dm1333 wrote:
You can't possibly know if I would have considered those words practical or not since the book, the general and the whole situation does not exist. I simply pointed out why people would think that your statements are grandiose or messianic.
From the CIA's Psychological Operations Manual distributed in South America:
"The combatant-propagandist guerrilla is the result of a continuous program of indoctrination and motivation. They will have the mission of showing the people how great and fair our movement is in the eyes of all Nicaraguans and the world. Identifying themselves with our people, they will increase the sympathy towards our movement, which will result in greater support of the population for the freedom commandos, taking away support for the regime in power."
The same manual says that political change is influenced first "By the guerrilla recognizing himself as a vital tie between the democratic guerrillas and the people,
whose support is essential for the subsistence of both.
By fostering
the support of the population for the national insurgence through the support for the guerrillas of the locale, which provides a
psychological basis in the population for politics after the victory has been achieved."
In other words, violence is nothing without ideals behind it. That is what the Soviets did not understand, and why Solidarity was able to destroy the foundation of the Soviet's control: they stopped believing in the Soviet system. Once people stop believing in something, their actions will show it, and no amount of political action within the institution can change that.
Another article written by a former Special Operations man:
They understand this battle is about winning the hearts and minds of the people. (Mao said this years ago and it is still valid today.) We cannot, regardless of the final outcome, appear victorious if the people are not supportive of the coalition and new Iraqi government at our departure.
CSM Steven J. Greer, U.S. Army Ret. CSM Steven Greer teaches courses on special operations strategy, low-intensity conflict, insurgency and revolution at American Military University. His Army background was in special operations.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200401/ai_n9369289/pg_2
"The government did more than put barbed wire and entrenchments between the insurgents and the squatters; it neutralized the desire to support the insurgents. Briggs conceived of the counterinsurgency campaign as a "competition in government,". . . These small but significant steps eliminated many of the grievances which had animated the squatters, thereby depriving the insurgents of considerable support."
http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume4/june_2006/6_06_2.html
Another Army.mil article on counterterrorism states: "Eradicating poverty through profits" involves finding a way to alleviate poverty for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid through collaboration among the poor themselves, civil organizations, governments, and private firms.3 This approach is widely known as the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) concept."
http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume4/june_2006/6_06_4.html
Lawrence of Arabia said, "Rebellions can be made by two percent active in a striking force, and 98 percent passively sympathetic." The same goes for any type of system. Similarly, no system (based as it is on certain ideas) can survive without widespread support by the people.
An excerpt from an article in Special Warfare, written by a group of military officers.
One of the greatest challenges in COCOIN is to identify those pockets of the population that indirectly or secretly provide support to the insurgency. Winning over the population denies the insurgents their base of support.
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/zeytoonian.pdf
Do you "win over the population" by violence? Impossible.
What situation did you say does not exist? Why is my analogy to military strategy "messianic," when I am merely speaking about how practically, words and ideas are used to remove support for
other flawed ideas? The Soviet Union wasn't merely men with guns. They were men with guns and bad ideas. And once people stopped believing in those ideas, the institutions upon which they were built
crumbled to the ground. People did not stop believing in those ideas because some politburo member was passing legislation internally, and imposing it on the people from the top down. They stopped believing in the Soviet system because they believed in other, truer ideas. That is why I say that it is ineffective to effect institutional change from within the institution.
-Sans Authoritas