Finally someone else is questioning the narrative of Marawi. Sadly the author fails to mention that the government had prior knowledge of the attack and that their policies allowed weapons to be stockpiled the area. There was absolutely no failure of intelligence. Duterte even acknowledged this.
The official narrative leaves much to be explained about how and why the conflict started and was fought the way it was, causing as it did, mass evacuation and the destruction of the city.
The following is the section where the author really stumbles.
Once again, following in the path of numerous ‘intel failures’, the intelligence function of the AFP seems to be dysfunctional. One question often heard over the past months is how did the Maute Group become so well equipped inside the city, and dug in, without being noticed by military intelligence? Surely that was an intelligence failure of immense proportions. More important, in a sense, is what it says about the relations between the Moro people and the AFP, indeed the local people and the government. Clearly many people must have known what was going on, yet did not have sufficient identification with the government to let its people on the ground in on the secret. One supposes that hundreds of years of oppression and discrimination does breed such an attitude toward Manila and its local military.
The author must not be aware that of the following statements of Duterte:
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| http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/06/18/1711130/no-failure-intelligence-marawi |
“We have adopted a very soft policy towards the rebels and this came about because they were bringing firearms. Since we are thinking of getting peace with the MNLF and MILF. The game there involves firearms. We took it for granted. We just allowed it to happen because we never knew until that time who was really the enemy,” Duterte told the troops in Butuan City.
“When they see firearms and they were told that it’s for MILF or MNLF, the standing order was maybe we can talk to our brothers so there will be no trouble (but) it turned out that the Maute were bringing the firearms surreptitiously and we did not know how much ammunition and firearms were stockpiled, and besides it was not a failure of intelligence,” he added.
The sad fact which no one wants to confront or investigate more deeply is that the policies of the government toward terrorists allowed the Maute Group to freely stockpile weapons in Marawi.
I am not going to write more because I have already written so much on this topic. See this post for more information on the government's prior knowledge and the Senate's failure to investigate:
It is good to finally read an article where someone else is questioning the official narrative of Marawi. If only more would do so the truth just might come out. We see that the Senate is now going to open an investigation into the Navy warships situation and this is all because of two newspaper reports. We see that Rappler was investigated by the SEC all because of an editorial in the Manila Times. There is a power in journalism and even blogging and if enough people start to question the narrative perhaps the Senate will take notice and launch the investigation it should have begun months ago.
Naturally , the common people dont want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood but the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
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