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Old 02-12-2004, 10:12   #46
Airbornelawyer
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Partisans qualify because nothing says the the government or civil authority has to be legitimate.

Who's Osceola? You mean Billy Powell?

Native American Indian leaders can't be lumped together. Too many different objectives (on both sides). In most of the early wars they were conflicts between sovereign nations, not insurgencies. A-si-ya-ho-la and Goyathlay, maybe, but Tecumseh, for instance, probably would not be counted as an insurgent.
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Old 02-12-2004, 11:06   #47
William Hazen
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Of I'll bite since I am a Military History buff. LOL

My favorites include.

Geronimo
Mao
Nelson Mandela
Mahatma Gandhi

William Hazen
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Old 02-12-2004, 11:21   #48
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Going back a few years, add Judah the Hammer to the list.

Although a lot of the stories surrounding the Maccabees may be apocryphal (or Apocryphal if you are Catholic) and are generally taken on faith, the basic facts remain that they led a successful insurgency against the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) and established an independent Judean kingdom which lasted for 100 years until an internal power struggle led to Roman intervention.

Does anyone have any thoughts on another historical figure about whom much legend has been wrapped - William Wallace? My impression is that the real Wallace was a good guerrilla leader but only a fair conventional commander, and that his greatest gifts were charismatic and ideological, such that even with his defeats and death, his single-minded dedication to Scottish independence continued to inspire.

Regards,
Dave
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:01   #49
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Kamose the Theban, in the 16th century BC, in the Egyptian war of liberation from the Hyksos invaders.

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None can pass through it as far as Memphis (although it is) Egyptian water! See he (even) has Hermopolis!

No man can settle down, when despoiled by the taxes of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may rip open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatic!
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:06   #50
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How about the Texans? Houston and the like, and later the Rangers under Patterson I believe.
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:12   #51
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Mao. He took advantage of a very unstable situation and made a country. One I don't like, but he made it work.
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:21   #52
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Quote:
Originally posted by CommoGeek
Mao. He took advantage of a very unstable situation and made a country. One I don't like, but he made it work.
I was waiting for you (I didn't know who it would be).

Take out the Japanese invasion and put a competent leader in Kai-shek's position and how good is Mao?
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:44   #53
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Quote:
Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc
I was waiting for you (I didn't know who it would be).

Take out the Japanese invasion and put a competent leader in Kai-shek's position and how good is Mao?
Why?

Take out the French and the Americans and get rid of Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem (actually him we did get rid of...) and how good is Giap or Uncle Ho? Take out the vainglorious Antiochus Epiphanes and how good was Judah the Hammer?

A leader shapes and is shaped by his environment. Mao knew his enemies, knew his own forces and knew the battlefield. He knew his Sun Tzu as well as his Marx (since Marx' military ideas were Clausewitzian and Clausewitz drew from Napoleon and as a junior officer Napoleon read the French Jesuit missionaries' translation of the Art of War, the circle is complete).

Besides, what other revolutionary leader bothered with details like this: "Song and dance section. In accordance with the circumstances in which the unit finds itself and the nature of its tasks, this section composes all sorts of songs in order to stimulate the interest of the officers and soldiers in singing songs, or it puts on dances in costume, assuming various comical attitudes, in order to make the onlookers laugh until they hold their sides." (Basic Tactics, Chapter XV, Section 10.4(c).

Dave
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Old 02-12-2004, 13:55   #54
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Did you see me say Giap or Ho were among the best insurgent leaders?

If you want to be the best, you have to win against the best, when the odds are against you.

Not be lucky enough to have a weak corrupt leader and a foreign invader do 3/4 of the work for you. I know you don't think the Chinese peasants joined Mao because of those songs. They joined for the same reason I would vote for John Kerry - the only other choice would be Dean or Kucinich. They had to choose between Mao - or the Japanese or Kai-shek, same as no choice at all. The Long March was not heroic, it was a full fledged retreat that probably wasn't even necessary, but it made him famous. Mao should have been dead years before he ever came to be a leader - he was lucky, not good.

For that same reason, I'm not impressed by Castro/Guevara.

The title of the thread is "Best Insurgent Leader" not "Luckiest Insurgent Leader".
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Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?
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Old 02-12-2004, 14:12   #55
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AL,
I'm not making fun of your name. Its when you put "Dave" down there at the bottom, it makes it sound so final, like there's nothing left to discuss. I got tickled a couple of times is all. I won't do it again.
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Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?
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Old 02-12-2004, 14:29   #56
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Quote:
Originally posted by Airbornelawyer


A leader shapes and is shaped by his environment. Mao knew his enemies, knew his own forces and knew the battlefield. He knew his Sun Tzu as well as his Marx (since Marx' military ideas were Clausewitzian and Clausewitz drew from Napoleon and as a junior officer Napoleon read the French Jesuit missionaries' translation of the Art of War, the circle is complete).

