Search Results

This chapter directly addresses democratic accountability’s place within global governance debates. Focusing on the writings of liberal cosmopolitan democrat David Held and more skeptical perspective of Robert Keohane, the chapter argues that contemporary approaches to democratic accountability in world politics over-emphasize control and order and neglect the place of disorderly, insurgent, and innovative practices taking place outside of formal institutions, often within civil society. Drawing from radical and agonistic traditions of democracy, the chapter introduces reflexive questions about the accountability of accountability frameworks themselves. It also argues for a postsovereignty politics in which democratic accountability is regarded as incompatible with all claims to final authority, regardless of whether that authority is the state, “the people,” or cosmopolitan public law. From this critical accountability approach, the key questions for globalizing democratic accountability are not only whether new accountability regimes can be built, but also whether we can develop reflexive and receptive ways to identify, disrupt, and address the accountability failures of those very regimes.

This chapter presents some of the language the Party created to carry out its mission—including categories that named classes, types of “enemies” and political insurgents, acceptable vs. suspect religions, and ethnonational groups—as well as some of the techniques employed: various forms of propaganda, modeling by example, denunciation and unmasking, and petition writing. Through teaching peasants to denounce and unmask enemies and to communicate with the benevolent paternalist Party in its own terms, these techniques inculcated new rules for producing truth and for understanding the world. There were, of course, other forms of reaction to the pedagogies of collectivization, which have been emphasized in earlier chapters: violent uprisings, attacks on cadres, overt acts of sabotage, and so on.

This chapter examines the key problems that counterinsurgency operations pose in sacred places. It first delineates the concept of a “sacred space” and explains the key features that grant such spaces a sacral quality. It then examines how insurgent groups can usefully occupy and exploit sacred places. It argues that insurgents can mingle with pilgrims and worshippers and can also use the sacredness of shrines, mosques, and temples as sanctuaries from counterinsurgent forces who may be understandably loath to offend local religious sensibilities by using force against such locales. The chapter outlines possible strategies and potential pitfalls for security forces when they are seeking to flush out insurgents who have taken refuge in sacred arenas. Finally, it looks at some of the lessons derived from the Israeli siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, where several Palestinian militants retreated in 2002.

This chapter examines two important operations waged by Indian security forces to counter Sikh insurgents operating in India's northern state of Punjab, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The first operation was a military as well as a public-relations debacle. The Indian Army had inadequate and flawed intelligence about the strength and capabilities of the insurgents who had entered and occupied the Golden Temple, and they failed to forge a viable public-relations strategy and ultimately used excessive force to prevail. Fortunately, the Indian state was capable of learning from its initial errors. When Sikh militants again attempted to use the temple as a sanctuary, the Indian security forces launched a second assault, which involved a prolonged siege, but one marked by careful attention to the sentiments of religious authorities and by a deft public-relations strategy. The two contrasting episodes underscore how the same regime, under different circumstances, can cope with and respond to the requirements of a counterinsurgency operation in a sacred site.

This chapter discusses the July 2007 Pakistan military operation against the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. It begins by briefly describing the role of Islam in contemporary Pakistan, focusing on the rise of Islamist militant groups, especially those affiliated with the Deobandi school of thought and the nexus between the Establishment and the Islamists in Pakistan. The chapter then discusses the growing Islamization of the Pakistani state and society, within which the occupation of the Red Mosque by armed insurgents took place; and the conduct of Operation Sunrise and the recapture of the mosque complex by Pakistani security forces. It is argued that while Operation Sunrise was a success in military terms, its political consequences have contributed to Pakistan's ever-deepening instability and to Islamist militancy in the tribal belt and beyond. Prospects are slim that Islamabad has the will or capability to address the structural context within which the events at the Red Mosque transpired.

