Obsequious Appeasement

Paulo (who lives near where I’ll be this weekend) hits it on the head in his blog, How Now Brown Pau?:

Great, not only are we terror appeasers, we’re obseqious terror appeasers.
From the Deputy Foreign Secretary: “In response to your request … the
Philippines will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible
…. I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of this
group …. We know that Islam is the religion of peace and mercy.”

“Touch the heart?”
“Peace and mercy?”
“Request?”

You know, though I consider it dishonorable, I might even understand
sending home troops to save the life of a hostage, but what kind of
wonderful noble motivation is this person trying to ascribe to these
terrorists? It isn’t even acquiescence anymore; it’s grovelling. “Oh, don’t hurt us, we’ll do anything you want!”

This is the sort of rolling over and playing dead that got us stuck
with President Marcos and his shoe-whore wife for waaaaay too long. As
one American observer once noted, the Philippines had “40 million
cowards and one son of a bitch.” And now that the Philippine government
is not only giving into demands but doing it in a way that puts Waylon
Smithers to shame, I fear these two outcomes:

The Muslim terror groups in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf and the group from whcih they split, MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front, not the American Pie acronym), will be emboldened and ramp up their attacks, kidnappings and hostage-taking.
Abu Sayyaf are currently in negotiations with the Philippine
government. I may not know a lot about terrorists’ mindsets, but I do
know a helluva lot about negotiating. The Philippine government just
invited Abu Sayyaf to walk all over them.
50% of the Philippines GDP is generated by overseas contract
workers (often called “OCWs”, who are so numerous that they get their
own line in Customs at Manila’s airport. They were breathlessly, if somewhat cluelessly, praised in Wired in 2002).
The fortunate ones get work in North America, while the less fortunate
work in the Gulf, from which you always hear stories of maltreatment
and abuse. The Filipino government has just effectively stamped
“POTENTIAL HOSTAGE” on all their foreheads.

I worry that the Philippines is about to learn a harsh lesson about paying the danegeld.

Joey deVilla

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Anonymous says:

July 14, 2004 at 5:02 pm

You'll be in DC this weekend? AGH, I'll be in NJ!
Anonymous says:

July 14, 2004 at 6:41 pm

I'll be in Baltimore, attending my friend Herb's wedding at the Pier 5.
Anonymous says:

July 16, 2004 at 6:18 am

Paulo?! Joey?! The two of you know each other??
This is like those rare occasions when people who hear I am from South Africa (with a population larger than Canada) say," Oh, then you must know so-and-so" ... and then I do.
Anonymous says:

July 21, 2004 at 9:46 pm

A friend just flew out to Cebu to help out with some elderly family. She was told, before leaving, that her family in the Philippines has a strict "no ransom" policy.
That the threat of kidnap is prevalent enough that families have ransoming policies, scares me.
-- whump