Talk:Counter-insurgency

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Why is there a 'neutrality disputed' tag on this page? There is no record of a dispute here, just discussion of spelling.

Contents 1 The Lancet report 2 Recent edits 3 Suggest move to Counterinsurgency 3.1 Discussion 4 Klaus Barbie? 5 Is there an anti-western bias here? 6 Edits removed during redirection? 7 Dispute in the introduction 7.1 Three disputed paragraphs 8 Union troops 9 Fairness 10 Requested move 10.1 Survey 10.2 Discussion 11 China 12 List of Conflicts

[edit] The Lancet report

I would like to clairfy the disucssion in the controversy section that refers to the lancet report. The margin of error on that report is so wide that the number used could be argued to be statistically meaningless. Using a number of 100,000 in a range of 8000-194000, and then extrapolating to other numbers portrays the data as a fact when it is really more of a guess.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673604174412/abstract

unsigned post by RedLyons 20:42, 24 October 2005

[edit] Recent edits

I removed the POV tag.

The President of the United States of America (right) said in his plan for total victory in late November 2005 that "America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief" and "Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory." [1]

What has this got to do with counter insurgency? Am I missing something? Regarding the photo: counter-insurgency is hardly an US only pursuit. Some pics of CI propaganda might be interesting, but I think the Bush pic is highly superfluous. - FrancisTyers 18:48, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Update. Sorry, no wonder you were confused. I put this in the wrong article. I have now removed it. Wallie 19:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Klaus Barbie?

Uh...minor point, but I have an issue with some of the links provided at the end of this article.

Referring to the Butcher of Lyon (Klaus Barbie) and some Salvadoran known as "Blowtorch Bob" as ‘counterinsurgency experts’ alongside Robert Thompson (a highly respected COIN practitioner and theorist) and Edward Lansdale (colorful, flawed but highly influential COIN practitioner who was Ramon Magsaysay’s right hand man) is slander by association.

My doctoral work is on insurgency/counterinsurgency and (aside from the importance of ARENA in El Salvador’s political history) I have never seen either Barbie or D'Aubuisson cited anywhere as COIN experts. I would suggest that, in the absence of documented evidence of their relevance to counterinsurgency, the links to Barbie and "Blowtorch Bob" be dropped.

---

Maybe they were put as "counterinsurgency practicioners" rather than academic experts? As an example of torture, mass murder and repression by governments fighting insurgents: in this case by Nazi Klaus Barbie against the French resistance, and the Salvadoran was presumably a fascist death-squad leader/torturer against left-wing guerrillas.

Unless it was just a joke in bad taste. Kingal86 16:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved them to the bottom of the 'experts' list pending complete removal. (Jschager (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Is there an anti-western bias here?

Perhaps I am misreading the article, or the bias is unintentional, but there seems to be a strong anti-western tone in the examples offered in the article, particularly in paragraph five, yet this seems true for the article as a whole.

Paragraph five reads:

In many conflicts, counter-insurgency operations can kill more civilians than the insurgents themselves. This may especially occur when the insurgents have a sizable support base among certain sectors of the civilian population (or among the population as a whole), or when certain regions are predominantly under their influence or control. Examples of this include the US anti-insurgency operation in Iraq, Israeli counter-insurgency during the occupations of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Lebanon, Indian Army counter insurgency operations in Kashmir and North-Eastern states of India, many anti-British colonial uprisings, the Caravan of Death in Chile, and many of the different paramilitary groups (such as the AUC) and death squads in Colombia.

First, is there any reliable evidence that the American anti-insurgency has killed more Iraqis than the insurgents themselves? Secondly, is it just my perception, or do the examples given in the article, with the exception of Mao, all point to either Western/European governments in general and Anglo-Saxon governments in particular, or regimes otherwise associated with those governments (Chile under Pinochet and to some extent India)? While reflecting on this, the idea came to me that some of the more extreme counter-insurgency operations, and indeed some of the more successful, have been practiced by non-colonial and non-western powers. The first example that comes to mind is Turkish operations against the Armenians in the early part of the last century. The Hama massacre in Syria is another. And of course, one should not forget Saddam's own counter-insurgency operations against the Shiites and Kurds, which, though brutal, were nevertheless very effective. All of these operations were models of success. Even in Algeria (See the See Also Section), counter insurgency operations did not end with the war of independence, but can be understood to be ongoing even today. Russian counter-insurgency operations, in Chechnya and earlier in Afghanistan have been completely ignored, as well as the recent conflicts in the Balkans.

As a soldier currently serving in the armed forces my reaction to the article's tone may have been a bit too instinctive, but it does seem justified. Perhaps the author chose the examples because they are the most prominent and well-documented. But still, the bias seems there. Or is it?

[edit] Edits removed during redirection?

Why were the edits from Dec 26th 2006 and Jan 3rd 2007 eliminated in reverting the redirection on Jan 5th? Was there something wrong with them?

When it comes to fixing the page name, it seems like we should be moving pages rather than wholesale copy/paste see WP:MV. Yes/no?? JXM 19:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

That's the very reason they were reverted. They were made at Counterinsurgency after someone else had done a copy-paste move (and a move which is not linguistically appropriate, and which was rejected in the Requested move you can see on the talk page). See [2]. I reversed that copy-paste move and, separately a few days later, moved the page from Counter insurgency to Counter-insurgency, which is (separately) a more appropriate name. Separately, is this counter-insurgency experts accurate? Is this to be a list of anyone who calls himself a counter-insurgency expert and has an article on Wikipedia , or is it to be a list of "the" major experts. I could defer to your expertise in this matter, but there should be some sources on these people being "the" canonical experts. —Centrx→talk • 19:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute in the introduction

Counter-insurgency tactics usually involve human rights abuses and violations of civil liberties; such as internment, detention of family members of suspected insurgents as de facto hostages, extra-judicial killing of civilians and prisoners and torture.

