The Perfect Weapon for the Meanest Wars

[Tom Odom]

This makes me wonder whether winning hearts and minds is a valid goal anymore. In situations like that discussed in the article, the insurgents are not only not concerned with hearts and minds, they actively attack the local populous. Their weapon against the populous is fear, i.e. submit to our will or die. How can we expect to enter a situation like this and win hearts and minds? It would seem awful hard to convince a population that they should side with us when the insurgents are so ruthless. The locals will actively help or at least look the other way for fear that their children will be stolen from them, their wives and daughters raped, etc. Is it possible to defeat barbarism with a hearts and minds campaign?

To the contrary, the adoption of scortched earth, rape, and pillage by rebels makes countering them all the easier if the government uses the proper means and as tequilla states "secures the population." Whether these forces do best are places like Sierra Leone or the Congo where the words government forces imply a level of competence that simply does not exist. The Uganda situation is a case in point; the Lord's Resistance Army has existed so long because Museveni refused to acknowledge them as a threat. That has changed over the past several years; once Museveni decided to act, the Ugandan military was effective in reducing the LRA's terror when it used the proper methods, beginning with "secure the populace." In contrast the DRC has shown little competence in its 47 years since independence, especially the last 12 years in dealing with the sitituation in the eastern part of the country. Whether called the ANC, the FAZ, or FAC the Congolese military has always been a greater problem/threat to the locals than any rebel group.

Best

Tom