U.S. Phasing Out Its Counterterrorism Unit in Philippines
U.S. Phasing Out Its Counterterrorism Unit in Philippines by Floyd Whaley and Eric Schmitt, New York Times
An elite American military counterterrorism unit that has been operating in the southern Philippines for more than a decade is being phased out, the Pentagon’s Pacific Command said Thursday.
The Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines — which was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — was established to help train and advise the Philippines in its fight against rebel groups linked to Al Qaeda. The unit was one of dozens worldwide that tried to fight potential terrorist groups, before they could strike the United States.
American Special Forces will continue to help Philippine security forces counter a smaller, lingering Islamist threat, but the size of the mission will drop in the coming months to a dozen or so advisers from its current 320 service members, based in Mindanao in the south, American officials said…
My view on this is quoted in the article above.0.
Three additional comments that are not in the article.
First a better description of the organization and the mission is that this was a special warfare approach to counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The majority of the units making up the joint special operations task force were special warfare forces that do not have counterterrorism as their primary mission but instead were focused on unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, psychological operations and civil affairs.
Second, one of the most important contributing factors to the success of the operation was that it was built on the foundation of a comprehensives assessment in October 2001 from the strategic to the tactical level conducted by a handful of special operations personnel, including supporting intelligence officers and logisticians. This assessment as well as the continuous area assessment conducted in accordance with SF/SOF doctrine informed the campaign plan and strategy to this day. One important lesson from this operation is the importance of assessment and it is heartening to hear the emphasis on assessment in Iraq from President Obama because although the conditions are vastly different one thing that can contribute to success in Iraq (or determining if success can even be achieved) will be the assessments conducted by the SF soldiers on the ground.
Lastly, when the assessment and recommended courses of action were briefed in October 2001 by then-Colonel now retired LTG David Fridovich, the CINCPAC (we called him CINC back then) ADM Blair asked how long would this mission take and LTG Fridovich said it would take about 10 years or so to achieve lasting effects.
Lasting effects? What has really changed there? The U.S. went in there in the usual manner trying to build a partner in their own image, forgetting to understand the real culture of Filipinos, which all resides around “Ako muna,” or “Me first,” followed by family, tribe (regional location/dialect)& then, maybe, country. The U.S. naively, once again, spent hundreds of millions of dollars there, unloaded massive amounts of equipment to the AFP (much of which wound up either in the hands of the NPA or Muslims, if not the local Palenke (market), Remember the truck loads of 30,000 M16s heading out the gate at Camp Navarro to simply disappear?). But hey, Good Job…lots of medals/awards, now go away, but continue to send $$$. At least DYNCORP made out like a bandit. Lasting Effects? The Philippines will continue to depend upon their former Colonial Masters forever, because we just cannot turn down that plastic smile behind the little brown hand. What has really changed there? Not one damn thing…unless you count the number of AFP millionaires created due to the corruption enabled by the unaccounted for large sums of $$$, weapons & equipment turned over to the AFP. Ask many Filipinos not associated with the government, Police or AFP & they will tell you straight up that the U.S. needs to stop giving their country aid, as it just makes the corrupt richer…did I mention, “Good Job.”
Does this mean that OEF-Philippines is also over, or that the mission is being re-packaged into a smaller more persistent form (and run through the pre-existing security cooperation organizations out of the Embassy)?