"We want to make sure Christians and Muslims are going to adhere (to) and be committed to the maintenance of peace in their areas," Puno said.

Good luck. Now how do you do that...in light of 1400 years of previous failures to stop spread of Islam?

Posted by: Xero G at August 8, 2008 12:14 AM

I can hear the wail of the so called 'moderate' muslims now. Of course, none of them have been bombed, kidnapped, or killed by the Christians.

Anyway, I got to hand it to the Philippinos. I think they are tired of the muslims in their area. I know some that talk about their military service and it is basically - fighting muslims.

We should all require that muslims do not clump in areas because this is what they do eventually in every, single country they migrate and grow in. But, we have already let them get away with it even in our country. And the Philippines Islands are easy to hide their bunch of jihadists. We saw that when our military went in for those kidnapped victims a few years back by the Abu Sayaff.

Posted by: R_not at August 8, 2008 12:47 AM

Good move by the Quezon government, but a mischievious part of me would have given them 10 years (a la al Hudaibiya), and then had our side assault them within 24 hours if they failed to start moving.

But this move should work just as well.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 8, 2008 12:47 AM

The Muslims have already declared war, The Phillipian government and all the other governments should recognize this for what it means and then act accordingly..

Posted by: exsgtbrown at August 8, 2008 5:08 AM

One of the sweetest people I ever worked with was a very petite, and lovely, and kind Filipino woman. Though no longer in contact with her, I often think of her and wonder how she feels about muslims encroaching on her beautiful country.

The Philippine government should never have entered into an agreement with MILF. They will never be satisfied with just (!) one third of the country.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at August 8, 2008 7:04 AM

1400 years of previous failures to stop spread of Islam?

Posted by: Xero G

The spread of Islam has been stopped, and even rolled back, several times in the last 1400 years; for example in Spain and the Balkans. In particular, in the Philippines, it has been held to the areas it first occupied hundreds of years ago. The problem with Islam is that, like influenza, it keeps coming back. It constantly probes for weakness, and when it finds weakness it pushes hard, as is happening in the contemporary West. Each generation must find the will and the means to fight back. The current generation is sadly lacking in this respect.

Posted by: ebonystone at August 8, 2008 7:53 AM

...The problem with Islam is that, like influenza, it keeps coming back. It constantly probes for weakness, and when it finds weakness it pushes hard, as is happening in the contemporary West...

eboneystone

The West has lost it natural immunity to the Muslim virus. The West is presently unwilling to fight the fight.

Islam was repelled in Spain and the Balkans through the use of unrelenting brute force. That is the only way to give Muslims a message that they understand.

Posted by: Spot on at August 8, 2008 9:37 AM

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said their men would stay in position and demanded the government provide them with a "specific list" of areas they had allegedly illegally occupied.

"We have not encroached on any area, we have had a presence in North Cotabato for a long time," Kabalu told AFP. "This is a careless statement (by the government) that could cause more problems."
..........................................

Well, we all know what this means. The Muslims already consider these villages--seized from their Christian neighbors--to be a permanent part of Dar-al-Islam.

If the villagers and the government want these areas back, they will have to--in the eyes of MILF, anyway--declare war. Will MILF see it as the government declaring war on a seperatist political movement? No--they will see it, if they do not already--as declaring war on *Islam*.

In that case, all bets are off, because MILF will be "defending Islam".

Posted by: gravenimage at August 8, 2008 10:37 AM

Troops estimated more than 1,500 families, or 6,000 people, had been forced to flee their homes, Puno said, adding more troops will be deployed to the region.
"We are giving those individuals 24 hours to vacate or they will be forcibly separated from the area," Puno said at a press conference.

I don't understand the 24 hours thing. If most or all of the non-muslims were forced to leave their homes, level the place without warning and rebuild on the ashes.

That would be a lot cheaper than giving them time to sneak out the back and then fighting them again in another location.

And after those villages are recovered, level any other villages where muslims live to avoid future problems.

Posted by: walterc at August 8, 2008 11:21 AM

"forcibly separated"?

What's the point? Unless steps are taken to prevent their return then they'll be back and the government will be issuing similar warnings a year from now.

"Forcibly" must also mean "permanently" or it does nothing.

Posted by: PMK at August 8, 2008 12:11 PM

"Asked if his warning was an open declaration of war, [Interior Secretary] Puno said: 'No. It's a declaration of the enforcement of the law'."

Very good point, Marisol, and worth thinking about more generally.

The invasion of Iraq was a war. What happened after the first two weeks is not a war in the usual sense. The initial invasion of Afghanistan was a war -- if we are prepared to grant that the Taliban had legitimate standing as a government in that land -- which may be a bit of a point of contention. Nevertheless what has happened since, in both cases, is an extended military action involving the establishment, and enforcement, of law.

