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AS AMERICA'S Armed Forces face the intimidating task of maintaining order and developing civil institutions in Iraq, it is useful to recall that early in the 20th century the U.S. Army had a similar mission in another Muslim land-the southern Philippines, where around 300,000 Muslims, commonly known as Moros, met the Army's efforts to establish U.S. sovereignty with great suspicion and, at times, violent resistance.
Understanding past U.S. actions in the southern Philippines is important because of the region's status as a front in the current war on terrorism. The terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf has its refuge there, and U.S. Special Forces advisers have helped the Philippines Armed Forces operate against the group. In fact, in early 2002, a joint U.S.-Philippine action on Basilan drove the Abu Sayyaf from the island, but the group remains active.1
The Army's experience with the Moros demonstrates how religious and cultural differences between a local people and the Americans sent to govern them can complicate efforts to bring about pacification. Still, despite these differences, the Army had considerable success in reducing Moro resistance to U.S. control, achieving success by combining a "policy of attraction" to persuade the Moros of the advantages of U.S. rule and an aggressive response to those who defied U.S. authority.
The Army and the Moros
U.S. involvement in the region began shortly after the United States acquired the Philippines from Spain following the Spanish-American War. When U.S. soldiers first arrived in 1899, they began a period of military rule over a people few Americans knew much about. The Moros made up most of the population of the SuIu Archipelago and the southern half of the large island of Mindanao.
Although the Moros belonged to 13 culturallinguistic groups, Islam gave them a sense of common identity and often set them at odds with their Christian Filipino neighbors. The Moros' reputation as fierce fighters was well established before the U.S. Army's arrival. Moro culture encouraged young men to be courageous, to develop their skills as warriors, and to defend their honor to the death. The Spanish had never achieved much more than nominal control over them, and Spanish soldiers had rarely ventured far from fortified seacoast towns.2
Indirect rule. Preoccupied with defeating Filipino nationalists in the northern...