The Cult of Counterinsurgency | The American Prospect

The Cult of Counterinsurgency | The American Prospect

Counterinsurgency means an attempt to defeat guerilla fighters who hide among a civilian population over an extended period of time, "low-intensity conflicts," French in Algeria, the British in Malaysia, and the Soviets in Afghanistan

current U.S. strategy based on French and English doctrine as well as Vietnam.

special allure for liberal writers because it offers a holistic approach, win the hearts and minds, transform autocratic governments into ones that respect human rights, women's education, and the rule of law.

Skeptics say warfare of the nastiest, most brutal kind, and it lasts for years and years. In the early days of Iraq, it was used on an ad-hoc basis to build relationships with local civilians in order to track down insurgents

It wasn't until Abu Ghraib scandal of 2004, Haditha in 2005 the need arose to re-evaluate wanton violence among some units. the dismal state of the war prompted Petraeus. In February 2006, Petraeus hosted a workshop, co-sponsored by Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights
in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

In COIN, civilian and military activities are integrated, cooperate with humanitarian workers in an effort to win over the local population, employs anthropological tools that map social networks

"the surge." to Iraq in 2007. The Washington Post Bob Woodward says High-Value Targeting, Anbar Awakening paying 100,000 individuals $300 a month. And Sunni tribal sheikhs make millions more through U.S. contracts. pullback by Muqtada al-Sadr.

These disparate elements have come together and tamped down the bloodshed

Still, the conventional wisdom is that Iraq has improved because of the new approach.

John Nagl does not like the word "colonialism, whether it is called neocolonialism or counterinsurgency, will be applied in various regions over the next several years.

The thinking man's war has a chapter on morals and values, big on hearts and minds. It has its own subculture, the rock stars (Nagl and Kilcullen celebrity couple (Kilcullen and Janine Davidson, author of the forthcoming book The Fog of Peace, a guru (Petraeus), and a cult-classic film (Battle of Algiers), a magazine (Small Wars Journal)

Nagl stands out. Counterinsurgency, as Nagl explains, is "80 percent political, 20 percent military." (He is quoting David Galula, "the Clausewitz of counterinsurgency. It could be modeled on the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, or CORDS which coordinated military and civil affairs in Vietnam.

Troops are studying manuals on cultural awareness and learning the basics of Islam. They are also learning how to fight in a civilian environment
The Marines are engaged, openly and passionately, in a discussion set in an empirically based field of study. Yet somehow they remind me of the guys in Reservoir Dogs -- jewelry thieves who join in a textual analysis of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" while sitting in a diner.

Counterterrorism is "the long war," and counterinsurgency is part of this effort. semantics matter. in Baghdad, they could find an insurgent or a terrorist.

counterinsurgency may also involve dirty tactic "the dark side." In Vietnam, "the dark side" was Operation Phoenix or the getting rid of Viet Cong leaders "by any means necessary, it was part of the CORDS program.

underlying ideas of Operation Phoenix have worked their way back into the U.S. military. The Iraq-era version of this is known as High-Value Targeting, house raids, "snatch missions," it used to be carried out by Special Forces only. Now, all troops conduct them. U.S. and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan have increased, "If you kill a very large number of civilians, you'll cow a population,"

Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It depends on how much "blood and treasure" you put into it. He is the author of Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, says U.S. troops should pull out of Afghanistan
I've been to Afghanistan. Basically, you'd have to kill every single Afghan and take all the children and put them in boarding school, preferably in England."

current policy, less about making the world safe for democracy than making the world safe for U.S. economic and political interests

The Romance of Counterinsurgency « sans everything

The Romance of Counterinsurgency « sans everything

For the last half-century, counterinsurgency has been the type of war that liberals are most likely to idealize. In theory, counterinsurgency sounds great: it’s war fought to win “the hearts and minds” of the people, war that involves building alliances with the local population, war done with the best of intentions, war as a giant social welfare program (with guns).

first great liberal embrace of counterinsurgency was the Kennedy administration Green Berets to fight guerrilla wars.

around 2003 some liberals once again took up the idea of counterinsurgency. it’s really development work and human rights, except the people will carry guns.

counterinsurgency is more brutal than conventional warfare which are all about seizing territories with one army fighting another and sometimes civilian casualties as a by product.

Counterinsurgency is to seize control “hearts and minds”. civilians are the chief target. Civilians are the battlefield. counterinsurgency is warfare aligned with nation building.

1977 study, “The Counterinsurgency Era,” the late Douglas Blaufarb, a former CIA agent who oversaw counterinsurgency operations in Laos addresses the problem of “self-reform in crisis.” where outsiders press for political reform

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, the notion that reforms can be carried out in a wartime situation by a beleaguered regime is “the fatal fallacy in the liberal theory of counterinsurgency, with the United States so often obliged to work through repressive local leadership, the reform component dwindled into ineffectual exhortation.”

Kennedy, the need to help poor countries develop politically and economically into modern nation states so that they can be strong enough to resist communism

Yet effective counterinsurgency often involves building up small tribal groups. by strengthening the Meo hill-people of Laos further frayed the social fabric of Laos

Counterinsurgency emphasis on improving social conditions and spreading democracy. Green Berets and the Peace Corps are the same reforming spirit

In Vietnam. As the war ground on harsher tactics appeared, targeting of enemy collaborators for assassination. In the infamous Phoenix Program that began in 1967, a direct outgrowth of counterinsurgency, the American government paid for the murder of thousands of civilians allegedly tied to the Viet Cong. This was precisely the type of program that turned many Americans against the Vietnam War

The US then went on elsewhere, in Guatemala.

Numbed by years of killing, peasants adopted a quietist philosophy that rejected both sides. in 1975, South Vietnam couldn’t rally its own population to resist.

Successful counterinsurgency involves a deep familiarity with the local culture. Gaining political legitimacy is the key to successfully defeating an insurgency. such popular support can take years and there is tension between security for one’s troops and winning popular support….

JFK, DULLES AND RAY MCGOVERN

Did Allen Dulles and other “cloak-and-dagger” CIA operatives have a hand in killing President Kennedy and then covering it up? The most up-to-date—and, in my view, the best—dissection of the assassination appeared last year in James Douglass’ book, JFK and the Unspeakable. After updating and arraying the abundant evidence, and conducting still more interviews, Douglass concludes the answer is Yes.

Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at:

KENNEDY LIST

But game changer isn’t quite the word for the event that launched the Noughts. 9/11 just speeded up basic tendencies which were already in train. Invasion of Iraq? The onslaught had been in full spate through most of Clinton-time via a lethal embargo and almost daily bombings – and the course of Iraqi politics had been set back in 1963 with the Kennedy administration okayed CIA complicity in the overthrow and murder of the Iraqi nationalist, General Kassim, setting the stage for the CIA’s man, Saddam Hussein.

Abd al-Karim Qasim (Arabic: عبد الكريم قاسم‎ `Abd al-Karīm Qāsim) (1914 – February 9, 1963), was a nationalist Iraqi Army officer who seized power in a 1958 coup d'état, wherein the Iraqi monarchy was eliminated. He ruled the country as Prime Minister of Iraq until his downfall and death in 1963.

His name can be transliterated from the Arabic in a number of ways, eg. Abdel Karim Kassem, Abdul Karim Kassem, Abdulkarim Kasem, Abdel-Karim Qaasim, `Abdul Karim Qasem, Qassem. During his rule, he was popularly known as al-za‘īm (الزعيم) or, "The Leader"