Any group that uses attacks on civilian population to achieve its goals are, by definition, terrorists. Not militia.
In other posts I have tried to demonstrate how a small highly trained force can almost always defeat a larger less able one.
I have also said that small resistance groups such as the ‘Maquis’ can inflict damage out of all proportion to their size, but that their size must always remain small or security cannot be maintained. Succesful resistance groups ARE NOT militas, they are invariably well trained, armed and supported by a ‘benefactor’ military, and above all SMALL.
I have shown how the VC could be very effective in small groups (up to say 20) but when deployed in larger numbers got their butt kicked. We have heard of the failure of militias in Lithuania. I have shown how as long ago as 100bc, the Romans had to reform their militia based army because it just didn’t work any more. I will now add to this weight of evidence by throwing in East Timor.
In East Timor last year a tiny international force consisting of mainly Australian troops plus some New Zealanders and US Marine helicopter support units (slicks not guns), drove from the country in about 1 week militias estimated at about 25% of the male population. This was achieved without Armor or Air Support.
These militias were armed with sophisticated weaponry supplied by the Indonesian military, many were ex-Indonesian soldiers, and the Indonesian Army provided them with logistical support. They got their butts kicked good and hard.
Although I readily accept that my own experiences are not substantive evidence, I do say all the above from the perspective of a career infantryman.
I am STILL waiting for ANY 20th/21st century example of the effectiveness of a milita.
As to the animal McVie. This is relevant because ?
In my opinion it is precisely because he acted alone (or at least arguably in a very small group), that he achieved what he did. Had he been part of a larger militia group he almost certainly would have been infiltrated or betrayed long before he could do any damage. He succeded because there is NO defence against the lone terrorist or tiny ‘cell’ except constant vigilance and sophisticated intelligence.
Rubber: breathe man, breathe. It’s the exception, rather than the norm, even for America. For you folks “down under”, it’s extraordinarily rare, which will lend the event an even greater (perhaps disproportionately so) impact on the national psyche.
And thank you for your honesty.
Re: your last post:
Yes, militias have traditionally fared poorly against regulars in a full engagement. Which is why they aren’t typically used as front line troops, but rather as guerillas such as the Maquis or the VC you cited. It is not their role to engage and destroy, but to scout, gather intelligence, assasinate key opposition leaders, attack and destroy key facilities (bridges, telephone exchanges, etc.) to sow confusion, disrupt the chain-of-command, and reduce the enemy’s ability to make war effectively.
Think of them as combat multipliers.
amrussel: failures of method in one case don’t necessarily equate to the overall potential of militas (as demonstrated by other, more effective ones). But it certainly is another example. How could these schmucks never aquire full-auto weapons? Grenades? Land Mines?
But, to refer back to a point raised earlier in this thread, your example of the tactics used by the oppressor clearly illustrate why non-violent opposition to tyranny isn’t always the prefered methodology. Ghandi and King are good examples of successful non-violent opposition, but their methods would have simply gotten them and their followers killed very quickly against Stalin, Hitler, the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, etc.
In other words, non-vioent opposition is only as effective as the oppressor’s unwillingness to resort to violently oppressive actions. For the “Better Red Than Dead” faction, acquiescing is their choice; for their counterpart “Better Dead Than Red” faction, militia-style guerilla warfare may be the only option in the absence of widespread popular revolt (even among as sympathetic a population as your description implied).
zwaldd: the function of a militia is either to supplement a regular army, not generally to serve as the regular army. Confusing classic militia models with political extremists styling themselves as “the militia” won’t contribute to an effective debate (which this has been, by-and-large). You must have slept through your history class during the period that covered the civil war.
Mekhazzio: tell that to the 8th Air Force, or the people of Dresden or Tokyo.
Consider: it is civilians working in the factories producing war materiale (a hazy and often broadly interpreted category), or anything that contributes to a nation-state’s economy, and thus their ability to wage war, such as railroads, roads, bridges, communications links, power plants and distribution nodes, etc. All of these are typically manned by civilians in time of war; all have at least the precedent (admittedly by the winners of their respective conflicts) of being considered legitimate strategic targets, regardless of civilian casualties.
Even key civilian and military leaders are legitimate targets, either of militias or regular forces.
The difference between the terrorist and the militia is the terrorist attacks civilian targets of little or no signifigant strategic consequence, to engender terror among the population; the militia will attack civilian targets with relevant strategic value to neutralize them and impede the enemy’s/oppressor’s ability to effectively wage war.
McVeigh was a terrorist. Any radical “militias” hoping to emulate him will probably be little better than terrorists themselves.
By “civilian population”, I meant just that: the people. Factories, bridges, etc, are targets of some military value themselves…yes, often they will contain civilians, but the civilians themselves are not the target. Now, situations like the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, where the civilians themselves were targetted, to “break the will” of the people…IMO, those were terrorist attacks, no matter that they came from the regular military. The tragedy of it is that so many have not learned from them, that terrorist attacks do not work. In a revolution scenario, it would, in fact, solidify popular support against you, when popular support is exactly what you need the most to have any real chance.
In general, I fail to see what gun control has in common with a revolution scenario. To have any real chance to fight against the regular military, even as mere guerillas, you’ll need serious weapons like mines, RPGs and MANPADS – and if you’re smuggling those in, getting whatever kind of small arm you want is child’s play.
Freedom, et al:
As I tried to point out, earlier:
Personally, I think the whole discussion about McVeigh is something of a red herring. For one thing, he didn’t even use a gun in his attack – so the example only shows how effective a resistant populace can be without firearms. (In an earlier exchange, Freedom had argued that firearms give resisters a “fighting chance,” and I responded that I felt I that I would probably have a “fighting chance” even without a gun.) Also, McVeigh’s attack occurred during peacetime, and was directed towards an unprotected, non-military target. So it isn’t really relevant; the scenario envisioned by most pro-gunners in the argument from deterrence is some sort of bizarre, dictatorial military takeover, resulting in an armed civil uprising.
With regard to this:
Actually, at the risk of being a pain in the ass, you seem to have gotten you and me confused with Rubber Entropy and ExTank. They’re the military experts in this thread. Having read both sides of the argument very carefully, I personally feel that Rubber has the better argument, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to argue myself for either position.
With regard to my own poistion on this issue, your summation above is a gross oversimplification. I’ve been arguing, for example, that the chances of such a takeover are too small to justify liberal gun legislation; that there are no historical examples or evidence that an armed populace has ever deterred a military takeover; that there is a very high social cost associated with the sort of unproven deterrence you argue for (still under discussion); that unarmed populations can still offer effective resistance; that armed populations might not necessarily resist, but might in fact support, such a takeover; and a lot of other stuff that I think indicate the speculative nature of your contentions. Basically, I’m claiming that the argument from deterrence is a facile and speculative argument employed by pro-gunners to try to justify liberal gun legislation. It is in essence specious.
I don’t have time to continue this discussion at the moment; I’ll be back later.
Still waiting, Free, for your response regarding the statistics I posted.
If they’re just combat multipliers, unable to take on a professional army, and capable of “nuisance value” attacks only, how are they going to overthrow a military dictatorship? I think this would also be good time to consider exactly what a militia could acheive in modern day America.
Scouting and gathering intelligence: for who? And where would they scout? There isn’t necessarily an opposing army in the field. If the dictator came in at the top and has martial law operating, we’re surely talking about garrisoned forces establishing control in major population centres, not roving armies.
Assassinating opposition leaders: feels good, yes, but generally speaking there’s someone else there to replace the fallen (and probably only too glad of the opportunity). I understand that current thinking is that had Hitler been assassinated by von Staufenberg, WWII would have dragged on for longer. So it’s not necessarily as good as it looks.
Destroying bridges and phone exchanges: I don’t think there are that many crucial bridges, to be honest. Aside from the fact that the majority of commerical traffic in the US is by air, I understand that the US has a fairly well developed road network and it would be possible to go the long way round. As for phone exchanges, these are definitely networked: the whole point of the Internet is that it can survive the destruction of a large number of nodes before going down.
So much important activity takes place in cities that a milita would have to adapt to operate in the urban environment. This is quite different from hiding out in backwoods; either they attempt to blend in and work surreptitiously, which would drive them towards a terrorist cell based model IMO, or they would form an enclave and either be destroyed or isolated.
Of course, the flip side of that argument is also true, so it might be worth considering areas where militias have failed. Naturally, we tend not to hear of rebellions against dicators until they’ve acheived some degree of success, but I would submit:
[list=1]
[li] The Palestinians[/li][li] Southern Sudanese[/li][li] The Shining Path[/li][li] The people of the western Sahara (can’t remember name but they do exist) against Morocco[/li][li] The Khurds in the Middle East[/li][/list=1]
as a start. If I get the time, I may do more research.
Don’t call them schmucks. It’s dismissive and pejorative of people who fought against a massively superior occupying army (the post WWII Red Army, for crying out loud, probably the most terrifying armed force ever raised) because they believed in their country’s independence. I understood that the pro-militia argument centred around that ideal.
