Filipino Hostage Freed in Iraq

[radhak]

Hostage freed (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040720/ts_nm/iraq_dc)

Maybe this might encourage the militants to try more kidnappings, still i cannot but think, Arroyo did the most humane thing possible under the circumstances. Phillipines was supposed to withdraw troops a month later, and doing it earlier saved the life of a man who would have lost it if it had been left to the US, Australia or Iraq governments. It is so easy for a somebody living behind barbed wires (or better, thousands of miles away) to say 'brave it, dont cow down to threats'. Like she said, 'the man did not deserve to die', particularly not for the sake of nothing but governmental bravado.

For all my cynicism, i was shocked to note that these governments have strongly come out against the withdrawal; i had thought they would keep quiet, at the very least. They don't even want to pretend they care about human life.

[blackfox]

Well, if governments are displeased about the withdrawl of troops, it is only for the precedent it sets, as the Phillipines only had about 60 soldiers in Iraq to begin with, which hardly make a difference from an operational effectiveness standpoint. The US will (at least w/ Bush) not bend to these type of demands by militants, and it is our withdrawl that would make a difference. The UK is also unlikely to withdraw under similar pressures, making the militant kidnapping strategy effective only as a way to whittle down the "coalition of the willing" to it's core elements, which is to say...expose the truthful priorities of Nations w/ regards to the conflict in Iraq. I believe the Phillipines made the right move, personally...this is not their war...it is the US's (and to a lesser extent, the UK's)...the rest of the help is there for political/financial reasons (often overlapping), not for some ideological mission. A human life is a greater priority to those in the former camp than said interests, but not to the latter.