Philippines: This Will End Well

I see he's declared "not quite martial law, but I'm taking direct control of the military" the other day.

Ho hum.
 
This whole sanctioned death-squad approach is actually less productive than a competently run state-operated bloodbath.

Apart from innocents killed and personal scores settled, there is a real danger of government losing control of the vigilantes.

It's a pretty dangerous strategy TBH. And I doubt that the benefits will justify the innocents and danger of creating hard-to-kill entities.

I don't know jack about the Philippines, but that seems to be a big risk.
 
Philippines' Duterte calls Obama 'son of a whore'

AFP said:
[...] The acid-tongued Duterte bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president over a war against drugs in the Philippines that has claimed more than 2,400 lives in just over two months.

"You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum," Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit.

"We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me."

Duterte was due to hold a bilateral meeting with Obama on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of a gathering of global leaders hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, the Lao capital.

But shortly after Duterte spoke, Obama appeared to cast doubt on whether such a meeting could take place. [...]
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PhilStar carries a bit more of his remarks:

PhilStar said:
[...] "The Philippines is not a vassal state. We have long ceased to be a colony of the United States... I do not respond to anybody but to the people of the Republic of the Philippines. Wala akong pakialam sa kanya, who is he?" Duterte said before departure at the Davao International Airport.

"I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people," Duterte added.

The president cited that about 600,000 Moros died in the pacification campaign in the Philippines when the Americans left the country at the turn of the century.

"As a matter of fact, America has one too many to answer for the misdeeds in this country. Hanggang ngayon hindi pa tayo nakatikim ng apology," the president said.

Duterte also demanded an apology from the US for the sins of the past. " If you can answer that question, give the apology. I will answer him. I am not beholden to anybody," he said.

Duterte blamed the US for the long-standing peace problem in the Mindanao region. He argued that the Philippines inherited the problem from the US when the latter invaded the country.

"Masyado kayong bilib sa America, bumilib kayo dito sa atin. Siya (Obama) ang mag-explain sa akin kung bakit kayo extrajudicial killing," Duterte said.

The president said that he might open up the death of the Moros during in his upcoming meeting with Obama.

"Can he explain the 600,000 Moro massacred in this island? Do you want to see the pictures? Maybe I'll ask him. I'll make it public," the president said. [...]
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Bit of research:

English language wikipedia says about the Moro Rebellion casualties: "Heavy, official casualties are unknown. [...] On the Moro side, casualties were high as surrender was uncommon when Moros were engaged in combat." That's all, which is only unusual if you think wikipedia is useful for anything controversial. Two foreign language wikipedia articles, one in Portuguese and one in Finnish. The Finnish one says (auto-translated):

fi.wikipedia.org said:
The United States lost about 5 000 men and Philippines 12 000-20 000 men. In addition, diseases, hunger and violence were killed, depending on the estimates of 200 000-1 500 000 civilians.
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According to this PhilStar article:

Alejandro R. Roces said:
The Americans were remarkably well-prepared for the outbreak of hostilities. Reports vary with regards to casualties ranging from 1899-1902. Official US estimates listed 20,000 Filipino soldiers dead, with an additional 300,000 Filipino civilian casualties. The Philippine-American War Centennial listed 510,000 civilian deaths. Others have pegged 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 Filipino deaths during that period. Curiously, the ratio of dead to wounded is 15 Filipinos dead for every 1 wounded: wars typically have a ratio of 5 dead to every 1 wounded. Taking the low estimate, 300,000 Filipinos died in 41 months. [...] Officially, the US declared the hostilities over in 1902: Pockets of resistance all over the country went on for almost ten years; the fiercest in Mindanao.
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So apparently "official US estimates" exist and the "official estimate" of Duterte seems to be at no extreme of existing figures. Someone inform wikipedia.

One later gruesome event involving the Moro is the 1906 "Battle of Bud Dajo" AKA "Moro Crater Massacre" in which up to 1000 men, women and children were ... ahem ... Mark Twain wrote this about it days later:

Mark Twain said:
[...] The battle began-it is officially called by that name-our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats-though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any.

The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.

The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private's name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned - by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word. [...]
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For relatively unknown aspects of Imperial history it is often useful to google them together with the name Vltchek, as in Andre Vltchek who likely was there and looked into things. Like here, where his interview with a Moro National Liberation Front commander from 2013 is interesting in context:

Foreign Policy in Focus said:
[...] AV: Is the U.S. using propaganda to justify its presence in the Philippines?

