I was totally bowled over by this article, as like others I am totally unfamiliar with this war. An excellent article, thanks for showing it to us. I would say that there are so many differences between the two wars, perhaps they cannot really be compared, and the one war cannot be an example to the other, except in the big picture of wars in general to have examples for other wars.
1. Afghanistan has one of the most challenging war terrains. Rugged mountains and lack of roads to begin with. US has to really work on major intelligence to stay one ahead of the Taliban.
2. Due to the rugged terrain and easy camouflage for the Taliban, who have centuries experience of hiding in caves, it is very difficult to identify the location of the enemy. Also important to camouflage against the enemy as it would be easy to be cut off and encircled by them.
3. The Philipines stood alone as one adversary, whereas in Afghanistan Pakistan features very heavily as well. There are so many politics to contend with other than Afghanistan in the war with the Taliban.
4. We are dealing with terrorists who believe with a passion that they will earn salvation when they kill others. The Roman Catholic Philipinos had much more of a resistance to killing, not likely that they would go for suicide attacks.
5. The time periods are very different in terms of technological expertise in weaponry and trained troops. Transportation is also different.
They lost the Philippine War, remember?
