Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
JMA, As I said, we can agree to disagree. But when you do disagree, ensure you read what I say and argue with that.
Bob you are not being entirely on the level here.

I said simply that your interpretation of what Wilf stated about "... that defeat of the insurgent through warfare is victory" is wrong. I stand by that. With the end of armed violence it reverts back to a civil issue which may be legal or illegal but which ever way able to be controlled by the civil power (for that read the police). To understand more clearly where Wilf is coming from here it would be worth your while to research the British MCP - (military aid to the civil power) Doctrine.

Working off this basis when he says:

...were it not for that one condition, (the armed opposition) the British Army would not be (in Afghanistan), ...
illegal political challenge is not "day to day," and it is a populace driven to the belief that it must operate outside the law to achieve resolution of issues that the government is unwilling to address through legal means that makes the essence of insurgency.
Now whether the opposition is legal or illegal it does not matter until such time as it reaches the level of armed opposition and by which time the civil power can no longer control and contain the situation and calls in the military.

Note: not every demand made by political groups (especially in a democracy) that the current sitting government denies justifies the move to illegal action. This also applies to so called regional minority rights (as applicable to the National Pashtoon minority concentrated in Helmand - they may be the largest single group but they are a national minority and have no say if they are at odds with the remainder of the country).

Defeating the enemy creates your freedom of action to do all else.
You understand this?

The military should be last in and first out in government prevention and response to insurgency. Definitions that only recognize the high end violent aspect of insurgency is like a definition of icebergs that only recognizes that portion rising above the surface of the water. One can attack that portion of the iceberg for a long time and only give rise to more ice. Same if one treats insurgency the same way.
Wilf indicates that with the advent of armed opposition the military will by necessity get involved. When the armed opposition is crushed then the army can return to barracks.

That is his point (as I understand it) what is yours?

A civil emergency is civil business. That is the vast majority of insurgency.
Until such time as (probably due to armed insurrection) the military is required/instructed to deploy to provide aid to the civil power it remains a civil matter.

In a country awash with weapons, (armed) warlord militias, (armed) drug lord militias, and the Taliban with its mercenary forces that may well be ealier rather than later in the insurgency cycle.

I will agree with WILF on this point: "War is war." Where we disagree is that I do not believe that insurgency is war.
Mere semantics.