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2005-08-13 Afghanistan/South Asia

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Posted by Fred 2005-08-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Fred, a couple notes:

* The whole "The US created the Taliban" myth is well on its way to becoming the historial "truth" even if it's false; it's being done the same way the "The US created the Khmer Rouge" myth became "reality:" endless repetition on the part of the media and university faculty.

* In part of your analysis I think you're off base, but you come close to getting it:

The purpose of a guerrilla movement is usually to hold territory. Terrorism is used to influence state decisions. The FLN didn't so much take power as cause the French to leave, at which point power fell to them by default. The Viet Minh and Viet Cong, along with many other guerrilla operations, established shadow governments and attempted to administer the territory they controlled.

The Viet Minh and Viet Cong followed the same rules of "guerilla warfare" that Mao did: you perform terrorist acts upon a civilian population in a given area until they support you. You wind up with fifteen-year-old kids charging "evil western imperialist" machine guns because the "evil western imperialists" are at worst going to kill *him*, but the "noble guerilla resistance" is going to kill his Mom, his Dad, his two younger sisters, and a large number of uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. if he doesn't.

THAT IS TERRORISM, and it has NOTHING to do with trying to influence the state that you're fighting. Attacking govenrment troops (or their families, etc.) is something you usually put off until you have enough critical mass/territory controlled via terrorizing peasants. Mao miscalculated the tipping point at least once, but it didn't matter to him, because _he_ survived and managed to terrorize a new batch of peasants after the long march.

The Viet Cong miscalculated the tipping point twice, but it didn't matter, because even though the drafted peasants mostly died in the process, the attacks managed to convince the West of an illusory "anti-colonialist" resistance, at which point we stopped supporting South Vietnam and they fell to an armored assault from the PAVN.

It's the standard "model" that Maoist guerillas have followed everywhere.

I know you probably know most or all of this but I'm repeating it because it appears that a lot of readers here (and heads of allied governments and their armed forces) don't understand how pseudo-nationalistic-revolutions are really made.

Some of the recent reports I've seen here lately suggest that the coalition forces are letting a new "Viet Cong" set up shop in Basra, and some are saying that it's OK because it didn't result in any coalition forces casualties last month...

Anyway, that's all of my griping for the day. Take with requisite grain of salt mine.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-08-13 18:11|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-08-13 18:11|| Front Page Top

#2 Great analysis, Fred.

Posted by 11A5S 2005-08-13 18:13|| 2005-08-13 18:13|| Front Page Top

#3 I say let mother hitton's little kittens take care of the problem...
from Cordwainer Smith's story (a pseudoname for a US diplomat to Civil War China)

Posted by 3dc 2005-08-13 22:59|| 2005-08-13 22:59|| Front Page Top

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