western democracys winning in the third world ?

i wonder if it is possible for a western democracy to ever prevail against guerilla insurgents in a third world country.we can always smash a standing third world army in fairly short order, but what happins when they discover that they can shoot at us from city streets and fade into a crowd?or park a car full of plastique on a busy road and wait for a u.s. convoy.can u imagine polish teens throwing rocks at german tanks as they rolled through warsaw or kracow..or soviet troops pushing into east prussia in 44...dont think so...when j ceasar invaded gaul ,if he met local resistance, that city would cease to exist. tamerlane when he took bagdad made a pile of human sculls that could be seen from 6 miles away,insurgents.?..nope,none. with the world watching on cnn,this type of behavior would prolly not play to well with the viewing public.is this kind of war winable at all? brits in ulster,us. in viet nam,bagdad,mogudishu....?

 

Quite opposed to tiranny, democracy is a form of government which exists because of a mandate of the people given to elected heads. This means that the people have to approve of their government and must be able to remove it if they don't. Hence a democracy can never be imposed upon a country; it has to emerge from the country's own desires and ideals. States cannot be transformed into democracies overnight unless the majority of the people support the ideas of democracy or if all factions or groups capable of exercising violence (that is, all organized onwers of weapons) support the ideas of democracy.

 

yes ,roel..i agree that it will not be easy to covert any arab nation into a democracy over nite.thats not really my question...for example ,I remeber reading about an arab ruler ,either in jordan or syria having troubles with a radical fundamtalist group within his country.most of this trouble was deemed to originate from a city of about 10000 ppl within the borders of said country.this ruler simply gathered up several artillary batteries,surrounded the city and blasted it to rubble with its population still in it.this act was either ignored or mostly missed by the western press.{imagine if it was israel shooting ,lol}anyway the point of this storie is that the islamic revolution came to a sreeching halt in the kingdom and did not resume again ever. the rest of the civillian population wanting no part of any revolt....Now britain,holland france or the usa will not and can not ever take this type of draconian action,ie ceasar,ghengis khan,waffen ss.ect.with our rules of engagement can we {the west}ever beat a motivated ,tuff ,embedded guerilla force...?

 

It can be done, and has been, but you do need the support of the majority of the population, the ability to do things like relocating villages etc without losing that goodwill, and preferably little or no media coverage, as sometimes you do need to do things that look bad in the short-term.

 

IT has been done.Look at the British in the Malayan Emergency...They did a splendid job of winning the hearts and minds

 

In all fairness though, in Malaya the Communist agitators were almost entirely from the ethnic Chinese segment of the population, which made things easier, plus Britain was in a perfect position to win hearts & minds (If you help us defeat these Commies, we will let you go Independant from us afterwards, but with the option of still being in our club).

In Iraq, there is no real clear way to single out the Insurgents from the main bulk of the population (unless you hand round a questionnaire asking 'do you actively try to kill Americans? ), and while the ocupiers can offer democracy, that is far less a much-striven-for goal o the average Iraqi than frredom from the British Empire was to the Malayans.

 

viet nam

by the late sixties there were almost no native VC left in action. almost all had been replaced by NVA troops sent south to mantain the fiction of a popular restance. first tet was the VCI's swan song, they were literally wiped out and had been reduced to minor local actions even before then. the NVA imports did no better.

 

Yes, the viet cong were smashed but if you watched the news in america it would seem a great debacle had occured.in 68 middle america went from ambivilance to a more or less anti war stance...again i would argue that it is impossible for a western liberal democracy to win this kind of war.unless we are going to wage a crushing war of annihilation,as did the brits in the sepoy rebellion ,or the us army in the indian wars...we will aimlessly fart around until we pack our crap and go back home...one video of a dead u.s. trooper being dragged through the streets of mougudishu and we are ready to pack it in....Even the fearsome red army finally quit an pulled out of afganistan..would this have happined if kindly old uncle joe were still in charge?...have we in the west, liberarlized and P.C.ed ourselves into giant hi tech paper tigers?Biggest tanks ,fastest fighters ,smart bombs ?it aint nothin in the streets of bagdad.....

 

None of the examples you give show Western liberal democracies in action.

Your point stands, though; I wonder how much of a threat it would take to make the PC crowds take up a more pragmatic stance towards war.

 

im thinkin the big bang theory,roel...a wmd goes large in some western citie,then we see sand melted to glass...inshalla....btw my examples viet nam an somalia are examples of inaction.

 

Yes, but you said:

These are pretty bad examples if you ask me. The first two predate the liberal democracies in those areas; the last presumes that the USSR in its final days was a liberal democracy of some kind.