manalang

Last week’s news of the Filipinos in Iraq pulling out of their mission early to save one of their own from being beheaded pissed a lot of Americans off. No one wants to see an ally cave in to the “evil doers,” but there’s more than one side to this story. I ran into Philip Greenspun’s entry about this late last week. Here’s what he had to say:

[via Philip Greenspun: Why are we angry with the Philippines?]
From what I read the Filipinos were in Iraq on a “humanitarian” mission. One of their guys was kidnapped so they went home. So now we Americans are pissed off that they caved into the demands of the kidnappers/be-headers. None of the newspaper articles that I saw, however, questioned the original purpose. Though some Iraqis appear on CNN to complain that they don’t have air-conditioning and 24/7 running water it is hard to see them as a hardship case in a world where many people have never had A/C or running water. Shouldn’t “humanitarian” missions go to places where either (a) folks are really doing badly, (b) folks are genuinely grateful for assistance, (c) folks are living right next door to us (charity begins at home), or (d) all of the above?

What most Americans aren’t recognizing is that the Philippines is a third-world country. For them to send their own people to perform a “humanitarian” mission in someone else’s country is an act of kindness (or stupidity on President Arroyo’s part). These Filipino soldiers should be performing humanitarian missions in their own country. The Philippines is not like many of America’s other allies. They should never have sent their troops to Iraq to begin with. They might be the Bush Administrations closest ally in Southeast Asia, but under their own circumstances, they should not be required to put that much skin in the game, regardless of whether they really support the American effort in Iraq. We Americans should understand that. They’ve got their own problems.

I’d like to say that President Arroyo did the right thing with pulling their troops out of Iraq, but really, she never should have sent them. There are probably as many Filipinos living in poverty and strife in the Philippines as there are in Iraq. The difference is that Filipinos just aren’t pissed at us like the terrorists in Iraq. If Filipinos are going to partake in nation building in someone else’s country, others should participate in helping them improve the conditions in their country.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2004 at 5:58 PM PDT and is tagged with politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.