This chapter focuses upon two uprisings in 2004 in Najaf, one of the holiest cities in Shi'ite Islam and home to the revered Imam Ali shrine. In the first uprising, in April 2004, U.S. army forces immediately attacked insurgents elsewhere in Iraq but deferred significant offensive operations against those in Najaf by four weeks. During those operations, they did not pursue insurgents into Najaf's Old City or the shrine. The second uprising occurred in August in 2004 and was put down by U.S. Marines. In contrast, the Marines immediately attacked insurgents throughout Najaf, reducing their exclusion zone around the shrine and around abandoned no-fire zones. The chapter asks why, despite similar risks, did U.S. forces aggressively pursue insurgents in Najaf's sacred spaces in August but not in April? It argues that the most important variable explaining the two different outcomes was the nature of the government at the time of the operations. In April, Iraq was governed by Paul Bremer, III, who was the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). In contrast, by August the CPA had been dissolved and “power” was transferred to an appointed Iraqi Interim Government with Iyad Allawi as the prime minister. Allawi's government vociferously supported decisive action against insurgents in Najaf in August. The support of this nominally sovereign Iraqi government may explain the later U.S. willingness to assault Najaf's sacred sites. Earlier in the year, U.S. planners were unwilling to do so because they were uncertain about how Iraq's Shi'ites would respond.

This chapter focuses on the Thai military's complete mishandling of a counterinsurgency operation at the Krue Se Mosque in southern Thailand. It argues that the military violated some of the most basic principles of counterinsurgency operations and demonstrated a profound lack of both tactical and strategic awareness. Specifically, their security forces had lacked adequate intelligence on the insurgents operating in the region where the mosque was located, there were problems in the chain of command, and there was no clear blueprint for the operation barring the use of force. Not surprisingly, this operation ended in considerable bloodshed at a mosque that was fraught with a history and myth of local resistance. As a consequence of this botched operation, the insurgency received a substantial boost because the harshness of the military's tactics alienated much of the local population.

This chapter concludes the book with an instructive analysis across the various case studies. It draws out a number of operational lessons to be learned from the cases, including an assessment of the degree of sacredness of a site, the level of support that insurgents enjoy within the local population, and the relative strengths of direct and indirect strategies. It argues that counterinsurgency operations rarely succeed or fail solely because of the sacredness of the site on which they take place. Rather, counterinsurgency is inherently difficult, and the presented cases demonstrate the numerous other factors that affect success, including differences in terrain and geography, tactical choices, the legitimacy of the national government, and the training and capabilities of both the insurgents and the counterinsurgency forces. However, the cases in this volume demonstrate that counterinsurgency in sacred spaces presents a number of special concerns that operational planners must address to ensure success.

The author talks about the day he was invited to join one of the doctors on a flight to Kandahar to witness the handover of three Afghan casualties to the local health care system. He first discusses the so-called “humpback day” for one of the doctors, or the day that marked the midpoint of his six-week tour. Doctors arrived and departed unaccompanied, whereas nurses came and left en masse to give way to a brand-new cohort in a formal handover ceremony before their twenty-four-hour decompression in Cyprus. Camaraderie has always been a strong feature of military life and especially in the theater of war. The author then turns to the day's casualties, who were to be dropped off at Kandahar Military Regional Hospital, called Camp Hero. He also narrates his flight back to Camp Bastion together with other passengers that included three insurgents, bound and blindfolded.

The Afghan war was the longest military conflict in Soviet history. The Soviet armed forces suffered their clearest reversal since the fall of Nazi Berlin, the first time in modern history that a Russian army had been decisively checked by insurgents. The war provided the arena for the CIA's biggest ever clandestine operation. The Afghan insurgents received material help from an exceedingly heterogeneous group of states. Afghanistan was able to establish and maintain what independence it possessed, in part because it provided a convenient buffer between the two contending empires. The Soviets in the end withdrew their troops from Afghanistan but that turned out to be the first of such withdrawals.

Touch-and-go diplomacy by senior European officials fails to halt the momentum toward a civil war in Macedonia after Albanian insurgents use force to demand increased rights and power for their people. With limited capacity to deal with an insurgency, the Macedonians can have a war or a unified nation, not both. President Bush and Secretary of State Powell designate Pardew as the US envoy to work with EU envoy Francois Leotard of France to assist President Trajkovski in finding a peaceful solution to the looming war in Macedonia.

