Hi Wilf,
I agree with both of Tom's points here but, especially, his last one. I'm going to be getting up on my semantics soap box for a bit here .
Okay, some basic definitions: an insurgency is a political-military action against the "legitimate" government of a state or para-state (depends on how states are defined, but that's another discussion). We (NATO, etc.) are not conducting a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan (or Iraq) at present because we are not the legitimate government of either state.
The entire issue is muddied because in both cases the "legitimate" governments of both Iraq and Afghanistan were overthrown by foreign (NATO, MNF) conquest. This conquest and the following occupation then gave way to the creation of local governments more in line with those desired by the West, which have been "legitimated" by both international recognition and elections. This has created a situation were the legitimacy of these regimes may be questioned, in large part because a) they were imposed by foreigners and b) they have no longstanding "tradition" of legitimacy inside their respective states (NB: this second point marks a sharp disctinction against, say, the restoration of a previous regime).
A further complicating factor in these situations is that the foreign "invaders" really have no desire to stay there. Again, this marks a distinct difference with, say, the Colonial wars of the 19th century where the colonial powers often retained some components of local sovereignty. The closest historical analogs that I can think of off the top of my head are the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan, although there are some noatble differences.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I think the statement can give us some excellent insights into countering the current insurgencies. I do agree, however, that if taken as a truism, it is problematic.
Cheers,
Marc
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