First, it boils down to the difference between militias and regular forces. Mtgman squarely nailed the point that an armed populace with consumer or civilian grade weaponry hasn’t a chance in hell of taking on a modern military force head-to-head and succeeding. More on this in a moment.
In a police state (Nazi Germany, Iraq), some of the very rights we take for granted (that would aid in fomenting rebellion against a dictator) are repressed, or hardly ever existed in any quantity or length of time to have been established within the social consciousness; if they are repressed long enough, people forget that they ever had them, or in the case of never having had them, what they are, or ever were, good for. Re:BytopianDream.
Also: Saddam, like Hitler, has done a well enough job in establishing an “Us” against “Them” mentality within his own population. Shiites and Kurds are oppressed by Sunni Baathists; there are enough Sunni Baathists with enough guns, tanks, bombs, etc., to keep the rest of the population in check, and his own Sunni and Baathists onboard with him in fear or uprisings and reprisals from Shiites and Kurds. Just playing both ends against the middle, a tactic practiced by rulers long before Nicolo Machiavelli codified it in his work, The Prince.
I still maintain that a militia, fighting as a militia, can succeed in an armed insurrection, or at least set the stage for an armed uprising, with civilian grade arms. It’s a matter ot technique.
If you want to get brother bear, you don’t go into his den, smack him on the nose and wrestle him with yor bare hands. You instead set out a honey pot, find yourself a good hidey-hole, pull your trusty bolt-action high-powered rifle in after you, and exercise a little patience. Brother bear will soon enough come to you. On your terms. At the time and place of your choosing.
History is replete with examples of effective militia uprisings, but history doesn’t stand still; lessons of the past can provide good examples, but adopting outdated doctrines and applying them to modern warfare will get you on the losing side only slightly less quickly than showing up in your skivvies empty handed.
“Win the Hearts And Minds of the People.” That includes any military force backing any nominal dictator. It didn’t and couldn’t work in Iraq because all of the military forces (the really effectibe ones) backing Saddam were the “ruling elite,” with everything to lose by switching sides, added to the typical Arab/Muslim attitude of “Inshallah.” If it’s God’s will, it will be done. In the mean time, I’m just gonna sit it out and wait for a sign from God.
I think people seriously underestimate social and cultural differences when accounting for the different behavioral patterns of other countries; we tend to sort of culturally anthropomorphize other cultures to our own, and then scratch our head in wonder at the “wrongheadedness” of those other societies and cultures.
It’s just the modern version of “conversion by the sword.” It’s as equally wrong to pursue. But when the modern “heathens” have guns, tanks, bombs, perhaps even chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and are willing to use them against us “infidels,” then conversion by the sword (to open, Democratic forms of governments and societies) is only one of many unattractive options.
Because a hefty chunk of the Arab/Muslim world seems permanently stuck in the middle ages. Not all, by any means. Probaly not even an overall majority. But enough so that there are ready recruits for all of the Osama Bin Ladens out there, willing to strap a couple of kilos of C-4 to themselves, scream “Allah Akhbar!” and take out a dozen or so of us Western Infidel Devils with them.
Or, hijack a couple of jetliners and ram large-ish buildings in major metropolitan centers.
The real failure in the logic of this war is that, for every ten-or-so Arab/Muslim people who embrace our conversion, there will be an eleventh ready-and-willing to kill for and die in the process of fighting us to the bitter end. If history is any guide, we can’t win. Just look at Ireland, or the Basques.