I’m beginning to feel as if I’m riding on a broken carousel in a nightmare carnival run by madmen: Manila to Withdraw from Iraq ‘As Soon as Possible’.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The Philippines will withdraw its forces from Iraq “as soon as possible,” Philippine deputy foreign minister Rafael Seguis said on Monday in a statement he read out on al Jazeera television.

“In response to your request, the Philippines … will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible,” Seguis said according to al Jazeera’s Arabic translation of his remarks.

His statement was addressed to a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, which is holding a Filipino driver hostage and has threatened to kill him unless Manila agrees to withdraw its troops by July 20.

“I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of this group,” Seguis told the satellite television from Baghdad.

He declined to give an exact date for the 50 humanitarian troops’ withdrawal, which Manila had insisted would take place by August 20 as earlier scheduled.

Seguis appealed to the group to release their hostage, truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, and added: “We know that Islam is the religion of peace and mercy.”

And he’s saying this to a group of subhuman serial killers who butcher helpless hostages like animals and videotape the slaughter.