Wistful thinking

Wistful thinking

AFP Chief Gen. Delfin Bangit’s admission that the AFP will not be able to meet de facto President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s 2010 deadline to defeat the New People’s Army (NPA) comes as no surprise. The military claims of success in its counterinsurgency campaigns have been belied by independent media reports of the NPA’s tactical offensives resulting in firearms seized and AFP troops captured, killed or wounded. Moreover, the underlying socio-economic causes of the longest-running armed conflict in the Southeast Asian region to date make a military solution untenable ab initio as any student of history knows.

Mr. Bangit subsequently backpedals and attempts two explanations for the military’s admitted failure.

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