Wow! HOW TO KILL A RATIONAL PEASANT

[Luminous Animal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/06/how_to_kill_a_rational_peasant.html

AMERICA'S DANGEROUS LOVE AFFAIR WITH COUNTERINSURGENCY

At the beginning of this year one of the weirdest characters ever to become involved in the present Afghan war died. He was called Jack Idema and he was a brilliant con-man. For a moment, during the early part of the war, Idema persuaded all the major TV networks and scores of journalists that he was some kind of special forces super-hero who was using all kinds of "black ops" to track down and arrest the terrorists.

In reality, before 2001, Idema had been running a hotel for pets in North Carolina called The Ultimate Pet Resort. He had been in prison for fraud, and had tried to con journalists before about being some kind of super-spy. But September 11th gave him his chance - and he turned up in Kabul dressed like this.

...

Because at the moment that Idema was entering his Afghan prison, a group of very senior US military men, led by a General called David Petraeus, were sitting down in a military staff college in Kansas and beginning to write a study that would completely transform the tactics of the US army in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

What General Petraeus and his team did was to go back into the past and exhume a theory of warfare that had been discredited by the US military who thought it was long buried and forgotten. It was called Counterinsurgency.

[Luminous Animal]

1. Kick. There is some good stuff in the link. My snip couldn't begin to do it justice.

[Luminous Animal]

2. One more kick because history is cool.

[HiPointDem]

3. adam curtis makes convincing film, but there's always something in them that sets off my bullshit

detector.

like this, for instance:

"exhume a theory of warfare that had been discredited by the US military who thought it was long buried and forgotten. It was called Counterinsurgency."

counterinsurgency was "long buried and forgotten" until iraq/afghanistan?

bullshit.

people love adam curtis, but i think he makes subtle propaganda. century of the self struck me the same way. made bernays the evil genius, but he was an employee.

[Luminous Animal]

4. You say "bullshit". Prove it.

[HiPointDem]

5. prove that the us military hadn't forgotten what counterinsurgency was prior to iraq? really?

first tell me the date that they supposedly forgot what it was.

[Luminous Animal]

6. The arguement presented wasn't that the U.S. had forgotten the theory of

counterinsurgency but that they had rejected it.

Nice try.

[HiPointDem]

7. this is the direct quote: "What General Petraeus and his team did was to go back into the past and

exhume a theory of warfare that had been discredited by the US military who thought it was long buried and forgotten. It was called Counterinsurgency.

the referent for "who" is "military". The sentence = "counterinsurgency had been discredited by the military". "the military thought counterinsurgency was long buried and long forgotten". Petraeus had to exhume it.

It has never been discredited by the military, nor buried, nor forgotten. If you think it was, please tell me when.

It was discredited after Vietnam in the eyes of the public. Not "by the military". Nor was it forgotten or buried by the military.

[Luminous Animal]

8. I'll concede the language but I ask you to prove that it hadn't been discredited by the military...

Do you have evidence that the U.S. military has, since Vietnam and our current wars, believed that counterinsurgency is a viable tactic?

If so, spell it out when, during the ensuing years, its been used.

[HiPointDem]

9. First let's define it: Counter-insurgency = tactics used against insurgents who are trying to

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 04:15 AM - Edit history (3)

attack, overthrow, or undermine an established state/government, right?

Those tactics range from:

1) attempts to discredit the insurgents and promote the established order (public relations, propaganda, false-flag attacks blamed on the insurgents, "bribing" the population in question with aid & such)
2) to attempts to terrorize the population into withdrawing support from the insurgents,
3) to attempts to neutralize the insurgents by bribing them, turning them against each other, inciting them to rash actions that will discredit them (divide & conquer/spying/provocateurism),
4) to attempts to cut off material support to insurgencies (either from population or from outside actors),
5) to outright annihilation of the insurgents through arrest/kidnapping/assassination of leadership & overwhelming force against rank & file.

