Karen Hughes in the Stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf
Karen Hughes Visits Abu Sayyaf Lair -- The key aide to President Bush visited the island of Jolo and hailed efforts there as a model of for how operations should be conducted elsewhere in the world. ( Reuters)
U.S. special forces are providing intelligence and training to Philippine troops combating the Abu Sayyaf, the country's deadliest Islamic militant group. They are also helping build roads and schools on Jolo, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf. ... There was strong security but no sign of the fighting when Hughes was mobbed by hundreds of Muslim schoolchildren waving Philippine and U.S. paper flags after she stepped out of a military helicopter in the port town of Maimbung. "Well, it's very heart-warming to see the warm smiles," she said, when asked whether her reception differed from that in other Muslim societies. U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenny inaugurated a three-room school building that was built by U.S. soldiers where students learn how to surf the Internet using 10 computers provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Commentary
The substantial accomplishments made in the field are the result of the dedicated efforts of many individual Filipinos and Americans but it would be a travesty to assign the credit for the recent successes against the Islamic insurgency to any particular competence by the Arroyo government. The Reuters article goes out of its way to emphasizes the socio-economic aspects of the counterinsurgency, but the key to development isn't more money. The amount of money that has been allotted to the Autonomous Region For Muslim Mindanao surpasses anything that the non-Muslim regions have received. Development was never stifled by a lack of money but by a lack of supervision. The warlords of the area have never missed an opportunity to pocket the funds for their own private benefit. What the American presence provided was a greater degree of watchfulness on the way funds were spent. If the 3-room schoolbuilding were left to the usual corrupt construction practices instead of being directly built by US soldiers it's a fair bet that not a single nail would have been driven to this day.
All the same it's good to see that Ms. Huges and Ambassador Kenny are out there. God bless them.
posted by wretchardthecat at 1/25/2007 06:42:00 PM
12 Comments:
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
- Grateful Dead
Steve Emerson reports today that Mrs. Hughes continues to entertain Islamic Organizations that support terrorism at the Whitehouse.
He said yesterday the Attorney General met with some Muslim Terror Leader.
Says about 80% of Mosques in this country preach Wahabbi Hate.
Mrs Hughes is a traitor, in my book.
Bush the clueless believes in the ROP.
Give me a break.
(I'll settle for all the Saudi money that funnels into Presidential libraries and etc.)
Clueless or Corrupt?
...as if we would have permitted Hitler Youth Corps to train in the States.
Maybe it was unfair, but I gave up on the Philippines the day they pulled out of Iraq in order to get a few hostages freed.
If you are interested in a good piece of work check this out.
PatriotFiles
Oliver North reports progress in Iraq:
"These politicians who think we can win a war by committee. Do they even know that in the last two weeks we have set AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) and the Mahdi Army both back on their heels?" he answered. I was silent, so he continued, "Is there anyone in Washington who understands what this means? AQI terrorists are running like rats out of Ramadi. And the Mahdi Army is being cleaned out of Baghdad. Do they know how much harder all this rhetoric makes our job?"
Progress on the battle field against al-Sadr could explain this:
U.S. surprised by Sadr shift
U.S. officials said they were surprised by the sudden cooperation of the Iraqi movement led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.
Abdul-Hussein Kaabai, local council leader of the Shiite-dominated Sadr City neighborhood in Baghdad, said Thursday Sadr and his followers plan to cooperate with U.S. President George Bush's new Iraq security plan, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
"We will fully cooperate with the government to make the plan successful," Kaabai said. "If it is an Iraqi plan done by the government, we will cooperate."
Sadr's group in recent weeks has also ceased threats to quit the Iraqi government and representatives of the group have met with U.S. officials.
While Mindanao leads the country in poverty areas, it is even much worse in ARMM areas. Typically higher than the rest of Mindanao, and the rest of the country.
But the same cannot be said with some of the Muslim government officials. A quick visit to our Northern Mindanao city would show a good number of their huge residential houses in posh subdivisions.
From Wu's link:
In the aftermath of the president's State of the Union address, Democrats claimed that
"the majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought, nor does the majority of our military."
Regrettably, no one in the so-called mainstream has bothered to challenge this unsubstantiated allegation about the members of our armed forces. There certainly isn't a shred of evidence to validate that sentiment here -- or with any of the scores of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen or Marines with whom I stay in contact from my eight trips to the war. To the extent that there is discontent in our military, it is aimed at the way the war has been misreported by my "colleagues" in the media and how it is being depicted by politicians in Washington.
Here's a long, encouraging post from Donald Sensing's One Hand Clapping blog:
“Killing is the sine qua non of war.”
Let's face it, even if Iraq turns out okay, it will always be referred to by the MSM and Dems and libs as "Bush's Failed War" and "The Next Vietnam."
Here is a conservative blog article about the phony Webb statistic.
It does a pretty good job of taking the fake stat apart, but unfortunately no one in the MSM ever asked Web for his sources.
He's a Library of Material.
Shouldn't take too long to out him, at least in his home state.
...just a matter of how much damage Mr Big Mouth will cause before he is caught and tossed out.
Wu,
Err, which article? Your link is self-referential.(not unlike most lefty blogs.)
This comment at Free Republic seems to be relevant, but I am not sure if you are referring to this managerial salary v. average worker comment.
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