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November 18, 2004
This article in Asia Times is interesting, as it uses Hardt and Negri to make some judgements about the Iraqi resistance to the Americans in Iraq. The text used is their Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire and the discussion of counterinsurgencies.
In that text Hardt and Negri point out how:
"guerrilla forces cannot survive without the support of the population and a superior knowledge of the social and physical terrain" [and] "success [for the dominant military power] does not require attacking the enemy directly but destroying the environment, physical and social, that supports it. Take away the water and the fish will die."
Were these counterinsurgency tactics employed in Fallujah?
Pepe Escobar says yes. What is called "collateral damage" is taking away the water from the fish. Escobar goes onto say that the "fish" are always able to turn the tables:
" ...as the rebellious groups develop more complex, distributed network structures. As the enemy becomes increasingly dispersed, unlocalizable, and unknowable, the support environment becomes increasingly large and indiscriminate....With Fallujah, the guerrilla strategy has changed. No more occupying a territory that could be organized as a safe haven (the city of Fallujah, for instance). The guerrillas are now network-centered. The Americans in Iraq are now confronting a network enemy."
Escobar then quotes Negri and Hardt to inform us what this 'network' account may mean. Negri & Hardt say:
"The network tends to transform every boundary into a threshold. Networks are in this sense essentially elusive, ephemeral, perpetually in flight ... And, even more frighteningly, the network can appear anywhere at any time."
Escobar suggests that we think of the new Iraqi resistance as small, mobile armies striking in Baqubah, Samarra and Mosul, running away and melting into the local population, which fully supports them.
The Americans have a big problem, do they not?
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