Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: JasonC
It is interesting.

For one thing it describes what seems to be underway in our own nation vis-a-vis multiculturalism out of the Marxist playbook.

It also gives a few hints about how and why both the French and US lost in Vietnam--our enemies know how to turn their own people against the military as we saw in Vietnam and will surely see attempted here.

10 posted on 04/24/2002 3:21:11 PM PDT by doxteve
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: doxteve
"Know how" may be a bit strong. They do know how to create opportunities for such pressures to arise. But our own people have to fall for it, at various levels. Guerilla politics places the greatest strain on the discrimination of the adversary, on his ability to keep distinct his enemies and his friends, based on their actions, beliefs, and choice of side.

Instead of letting the population divide along the guerillas' preferred lines of cleavage, based on sociological categories (race, class). They start out not remotely speaking for such large categories, merely thinking in terms of them. They try to force everyone else to think in terms of them, alone, by trying to make them the only relevant, life or death political matters. If they succeed in that, then they get whole huge categories of supporters, and the exact fight they desired between them. They ride their role in creating the fight to leadership of one side of it.

Remember that a quarter of a million Arab officials were loyal to the end, but abandoned by the French. Nothing is more revealing than that Eh Bien, you shall suffer. That was not created by the FLN, it was there from the outset and the war merely revealed it, by making the opposite course expensive. The contempt the political leadership of France had for their loyal charges in Algeria was the crux of the issue, the prior political basis for their eventual abandonment.

Guerilla politics is a sort of moral ju-jitsu of evil. It makes use of the worst aspects of its adversary - his bigotry, his extremism, his indifference, his duplicity. Those doing the using are far, far worse, of course. They are conscious moral corrupters for ulterior ends. But their targets are not angels, and that is half of why it worked. Naivete is not an answer either, as though childlike simplicity and kindness would be invunerable to such methods.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is not simply a matter of nasty people knowing a nasty political technique. They put moral (and intellectual, but primarily moral) strains on their adversaries. Those adversaries bear some of the responsibility for how they react to the test that sets up.

Theologically speaking, devils tempt but sinners fall.

11 posted on 04/24/2002 4:18:34 PM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]

To: doxteve
The vietnamese were willing to see their own citizens sacrificed in their effort. They had no respect for human life, for civilian life, for children. No different than the Palestinians. Use children as sacrifices. Exploit the civilian population, coerce them into dying so you can gain power.
21 posted on 04/25/2002 1:56:19 PM PDT by OldFriend
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson