Yes, Ideology is moot.
As ken points out people in such periods of popular revolt and turmoil are just as ruthless under Methodist ideology as they are under Communist ideology as they are under Islamist ideology.
It is not, and never has been, about ideology. Every insurgency must employ one to be successful, but it is only the grease that keeps things moving and the glue that binds things together. The energy behind such movements is always the nature of the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed.
Mike: I totally agree that it is not our call to shape governments for others. My comment is only that the tried and true foreign policy TTP of nurturing and supporting foreign despots is obsolete and also the primary reason that nationalist insurgents sign up for the AQ road team to bring violence to America. This was becoming apparent in the information age of Steam and teletypes when the British Empire rolled up in the face of popular pressure. It is far more true today. Now, if a populace WANTs a dictator, the US should not interfere with that either. To pick such a leader, if done openly, is a form or self-determination and democracy. Not our call to judge.
Ciff: I feel where you are coming from, but you are operating off of some bad data (and our "no blame on the US" version of history and our flawed COIN doctrine and analysis of GWOT don't help). The US Civil war, for example, was by no logical definition an "insurgency." It was legal politics at work. The duly elected representatives of several states exercised principles of democracy to join together and suceed from the Union. The Unions government disagreed with their right to do so, and acted to overcome that political action with military force to bring them back into the Union. Not an insurgency. A new nation was formed and then the two nations waged war against each other to determine if that action would stand.
Insurgency is illegal politics, and exercised outside of the formal governmental process.
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