But check out Philippine Commentary for photos of US soldiers working on sovereign territory there, they being the first to arrive at most disaster scenes that give the newspapers fits having to show what American service men are really doing here.

Now it is also a fact that US military participating in the Balikatan exercise are allowed to defend themselves and to shoot back if attacked.

I have no doubt that will happen very soon because the peace talks being held with the MILF will soon result in what I have called Bangsamorostan in Mindanao, a new base for The Base, courtesy of Pres. Arroyo as her “legacy to Peace.”

By the way, I hope folks back home do not get the misimpression from its Main Stream Media that the Filipinos belong to Bin Laden. They most certainly do not! A recent survey of world public opinions shows Filipino Public Opinion to be supportive and trusting of US policy at the same level as Israel and Poland. John Negroponte recently visited and told a tv audience of Maria Ressa that he would love it if other nations emulated the moral support given by Filipinos to the global war on terrorism.

Make no mistake: the Silent Majority of the Philippines stands with America, because Their Liberty is Your Liberty!

They know that better than most people in the world.

What will happen next is this upon the resumption next week of Malaysian brokered peace talks: GMA will give the MILF warlords 1000 villages in the Pulangi River Basin, throwing in Sulu and most of what is now the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao to form her “peace legacy”, a “Muslim Juridical Entity” that will only accomplish two things:

(i) it will give the really nasty folks from South Waziristan a new base for “The Base” there amongst the island paradises of Maphilindostan.

(ii) it will give their rivals in Nur Misuari’s camp, the MNLF, a renewed cause to dig up the ancient grievances and go for their own homeland JRE, say in about ten years after thousands more dead in “all out wars” and “peace talks.”

And of course, like Fidel V. Ramos before her in 1997, there will be no DISARMAMENT required. Who knows what the main exports of the coming Bangsamorostan will be with Dulmatin and Abdhir Industries ready to invest time, money and R&D.

Both are central to our concerns, but they are also central to our inability to resolve the Mindanao situation when the solutions to one of them are expected to apply to the other. This confounding, I can show is part of the reason for the unending violence there.

I think that the tasks of law enforcement should continue regardless of the progress or lack of it in the peace talks and other negotiations that comprise diplomacy as a long term solution to the question of war or peace between the Govt and the Moro rebels.
So, whenever a judge of the Republic issues an arrest warrant for a criminal suspect in a serious crime, all of the people, whether Moro or not, are entitled to an expectation that the police will serve the warrant,arrest the suspect and process them through the justice system.

If it should happen, as it did with the Marines who were ambushed and some beheaded on July 10 in Tipo tipo Basilan, that a case is related to the activities of Moro rebels (MILF/MNLF) or rogue elements or terrorist bandit gangs like the Abu Sayyaf, there ought to be no undue interference or micromanagement by peace negotiators into the normal workings of Law Enforcement authorities in a given province, town, city or other locality in the country.

It is simply amazing to me that none of the suspects in those crimes have been served the arrest warrants issued against them six weeks ago by Basilan Judge Leo Principe. But not inexplicable, for indeed, it was the hemming and hawing and the backstgage areglo going on with their counterparts in the MILF Ceasefire [sic!] Committee, that Jess Dureza and Co. got the efforts to simply serve those warrants delayed, until finally of course, an “all-out war” was called anyway, but suspiciously only against the Abu Sayyaf, not the “partners it the peace process”.

But nota bene, both the peace talks and the so called “all out war” are really the two main implements (peace or war) of the Diplomatic efforts to settle with the MILF rebels(who want to supplant the MNLF, the ARMM, all that Nur Misuari stuff). As such they enmeshed in a complex multinational negotiation driven by Politics with a cap P, involving, Malaysia, Dar Us Salaam and the OIC.

The needs of diplomacy are different from the needs of law enforcement, and ought not prevent each other’s goals.

But insofar as all sides surely agree that “There can be no peace without justice.” all must unite and support the idea that the activities of law enforcement ought to be regular and unimpeded irregardless of what is happening on the Diplomatic negotiating table.

Because of this, the needs of Law Enforcement have a just claim of Priority over those of Diplomacy. They should not impede each other, but in cases of conflict, the order of priority of satisfying needs, belongs to the Rule of Law, not the Rule of Talk.

First and foremost is the reason why those first 14 Marines happened to be tromping around the great and glorious cultural homeland of Basilan: they were looking for the kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi and were returning back to their base in the rain when MILF gun men ambushed and killed them, a fact they proclaimed and admitted on their website, even enumerating the weapons they “confiscated” from the interlopers into their territory.

Second, you also do not mention the fact that top members of the Jemaah Islamiyah are being coddled by the Muslim rebels. These include Bali Bombers Umar Patek and Dulmatin, as well as Zulkifli Abdhir, recently indicted in the California along with his brother Rahmat under US anti terrorism laws. All three are designated terrorist personalities by the US and the EU. The Philippine Military has been searching for these really dangerous characters and must be captured soon, before they carry out their dastardly plans.

The picture you paint of a military and a government oppressing the Muslims is utterly wrong and misleading.

Instead you call the attempt to arrest those savages as “an all out war” which of course was the public position of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA, as well as their allies in the mass media.

The facts are these: 57 Philippines soldiers have been ambushed and killed by terrorist gun men and ZERO suspects have been arrested for terrorist crimes. There is NO all out war at all, except on the soldiers themselves by the usual sources with their sophisticated rationalizations for obstructing Justice.

Some roundup, Mong. Joma would proud of you.