There is a "war" going on, of an ideological nature, across the entire globe, but those skirmishes being characterized as "war" by the antiwar crowd are merely rhetorical conveniences for them. By and large, they are police actions or political/social/humanitarian interventions by western powers to prevent complete humanitarian disasters due to power vacuums and aggressive, illegal nonstate agents. If our press, the UN, and reasonable commentators simply got their language straight there would be a whole lot more clear thinking on these issues and a whole lot less BS.

Good for the Philippine Interior Secretary! Would that more western leaders were prepared to speak the simple truth about their actions. Or that the press would spend less time spinning stories according to fanciful Marxist dogmas and more time simply reporting the facts.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at August 8, 2008 4:05 PM

I do wish the West would declare War on islam. We could whip them in a matter of days if we started using all the means at our disposal.

This is so ridiculous!

We should help the Philippines just as we have done in other wars.

And we need to assemble a coalition. Something that's also been done before.

See World War 2 as the best example of what I have in mind.

This time include China and India. Oh, and Japan, Germany and Italy too.

With this coalition in place how would the moslems feel?

All we'd have to tell them this is what we are prepared to do if you folks don't shape up.. and in many cases.. SHIP OUT.

And if words don't do the trick.. unleash the dogs of War.

It's going to happen one way or the other.

The better we are prepared the better for us.

That's all i am saying.

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at August 8, 2008 5:08 PM

I do wish the West would declare War on islam. We could whip them in a matter of days if we started using all the means at our disposal.

This is so ridiculous!

We should help the Philippines just as we have done in other wars.

And we need to assemble a coalition. Something that's also been done before.

See World War 2 as the best example of what I have in mind.

This time include China and India. Oh, and Japan, Germany and Italy too.

With this coalition in place how would the moslems feel?

All we'd have to tell them this is what we are prepared to do if you folks don't shape up.. and in many cases.. SHIP OUT.

And if words don't do the trick.. unleash the dogs of War.

It's going to happen one way or the other.

The better we are prepared the better for us.

That's all i am saying.

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at August 8, 2008 5:08 PM

The government in Manila gave the muslims an inch and now they will take the mile..as always. The only way to stop this is to renege on the original agreement and go to the mat.

Posted by: pismopal at August 8, 2008 5:57 PM

The Filipinos are going to have to arm, and train, every single non-Muslim Filipino over the age of 15. Create a citizen army such as the IDF was at its best.

Give the Christian villagers the wherewithal to defend themselves against all Muslim aggression and lawbreaking, of every kind.

Enforce the Law - the non-Muslim Law. Reciprocity. Agreement. All Muslims who breach that Law - by breaking agreements, by fraud, by robbery, by supremacist predatory behaviour of every kind (both the obviously 'criminal' and the supposedly 'military') and by inciting such acts or aiding and abetting those who perform such acts - get hammered into the ground, and mosques associated with such breaches of Law, get bulldozed flat. Any foreign Muslims captured - i.e. Arabs, Pakistanis, etc - get either executed or deported on a one-way ticket, depending on the seriousness of their breach of Philippines Law.

Once one gets the 'big picture', this war of self-defence of all decent humans against the monstrosity of Jihad-and-Sharia, against the horror of a society (the ummah) that exempts itself from the Golden Rule, is a Just War by any and all criteria.

One does not quite need to sink to the enemy's level - one does not need to torture, or to rape, or to mass kill the elderly or children (though Muslims, as we have seen in Afghanistan, regard everyone able to fire a weapon, from 5 years old upward, as a potential participant in Jihad, and we have seen how they use women and girls as suicide assassins; I would not be surprised if Muslim jihadists were even to put a bomb in a baby's pram, with the baby).

But everything else goes. The Ummah which, considered as a gestalt, denies the Golden Rule - the Ummah that believes that a semblance of decent behaviour need only be practised toward fellow Muslims, while the vilest forms of cruelty and wickedness are perfectly justifiable against non-Muslims, the Ummah whose conduct in general for 1400 years has exhibited just such an amoral duality, over and over again, with sickening results and a kafir death toll totalling at least some 270 MILLION - must sooner or later, preferably sooner, be met with annihilating force by all decent 'golden rule' societies.

G K Chesterton, talking about a different manifestation of such an amoral supremacist mindset (which was later to spawn Nazism), in his essay 'The Barbarism of Berlin', observed that 'the Barbarian is one who laughs when he hurts you, but howls when you hurt him'.

The Ummah, whenever it obtains power, whenever it gets the chance, small or great, is just such a Barbarian.

Go Philippines! Wake up, and flatten the Barbarians.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 8, 2008 7:05 PM

Sounds like the USA. Another example of divisiveness in the face of an immoral, evil, and uncompromising islamic enemy. Foreign Sec. Romulo is ready to give away land to these animals. Defense Sec. Teodoro says the next 24 hours 'will be a litmus test of their faith' as if they don't already intimately understand 'their faith'. Even the best of the bunch makes sure to keep politically correct; Interior Sec. Puno makes sure to include Christians in his declaration of intent to enfore the law when everyone involved knows that they're the victums.....What an eff'in joke. These kind of faggots will never stand against islam in the long run.