CB: Yes, the propaganda is used all over the Philippines. The U.S. is always portrayed as liberators, as good guys. People are flooded with movies, books, and shows… Douglas MacArthur is presented as liberator, and people actually believe it, after all those years and decades of propaganda.

And then the story of liberating us from the Japanese! Of course old people in the Philippines were not used to the character of the Japanese, when they occupied the country—like bowing. There were cultural misunderstandings, and even crimes committed by the Japanese. But Japanese invaders never performed mass slaughter of the Philippine civilians, while the U.S. did. What is guarded as some secret is that the U.S. was much more brutal than Japan in this part of the world, and that brutality was occurring even before the Japanese occupation. [...]
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Childlike Empress said:
Philippines' Duterte calls Obama 'son of a whore'
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According to that article, it seems like Obama's public statement had been completely respectful. This:

"The issue of how we approach fighting crime and drug trafficking is a serious one for all of us. We've got to do it the right way," he said.

"Undoubtedly, if and when we have a meeting, this is something that's going to be brought up. And my expectation, my hope is that it could be dealt with constructively."
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doesn't exactly sound like an insult. So Duterte responds with:

"You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum," Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit.
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Demanding respect while behaving like a child. Has Obama made some harsher criticisms of Duterte that I'm not aware of, or is this just Duterte living up to the label of the Filipino Trump by overreacting to an imagined slight?
 
Civet said:
Demanding respect while behaving like a child. Has Obama made some harsher criticisms of Duterte that I'm not aware of, or is this just Duterte living up to the label of the Filipino Trump by overreacting to an imagined slight?
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No idea. "Son of a whore" seems to be his favorite insult, which he also used not only for the US ambassador but the Pope and who knows who else. "Like a child" is not what I would call that behavior. In any case, it seems this is just not a good week for patience with "exceptional" US antics in Asia.
 
Childlike Empress said:
No idea. "Son of a whore" seems to be his favorite insult, which he also used not only for the US ambassador but the Pope and who knows who else. "Like a child" is not what I would call that behavior. In any case, it seems this is just not a good week for patience with "exceptional" US antics in Asia.
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:boggled:

That's just dumb.
 
Eddie Dane said:
This whole sanctioned death-squad approach is actually less productive than a competently run state-operated bloodbath.

Apart from innocents killed and personal scores settled, there is a real danger of government losing control of the vigilantes.

It's a pretty dangerous strategy TBH. And I doubt that the benefits will justify the innocents and danger of creating hard-to-kill entities.

I don't know jack about the Philippines, but that seems to be a big risk.
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Just think of it as the democratization of political violence.
 
Interesting read from May: Meiring, murder, subversion, and treason: Duterte’s beef with US

Asia Times said:
Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesperson recently stated that the coolness between Duterte and the U.S. government — well, Duterte’s disdain for the U.S., which he expressed as “hatred” when the subject of American finger-wagging came up — goes back to the Michael Meiring case in 2002.

But that’s just the tip of a big, bloody iceberg. [...]

So, Duterte is not just nursing an old grudge over a “mysterious” explosion that maimed a US citizen and an evacuation operation that shouldered aside his cops; he suspects the U.S. was involved in a campaign of terror that killed or injured hundreds of people in his city. [...]

A plausible narrative emerges of the CIA and its buddies in the Philippine military collaborating on a series of false flag atrocities to justify a war against the MILF and build the case for more US military involvement in Mindanao. By this reading, Meiring was in Davao doing his Alden Pyle thing (for those of you who enjoy Graham Greene references) when his bomb went bang. And then the bombs kept coming… [...]

So Meiring is not ancient history. The Meiring case is simply an inflection point in a multi-decade and ongoing US program of misjudgment, misbehavior, and mayhem in Mindananao that continues to the present day.

Unfortunately for the United States, that campaign has gone on for fourteen years right under the disgusted nose of the man who is now poised to become president of the Philippines.
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Wolrab said:
Make love, not war against a MILF.
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:rolleyes:

Just in, another interesting read - there's actually an old-fashioned commie angle to this as well: Son of a Bitch!

Dissident Voice said:
[...] There seems reason to believe that Duterte, unlike any of his predecessors, is genuinely anti-imperialist. More than that, and quite surprisingly, he has expressed admiration for the Communist Party of the Philippines, and its guerrilla New People’s Army, that has been at war with the Philippines state for almost 50 years. He was actually a student of Jose Maria Sison, the party’s founder who has been in Dutch exile since 1987, in the 1960s; the two have been in touch and remain friends.

