Posted on: Monday, January 21, 2002

EDITORIAL
U.S. forces must be discreet in Philippines

Forty years ago, it began with "advisers," U.S. soldiers who were supposed to avoid combat while training south Vietnamese troops to battle the Viet Cong insurgency.

"Escalation" became the byword as U.S. airstrikes against North Vietnam began in 1964, GIs officially became combatants in 1965 and their numbers peaked at 543,000 in 1969.

Now somewhere between seven and 20 U.S. soldiers are the vanguard of a planned force of 660, including 160 U.S. Army Special Forces, assigned to start training Filipino soldiers in their fight with Abu Sayyaf, which the Bush administration says is linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.

"This is nothing like Vietnam," Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted last week. "There is no intention for them (U.S. troops) to become combatants."

That's not the way the Philippines defense minister tells it. He told The New York Times that Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, on her November visit to Washington, rejected a specific offer from President Bush to send American combat troops to join directly in the fighting.

Bush's motivation, obviously, is all about Sept. 11. The United States had little interest in helping the Philippines with Muslim insurgents in the past, nor in helping bring them to justice when Manila began calling them "bandits" after they started kidnapping and beheading civilians, including Americans.

But now that the same guerrillas are known as "terrorists," many Filipino politicians fear that Washington ultimately intends to extend its own war, after its own objectives, to Philippines territory.

It's not clear what accommodations for U.S. troops Arroyo has agreed to in order to receive $100 million in U.S. military aid. But it's a fact that the Philippines constitution prohibits the presence of foreign combat troops.

Although Abu Sayyaf is thought to number only 800 fighters on Basilan and Jolo islands, and most Filipinos agree their defeat is sure to benefit the economy and bring political stability, the presence of U.S. forces in the Muslim south also has the potential of reactivating larger, marginally pacified, rebel groups that have long enjoyed the sympathy of the civilian population.

If conducted with the greatest restraint and discretion, the U.S. mission can benefit the Philippines even as it achieves a U.S. objective by terminating an al-Qaida link. But, as we learned in Vietnam, the dangers of unintended consequences are high.