The weakness of President Bush citing the Philippines as a model in rebuilding Iraq:
While the administration often speaks of the occupations of Japan and Germany after World War II as rough models for the effort to rebuild Iraq, Mr. Bush used the visit [to Manila] to make a less explicit analogy to the American administration of the Philippines, which also led to the formation of a democracy. But the comparison has less power to reassure, given that the Philippine government did not gain full autonomy for five decades.
For better or worse, the United States held the Philippines from the turn of the twentieth century to 1946.
Fashion notes (I apologize for the trivial aside, but you know you don’t come to Rebel Prince for pure politics anyway): some legislators in the Philippine Congress silently protested in anticipation of Bush’s address to the joint session, wearing various emblems, one being a rather lovely shawl with the words “No to U.S. War” and a colorful dove trampling a missile. Perhaps Bush was advised to soften his image—the Times notes an “aversion to local garb”—by wearing to the state dinner a barong, the traditional (and practical, given the tropical weather) garment for men. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wore a bright red terno with its characteristic butterfly sleeves.
Bush, or someone in his camp, should go back and read the section on the Philippines in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and get some clue as to the reasons that we went to war in the Philippines in the first place. The motive boils down a purely economic one: opening a new market to U.S. products.
If he were smart, he probably wouldn’t want to make too many comparisons between the Philippines and Iraq. But, of course, that’s if he were smart.