Marko
December 30, 2009, 9:29am
21
thelion:
When US snipers were in Iraq, each has about a 20-30 kills. The insurgents just run when they see actual military (they asked for snipers and special forces to be recalled in negotiations), and only engage when they have massive numerical superiority. Otherwise, they target civilians (because they don’t shoot back, you see). Compare the number military killed by insurgents and civilians killed.
US snipers in Iraq mainly killed non-combatants. They had permission and instructions to kill anyone carrying a shovel, or a bag. Or anyone handling a cell phone near the troops. Or being out after a curfew. The US military has in Iraq killed some 20,000 guerrilas but over 400,000 non-combatants (mainly vie the use of air power).
“Guerilla warfare” is basically just Sun Tzu tactics.
thelion
January 2, 2010, 11:36pm
23
It’s not only ETA. A large portion of guerrilla movements fund their programs through extortion, or they are funded by governments which tax (such as the PLO). Guerrilla can sometimes used interchangeable with mafias. My point was simply to raise the issue. I think that there seems to be a belief that many guerrilla groups are somehow pure, and they fight against the tyranny of the State—in most cases, I believe, this is not true, they operate similar to a State in the areas they can threaten with the use of force and most of their time their objective is to set up a new State under their own leadership (i.e. ETA, FARC, Iraqi insurgents, Afghan insurgents, et cetera).
That said, I am not arguing that this somehow makes it the State justified, or anything within that nature. My only concern was the following:
And Guerilla warfare, human bombs, etc. is a libertarian idea?
Then:
Guerilla warfare is good in the sense that it does not necessitate taxation and doesn’t involve drafts.
Guerrilla groups, most of the time, do necessitate taxation (whether they are being funded by third party governments or they are extorting local populations and businesses), and many times do involve drafts (and not only that, but use force to disincentivize freedom of will, or the ability for non-guerrilla fighters to do as they please [like barter with Israelis, in the case of many Palestinians who are found dead for working with the Israelis]).
For the most part, guerrilla forces (at least in the modern sense) are not libertarian in nature.
This. I agree entirely.
Some people have responded with war statistics, trying to show how relatively more (!?) libertarian guerilla fractions are. War statistics are, however, often quite full of contradictions and nonsense, and often quite intentionally.
For instance, see Richard Landes’s comments on the subject: