The US as an Insurgency Movement

ecthompson at Where’s the Outrage makes an interesting post. He observes as follows:

Tony Blankley, editor of the Washington Times, argues that be NIE makes sense.  He argues that the Jahadists will follow the sound of the gun.  This seems to contradict what we know about the insurgency.  Although, Al Franken did not make this point, the insurgency has been hitting soft targets.  They have been avoiding direct confrontation with American forces.  This is the way all insurgency’s work.  They look for a spot of weakness.  An electrical plant or a telephone communications station or civilians at their place of worship or civilians in a crowded bus — these other targets that insurgencies choose.  Insurgencies do not follow the sound of the gun, they run away from it.  Al Franken’s points are excellent.  Take a listen.

Go to Where’s the Outrage to view the footage in question. It’s an interesting exchange between Al Franken, Tony Blankley, and Mike Barnicle.  (NIE, by the way, is the “National Intelligence Estimate” – that document that was partially leaked by the Bush Administration.) I am too technically challenged to post over there, but tried to post the following response:

 Well, I’ll be gollydarned. The US is an insurgecy! We’ve been bombing electrical plants and telephone communications stations and civilians at their places of worship and civilians on crowded buses since Hector was a pup! You probably weren’t around for the first Gulf War, or Vietnam. You’re forgiven, but do read up on it. Everything you say they do, we do in spades.  

I get annoyed at American exceptionalism, American chest-puffing – this attitude that we’re rational, they’re not, we’re good, they’re evil, they do bad things, but when we do the same thing, they’re good things to do. It’s omnipresent in every op-ed, vocalized by every talking head, liberal and conservative. There’s a framework operating here – I don’t know the name of it, so I’ll call it The American Exception. It goes something like this:

America is a good, and everything it does is good. Even if by chance America does something bad, it is only with the best of intentions.

The corolary is, naturally:

Enemies of America are evil, and everything they do is bad. Even if by chance they do something good, it is only with evil intentions.

Just one example (the newspapers are full of examples): The US is sending troops and helicopter gunships to Colombia, and propping up a terrorist regime there. Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to Venezuela. The US is trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, while Cuba has only evil intentions.  That’s how the American Exception works, that’s how we think.  

Look then at Gulf War I, and see how the US blew up electrical grids and water purification and sewage facilities. They blew up nearly every bridge across the Tigris and Euphrates. They struck twenty-eight hospitals and destroyed thirty-eight schools, hit eight hydropower dams, and attacked grain silos and irrigation systems. More than 95% of Iraq’s poultry farms were destroyed, and 3.3 million sheep and 2 million cows were killed. The US hit textile plants, cement factories,  dams and crops, and killed 400 women and children hiding away in the Amiriya bomb shelter. 

See that it was all good.

Doesn’t this sound like an insurgency? Doesn’t this sound like people running from the sound of a gun? Doesn’t this sound like people hitting soft targets, avoiding direct military confrontation? Aren’t these the same people who failed to march to Baghdad? Aren’t these the people who preferred to lob cruise missiles and drop bombs from 35,000 feet to direct military conflict? What’s up with that? Doesn’t the US sound like an insurgency?

But no, that’s the American Exception. When we do it, it’s a good thing to do. It’s not something we talk about – it is part of the way we think. It is part of our being, and part of ecthompson’s mental framework when he wrote that post.