John Falls, in Outside Online, writes one of the better reports I’ve seen on how counterinsurgency war is won in the Third World, in his dispatch from Jolo Island, in the Philippines, as he accompanies a group of US Special Forces and, mostly, Filipino Marines in an extended battle with Abu Sayaf.
It rarely looks like a Chuck Norris movie:

As I learned on Jolo, the campaign was noble in principle and often hilarious in practice. Traveling with a minimum force of 20 Filipino marines and several Green Berets, we would speed back and forth on Jolo’s paved road like a platoon of armed elves, delivering chairs to cheering schoolkids and visiting adult learning centers. One particularly sweat-drenched day, we headed out to an isolated hamlet called Sitio Lavnay for the turnover of a new well, one that would bring clean drinking water to 125 desperately poor families. The heavily guarded ceremony featured local VIPs in little plastic chairs, several roaming chickens, and 100 villagers gathered in the stifling heat. It opened with an acoustic version of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” blasted into the jungle on a boom box, and only got worse.

After the Muzak overture, the speeches started. A lean, clean-shaven Green Beret admonished the villagers to “take ownership of the resource,” while the marine-battalion commander thanked the dignitaries for their hard work. Unfortunately the speeches were delivered in English and translated into Tagalog, a language the assembled Tausug couldn’t really understand. During the ribbon cutting, a mongrel dog drew the event to a close by taking a leak on the podium.

But for all the ham-fisted production value, the villagers still lined up patiently to thank the soldiers. The most important event that day went little noticed. After the ceremony, the chief, a handsome man in black jeans, slipped a Filipino officer a single sheet of paper with a carefully typed list of needs. It was exactly the kind of act Sabban’s counterinsurgency doctrine was designed to elicit.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do suggest you read the whole thing.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 7:27 am and is filed under War On Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.