• This is incorrect and wholly inaccurate. Whoever wrote this has not read counterinsurgency literature.

Please explain your objection here, or simply deleted the incorrect text. --Uncle Ed 01:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Three disputed paragraphs

Counter-insurgency tactics usually involve human rights abuses and violations of civil liberties; such as internment, detention of family members of suspected insurgents as de facto hostages, extra-judicial killing of civilians and prisoners and torture. Tactics similar to those of guerrilla warfare and insurgency are sometimes used by the governments themselves, such as assassinations of suspected insurgents, extra-judicial executions of suspected insurgent sympathizers and irregular paramilitary operations by covert operatives who may not wear uniforms.

In many conflicts, counter-insurgency operations can kill more civilians than the insurgents themselves. This may especially occur when the insurgents have a sizable support base among certain sectors of the civilian population (or among the population as a whole), or when certain regions are predominantly under their influence or control. Examples of this include the US anti-insurgency operation in Iraq, Israeli counter-insurgency during the occupations of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Lebanon, Indian Army counter insurgency operations in Kashmir and North-Eastern states of India, many anti-British colonial uprisings, the Caravan of Death in Chile, and many of the different paramilitary groups (such as the AUC) and death squads in Colombia.

Two exceptions to this rule appear to be two recent 'low-profile' wars in European soil: the first are the 1970s-1998 Troubles in Northern Ireland, in which Provisional IRA guerrillas are said to have killed the most people, including the most civilians, when compared to the British security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries, and also the ETA-Spanish conflict (1968-2006?) in which the insurgent party keeps the greatest part of the crimes.

---

The above seems to be a critique of counter-insurgency. It's not sourced, and seems to rely on common knowledge. There's also more than a hint of anti-Western bias.

Instead of deleting it, I Wikipedia:Moved it to this talk page, so we can fix it, and then put it back in. (If that link is red, then we really need an article on "how to do this"! :-) --Uncle Ed 01:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This is probably because this portion of the article was originally a screed against George W. Bush, and then it looks like it was "neutralized", but is still a problem because of the way it is presented. Even if "usually" were removed, we would still be left with the "usual" examples. This is at least partly because these examples are more recent and more spectacular. A similar issue can be seen at Talk:Insurgency#This isn't just about Iraq and Talk:Insurgency#Pejorative "common usage" and Iraq. —Centrx→talk • 09:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Union troops

The use of post-Civil War occupation of the South is a confusing example. The unstated assumption is that the North won total control or dominance over the South. It is argumentative as to whether the outcome of Reconstruction and Rutherford Hayes' decision to pull Federal troops out of the South should be considered a loss or not. The same assumption is seen in reference to the Viet-nam War. The author does not equate the withdrawal of foeign forces from an occupied area a loss. Should it be or not? What were the intentions of the North during the Civil War and what were the intentions of the US during the Viet-nam War? Were those intentions met? There are a few whom refuse to accept defeat as the result of the Viet-nam War so the word withdrawal is emphasized rather than defeat, just like an honorable retreat was once used to describe US battle with Chinese forces near the Yalu river in the Korean War. In Reconstruction the South terrorized the black population and manipulated politics to secure the withdrawal of Northern forces and the securing of white supremacy and dominance. These goals were ascertained. You may say this means nothing, but I say it means a hell of a lot! The nation was not divided and stayed one, but white southerners ran their country like the Vietnamese wanted, "on their own terms." Not on northern or US terms. Ambiguity surrounds this issue of defining a win or loss. Perhaps when we understand that a weaker group of people are willing to sacrifice largely for something so miniscule to us as this quoted concept, then we may understand an overlooked aspect of this article's intention. Obviously in both examples of the Civil War and the Viet-nam War, withdrawal of foriegn occupied forces in this article seems to be a cover for protecting the pride and perpetuating the image of an undefeatable military. This is an antiquated and dying concept. We are HUMAN like everyone else. 130.127.109.85 22:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Collective Conscious Whether you agree or not, it doesnt matter. During the Reconstruction period, the South did to the north what the Vietnamese did to the US. That is commit an insurgency and in the end, politics decided the withdrawal of both US and northern forces from both examples. The north kept the US united but on southern terms (white supremacy) and the Vietnamese eventually joined the free market economy (on their own terms).

[edit] Fairness

Yet in all fairness, this article does deserve recognition for being well written and researched. I thought if I beat you over the head about something I disagree with you on, I should be just as honest with what I liked about this article. I also found the article to come to a similar conclusion as I pertaining to the successful engagement and defeat over counter insurgencies across the world. It is the political war of the hearts and minds of the people. It doesnt matter how many soldiers or equipment we send into an area, if the people are prepared to fight for a thousand years with a committment to a belief of a cultural and national identity different from a foreign influnce or occupying force, then that entity deemed foriegn will inevitably undergo circumstances which may allow a decolonization or withdrawal. 130.127.109.85 23:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Collective Conscious

[edit] Requested move

[edit] China

The article has "Mao Zedong attempted to neutralize this advantage by simply taking away the civilian population that shielded the insurgents..." Chiang Kai Shek, surely? Unless this refers to some later insurgency under Mao Tse Tung's rule. P.M.Lawrence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.220.83.6 (talk) 10:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Conflicts

How about a list of COIN conflicts?

• First Indochina War
• Vietnam War
• Algerian War of Independence
• Malaya Emergency
• Rhodesian Bush War
• South African Border War
• Iraq War
• War in Afghanistan (British, Soviet, and NATO)
• Second Boer War

I know that's not all - what am I forgetting? Pjones (talk) 02:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)