Taken from Questioning the Anti-Terrorist War in the Philippines by Orlando Tizon:
There are now more than 600 U.S. Special Forces troops stationed in the central and southern Philippines, particularly in the island of Basilan near Zamboanga in Mindanao. Ostensibly they are there to train Filipino forces to fight the Abu Sayyaf, a local bandit group that the Philippine government says has ties with Osama bin Ladin's Al Qaeda. The Bush administration describes this latest deployment of troops as the second phase of the anti-terrorist war after the successful operations in Afghanistan. Lately the administration has claimed this to be a model for military involvement in Yemen, where U.S. forces will train and give technical support to the local military without involvement in the actual fighting.
A deeper analysis of the situation, however, reveals the real political motives of both the Bush administration and the Arroyo administration of the Philippines.... Read More
