In a press release, Personhood USA cofounder Keith Mason said that the country’s constitution should be “an example to the entire EU and to us here in the USA.” #

According to the release, Personhood sought to establish a similar constitution in the Dominican Republican in 2009, teaming up with San Jose-based group Live Action. According to its website, Personhood petitions are currently active in all 50 states. #

The group has extended its reach in other countries, as well. In April, the group announced a new website, filipinofamilyvalues.com, aimed at Filipinos in both America and the Philippines. #

The site is an effort to petition opposition to the country’s proposed “Reproductive Health Law,” which would have required that contraceptive information to be distributed in public and private schools, and allowed for the use of government funds to buy contraceptives. #

Says Personhood USA: #

Under the guise of reducing poverty, the “Reproductive Health” law would in fact take away limited government funds from many high priority medical and food needs, transferring them to fund harmful and deadly abortifacient and anti-family programs, open the door to abortion on demand, increase teenage pregnancy, and force public and private institutions under penalty of law to teach “sex education” in a manner that violates the deeply rooted cultural, social, and religious norms of the Filipino people. #

The bill has proved to be divisive in the Catholic-dominated country. According to the Philippine Star, some of the country’s bishops have “threatened to excommunicate Catholic government leaders supporting the bill.” Personhood USA called the bill a “highly unethical and coercive use by the current administration of tax payer funds to undermine Filipino culture, to undermine the constitution of the Philippines, and to undermine the deeply held religious beliefs of the overwhelming majority of Filipinos.” #

Though Personhood is thought by many to be extreme, it has the potential to make headway with the endorsements from more powerful anti-choice groups. Though many state representatives have distanced themselves from the group’s attempts at a Personhood amendment in Florida, a backing by a group like Live Action could ultimately yield results. #

Countries ranked less likely to default include corruptocracy Kazakhstan, less-than-reform-minded Indonesia, the debt-ridden Philippines and violence-ridden Colombia. By comparison, U.S. Treasuries prices are up today despite a new issuance this week.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Sept. 29 in Jolo Island, the Philippines, from the detonation of an improvised-explosive device.The soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Fort Lewis, Wash.

I was not aware that insurgent groups in the Philippines were now using IEDs. NPR reports that the likely culprit is the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group Abu Sayyaf and that Sgts. Shaw and Martin were supporting a school-construction mission. (NPR also mistakenly says these two soldiers were sailors, and unless there was another IED-related fatality I haven’t been notified about, this appears to be wrong.) That’s somewhat different from what I was told by Maj. Emanuel Ortiz at the Army Special Operations Command’s public affairs office. Ortiz told me their mission was to “conduct training and mentoring” of the Philippine Army.

How did their mission support Operation Enduring Freedom, the name of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan? Ortiz referred that question to U.S. Pacific Command, and since it’s about 4 a.m. in Honolulu, where Pacific Command is located, I am still unclear on that question, as well as whether we’re seeing a new battlefield for the migration of IEDs, the trademark innovation of insurgents in Iraq that has unfortunately spread to Afghanistan.

So where do Republicans think he was born? For whatever reason, 19 percent of them say Indonesia, where Obama lived after his mother re-married and moved there with her husband Lolo Soetoro. (“Birthers” often attack the president as “Barry Soetoro,” which I’ve never quite understood; is that really a stranger name than “Obama”?) Thirteen percent of Republicans say he was born in Kenya, birthplace of Barack Obama Sr. Mystifyingly, 2 percent of Republicans say the president was born in the Philippines, a country he has no  connection to whatsoever.

And how do the numbers break down by race?

Weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, a small team of Green Berets was quietly sent to the Philippine island of Basilan. There, one of the world’s most virulent Islamic extremist groups, Abu Sayyaf, had established a dangerous haven and was seeking to extend its reach into the Philippine capital.

But rather than unleashing Hollywood-style raids, as might befit their reputation, the Green Berets proposed a time-consuming plan to help the Philippine military take on the extremist group itself. Seven years later, Abu Sayyaf has been pushed out of Basilan and terrorist attacks have dropped dramatically.

“It’s not flashy, it’s not glamorous, but man, this is how we’re going to win the long war,” said Lt. Gen. David P. Fridovich, the Army officer who designed the Philippine program.

Spiegel sensibly describes this “indirect approach” — in which U.S. forces partner, support and mentor frontline counterinsurgents rather than fight wars for them — as the military’s preferred future strategy for counterterrorism. Certainly last week’s Stability Operations field manual suggests as much.

What’s so surreal about this is that… it was supposed to be the way the military was going to go all along.

Remember a few months after 9/11, when counterterrorism experts figured the logical next phase of the war on terrorism would be indirect action against Al Qaeda-linked insurgent groups in Indonesia and the Philippines?

Foreign Affairs, the august establishmentarian journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, even published an article titled “Is Southeast Asia The Second Front?” Sure enough, of course, the “second front” turned out to be the unnecessary-then-counterproductive invasion of Iraq.

But Spiegel’s piece demonstrates the wisdom of Plan A.