On August 26 the long-stalemated Oslo talks between Manila and the rebels resulted in an indefinite ceasefire. Meanwhile Duterte has offered the Communists cabinet posts overseeing the departments of agrarian reform, environment and natural resources, labor and employment, and social welfare and development. He has invited Sison to return home. Sison says he longs to do so but only after an agreement is finalized. This is looking increasingly possible, barring decisive U.S. intervention.

Washington, on the other hand, views the Communist Party of the Philippines, and the New People’s Army, as “terrorists.” Just as the U.S. views all left-wing armed movements as terrorists (unless and until they can be used for common purposes, as in the case of the Iranian MEK in Iraq). In 2002 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell took the unprecedented step of blacklisting the estimable Sison personally as a “terrorist” and the U.S. (spurred by then-president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) was surely behind the Dutch authorities’ raid on his house and his brief detention in 2007 on suspicion of ordering two murders in the Philippines the year before. (He was cleared of the charges and released.)

While cozying up to the Filipino Communists, Duterte has unexpectedly responded to the World Court’s judgment in favor of the Philippines’ South China Sea territorial claims over those of China, not with a tighter embrace of the U.S. and cooler relations with China, but with outreach to Beijing. Duterte has made it clear he sees China more positively than the imperialist U.S., which seized the Philippines as a colony following the Spanish-American War of 1898, slaughtered one-tenth of the Filipino people suppressing their resistance to colonization between 1899 and 1901, acquired total control over the Filipino economy and largely retained it after according the Philippines formal independence in 1946. [...]
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Was he calling the reporter a son of a whore, or President Obama? (the way that article was written I am not sure how that went).

Hugo Chavez referred to GW Bush as the devil. OK, so a third world leader decides he needs to insult the President of the US. Dude, it's been done. Doesn't seem to change much.

*shrug*

Ya gotta be yourself, amigo, so go and do your thing. Your people will either put up with it, or they won't. If they do, good for you.
 
How to make friends and influence people, by the rules of Duterte Harry:

USA - call president "son of a whore". Check

EU - tell them eff off. Check

Only 3500 dead in three months - he's going to well and truly miss his target of 100,000 deaths in the first half a year.
 
Here's a short clip of the above-mentioned communist leader from his exile in the Netherlands:


Current text of his: Duterte bravely resists American hegemony despite media slander

Jose Maria Sison said:
[...] Duterte has declared his determination to pursue an independent foreign policy. We are living in a multipolar world, and the US can no longer play a role of a supreme power who decides everything in the world. President Duterte also has spoken of ending the US’s military presence in the Philippines and joint U.S.-Philippine naval patrols in the West Philippines, and instead accessing weapons from China and Russia. Duterte is trying to strike out the path of an independent policy. This is good for the Filipino people, because it can lead them to national independence, democracy and economic development. We need to get rid of the traditional US dominance over the Philippines.

I could say that Duterte is doing well in constructing an international foreign policy. If he does so, then the National Democratic Front of the Philippines will find it easier to reach a full peace agreement. As you may know, the government of Philippines and the NDFP are negotiating a peace in Oslo. Both sides have already agreed on a comprehensive agreement on respecting human rights and international humanitarian law since 1998. Now, the work is to be focused on the need for social and economic reforms.

The Philippines can find expanding relations with the BRICS countries useful. Of course, in terms of security, Philippines can also join the SCO in order to block the attempts of the US to dominate East Asia at all cost. The Filipino people can thus find their proper place in the world and enjoy full national independence and social justice, economic development, and international solidarity with all nations willing to have fair relations with Philippines.
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The Atheist said:
How to make friends and influence people, by the rules of Duterte Harry:

USA - call president "son of a whore". Check

EU - tell them eff off. Check

Only 3500 dead in three months - he's going to well and truly miss his target of 100,000 deaths in the first half a year.
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He has declared war on drugs but he is behaving like a man who is on drugs.

Maybe his objective is to take control of the illegal drugs trade for his own profit rather than wipe out drugs from his country. I got the feeling he is acting more as mafia godfather than as a head of State.
 
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Degeneve said:
Maybe his objective is to take control of the illegal drugs trade for his own profit rather than wipe out drugs from his country.
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No, I'm sure he's genuine in his desire to kill all drug dealers.

Hitler blamed the Joos, Duterte Harry blames drug dealers. Flip sides of the same coin.
 
The Atheist said:
No, I'm sure he's genuine in his desire to kill all drug dealers.

