The Grey Eagles are coming

StrategyPage reports that the US will help the Philippines fight the Abus and other ISIS types who are trying to set up shop in the south with Grey Eagles: the MQ-1C drone.

they will be used for surveillance of the enemy, since actually having a US drone shoot someone would be seen as American military fighting here, a taboo subject.

some background.

Obama's hissy fit about the drug war here led to his decision to punish us by stopping us from buying guns etc.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday told U.S. President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and said the United States had refused to sell some weapons to his country but he did not care because Russia and China were willing suppliers.

In his latest salvo, Duterte said he was realigning his foreign policy because the United States had failed the Philippines and added that at some point, “I will break up with America”. It was not clear what he meant by “break up”.

So with Trump allowing us to get drones to spy on bad buys, it sounds like the FilAm friendship is back on.

they are both populist loudmouths who speak bluntly but are loved because they actually are both trying to "drain the swamp", as the saying goes: i.e. get rid of the corrupt oligarchies that run the government to enrich themselves while ignoring the needs of ordinary folks.

The US military does a lot of "helping" here, but is not supposed to fight (although rumors that in a fire fight no body complains if the advisor picks up a gun).

It has to do with national pride.

a couple years ago, a drone spotted a bad guy and he ended up dead, and the left here had a big hissy fit until it was revealed that the Philippine airforce took him out.

Pride means the Philippine military does the hard work, but advanced military intelligence is a big help.

and electronic surveillance is one way that the US can help.

I remember one story, probably an urban legend, where a phone call for a pizza delivery by a known bad guy was picked up by someone spying on phone calls, and they were able to eliminate him (probably a cellphone, since few folks have land lines here but everyone has a cellphone).

The wags on TV made a lot of jokes about that incident: one was said the reason for all the Italian priests being kidnapped was to make them pizza.