"Counter-insurgency is normally conducted as a combination of conventional military operations and other means, such as propaganda, psy-ops, and assassinations. Counter-insurgency operations include many different facets: military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken to defeat insurgency."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-insurgency

Any disagreement there?

****

I'm going to assume your general agreement.

Then I'm going to ask, did the US stop trying to counter insurgencies after Vietnam (after 1973) until 2001?

I think you'll have to agree it did not. Nicaragua springs immediately to mind, & there are many others (proxy wars with USSR, aiding allies facing insurgencies, etc., all the NATO/Gladio/strategy of tension stuff circa early 70s-80s, etc).

So, given that, you have to ask -- well, how were they fighting those insurgencies? And since counter-insurgency basically means "by any means possible," you have to concede they were using the tactics of counter-insurgency.

And I could actually go through the conflicts the US was involved in 1973-2001 & point out specifics, but it would be time-consuming.

Second, I link this document by the Strategic Studies Institute:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub586.pdf

INSURGENCY AND COUNTERINSURGENCY IN THE 21st CENTURY:
RECONCEPTUALIZING THREAT AND RESPONSE

Which contains quotes like these:

Counterinsurgency support has been part of American strategy
since the 1960s, but today insurgency is mutating, thus forcing an
intense reevaluation of U.S. strategy and operational concepts. To
simply extrapolate the ideas, strategies, doctrine, and operational
concepts from several decades ago and apply them to 21st century
insurgency is a recipe for ineffectiveness. Reconceptualization is
needed for the U.S. military and other components of the government
to confront the new variants of this old challenge...

When the United States again confronted insurgency in the
1980s, it drew on the Vietnam experience to develop a “carrot-andstick”
strategy which simultaneously promoted democratization,
economic development, dialogue, and defense....Recognizing that
counterinsurgency support was a very long-term proposition and
that support by the American people and their elected leaders would
have to be sustained, the United States limited its involvement in
counterinsurgency to areas of high national interest, especially
Central America and the Caribbean.

In addition, indirect means rather than the large-scale application
of American military force was the preferred method. The 1987
National Security Strategy, for instance, specified that indirect military
power, particularly security assistance, was the primary tool of
counterinsurgency. The 1988 National Security Strategy was even more
explicit, emphasizing that U.S. engagement “must be realistic, often
discreet...

This understanding of insurgency was eventually codified with
the 1990 release of Army and Air Force doctrine in FM 100-20/AFM
3-20, Military Operations in Low-Intensity Conflict. Success in low-intensity
conflict, according to this manual, followed adherence to
five “imperatives”: political dominance, unity of effort, adaptability,
legitimacy, and perseverance...

But while FM 100-20, like the national security strategy, noted that
the U.S. military role in counterinsurgency would “normally center
on security assistance program administration,” it did not rule out
direct tactical involvement of U.S. forces.

By the end of the 20th century, counterinsurgency thinking had caught up with insurgency, and the tide had turned. Insurgency’s “golden age” was over―at least for a brief period...

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub586.pdf


Counter-insurgency had been discredited in the mind of the public because of abuses during Vietnam. (Including abuses at home/the Church hearings, etc.) It was never discredited within the military; it never ended, it was never forgotten nor in need of exhumation.

Also, I think it's impossible to look seriously at the measures the various government agencies have taken to deal with "insurgency" here at home -- ie counter-insurgency tactics -- & still believe that domestic agencies maintained this knowledge while somehow the military forgot it or abhorred it. We are subject to surveillance, propaganda, psy-ops on a daily basis, and people who are truly political are subject to worse. But the US military doesn't do these things overseas, or didn't from 1974 to 2001? That's laughable. All that's changed is that 911 & the Patriot Act gave the military )& domestic agencies) leeway to be more open about it.

Also, contra Curtis, counter-insurgency goes back to ancient times, and US military documents talk about counter-insurgency in the Indian wars, the civil war, etc.

[Luminous Animal]

10. And how does defining it support it as being a credible tactic?

[HiPointDem]

11. Any quibbles with the definition? As to the rest, I added to that post because i didn't want

the conversation to drag as we waited for each other's responses.