I love it when the circle gets closed. Other half says "you are the sum of your experinces." I say "you go with what you know." It's the same thing, only he's more eloquent. I agree with the lawyer on Mao.

I'm not so sure about Ho and don't enough to even open my mouth about Giap.
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Old 02-12-2004, 14:40   #57
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Mao did the "best" he could with what he had. Did others do better through history? Probably , but I can't think of them right now.

His propaganda turned it into a victory. The people were tired of Kai-shek and the Japanese weren't an option. For better or worse he united the most populous country on the planet and punted two opposing factions.

I'd also nominate COL Russell Volckmann, but he is probably best defined as a UW type of guy and not an insurgent. Too bad.
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Old 02-12-2004, 15:27   #58
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As noted many postings ago, I believe that Che is a boob.

You don't always get to chose your enemies, so not having won against the best isn't necessarily a knock.

Mao took advantage of the situation he had and shaped it for his own ends. Eventually, there was only Mao, Chiang and the Japanese, but during Mao's and Chiang's rises, there were plenty of other warlords. And there was always the peasant's choice to do nothing, and let history march past as it had for centuries. One of Mao's skills was making them choose, and the political work chapter of Basic Tactics deals heavily with that. The unit "song and dance section" was a tool of that indoctrination. The unit "joke section" was such a tool too. The guidance for that section was threefold. First, "when jokes are told, we must make them easy to understand. We can take materials from joke books and such, but they should not be too obscene." Then, "when telling stories, we should devote much time to stories about the abundant exploits and great enterprises of the ancients, and to their excellent words and admirable conduct, in order to achieve an inspirational effect" and "when reporting on the news, we should devote attention to our own victories and to the atrocities of the enemy."

On the Long March, reading between the lines of Marxist rhetoric, it seems that Mao recognized it as a military failure, but effectively spun it into a propaganda victory, which in the protracted war he was fighting proved to be just as good. Here are Mao's observations, from a speech "On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism":
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Speaking of the Long March, one may ask, "What is its significance?" We answer that the Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history, that it is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding-machine. Since Pan Ku divided the heavens from the earth and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors reigned, has history ever witnessed a long march such as ours? For twelve months we were under daily reconnaissance and bombing from the skies by scores of planes, while on land we were encircled and pursued, obstructed and intercepted by a huge force of several hundred thousand men, and we encountered untold difficulties and dangers on the way; yet by using our two legs we swept across a distance of more than twenty thousand li through the length and breadth of eleven provinces. Let us ask, has history ever known a long march to equal ours? No, never. The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us. The Long March is also a propaganda force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation. Without the Long March, how could the broad masses have learned so quickly about the existence of the great truth which the Red Army embodies? The Long March is also a seeding-machine. In the eleven provinces it has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom, and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future. In a word, the Long March has ended with victory for us and defeat for the enemy. Who brought the Long March to victory? The Communist Party. Without the Communist Party, a long march of this kind would have been inconceivable. The Chinese Communist Party, its leadership, its cadres and its members fear no difficulties or hardships. Whoever questions our ability to lead the revolutionary war will fall into the morass of opportunism. A new situation arose as soon as the Long March was over. In the battle of Chihlochen the Central Red Army and the Northwestern Red Army, fighting in fraternal solidarity, shattered the traitor Chiang Kai-shek's campaign of "encirclement and suppression" against the Shensi-Kansu border area and thus laid the cornerstone for the task undertaken by the Central Committee of the Party, the task of setting up the national headquarters of the revolution in northwestern China.
I think Mao was lucky in his enemies, but he did shape the battlefield as much as it shaped him. One of Che's greatest failings was his belief that he could create a revolution wherever he went by virtue of his own ideological purity or charisma. Mao was far shrewder than that.

BTW, "Dave" is just there because the usernames seem too impersonal. There is a man behind these posts. A man who feels, and can cry, and who hurts sometimes.... A man who got picked on a lot as a kid and thirsts for the sweet nectar of revenge.... A man who... wait, did I say all that out loud?
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Old 02-12-2004, 15:32   #59
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Quote:
Originally posted by Airbornelawyer
BTW, "Dave" is just there because the usernames seem too impersonal. There is a man behind these posts. A man who feels, and can cry, and who hurts sometimes.... A man who got picked on a lot as a kid and thirsts for the sweet nectar of revenge.... A man who... wait, did I say all that out loud?
LOL.

Tip: On your User C/P, you can choose to be notified by e-mail or a pop-up when you have a private message. This is also a hint.
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Old 02-12-2004, 15:37   #60
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I think Mao was lucky in his enemies, but he did shape the battlefield as much as it shaped him.
On this, we will disagree.

Dave

LOL

Whoops...
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Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?
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