MERGED: MILF-GRP Peace Process, Related Issues and Developments

[gareb]

---

Your war, our fatal assumptions
By GLENDA M. GLORIA

(excerpts)

MANILA, Philippines — You gather poor intelligence, act on your own, deploy your trainees to a treacherous terrain infamous for eating troops alive, make a bad call, and in the end get fatal results. The mob cries for blood. They choose to blame policy and context, rather than confront the real issues that led to this mayhem.

You’re used to this. We’d gotten you used to this. With or without peace talks, you’d brought your troops, like sheep, to the slaughter. Or have the people forgotten? Name the place–Basilan, Sulu, Cotabato, Maguindanao–you’d committed a number of fatal errors in the last two decades that would have wiped out your chain of command, if only the system allowed a no-nonsense investigation into any of these.

But grief is a great deodorizer. And as it turns out, it is also a painful nurturer of the status quo.

Remember when Basilan used to be a battlefield, not between your troops and bandits but between your own? Remember when the impoverished island had to put up with the squabbles between your Rangers and your Marines and the terror imposed by the Abu Sayyaf? Remember that fatal, day-long gunfight with kidnappers nearly a decade ago, that cost the lives of young officers and men because your commanders from Manila micromanaged the situation?

Of course, an ousted macho president keeps his own bank of memories. He boasts that it was his all-out war policy that wiped out the MILF from Camp Abubakar. Well, yes. It used to be that you knew exactly where they were; now they’re scattered all over the place.

...Let’s look at the basic published facts here. Your troops were on a test mission, “seize and withdraw,” as a spokesman explained it. They were on advanced training as members of an elite unit. Most of them had not been to Basilan before. Their mission? To “locate/arrest/neutralize” a rebel commander charged with kidnapping. They had options before going for the kill: get the police to lead the way (after all, you could not arrest without a warrant), inform the joint ceasefire committee that they were about to do this, and coordinate with (or at the very least inform) Army ground commanders and staff officers in Basilan and Zamboanga, the main headquarters, in case things didn’t turn out as planned. Did they do any of these? Apparently not, and your Inspector General is now trying to dig deeper.

... Nothing could be more fatal for an organization than to be sidetracked from its urgent needs: an honest-to-goodness review of how it draws up its tactics and plans and deploys its people; a strict monitoring of how it spends people’s money and uses its resources; and a much-delayed admission of how poorly trained its men are, how paralyzed headquarters thinking is, and how politicized and unprofessional decision-making had become within the chain.

That’s the undefeated enemy.

And nothing could be more fatal for a nation than to call for war as if it could still be won in the battlefield. – Move.PH

[KlaytoN]

I wonder where da heck are the marines these past weeks?

Are they on the back seat?

Or basin tua sa Spratly's

[higanstolsdawen]

I wonder where da heck are the marines these past weeks?

Are they on the back seat?

Or basin tua sa Spratly's

marines were replaced by the army in basilan kay reshuffling daw sa AFP.

http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlin...01101hed5.html

[Faeries]

@gareb

Sir I think the MILF has broken a dozen cease fire agreements.

If I may ask you what might you suggest, granted you want a peace talk but clearly it is not supposed to end there.

Do you want us concede to their demand of "independence"?

In my humble opinion whatever the GRP-MILF agree on this must still undergo a plebiscite. Unlike the Mo-A during the GMA Ad. Which is actually unconstitutional kase binigay lang yung territory without undergoing ang plebiscite.

Or the MILF scared that many will not agree just like what happened in CAR.

[balipseyev]

Klaro na kaayo....

UTAK PULBURA nalang, atleast magduha2x sila ug pamatay kay naa man ikasukol...

[cheking...]

PRIMARY REASON----RELIGION,

maynpag e hatag nlngh na sa GOBYERNO ang part sa mindanao (ARMM) and leave it as an independent one, same as with the HongKong, etc.

wala man puy PURPOSE kung naa pana nato ang ilang gpangayo na lugar kay wa mn sd silay gi hatag na kaauhan og GASTOS lng ang nabuhat,

reasons why philippines wont abandon that part:
- to continue its fundings and make more money---gobyerno
- played by the generals (still money making)
- still religion

sa uban add up nlng mo heheh

[mc888]

PRIMARY REASON----RELIGION,

maynpag e hatag nlngh na sa GOBYERNO ang part sa mindanao (ARMM) and leave it as an independent one, same as with the HongKong, etc.

wala man puy PURPOSE kung naa pana nato ang ilang gpangayo na lugar kay wa mn sd silay gi hatag na kaauhan og GASTOS lng ang nabuhat,

pwede man pud basta didto ka puyo. storya ray gadaghan sa di hingtungdan..

[mc888]

@gareb



In my humble opinion whatever the GRP-MILF agree on this must still undergo a plebiscite. Unlike the Mo-A during the GMA Ad. Which is actually unconstitutional kase binigay lang yung territory without undergoing ang plebiscite.
.

no territory was ever given to them at all

[aguanta]

ang lu-oy kaayo ang mga non-combatants ... assuming naa pay non-polarized sector anang mga dapita ...

i could imagine the frustrations of, say an ordinary farmer... or a market vendor ... or a bus driver ... who merely wants to make a living and feed his family ... and now finds himself in a war not of his making, not of his wishing ... and no relevance whatsoever sa iyang kinabuhi.

[Sand Man]

Your war, our fatal assumptions
By GLENDA M. GLORIA

(excerpts)

MANILA, Philippines — You gather poor intelligence, act on your own, deploy your trainees to a treacherous terrain infamous for eating troops alive, make a bad call, and in the end get fatal results. The mob cries for blood. They choose to blame policy and context, rather than confront the real issues that led to this mayhem.
....

Certainly puts things into perspective. Thank you for sharing.

I'd like to add this video for anyone who's interested. I think what he says applies to any conflict.

This is really worth the watch, and Mike offers a ton of wisdom and insights.

Mike Durant discusses the Battle of Mogadishu - YouTube

Enjoy.