Is everybody wrong?

[slapout9]

Yes, I have some questions myself but according to the sidebar he died a few months before the article was published. I do think he was on to something with his classification system, but it does not look like we will ever know what his complete theory was.


Culpper and Steve thanks for responding. Anybody else out there with comments??

[SSG Rock]

I also see the terrorist war as relevent, especially in how he mentioned the cities as the major area of operations. That's exactly what we are dealing with in Iraq.

More than anything else, and I might be oversimplifying this, but the article does not address the issue of popular support of the counter insurgent from the counter insurgent's home country.

I think we have over analyzed the insurgents and terrorists, I think that we fully understand how they operate, their TTP change, but that has always been. Now is the time for us to analyze why is it that America can't seem to muster the starch to support their own military in a counter insurgent role. Especially when that support requires absolutey no sacrifice in their daily life? America has always stood for, indeed, proclaimed publicly that it will work toward the liberation of the oppressed and for the spread of democracy, every president of the modern era has expressed this ideal to wild cheers from audiences the world over. Now, here we are in the middle of such an effort, and America seems to have misplaced it's collective backbone. I tell you, I'm at a loss. We can put down the insurgency in Iraq, to me, it's simply a matter of being patient, and supportive.

The article was interesting, it didn't offer anything we don't already know. What I found significant was that it was written during the Vietnam War and that most of it is as relevent today as it was back then.

I've come to the conclusion that a small number of people have managed to frame the argument over the Iraq war. I've also come to the conclusion that the real opposition to the war isn't so much over the war itself, but opposition of Bush. I think there are just enough Democrats out there still so angry over the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 that their top priority is to deny any modicum of success no matter how small, but especially the war in Iraq to the Bush Administration. I may be over simplifying here, but I think there is a good deal of truth to it.

[Culpeper]

I agree, the ability to create wholesale sedition can be placed right at the foot of the executive branch. Woodrow Wilson used the Sedition Act of 1918 for good reason and with good results. The Sedition Act was short and sweet and makes the entire Patriot Act look like the Girl Scout Manual.

[slapout9]

Yep, having been around during Vietnam there was definitely a get Nixon attitude and we are seeing it again with a get Bush attitude. Who suffers America.

[Stu-6]

There are defiantly some people out there who just don’t want to see Bush have any success but I don’t think they are really much of an issue. I assume they were out there 3+ years ago when public support for the war was in the area of 70%, the change since then isn’t more people are out to get Bush it is 3 years of failing policy. The fact of the matter is that had we had any real success in dealing with the Iraqi guerrillas those that wanted to bash Bush would not have much to use against him; but as the insurgency has grown (in spite of administration statements to the contrary) those that opposed Bush have come more to look like visionaries than partisans.

For the original article, it is very interesting but I agree that it doesn’t seem fully developed.

[Bill Moore]

Stu-6 thanks for bringing the conversation back to the real subject, which is the article and our failed policies, not anti-Bushism. Bush is unpopular because his policies have positioned our country on the losing side of the battle in Iraq. His unpopularism doesn't equate to Americans wanting to see us fail in Iraq, it is exactly the opposite, we're a country that doesn't accept defeat easily, and we have an administration leading us in that direction. Is it patriotic to blindly embrace an administration that has led the country astray, or is it patriotic to challenge the administration for the good of the country? The last thing we need is an act that shuts up those whose challenge any administration. That is a slippery slope we don't want to get on as a nation.

I think we need to refocus the conversation back onto the article. It stated in the article that this was an abbreviated version, so it would be worthwhile if we could find the original article in full.

[Steve Blair]

This shouldn't be too hard to find. Just track down the issue of the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution and you'd be set.