Fuchs,
I appreciate where you are coming from, but I find violence to be such a poor indicator of anything. Certainly it is a metric that something is seriously wrong, but I don't think it uniquely identifies any fundamental aspects of what that problem is, which in turn would lead one to ways of going about solving it. We come to see violence as the ultimate criteria, and overly congratulate ourselves when our superior application of violence causes the other side to stop employing violence for a while.
Most often, violence is a tactical choice of one or more of the parties. Some times the state forces the populace to resort to violence, sometimes it is the other way around. At the most fundamental level, when the degree of violence and the organization of the sides are stripped away insurgency is simply this:
An internal, populace-based illegal challenge to some system of governance.
That is the base model with no frills. Everything else are just option packages one can pay extra for. But no matter how many options you add to a Pinto, it is still a pinto. We get so distracted by the options we forget what it is we're driving or buying into.
Originally Posted by Bob's World
Bookmarks