Hi GP,

[quote=GPaulus;9071]The fact that "All" human behavior ihas a motive and is motivated by one thing and one thing only "Self-interest" does not make all struggles the same.[/qote]

What a cold worldview! Why do you take the obviously unsupportable position that all human behaviour is based on self interest?

Quote Originally Posted by GPaulus View Post
The major difference as I see it between the insurgency in Iraq, and other acts such as rebellions, civil war, freedom fighting and terrorists, and the reason that I content insurgents are apolitical is that the insurgents are all about them--WIFM. They want protractedness because that provides Utility for them, they want lawlessness because that provides utility--money, power, wealth, control for them.
Jeremy Bentham would, I suspect, have been quite disturbed by this assertion. Outside of your blatant misunderstanding of the principles of Utilitarianism, you seem to think that self interest cannot also be "political". I wuld remind you of a rather popular saying from the 60's and 70's - "The personal is political".

You are also making a categorical error in conflating all insurgents into a singular unit which cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, prove of any utility in combating the multiple insurgencies that we are dealing with. If we follow your line of reasoning, we can see the illogic - power and control disappear in a wasteland of death since the "insurgents" have killed off everyone, and wealth and money are likewise irrelevant since there is nothing left to purchase.

Quote Originally Posted by GPaulus View Post
Other struggles such as rebellions, terrorist operations, etc believe that their cause is a "Public Good" and that they are doing it for the good of all --selfactualizing, ideological, altruistic--selfless regard and acting for the well-being of others. These struggles are much more of an ideological struggle. Consider this difference--Using the Maslow Hierarchy --the terrorists operate at the Self-actualizing level (Political, Regime Change, Religious Freedom, selfgovernance) whereas the Insurgency, at least in Iraq, are at the Physiological level--food, water, money, selfcontrol, lawlessness.
If you will return to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and reread it, you will discover that self control and lawlessness are not listed in it at the basic levels. "Self control" is part of the process of self actualization.

Somehow or other, and I have no idea where it comes from, you have inverted the commonly accepted meanings of the term "terrorist" and "insurgent". How can you define an insurgency as categorically different from a rebellion to the point of mutual exclusion? Let's go back to some basic definitions from the OED that I quoted in an earlier post in this thread:

The OED defines insurgency as "The quality or state of being insurgent; the tendency to rise in revolt", an insurgent as "One who rises in revolt against constituted authority; a rebel who is not recognized as a belligerent." and an "insurgence" as "The action of rising against authority; a rising, revolt."
Quote Originally Posted by GPaulus View Post
I believe that the insurgents' fight is not a political, religious or ideological manifesto like the media leads us to believe. As a result, the insurgency in Iraq wins if the struggle is protracted. They want to keep the intensity up for as long as they can using every method available. And against anyone who strives to bring order--the local marketer who refuses to withhold produce from the market, the religious leader calling for peace, the ISFs, the Military, anyone who oposes them getting their primal needs for power, money...met.
You are, of course, free to believe whatever you wish. That is, after all, one of the core values of the Anglo culture complex.

Marc