‘Theirs is not to reason why— theirs is but to do and die!”

This seems to have been the motto of the Special Action Forces that perished in Maguindanao as they walked into no man’s land inhabited by all sorts of heavily armed warriors – famous for their acronyms – BIFF, MILF, Abu Sayyaf, with their competing claims for supremacy in Muslim Mindanao by force of arms. Committed to ideologies that clash with those of their non-Muslim neighbors, among themselves they cannot even to adopt a single shibboleth. Jihadists, separatists armed gangs live together in tenuous peace interrupted by fratricidal war.

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