-Caveat Lector-
>The North VietNamese army had tanks and artillery - the US was NOT
defeated by militias with shotguns and AKs, but by a professional army -
and by a lack of REASON and WILL in the US to 'prevail'.
(1.) The Vietnamese started out against the Japanese with nothing but
small arms. Everything else they captured or bought. The key element in
the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu was the Viet Minh's Hmoung irregular
auxiliaries, many were armed with flintlocks and crossbows. My SO owns one
of those crossbows. You DON'T want her to shoot you with it. The Hmoung
were mad at the French State Monopoly Opium Purchasing Board, particularly
its only Hmoung member, Touby Lo Fang, for swindling them. They offered
their superb hillbilly combat and navigation skills and Vietnamese who
couldn't have won without them. They killed outlying French patrols who
would have tipped the main force off what they were up to and led the Viet
Minh up rugged mountain goat trails packing mountain guns. They were the
only artillery that the Viet Minh used in the battle. While the mountain
guns kept the French pinned down Viet Minh foot soldiers with small arms
systematically overran the colorfully named fire bases one by one until
even a fighting withdrawal was out of the question for the French.
The delineation between the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong is a
false dichotomy and imperialist propaganda. They were one force, with one
goal. All their activities, and their command structure, were thoroughly
integrated. The Viet Cong were a citizen militia in the sense that they
also held day jobs. They used small arms and improvised munitions for the
bulk of the war. They were supplied from the north, but they also were
supplied from the south. Southerners provided logistical support and
fighters to their own liberation struggle. The northerners helped because
to the Vietnamese there is no difference between north and south; they are
one people. The DMZ was imposed, not by Vietnamese, but by foreigners.
Even at that, it was (on paper at least) never intended to be a national
border. It was a line marking in which direction certain troop were to
withdraw during the period leading up to the elections. South Viet Nam was
never a country. It was a fiction that the US and it puppets attempted to
fob off on the Vietnamese people who threw their butts out in response.
The key event in the struggle against the Americans, the one that broke
America's will, was the Tet Offensive. It was overwhelming fought with
small arms. By the time the war had turned into a Clauswitzian set piece
affair, the Americans were long gone, driven out primarily by citizen
soldiers with AK-47s.
"The Spirit of the People is stronger than the Man's technology." --Huey
P. Newton
Not to be ignored is the significant role played by what Giap called the
"Second Front," Americans fighting their own government here at home. We
were armed primarily with rocks, bottles and gasoline. Fortunately we had
the numbers. Gradually the anti-war movement took to explosives, both
stolen and improvised. According to a suppressed government study, stolen
and published in <Ramparts> magazine there were over three thousand
bombing in America in 1971. That's ten a day. It was a major factor in the
US government's decision to disengage. None of those bombs were standard
issue ordinance.
Another key factor in the decision to withdraw was US troop rebellions and
especially fragging. Over seven hundred officers were killed by their own
men, all with bullets and grenades.
(2.) In any armed struggle between the people of America and the
government, the government can in no way be assured of the loyalty of the
armed forces. They are our children, our parents, our sibling and our
neighbors. They won't gun us down in cold blood. Some would; others would
kill them for it, desert, and bring their weapons with them. Read up on
the Twenty Nine Palms study.
>Contrast the US-VietNam experience with the successful British
counter-insurgency campaign in the Malay territory during the 50s.
British success in the Malay campaign was not so much due to British
resolve as it was to their (traditionally) skillful manipulation of the
racial tension between the Malays and the Chinese. Contrast the British
experience in Malasia with their dismal (and supremely just) failure in
Ireland. It is significant to note that the Black and Tan War set the tone
for every subsequent national liberation struggle for the rest of the
century. The IRA pioneered nearly all of the tactics and techniques that
the Vietnamese and others have used since to shake off the yoke of
colonialism by force of arms, the, the homemade bomb, the flying columns,
the bicycles, the whole works, except perhaps for the deep penetration of
English intelligence and counter intelligence services, which saw genesis
in the Maroon Wars in Jamaica.
>Afghans fighting Russians were supplied with mines, rocket launchers, a
vast arsenal of military weaponry, rather more powerful than hand- guns
and hunting rifles -
The Afghans started their resistance to Russian imperialism armed
primarily with bolt action Lee Enfield, many of them hand made local knock
offs. They then systematically captured AK-47s wholesale. The AK i till
their standard arm. While they were supplied by the CIA, the CIA wa by no
means their only source of arms. Most of their crew served weapons and
armor were captured. The US made Stingers sure helped, but they by no
means won the war. Their main source of Russian arms besides capture was
desertion by Russian puppet troops. They also bought arms from Russian
regulars, paying in drugs and in cash raised by drug dealing.
Like I said, an armed populace with a just cause will be supplied by both
their civilian power base and by deserters, a well a opportunists from
outside. But it takes arms to get started. Even if all the so-called
"assault" weapons (a cynical minomer if ever there was one) in America
were to suddenly disappear (not bloody likely) the government is till
outnumbered, out gunned and surrounded. We could take them with sporting
arms if we had to. They know it. We know it. They know we know it. That's
why there is peace here. Let's keep it that way.
>and the current environment there is not exactly what most people would
consider adequate.
It suck. Bigtime. It's also irrelevant to the question at hand, can an
armed populace defeat a superpower or not.
>Pumping a lot of weaponry into a region does NOT stabilize a situation.
Particularly when you arm only the men. We should have armed the Afghan
WOMEN. We STILL should arm the Afghan women, NOW.
>Uh, just who did the Laotians defeat with their personal firearms?
The USAF dropped more bombs on Laos that all participants dropped on each
other in all of WWII. Their heroin dealing puppet government their was
none the less defeated soundly.
For details, read <The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia> by Alfred
McCoy.
>My point is, if the political masters of a modern military want to commit
their resources to stomp you, then personal firearms are irrelevant.
This is only true if you are all in one place and out in the open.
Disperse, camoflage, and "swim like a fish" and you are invulnerable.
Don't allow yourself to become tranfixed by the illusary seeming
omnipitance of the State. It is a myth, a self serving lie propagated by
the State itself.
>To prevail against land/air/naval forces, you need comparable forces, or
weapons of mass destruction and lotsa luck.
(1.) Weapons of mass destruction can be produced in the bathtub. If you
can brew beer you can grow anthrax; if you can brew coffee, you can
extract ricin.
(2.)Land/air/naval forces are not the enemy. They are our children, our
parents, our siblings and our neighbors. The State is the enemy and the
men who control it.
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frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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