Rebel to the Core

[Bottomfeeder 244]

You know we can't conquer another nation through force. This isn't WWI or WWII. Haven't we learned anything from history?

The US government's arm is tired. Even with one hundred and fifty thousand troops, a fortune in fuel and supplies, and the best weapons ever invented, all that power is having a rough ride. Humvees loaded with high-tech regulars are sitting targets for bits of plumbing packed with C-4, left at the side of the road. There are plenty of surprises from the front, but such news would only elicit a sad smile from Jefferson, and the same from his fellow insurgent, Madison, who wrote this:

The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men.

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.

Even though Madison was talking about a war between the feds and the people, the parallel with Iraq makes it a devastating tactical appraisal. The biggest military machine — even the GPS-guided, kevlar-toting, night-fighting, uranium-shooting US Army of 2006 — can't subjugate a rabble of ornery civilians if a good number of them have guns. Yes, it can obliterate them, but that's not the same as governing them. Madison knew, and Iraq proves, that a rifle over every mantlepiece can safegaurd freedom.

American insurgents from 1776 would see Iraq through the filter of their own occupation: the struggle against the Crown and its Hamiltonian successors. They would see the setbacks of the 75th Rangers in Baghdad and the 8th Cavalry in Fallujah, and would mourn the casualties among the professional soldiers, as we do, but another part of them would be saying I told you so — and might even be glad. They couldn't feel anything else, because they were rebels to the core:

The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/iraq-rebels-eyes.html