A number of capitalist politicians and military officers in both the United States and the Philippines argue that U.S. troops should be permitted to join anti-guerrilla patrols as part of their mission to "train and assist" their Philippine counterparts. Many also call for the extension of the U.S. mission beyond its present deadline of July 31.

Philippine nurse Ediborah Yap and U.S. missionary Martin Burnham were killed in the firefight, while Burnham’s wife Gracia survived with gunshot wounds. After speaking to U.S. president George Bush in the hours after the unexpected battle, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that U.S. troops "no longer have to hold their fire" in pursuing Abu Sayyaf.

"President Bush assured us of the continuing help of the United States in pushing the operation forward," she added.

At present the U.S. forces, although allowed to respond if attacked, are officially restricted to a training and advisory role. Numbering 1,200, they include 160 military advisers, a number of trainers, several hundred intelligence and logistical support personnel, and about 300 Navy engineers. The latter are upgrading or building military facilities that include a World War II runway, a causeway, and 40 miles of road.

While the U.S. command is stationed on Mindanao, about half the troops are encamped on Basilan, an island of 300,000 people where Abu Sayyaf is based. The guerrilla group, whose hostage-taking activities and alleged links to al Qaeda provided the pretext for the U.S. intervention, numbers only 200 or fewer fighters. By contrast, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which calls for an Islamic state on Mindanao and which has agreed to a cease-fire with the Philippine army, has some 25,000 cadre.

In the week before the June 7 clash, U.S. deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz traveled to the Philippines for discussions with Arroyo and U.S. officers, including Adm. Thomas Fargo, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. Fargo and others pressed for permission to assign U.S. Green Beret advisers to active-duty Philippine army units.

"I came away more of an advocate for engagement with the Philippines," said Wolfowitz on June 4.

Wolfowitz’s boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, spoke with more caution. Asked his opinion of a more active U.S. role, he questioned "what the cost would be, what the numbers of people would be, what the benefit might be.... The mission in the Philippines has proceeded in precisely the way it was intended," he added.

Rumsfeld spoke three days before the deaths of the hostages. In an editorial immediately following the firefight, the Wall Street Journal claimed that the casualties "might have been avoided had U.S. Special Forces played a bigger role in the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf."

The editorial noted one barrier to increased U.S. involvement: the "ban on action by foreign troops in the Philippine constitution." Like the closure of the U.S. Clark air base and Subic Bay naval base in the early ‘90s, this prohibition registered the mass opposition among Filipino working people to imperialist intervention and occupation. The Journal, however, suggested an out for the Arroyo government, stating that "a mutual defense agreement between the U.S. and the Philippines provides an exception when national security is involved."

In arguing for an extension to the July 31 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, officials in both Manila and Washington have stressed the alleged benefits of the engineering and construction projects undertaken by the U.S. forces.

"The U.S. troops on Basilan are...helping to build roads and bridges, drill water wells and improve medical care on the island," reported the Associated Press on June 8. They are "trying to buy all of their supplies and support services locally," it added. "Basilan widows do the soldiers’ laundry, for example. American road-building teams have used 6,000 dump truck loads of 2-inch gravel broken by hand by Basilan residents."

"What we are trying to do is get the people of Basilan island to taste freedom and capitalism," said Brig. Gen. Donald Wurster, the commander of the U.S. forces in the Philippines.

The U.S. embassy in Manila has drawn up a plan to extend this "civic action program to two more islands," reported the June 10 New York Times. The article addressed the question of "why the Bush administration chose the Philippines for its first major military foray after Afghanistan." The answer, it stated, "ranges from the desire for a quick victory over terrorism to, more broadly, the wish to reassert American power in Southeast Asia."  
 
 
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