Terrorism in the 21st Century...the 20th Century...and the 19th Century

The USA took over the Phillipines from Spain in 1898, after the end of the Spanish-American War. Instead of the freedom they expected, the Fillipinos who fought against Spain were treated to an American Empire over their country. Insurgency flared up. In particular, it flared in the southern island of Mindinao, an area which was heavily Muslim. When Spain had conquered the Phillipines, they called the inhabitants Moros, just as they had named the Moors whom they had recently finished dispossessing in Spain itself. In 1903, Captain John "Black Jack" Pershing reported that no more hostilities were anticipated, "All Moros know our friendship is valuable and is freely extended to all who deserve it." The next year, there were numerous reported outrages in Mindinao by bandits. http://msuans.blogspot.com/2008/03/lessons-from-mindanao-history-as-seen.html ...Mindanao saw decades of war against the colonizers. The Muslims had consistently resisted colonial attempts. The colonizers had to be unconventional and creative in order to overcome resistance. For instance, the Americans had to invent, among others, the Cal. 45 pistol with knocking down power in order to subdue the kris-swinging Maranao warriors who would continue to lunge at their attackers even if they were already bleeding by bullet wounds, and many other examples. and from TIME in 2003: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,423565,00.html ...Mindanao's Islamic rebels now seem to be after more than a home alone. TIME has learned that elements of these same separatist movements have become a nexus for Southeast Asian terrorists and are providing a training ground for operatives linked to Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network widely blamed for last October's deadly Bali bombings. Officially, the army says it launched last week's operation to pursue a kidnap-for-ransom gang (called the Pentagon) that was being given sanctuary by the MILF. Another goal was to disperse a concentration of 1,000 MILF fighters on the edge of the Liguasan marshes, an expanse of waterways and islands that make up one of the group's few remaining strongholds. Philippine and Western military-intelligence sources are asserting, however, that in the past three months scores of Indonesian and Malaysian Islamic militants belonging to JI have slipped into MILF jungle camps, some of which are located in the very marshes bombarded last week... and it continues today, as militants recently escaped from jail. 100 years of war. That's what we want, that's what we create, that is what we will get.