If You’re Not …
If you’re not reading William S. Lind, you’re doing yourself a disservice. He’s not as cool or hip or abrasive as the War Nerd, but he’s every bit as good.
From the perspective of 4GW theory, it is beginning to look as if the drug traffickers/Hezbollah model may be more sophisticated and more successful than the al Qaeda model. Al Qaeda seemingly is on the ropes in Iraq, not because of the “surge” but because of its own blunders. To at least some extent those blunders proceed from its strategy, which faces the state with a life-or-death struggle. In contrast, all Hezbollah and the Mexican drug gangs demand is a deal with the state: we’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone. The state’s real sovereignty bleeds away, but the structures remain, allowing the politicians to do what they want, i.e. continue to line their own pockets.
The Lebanese state recently cut a deal with Hamas along exactly these lines, and the Mexican state will have to do the same at some point. The Financial Times reports that under the Merida Initiative, the U.S. will give Mexico $400 million this year for counter-narcotics operations, but the Mexican state is already too deeply suborned to use such aid effectively. Mexican politicians, cops, and military officers will happily accept the U.S. money with their right hands while their left hands take the drug gangs’ payoffs. If the Mexican state wants to restore order, it will have to offer the gangs a “live and let live” deal.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
“it is beginning to look as if the drug traffickers/Hezbollah model may be more sophisticated” This implies that Hezbollah is drug trafficking as well which is not the case.
“The Lebanese state recently cut a deal with Hamas along exactly these lines” The Lebanese government did not cut any deals with Hamas. Though Israel has.
Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization regardless of where it resides. Hezbollah represents the majority (or at least the largest minority since there is no real majority) in Lebanon where the country is forced to live under a constitution that splits powers based on what the French decided 60 years ago and on Demographics splits that no longer represent the realities of the situation.
The reason the government deals with Hezbollah is because Hezbollah has a more popular support than the current government and would win any one-man-one-vote free elections. But the constitution stipulates that the president be a Christian Maroonite while the head of the Army is a Sunni muslim.
For what ever it is worth, Hezbollah never killed any civilians except while resisting Israeli Occupation. On the other hand all other factions in Lebanon, and the Palestinians, and the Israelis have butchered and murdered tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians of all creeds just because they can.
A terrorist label is all in the eye of the beholder.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:47 am
The phraseology is unfortunate.
The key differentiator IMO is that one strategy allows the “official government” to exist side-by-side with the “unofficial government” - this being the drug trafficker model which is also used by Hezbollah - and the other strategy is explicitly overthrowing the “official government.”
I find this “definition” of terrorist to be both humorous and generally accurate in the vernacular: if you have bombs, but don’t have planes or missiles to deliver them, you’re a terrorist. If you have planes or missiles to go with your bombs, then you’re a sovereign nation with armed forces. :-)
Much of what the U.S. does in foreign countries would be called “terrorism” by the U.S. “government” if it were done by either independent non-governmental groups, or by the “governments” of nations that the U.S. were currently antipathetic towards. It’s not an objective or useful word, “terrorism,” unless the intent is emotional polarization.