American Jihad

Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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A Note to Visitors

I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?

A region is occupied by an invading force that imposes foreign rules on the locals. These rules are widely seen as trampling on the rights of the populace while preferentially promoting the status of marginalized groups. Attacking the invaders would be suicidal. So how can the populace strike back?

They mount an insurgency. They form underground groups to prevent the marginalized groups from taking advantage of their preferred status. They assassinate leaders and activists of the marginalized groups. They engage occasionally in mass violence against the marginalized groups. They engage in random acts of terror. They retaliate against anyone who cooperates with the occupiers, speaks out against the violence, or advocates for the marginalized groups.

Afghanistan or Iraq in 2005? Maybe. But there's an example much closer to home: the Reconstruction-era South. There have actually been three Ku Klux Klans. The first, after the Civil War, largely dissolved after white supremacists regained control of the South in 1877 (though of course unorganized white violence against blacks continued for decades). The second appeared in the 1920's, partly inspired by the glorification of the original Klan in the filmBirth of a Nation. Following World War II, various organizations styling themselves the Ku Klux Klan appeared, with an emphasis on anti-Communism and opposition to the civil rights movement.

 

It's the second Klan that shows the closest parallels with the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq.

 

 

Lessons We Can Learn

  1. Insurgency is a technology, not a moral cause. Insurgencies offset disadvantages in numbers and materiel by hiding among the general populace, maintaining secrecy, harassing occupiers, terrorizing opponents, and denying intelligence to the authorities by retaliating against informants. They are no more inherently good or bad than a steam engine or printing press is inherently good or bad.
  2. Insurgencies are not necessarily moral. They can be mounted just as easily on behalf of oppressors as the oppressed. The only difference between an insurgency mounted by peasants against oppressive landlords, and the use of death squads by the landlords against the peasants, is the intention of the violence. The strategy and tactics are virtually identical. Moral relativists deal with this problem either by getting befuddled, lashing out vituperatively at people who make the comparison, or by inventing hair splitting differences between the two groups. The rich irony is that a lot of those same people will claim to believe in situational ethics. Those of us who think the overall moral cause is paramount don't have an issue. One side is right and one is wrong. However (as in Khmer Rouge Kampuchea, where the peasants actively supported the genocide against displaced city dwellers) the peasants aren't automatically in the right. Then of course, as in Cuba, there are insurgencies that are betrayed or subverted. And there are reactionary insurgencies such as those by the French OAS in Algeria or whites in the Reconstruction South.
  3. Since insurgencies can be and often have been mounted on behalf of oppression, or have been led by people who merely wanted to secure power for themselves, or simply by criminals masquerading as defenders of the people, it's not only necessary but morally imperative to seek effective ways to combat them.
  4. Don't ever radicalize the middle class.

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Created 12 March 2007;  Last Update 24 May, 2020

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