And so the violence continues. Within 48 hours, yet more lives have been blown to pieces, first in the Philippines and then in Israel. The only difference in these killings is that in Israel, the bomber on the crowded bus was prepared to lay down his life in the attack, while in the arrivals area at Davao airport in the southern Philippines, the killer laid down a rucksack packed with explosive and scuttled away.
The behavior of the Philippine militants is no more excusable than the plans of the United States and Britain to blast the Iraqis into freedom from the distasteful regime of Saddam Hussein. The moral redundancy of terror was chillingly illustrated by the spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf group, who claimed, apparently falsely, that it had planted the Philippines bomb. This person had the effrontery to apologize for the 21 deaths in the airport blast and, in the same breath, go on to announce that there would be more such attacks.
For the Palestinians there is at least a reason for staging the attack. The Palestinians are being crushed beneath the jackboot of the most aggressive Zionist government since the Israeli state was born in terror and bloodshed. Their institutions and their economy wrecked, their leadership bottled up in its headquarters and the entire population forced to subsist, according to figures this week from the World Bank, on an average of little more than two bucks a day, these are a people who see themselves at war with their oppressors.
Few other, if any, violent campaigns spring from such national agony. The conflict in the Philippines, allegedly to protect the rights of a Muslim minority, is as pointless as it is tragic. It has served only to heighten religious tensions and allow the agenda to be seized by bigots on both sides.
Unfortunately there is a tricky issue which is informing the minds of the terror groups in the Philippines and it is this: The United States has become involved in the conflict, providing “advisers” to the Philippine Army, which has struggled to cope with the guerrilla tactics and local terror tactics of the insurgents.
Washington made this move after the kidnapping and execution of foreign tourists. On the face of it, the vastly greater resources of the US ought to threaten the very existence of the militants.
This however is a risk they are prepared to take. What American participation in the campaign against the militants achieves is international recognition for their wicked campaign. Terror cannot work if it is isolated and ignored.
Since America has so rapidly squandered the world sympathy it received after Sept. 11 and worse, seems to have a leadership that understands only the mailed fist, the Philippines killers will be counting on benefiting from every anti-American protest around the globe. As America lumbers around like an angry bully with a broken finger, the terrorists will hope to earn kudos by baiting it.
It is a desperate situation. For all rational people, who are looking on with despair, the burning question in the Philippines has to be “What sort of people imagine that they can achieve the justice they claim to want by callously destroying innocent people?”
