**The Vicious Nature of
Civil War II**

*"The great questions of the day will be decided not by speeches and majority votes
... but by iron and blood." - Otto von Bismark.*

What will Civil War II actually be like? Consider these patterns that wars usually follow: First, the more dissimilar the combatants are in race, nationality, religion, language and culture the more vicious the fighting usually is, America's wars of aggression against the Indians involved two sides that were completely dissimilar, and the results were hideous tortures and genocide. On the other hand, our first civil war, while extremely violent, was one of the least vicious wars ever fought due to the lack of these stated differences.

Civil War II will clearly be more like the Indian wars than our first civil war because wars fought by dissimilar armies inevitably produce excesses. In Civil War I, torture of prisoners and mutilation of the dead were rare. In the Indian wars and again in Vietnam, another war with dissimilar armies, such practices were employed by the fighters of both sides, sometimes even as a form of recreation.

Civil War II will degenerate into premeditated and systematic mass slaughter because other factors will also fuel its frenzy. Unlike Civil War I, but like the wars against the Indians, one of the goals will be to drive others from the lands wherein they reside, which guarantees fanatical resistance and necessitates measures sufficient to the objective.

This presence of civilians in battle zones will certainly increase the fury of Civil War II. Many will be killed accidentally, others on purpose, leading to reprisals, which will in turn lead to counter reprisals. In Civil War I, some of the most vicious fighting occurred in the border states with mixed populations where irregular bands like Quantrill's Raiders sprang up.

In Civil War I, almost all the combatants were members of the regular military. In Civil War II, many civilians, including women and children, will fight as guerrillas which will lead to their mass elimination on the grounds that they're combatants, or at least military assets, exactly as happened in My Lai, Vietnam. In Civil War II, as in Yugoslavia, many combatants will join specifically to avenge the murder of their families. I leave to your imagination the fate of captives in the hands of such warriors.

I was once asked if any of the Geneva Conventions were applied to prisoners my paratrooper unit took in Vietnam. I answered that rule 556 was generally applied, 556, I pointed out, is the caliber of the M16 assault rifle. The application was generally to the head. Such was war in the rock 'n' roll slaughterhouse, and so it shall be when Civil War II sweeps imperial America.

Men who have served in regular military organizations have a misconception that nonprofessionals are inherently inferior to regular military formations. This misconception is shared by the general public and the media who constantly use such adjectives as ragtag and disorganized when referring to guerrillas. Parade ground spit and polish are not to be confused with battlefield competence. Guerrillas, militias, and even mobs can, and often do, defeat regular armies when the circumstances are right, as was often the case in our own revolution against the British Empire.

Regular military organizations are oriented towards fighting other regular military organizations in stand-up battles, not guerrillas (or regular armies using guerrilla tactics) as testified to by our victory in Desert Storm, and our defeat by the Vietnamese. Our military has numerous large formations equipped with heavy weapons, but very few smaller Special Forces-type units, which are pound for pound far superior at engaging guerrillas.

This inappropriate orientation of our military will continue just as it did all during Vietnam even when it was abundantly clear that it was a formula for certain disaster. There are reasons for this. Our military is a willing captive of our defense industry. As Country Joe and the Fish pointed out at Woodstock: "There's plenty of money to be made, supplying the Army with the tools of the trade."

And that money is clearly in capital intensive, big-ticket items like stealth bombers, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, Patriot missiles, and Star Wars gadgets, all of which have little or no utility in counterinsurgency.

To be fair, these items are required to counter ongoing foreign threats like Iraq and Russia, but there are deeper rasons that will continue to direct our military resources to these big ticket items all out of proportion to their actual need. First, many of our top military brass are simply corrupt. They go straight from retirement to the payoff of consulting for defense contractors in a form of institutionalized bribery.

Second, without huge formations to order about, there is little for our abundance of overweight, over-age generals to do. General Schwarzkopf and his staff were just the sort of techno-managers needed in Desert Storm, but such individuals are usually worse than useless in the dispersed, small unit actions that characterize guerrilla warfare, where active and independent fighting leaders, not managers, are required.

It is clear that the federal military will embark on Civil War II with inappropriate organization and weapons. When the only tool you have is a sledge hammer, all about begins to look in dire need of smashing. The rebel guerrillas and militias on the other hand, will certainly have a more flexible and decentralized structure bordering on chaos. The Afghan resistance groups, for instance, never united against the Russians, but fought them to a standstill nevertheless.

Guerrilla leaders will actually lead their troops, and those not killed will, unlike regular officers, be able to employ lessons learned in future actions. Rebel officers will achieve their positions based on success in actual battle, not on their ability to stay awake during staff meetings or meet the latest racial quota.

Rebel soldiers will be volunteers who will not suffer their lives being thrown away in pointless operations like American regulars in Vietnam were, thus, on the whole, increasing the efficiency of rebel operations. Federal soldiers, on the other hand, will increasingly be politicized officers and conscripts who will have ample opportunities to desert or otherwise shirk their duty.

The federal military will be ensnared in several dilemmas: If they use volunteers, they won't have sufficient manpower. If they use draftees, they'll wind up with hordes of disgruntled shirkers just as in Vietnam.

If they resort to heavy weapons of mass destruction, they'll kill civilians and swell rebel ranks with dedicated fanatics just as they did in Vietnam. If they don't employ their heavy weapons, they'll be giving up one of their few military advantages and thereby increase federal casualties, lowering federal morale. If the federal forces consolidate their formations in large easily-defended firebases, they'll forfeit vast areas to the control of the rebels just as we Americans did in Vietnam. If the federal government disperses its forces, they will be vulnerable to concentrated rebel attacs.

If the federal government keeps its units integrated, they'll have firefights within their own ranks. If they use segregated units, they'll be admitting that the cause they're fighting for is a fraud.

**The Dynamics of Counterinsurgency**

The classic political means of ending any guerrilla uprising is a co-option of the rebel base of support - instituting reforms that extent legal rights and economic opportunities to the rebellious people, at least to the extent that they cease supporting the guerrillas, who are then defeated in detail, hunted down one band after another.

When co-option is not offered or is rejected, usually only the classic military tool of genocide of the rebellious people remains, or at least the number of them sufficient that the survivors are terrorized into submission.

In our war for Independence, the arrogant establishment of the British Empire refused to co-opt the American colonists, but lacked the resolve to embark upon a campaign of genocide. They committed the classic error of thinking that professional soldiers would easily defeat so-called ragtag militias and lightly-armed guerrillas. The limeys wound up playing tag in the boondocks, much as we Americans did in Vietnam.

We Americans made no such error in dealing with the Indians, who could not have been co-opted in any case due to vast cultural differences. The Indians were never directly defeated militarily. They were ethnically cleansed until they absolutely ceased all military activity.