In this chapter, Ra'ad Jamal Habib recounts his experience during the Iraq war. Before the war, Ra'ad Jamal Habib was a long-haul bus driver doing routes all over Iraq from Baghdad, where he has lived all his life. He continued working as a driver for hired cars running convoys between Baghdad and Damascus after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In August of 2007, U.S. forces arrested him at his home in northern Baghdad as part of a campaign to thin the ranks of Shi'ite militias and Sunni insurgents. He was detained at Camp Bucca, a U.S. military detention facility that was then the largest in the world. The average stay for an Iraqi in Camp Bucca was one year. Ra'ad Jamal Habib was imprisoned from August 7, 2007, to September 25, 2008, according to U.S. military documents handed to him as part of his release papers.

In this chapter, Ali Fahed Mahmood recounts his experience during the Iraq war. Ali Fahed Mahmood recalls how the sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis turned Mansour, a mixed area where he lived, into a disaster zone. Shortly after the U.S. invasion, he joined a volunteer guard force established by the Americans to protect public buildings, and when the sectarian violence erupted he was in charge of security for forty guards keeping watch over sixteen schools. The threats started from both sides in the area as things got bad in 2004. Shi'ite militiamen with the Mahdi Army would paste warnings on the houses of Sunnis, telling them to leave. Sunni insurgents would post lists of names of people said to be working with the Americans, people who were to be killed. Ali Fahed Mahmood's name appeared on one of those lists, because he is a Shi'ite. Someone threw a threat letter into his yard, and later a grenade broke all the windows in his house. Ali Fahed Mahmood was still patrolling schools in his neighborhood as of January 2009.

This chapter provides a discussion on the road to War during July 1898–March 1899. It starts by addressing the New Territories in 1899. The New Territories were mostly very mountainous, especially in the centre and east, with little flat land except in patches along the stream-courses or seashore. The New Territories in 1899 had no roads capable of taking any sort of wheeled vehicle, but only footpaths, mostly narrow and unpaved, or paved only with rough boulders. Where the paths went over the hills they often became interminable flights of ill-paved steps. The Six-Day War was the last flourish of the old society of the New Territories, the last time the old great Punti clans and villages were able to dominate local politics and society. After the coming of the British, these ancient Punti clans had to accept equality with their old tenants and allies. The agitations against the Lease of the New Territories to Britain are discussed. In addition, the preparations for War during March-April 1899 are highlighted. The chapter then outlines the factors driving the insurgents into armed opposition.

James Stewart Lockhart said that with regard to the Battle of Mui Shue Hang: “It is impossible to ascertain whether there were any casualties”. It is entirely probable that the Ping Shan people and Tang Shing-sz are correct, and that the list inscribed in the Tat Tak Kung Soh in 1938 is of the dead from the Ping Shan Brigade in the Six-Day War, the dead from the fighting with Ha Tsuen having been separately enshrined and commemorated, in a shrine that has not survived to the present day. It is also stated that the losses to the insurgents were serious, constituting an “utter rout”, and a “disastrous defeat”, with “many dead and many wounded”, which is much closer to the truth than the bland statements of “slight loss” in the British official Reports in the official collections. The chapter then reviews Sir Henry Blake's policies towards the insurgents. The takeover of Weihaiwei by the British can usefully be looked at in clarifying what Blake meant by calling for a minimal-force pacification in the New Territories, with military action being limited to bringing troops under attack to safety. It further addresses Lockhart's views of the insurgents.

This chapter begins by reviewing the leaders of the insurrection. James Stewart Lockhart, as part of his attempt to get the leaders of the insurrection exiled, their houses destroyed, and their villages penalised, prepared a black-list of the leaders of the insurrection. The rank-and-file of the insurrection is also described. It is clear that the insurgents reflected very closely the broader society of the villages from which they had come. Leadership of the insurgency was effectively the monopoly of the traditional village leaders. The leaders were, almost to a man, gentry, holders of either examined or purchased degrees, or at least were Kwok Hok Sang, or represented their gentry families as Managers of their family Trusts. The dead came overwhelmingly from among the young men, either unmarried or recently married, from the low-status families of the area.