They couldn’t get better arms because they were surrounded on all sides by Warsaw Pact countries, and NATO (your country and mine) didn’t see fit to supply them with weapons. It’s interesting that you consider hunting rifles to be essentially inadequate for a militia, and would prefer to see one armed with land mines, grenades, and automatic weapons. Do you in fact advocate that these weapons should be as restricted as hunting rifles, in case they’re ever needed? Otherwise what good would a militia be? Or if you don’t want to see land mines, grenades and automatic weapons sold in gun shops, why do you feel that the militia argument still holds water?
Umm, no. The methods I described were used to put down a violent revolt, not peaceful resistance, and they stopped when the partisan movement collapsed. The population was basically sympathetic at first, but over time lost interest, and by c.1960 half the guards in the KGB prison were Lithuanian.
It’s actually another point worth considering with regard to militias: what level of counter-insurgency brutality would demoralise the whole movement. I’m talking about torture of family members, punishing whole communities for the actions of a few, the prominent display of militia corpses (think what a dictatorship with modern communications media could acheive along that line), the torture and breaking of committed militia leaders and so forth. IF the dictatorship is intelligent, and lifts the pressure in areas where the militia is not active, then the necessary popular support would rapidly diminish, and many militia members would find the price to high.
I see by your post count, amrussel, that you’re relatively new here to the boards. In addition, I’ve been reading you posts both here and in other gun control threads, and I must admit, you’re rapidly becoming my hero.
Welcome to the SDMB!
I was responding to Freedom’s implication that those terrorist acts were somehow examples of effective militias. Maybe I did sleep through my history class. What are you implying about the civil war? That the Union could not have won without civilian militias?
Yes but gandhi has written a quote about if India had had guns at the time type it in
[QUOTE=;1327255]
Gandhi did pretty well without guns. The people of various eastern European countries did it quite recently. As did the people of the Philippines, not just once, but twice.
[/QUOTE]
Well Gandhi thought that India would have been better off with guns, you ever see his gun quote.
Huh, y’know it would be kinda fun if we could carry on the debate with the users from June 2001…they’ve no idea what’s in store for them…
[QUOTE=;1327305]
How about the American revolution, that was malleus vs army and gov’t in Britain which was there gov’t.
[QUOTE=;1327326]
by pkbites:
Nice job of getting those jabs in there when this is not the Pit.
Speaking of wet dreams, this seems like some sick little scenario you’ve dreamed up just to show us dumb ol’ liberals that we’re wrong and being led into a future of mind control and slavery.
Obviously us stupid liberals would just roll over and take it without making an attempt to stop any of this when we see it starting.
Seriously though, do you really think that towns of people that are armed will have the power to combat a military (that apparently supports the dictator :rolleyes: ) with tanks and the capability for air strikes? Your hunting rifles would not do any damage in the first place.
The people are the government. Guns or no guns this would not happen. But since I “can’t” say that, if it did happen and this was the case, you can kid yourself all you like, but your hand guns and hunting rifles wouldn’t do a lick of good. Of course, I suppose this would be a good argument for legalizing automatic weapons!
[/QUOTE]
Well here’s a better question would the military side with friends and family or the gov’t, I don’t think they would kill people they knew. And to go against that town vs army thing look at the war with iraq that’s pretty much militia.
M1garand, you’re responding to posts that are over ten years old. The users who wrote them might no longer be active on this board. Some might actually be dead.
There is no need to stop this because there’s no need to stop hypothetical scenarios that assume unreal and imaginary situations.
So, the answer is: “do nothing”. That imaginary scenario will never happen because it depends on too many unrealistic assumptions.
OK, I don’t have much time, you’re just going to have to listen to me–buy gold! And short the hell out of Enron stock. (Crap, you don’t even know how to short a stock, do you? Hell, I still don’t know how to short a stock.)
Also, set up a Hotmail account–Hotmail accounts have been invented, right?–and sent the following info to the FBI (use a library computer!)–Hijackers will take over the following commerical airline flights on September 11 for use in mass casualty suicide attacks on major landmarks including the World Trade Center towers in New York City; the Pentagon; and probably the U.S. Capitol or maybe the White House: American Airlines Flight 11 and American Airlines Flight 77; United Airlines Flight 93 and United Airlines Flight 175. The hijackers are: Mohamed Atta (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian); Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian); Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian); Marwan al-Shehhi (United Arab Emirati), Fayez Banihammad (United Arab Emirati), Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).
Well, I’d like to, but…
P.S. Don’t even bother seeing the goddamn Matrix sequels. It’s just gonna be a big disappointment.
Vote Powell 2008! America’s first black president!
They should’ve had guns!