The articles I’ve seen say they are targeting drug dealers and users, and the quoted figure of 700,000 people who have turned themselves in is mostly users who are afraid of being caught with drugs.
Even guys named “Doug” have started looking over their shoulders.
Combatting crime when the police and justice system are corrupt is difficult. Hats off to any country that pulls it off. But corrupt police and corrupt politicians may not be the best people to put in charge of crime eradication.
As others point out, when the criminal drug-dealing police are put in charge of killing drug dealers, there’s a real danger that the effect will be to rid the top criminals of competition rather than ridding the streets of crime.
How has this program worked in the Phillipines? I’m not sure I’d trust normal news sources to give a correct answer. An obvious way to tackle the question — has the price of illegal drugs gone up? — wouldn’t be convincing. If the extrajudicial killings were directed by top criminals, they’d be delighted with the higher prices they’re getting now.
A Prime Minister of Thailand — the now-fugitive brother of recently deposed P.M.Ying-Yuk — was especially famous for his similar program of extrajudicial killings. That program had mixed reviews but an official investigation in 2007 found that more than half of the 2800 killed had no connection whatsoever to drugs. (And some of the actual drug dealers murdered may simply have been competitors to the well-connected people selecting the victims.)
Duterte was mayor of Davao city for seven terms, totaling more than 22 years. Before becoming president the claim was made that he had rid the city of violent crime.
That was poppycock.
If the Rule of Law collapsed then you have bigger and more immediate problems than drug dealing; it’s like fidgeting with a glitchy thermostat while the house burns around you.
Having said that, do you know what is one way for the Rule of Law to collapse? To have the head of state give carte blanche to anyone to assassinate people under the suspicion of being criminals.
If the problem is with the Rule of Law, you fix the Rule of Law; you don’t bin it and declare “Rule of Law? We don’t need no stinking Rule of Law”.
No.
1). I’ve already outlined a solution to the same problems the death squads purport to solve, which requires zero dead five-year-old girls. Notably, it’s the solution the US applied when it faced similar problems in the 1930s. Do you suspect that death squads prowling the streets of Chicago killing suspected bootleggers would have been a better approach?
2). If the death squads somehow made the Philippines a better country, this would be an unprecedented, one-in-a-million event. Advocating it as a best practice would be like advocating leaping out of planes with no parachutes, because Vesna Vulović did it and survived.
So, if I think that Duterte is a drug dealer, it’s totally cool if I shoot him?
No matter what the answer to that is: No, I don’t really see this working out. Wait until nitwits’ first term is over, and then we might have some idea if it works.
You seem to be pretty much alone in your definition of crime boss. The extent of how “OK” I am with it depends entirely on how effective it is.
I don’t think most people think of that as a crime boss.
The NYC Police Department used to be corrupt. The vast majority of then police were not on some criminal’s payroll. They ignored the fact that several of their fellow cops were dirty but most of them were glad when they cleaned up the force.
I’m skeptical too but so far all we have is 700 police killings of people that allegedly resisted arrest and 1000 extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals by vigilante’s (and some collateral damage, like the 5 year old grand daughter of one of the alleged criminals). That and the surrender of 600,000 criminals.
So the question is IF it works, then what do you think?
Define “works”. Right now we have death squads on the streets and hundreds of thousands of people afraid for their lives. What would “works” look like and how do you plan on putting the genie back in the bottle when you achieve it?
But t all those people you mentioned are clearly drug dealers otherwise why would they oppose such a wise and benevolent leader.
I’m sure if all goes according to plan he will win re-election with 100% of the vote just like Saddam Hussein.
And Doug Diller is currently in hiding.
Is part of that plan changing the constitution? The President of the Philippines is limited to one term.
Actually, yes. Duterte plans to call a constitutional convention or assembly in order to institute federalism. There is already an extremely limited form of federalism as two historically ignored regions have been granted a form of limited autonomy. Constitutional federalism would devolve more power to outlying provinces and away from “Imperial Manila”. Changing term limits is not part of the plan nor was it ever raised as an issue during the campaign. If Duterte ever tries to set himself up as another Marcos, the Filipino people won’t stand for it. We already kicked out two presidents by demonstrating in the streets; we can do it again.
Do you have ANY evidence of electoral fraud? Because out of the bucketloads of criticisms that the folks have against this guy, electoral fraud (and being a crime boss) is not among them.
As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
And you are only demonstrating deep ignorance of how dictators gain power, democracy is used too at the beginning and that is what the other poster is likely referring to.
WTF does that have to do with anything. The allegation was that this guy would rig the vote next time around. He currently has over 90% approval rating.
Do you have ANY evidence that he has or would rig an election? Or are you just assuming that because you don’t like him his voters couldn’t possibly like him either?
Why do you think that I was unaware that dictators are frequently elected at first? What did I say that made it appear that I thought that dictators were never popularly elected?
Allah I was referring to was the constitutional limit on presidential terms: one.
That sale of straw men at Cosco must be ongoing.
Eventually dictators do have to resort to electoral fraud, they may have indeed the support of many now, but eventually that is not a redeeming feature for the mistake most of the people are making.
The point that it is clear to me, but never to you it seems, is that the other poster was referring to what would come next, not how they got there to support a dictator.
I’d like to repeat the request of what you imagine a successful outcome of this would be. Because the current scenario seems to be “Any angry violent person (especially drug dealers) can murder anybody and get away with it by calling their target a drug dealer”. The end game I’m anticipating here is that eventually a single, dominant group of murderous drug dealers will have consolidated their competition and murdered everybody who’s inclined to oppose them, and will then operate unopposed in a blissful environment of unopposed, possibly government-sanctioned corruption over a cowed populace.
The idea that all the drug dealers will be killed and all the peaceful civilians will live happily ever after seems predicated on the assumption that peaceful civilians are much, much, MUCH better at murdering people than hardened, experienced criminals. This seems like an absurd assumption on the surface. The populace may like that romantic ideal of virtuous vigilante superiority, but I personally have doubts that Duterte was operating under such rosy assumptions when he gave the criminals carte blanche to murder people unchecked.