nueva Ecija, those troopers will probably want to just remain in their barracks, protected all around by concertina wire.

With the action dying down in Afghanistan, Washington and its allies are looking for new fronts to project the war on terrorism. We may wonder why we’re being pictured as one of those new fronts. Even if you combine the forces of Abu Sabaya in Basilan and Ghalib "Commander Robot" Andang in Sulu, they just don’t seem to constitute enough threat to warrant the international terrorist tag. We’re not even sure that the Abu Sayyaf truly has links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network. Filipinos used to dismiss the Abus as mere bandits, and we thought it clever that the Arroyo administration was playing the Bin Laden card to get military aid from the United States.

But if you read books on Islamist history, including those written before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, you’ll be dismayed to find the Philippines being given prominent play-up. Our notoriety starts with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, when mastermind Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was nearly caught in Manila after an accident in an apartment he was renting. With information obtained from his computer, Yousef was eventually arrested in Pakistan.

Another book, citing foreign investigators, said among the first to be trained in the terrorist camps set up by Bin Laden in Afghanistan were two teams from the Philippines.

The books note that Bin Laden himself came to the Philippines in 1993 or 1994 and set up a financial network, buying real estate property and opening legitimate businesses. When Bin Laden left, the assets were managed through a Muslim foundation set up by his brother-in-law, who fled the Philippines after 9-11.

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By e-mail I asked American friends in the United States if their troop deployment here was getting prominent media coverage. They said they could focus only on one front at a time, and so far their sights were still trained on Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama, although they were aware of the deployment in Mindanao.

Bigger play-up is given in places such as Hawaii where there’s a big Filipino community. Hawaii is also home to the US Pacific Command, which is sending the troops here. My friends said the American public is prepared for casualties – also Washington’s line – since this is a war, after all.

But as I’ve written, I’m starting to believe the official line that the Americans will stay out of the front lines in Basilan. They waged a new type of warfare in Afghanistan, surgical, with minimal casualties, and their engagement here will be on a much smaller scale.

Will we turn into another Vietnam or Afghanistan? The Americans aren’t here to prop up a wobbly regime such as the one in Saigon. The Abu Sayyaf is confined to Basilan and Sulu, without the kind of mass support the communists enjoyed in North Vietnam. Islamists don’t control the country as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

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If there’s so much confusion and speculation about the forthcoming military exercises, it’s because this is a new type of warfare, training and bilateral cooperation against a new threat. We’re not the only one reassessing national policies and cooperation with the United States in the light of events since 9-11.

Meanwhile, the market rules, and it’s giving the thumbs up to the presence of American troops here.

And while our soldiers grumble that they can wipe out the Abus on their own, thank you, they welcome the training and assistance provided by the Americans. It’s training that they normally can get only in the United States, and they have to fight for slots to get into those special training programs.

Our soldiers in Basilan and Zamboanga told me the US troops also collect souvenirs: Philippine military t-shirts (even used), patches and insignias. The Americans exchange C rations with their Philippine counterparts. Stories of bravery and tragedy in the battlefield move the Americans to tears.

Apart from the training and cultural exchange, the most welcome aspect of these war "exercises" for our troops is the arrival of long needed aircraft, weapons, high-tech surveillance equipment and other materiel.

If we had provided our fighting men and women with enough equipment and support to do their job effectively, we wouldn’t need to send an SOS to Uncle Sam. We wouldn’t be fretting about our sovereignty. And the commander-in-chief wouldn’t be worrying about the spread of prostitution in Zamboanga and Angeles City.