[lbo-talk] The oil-spot strategy - David Brooks on how to winthewar in Iraq

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Carl:
> Couldn't this also be termed the Boer War concentration-camp strategy but
> with a smiley face?  Consider Timothy Garton Ash's recent column:
> 
> "Iraq is America's Boer war. Remember that after the British had declared
> the end of major combat operations in the summer of 1900, the Boers
launched
> a campaign of guerrilla warfare that kept British troops on the run for
> another two years. The British won only by a ruthlessness of which, I'm
glad
> to say, the democratic, squeamish and still basically anti-colonialist
> United States appears incapable. In the end, the British had 450,000
British
> and colonial troops there (compared with some 150,000 US troops in Iraq),
> and herded roughly a quarter of the Boer population into concentration
> camps, where many died."
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1555819,00.html

Different times, different customs.  The US had its own version of
concentration camps - putting Native Americans into reservations while
systematic killing the buffalos to undercut their subsistence.  These
methods were generally considered "acceptable" until Hitler perfected them a
bit and used them on the Caucasian people in the heart of Europe - at which
point they became unacceptable, at least for a while.  

What makes a difference in the use of concentration camp approach is its
strategic effect.  It is quite effective when used on a guerilla movement
whose main support is relatively small and isolated groups.  The strategic
importance of such groups for the guerilla fighters can be effectively
neutralized by the concentration approach, simply because it is technically
feasible to lock most of the supporters up.  However, when a guerilla
movement draws wide national and international support, the concentration
camp approach has little strategic impact - and it becomes more of a
liability than a benefit to those who run them.  I think it is this lack of
strategic utility rather than democratic tradition and squeamishness that
prevents the Imperial Army from deploying it in Iraq.

Wojtek