Rebel fighters will always exist as long as there is a fight to be fought

I'm Irish. Displaced and uprooted, but my roots and soul are Irish.

And if it's one thing I've learned carrying this historically-heavy cultural heritage it's that a person fighting for a cause is always going to persevere.

Now this can be a good thing.

The human rights movement, the environmental movements, the GLBTQ movement, the race movement and the womens movement all benefitted from this level of perseverence -- and often in the face of hate.

But causes do not always fit nicely into the boxes of good and bad. There are causes that have merit, but are too extreme. And causes that are extreme and have no merit. You get the picture.

As a result (and in the extreme) we find guerilla warfare becoming the primary method for resistence and activism with many groups -- the Irish being one of the first in the 20th century.

Now this lineage of resistors is important given Bush's continued plans to swell the insurgency within Iraq (and other targetted countries). Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld posed a question to the Pentagon: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?

The answer is an unequivocal NO.

When people fight for a cause they are willing to die. When soldiers are sent over to protect their nation -- but as paid military personnel -- they are not infused with the same level of urgency and importance. Yes, Bush and his strategists have attempted to recreate the passion of a cause. They have ramped up the rhetoric; placed the country on high alert; used, abuse and misused the aspect of home-grown and international fear; and even asked Americans to spy on their neighbours. But the reality is the everyday North American does not feel the need to question their safety, security and lifestyle; the average American is far too removed from the ramifications of this war to really, passionately care about what happens in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other world insurgency fuelled with American armour and money.

The jihadists, however, are not in this position. This war is being fought on their territory. This war is being fought based on their history. This war is being fought to determine their future. Who wouldn't stand up to that. Now add in military discipline (martyrs) and arbitrary punishment (from US personnel) and you have the perfect recipe for the formation and creation of new and ever-replenishing supply of jihadists.

Yesterday the US government finally conceded that this may be the case. In a newly declassified report (the National Intelligence Estimate) definitely concluded that Bush's war on terrorism had failed. The answer to Rumsfeld's three-year old question was an unequivocal: No.
While the report did not argue Bush's declaration that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is there evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion (made again this month in Atlanta) that “America is winning the war on terror.’’

Why? Because if a win means defeat and depletion of the enemy than America is far from winning. The IRA (pre and post political turn), the Chechnyan rebels, Tamil Tigers and various factions in South and Latin America (including Mexico's Zapatista movement -- though it's questionable whether they should be lumped in with militant resistors -- resistors, yes, but militant?) were all out numbered by their oppressors and all succeeded, to some degree, to gain a measure of autonomy. Why does Bush believe that his war will be the exception to the rule? Why do Bush and his hawkish strategists believe that bombing, imprisoning and killing the current insurgents will deplete a rebel's army and quash a growing sentiment?

Americans and other Western democrat citizens need to pose these questions to their elected officials AND they need to suggest a few possible answers: answers that don't include the improbable or the fantastic.

For more information on the American government report go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

For possible alternative solutions to war go to:
http://www.alternativestowar.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0927-04.htm