Isis support in Philippines increasing and a battle to control a city (Marawi) has started.

[binary solo]

TheWPCTraveler said:

binary solo said:
Philippines has had a Muslim separatist conflict for decades. The main antagonists have rather an amusing acronym for their name: Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF. But there's nothing amusing about their methods.

Seems like ISIS getting in to the game is a pretty big deal in terms of escalating the Muslim separatist efforts.

Duterte could have strong-manned the MILF if they remained isolated from the global terror network. But ISIS coming in to support the MILF (presumably) might make things a bit more challenging for Duterte.

The Problem with the Philippines is that there is a very porous sea border, especially to the south. What compounds matters is that historically, the people of what used to be the Sulu sultanate were linked more closely to what is now Malaysia, than to the rest of the Philippines. This means that you can't really rely on ethnic nationalism (mind you, successfully utlized by Kemalists in Turkey) to suppress religious extremism.

tiffac said:

Well Fuck you too!

My people has been in this hell hole for decades and none of you gave a shit about it.

Be angry at the peverted old man all you want he's a politician but don't insult my people.

I'm pretty disappointed that the thread devolved into a fight over semantics regarding countries that aren't even close to the Philippines or people virtue-signalling about "muh Duterte kills drug addicts" or trashing the Philippines as a whole.

I'm at least hoping that the army can get its act together and that Duterte is a lot better than Noynoy over handling of sensitive military operations.

wsell, someone did open the door saying "Asians" don't play around when it comes to terrorism. So that was a non-Philippines specific statement. Now if the statement had simply been "Filippinos don't play around with terrorism" things might not have spiralled. But given the Muslim seperatist history of the Philippines it's arguable that Filippinos don't play around with this sort of thing.

Not sure Duterte and "sensitive" really go together. Kind of like Trump and natural sun tan don't go together. So I wouldn't hold your breath on that.