Makati – At a small informal gathering in the middle of the financial district the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and a group of military advisers celebrated the service and help given by a commander of the little known US military task force versus terrorism in SE Asia.

Their often under-played roll will probably remain that way, but these unsung hero’s of untold battles perhaps are content to have a cigar and move on with their lives to the next theater or fight. Knowing that their job being done to the best of their ability amidst much restriction and control they have had successes in making peace full gatherings like theirs possible;

The party, took place in cigar bar, at a old hotel that sits in the midst of the a capitol zone where only blocks away early Al Qaeda, the likes of Ramsey Youseff and Kalhid Shiek Mohammad plotted and worked on attacks the bring terror to Metro Manila.

They being, KSM and Youseff as well as the small terror cells they founded bombed buildings walking distance away in the early 90′s, culminating with attacks on a airline, a slew of bomb attacks on shopping malls and theaters a short walk from where officials of two military’s smoked well deserved cigars.

The men there that evening are spotlight shy, some are high level leaders of a theater of a global battle untold;
They work amidst strict rules of engagement that are somewhat complicated to say the least.

“The Philippine people are the best people, the perfect hosts, the most wonderful and rewarding work in a long career,” is how one sums up the good side of the work done. Over a decade in place the program began under the outgoing president Clinton and President Estrada carried over by their successors and onto President Obama face an uncertain future under a incoming administration in Manila.

No comments of a political nature were heard made – but only one word summed up the hard work – “Frustrating”, the hardest criticism heard from the well trained veterans of conflicts from the horn of Africa to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reasons cited were having their hands tied when targets of opertunity were in plain view. Targets that in other areas of the global on-going conflict could and would have been engaged – were often missed. Because of tangled rules of deployment that do not allow us forces to take action directly.

Overheard in the night of celebration over the changing of the guard and the deployments to places that read like a episode of 24 or the unit. These men lives on the edge to say the least.

Overall all things considered the level of the fight is high – while the ASG or Abu Sayyaf group and others engaged in the conflict increasingly have become of brutal and secretive as well more concerned with raising funds from kidnapping to narcotics trading. By and large there influence has been largely reduced.

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