Hitler blamed the Joos, Duterte Harry blames drug dealers. Flip sides of the same coin.
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Wait a sec, to get this analogy right, are drug dealers circumcised or not? :confused:
 
Maya22 said:
Sad times for conservation
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As if that would stop China anyway. "Oh whats that you say? Its a marine peace park now? In that case we shall cease and desist and allow the dolphins and whales plenty of room to play. Who needs minerals oil and fish when you can watch the natural wonder of.... Oops oh dear it seems we just dropped another island in your marine park, clumsy of us. Don't know how it happened but we seem to be uncontrollably dropping islands lately and I cant guarentee it wont happen again. To show how sorry we are, feel free to purchase some of the minerals oil and fish we found lying around. Only the best prices for our friends."
 
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The Atheist said:
No, I'm sure he's genuine in his desire to kill all drug dealers.

Hitler blamed the Joos, Duterte Harry blames drug dealers. Flip sides of the same coin.
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I get the feeling that is what he is doing. He is creating an enemy to fight so that people will unite about him. So far, only 3000 low-level street dealers have been whacked. I see there is a hesitation to go for the Big Boyz (the guys who really control the Drug Trade)...who won't put up with being murdered like a poor peasant in the street. Seriously, the Big Boyz - the head of these Drug Cartels - are capable of a type of violence that would make even Osama Bin Laden vomit. And they have proved it with the release of utterly gruesome executions of Drug Informants.

Yeah...Duterte could wipe out the Big Boyz, too. But I'm starting to think they (Duterte and the Drug Cartels) compliment each other....they need each other. The Cartels provide Duterte a ready supply of small time enemies to execute, while Duterte trims competition against the Cartels and insure high prices.
 
Maybe he's trolling the western press. I get the feeling that he likes to get a rise out of people.
 
The Atheist said:
Nailed.



Alas, thousands of festering corpses refute that theory.

It's times like these the auto-censor rends most of what I want to say as asterisks.
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I guess that my larger question is: how many of the drug lords (those with serious money) have been taken down, as opposed to street dealers and addicts. Politics and money, and of course corruption, are alive and well as event influences in the Philippines. Would it surprise you if a few drug lords had put money into his campaign, and the only ones dying are street soldiers of rivals to those drug lords? It would not surprise me if that were the case.
 
Darth Rotor said:
I guess that my larger question is: how many of the drug lords (those with serious money) have been taken down, as opposed to street dealers and addicts.
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Like all the rest of SEA, those with the right connections will be fine, but there will have been a few who didn't who have bought the bullet in the meantime.

50% Adolf Hitler, 50% Alfonse Capone.
 
What Duterte is doing is a classic combination of populist violence - he gains support for his no-nonsense approach to problems, while showing people what will happen if you oppose him. Great setup for despotism.
 
dudalb said:
And what is scary is that Duarte thinks that to be compared to Hitler is a GOOD thing.
I knew the man was a thug and classic tin horn dictator, but he is also just plain batcrap crazy.
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Not just batcrap crazy. He says Hitler had 3 million Jews, and he has 3 million drug addicts. The clear implication is that he's not going after the drug lords, but after the addicts.
 
It just keeps getting better and better:

...a self-confessed assassin testified that Duterte, in his previous incarnation as the longtime mayor of the city of Davao, had ordered the killing of criminals and his opponents – and in one case even personally “finished off” an employee from the justice department with a sub-machine gun.
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bolding mine

There have been many killings lately, the officer jokes, that these days you can easily get away with any kind of murder.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...h-squads-police-officer-teams-behind-killings
 
GraculusTheGreenBird said:
I just got back from a trip to Manila.

Everyone I spoke to regarding it a) Voted for him, b) Were pretty happy about the way things were going, because he was doing exactly what he said he was going to do, shaking things up to break an unending cycle of poverty, drugs and corruption.

Back in July he had 91% approval rating, apparently that has now gone up to 98%, according to locals.

Front page of the paper was the head of the transport authority announcing a zero tolerance approach to corruption. Any infraction and they would lose their jobs.

The investigated extra judicial killings are also on the front page, and all over the TV, with the head of police being grilled by a commission. So these things are not being ignored or treated lightly.

His policies so far have the approval of his country.
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Stalin and Hitler were pretty damn popular also.
 
Duterte once again told President Obama to "go to hell"

He said last week the current joint military exercises would be the last ones while he is in office, he warned:
Eventually I might, in my time, I will break up with America. I would rather go to Russia and to China.''
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He also warned.

"If you don't want to sell arms, I'll go to Russia. I sent the generals to Russia and Russia said, 'Do not worry, we have everything you need, we'll give it to you'.

"And as for China, they said, 'Just come over and sign and everything will be delivered',"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37548695
 
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