Posted by: CJK at August 8, 2008 8:27 PM

"[Interior Secretary] Puno said: 'No. It's a declaration of the enforcement of the law'."
==============================================

We need to clone this guy!

Or else we have to find some way to persuade Western governments to give this amazing new "enforcing the law" concept a try. What an idea!! Don't just leave the Muslim ghettos to fester under the rule of thugs -- assign a strong police presence, arrest the "yutes" for anything including spitting on the sidewalk, and put their sorry behinds in jail. This would have 2 benefits: gets them off the streets so they're not roaming like hyenas looking for somebody to attack; also gets them away from the rabid imams and their death-to-Infidels / glorious-martyrs-in-the-cause-of-Allah Friday afternoon rants.

Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at August 8, 2008 11:56 PM

Wow what a dream - to give them 24 hours to get the ----------- out of Dodge!

Posted by: charlie at August 9, 2008 12:21 AM

"A declaration of the enforcement of the law."

That can be understood on more than one level.

Somebody ought to send Ronaldo Puno a Tagalog translation of the wisdom contained in the following link:

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000157.html

You have to scroll down till you get to the discussion of the Prisoner's Dilemma:

"Now, if this game is played one time, the winning strategy invariably is to Screw the Other Guy. If he doesn’t screw you, you get off free. If he does, you serve two years. But if you didn’t, and he decided to screw you – ten years. No one wants to risk that. Screw the Other Guy is the only smart position, and when the game is run thousands of times on computers it comes out the very clear winner.

"But! What happens if the game is played again and again, against the *same* person? Does Screw the Other Guy continue to be the best strategy?

It does not!
The best strategy for a repeating game (called the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma) is not Screw The Other Guy, and -- surprisingly at first glance -- it’s not Always Cooperate With The Other Guy, either.

"The winning strategy is Tit-for-Tat. That is, you do to the guy what he did to you last turn. If he cooperated, you cooperate. If he screwed you, you screw him back. Over thousands and millions of computer runs, using every strategy from complete aggression to complete forgiveness, Tit-for-Tat “wins” every time – that is, it results in the least jail time for you."

There's a lot more.

Here's another interesting bit:

"Tit-for-Tat combines generosity and toughness. And look at the terms used to describe the most successful strategic version of Tit-for-Tat: Nice. Retaliating. Forgiving. Non-envious {this principle equates to 'do as you would be done by' - dda}

'Now, this is where my own analysis kicks in, because frankly, nice, retaliating, forgiving and non-envious pretty much sums up how I feel about the West in general and the United States in particular.

'The web of trust and commerce in Western societies is unthinkable in the Third World because the prosperity they produce are fat juicy targets for people raised on Screw the Other Guy. Crime and corruption are stealing, and stealing is Screwing the Other Guy. It’s short-term win, long-term loss.

'Alright, now here come the brass tacks:

'If you think about it, all of our laws – and indeed, the very idea of respect for and equality under the law – are written to protect Tit-for-Tat, because Tit-for-Tat produces the best results.

'You may sell your product at a profit, but if you lie about what it does we will call that fraud and you will go to jail because successful societies start nice but retaliate against those that decide to Screw the Other Guy.

'The punishment of fraud is what gives us confidence in the claims made by other products.

'Retaliating against Screw the Other Guy is not mean-spiritedness or a lust for revenge. It is essential to protect the confidence needed to stay focused on long-term wins. And that’s how, in theory, you build a cooperative society.

'You retaliate against those that take advantage of the common trust. In other words, you punish the cheaters.'

There's more. But as far as I can see the Ummah and their religion are BASED around being Cheaters; Mohammed was a past master at Screw the Other Guy, and the misery and disorder of Mohammedan societies are what inevitably follows when everybody, most of the time, behaves like that. (Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel to get the picture on the all-pervasive atmosphere of suspicion and aggression and the pre-emptive strike in Somali Muslim society).

Time to punish the Cheaters, bigtime.

In a nutshell: those who *will* not practise the Golden Rule, reciprocity, 'do [good] as you would be done by', *have* to be hit, for everybody's sake, with 'Be Done By As You Did'. They have to slam up against Consequences.

If Ronaldo Puno consistently, intelligently and relentlessly enforces Filipino law against the Muslim thugs who are trying to destroy his country, he will be doing far more than just defending the Philippines and its non-Muslim laws and customs; he will be Enforcing that greater Law from which Islam, in its arrogance, exempts itself.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 10, 2008 3:41 AM

When Puno shows signs of weakness like he did (not declaring war on those that have already declared war on you - Jihadists) you might as well surender while you are strong for they will eat you alive when they are stronger later.

Posted by: American at August 11, 2008 9:25 AM