Fallujah & Mao

[NousDefionsDoc]

From a blog. I won't link it because I don't think we want them over here.

Any thoughts?

What if they left? Mao and Guerrilla Warfare

Much media hand-wringing has been heard in the last 48 hours about insurgents possibly escaping the city.

How to take this? First a few quotes from Mao Tse-Tung, who successfully prosecuted a variety of guerrilla campaigns before bequeathing such lovely things as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to history [note: for an excellent film about these events, rent the movie, Huozhe (1994) ("To Live")].

I use the text of Mao's book translated by Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith II, USMC, who had a PhD in Chinese military history from Oxford. Mao's text was written in 1937.

Mao's political goal was the complete emancipation of the Chinese people from the Japanese. He states the fundamental steps necessary as these:

1. Arouse and organize the people.
2. Achieve internal unification politically.
3. Establish bases.
4. Equip forces.
5. Recover national strength.
6. Destroy enemy national strength.
7. Regain lost territories.

Six full pages of this book are dedicated to the importance of establishing bases. Let's focus on that, as it is the most relevant to the Fallujah battle. Here are some further quotes:

"The problem of establishment of bases is of particular importance."

"The guerrilla base may be defined as an area, strategically located, in which the guerrillas can carry out their duties of training, self-preservation, and development. Ability to fight a war without a rear area is a fundamental characteristic of guerrilla action, but ths does not mean that guerrillas can exist and function over a long period of time without the development of base areas."

And here we have the way to understand what is happening in Fallujah. The battle is accomplishing several goals:

1. Kill all those who fight us.
2. Eliminate a base of operations for terrorist and anti-Iraq forces.
3. Establish a representative government, politically friendly or part of the national government.
4. Allow Iraqi forces to participate in the battles and to build their warfighting skills, and the legitimacy of their government.
5. Defeat various means of insurgent media-strength: safe places to keep hostages; inflated casualty figures.
6. Destroy insurgent command and control networks.
7. Exploit intelligence.

The insurgency now has no base in Fallujah. It will soon have no base in Ramadi or the other few towns where insurgents are massed. An insurgency without a base cannot survive. The only places that will be left for bases will be outside the country . . . Syria, Iran, etc, . . .

[magician]

this thesis omits to mention that much of the Iraqi cityscape is a spotted mess of base areas.

guerrillas swim in the ocean of the populace, to hijack Mao's own dictum, and it is enough if guerrillas are able to coerce grudging acceptance of their presence from the population.

the hard fact is, until Abdul Average Iraqi believes that the guerrillas are harming his own interests to a point where he feels that he must act against them, the broader populace will remain a petri dish where guerrillas can survive, and sometimes flourish.

it is good, on the other hand, to deny guerrillas internal sanctuaries where they can plan, train, fit and refit, and retire after action. Forcing them use sanctuaries outside the country lengthens their lines of communication, and eases interdiction.

But we should also recognize that there is a difference, particularly from the Maoist perspective, between an underground resistance organization, and guerrillas.

guerrillas present far more of a target, and can often be neutralized when they mass by superior tactics and firepower. An underground....that is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence challenge, and it is in combatting the underground that we are getting our asses handed to us.

[NousDefionsDoc]

I agree with everything you just said Brother, except -

An underground....that is primarily a law enforcement

in the third world. Its late and I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. I'll be back manana to 'splian why.

[magician]

cool, hermano.

te espero.

s.
-

[Guy]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

I agree with everything you just said Brother, except - in the third world. Its late and I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. I'll be back manana to 'splian why.

Is that what you were going to say?

[NousDefionsDoc]

No, despite the rosy picture of Mao's regime painted by...well...Mao's regime, it was probably just as corrupt as the rest.

Let's hear what some of the 18Xers and general membership think.

[Roguish Lawyer]

I would like to know what percentage of the Iraqi population is part of the insurgency. Is this really a discrete group or are we at war with Islam?