In regards to the tongue bathing article, after reading, several times in fact, I saw no mention of any cheering, nor any circumstance in which cheers could've/would've taken place.

Mike,

That's just wishing and projection by whichever editor at the Chronicle wrote the headline. The Boston Globe carried the same story by Daragahi with the more neutral headline, "Kerry visits Iraq to monitor war firsthand".

"In regards to the tongue bathing article, after reading, several times in fact, I saw no mention of any cheering, nor any circumstance in which cheers could've/would've taken place."

I'd say cheering could have easily taken place during that bit where US soldiers came up to Kerry for autographs and ask to have their picture taken with him.

'No insurgency is defeated by conventional military power alone'

I take it that they don't study the American Civil War at Yale or at those fancy-shmancy Swiss boarding schools.

Orrin,

How does that link show that Kerry was pro-IRA? You mean this?

"John Kerry was one of the first Members of Congress to sign Senator Kennedy's 1994 letter urging President Clinton to grant Gerry Adams a visa."

Read on:

"That initiative led to the IRA cease-fire and subsequent peace process. He supports the full implementation of the historic Good Friday Agreement, and commends the parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish and British Governments for bringing about, with the judicial guidance of Senator Mitchell, this best opportunity for lasting peace and justice in Northern Ireland."

[...] "The Good Friday Agreement has produced many positive developments. Sectarian killings have largely come to an end. An Assembly for Northern Ireland has been established, allowing the people to select their own government. Demilitarization has begun. Decommissioning by the IRA has begun. A new police force has started to be developed – a force which hopefully will soon command the support of everyone in Northern Ireland. A North-South Ministerial Council, a British-Irish Council, a Human Rights Commission, and an Equality Commission have been created. While these developments have met with varying degrees of success, there can be no question that these efforts amount to a forward moving path."

All you get out of this is that Kerry is pro-IRA?

Bart,

does the American Civil War qualify as an insurgency (a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as belligerency - Merriam Webster)?

Two different sets of political entities (states) with organized militaries faced each other on battlefields in a scenario closer to conventional warfare. While it did onvolve a revolt against the federal government, the scale of the belligerents' forces I think takes it out of the realm of an insurgency.

Hamilton and Madison would disagree about the Southern states being a recognisable political entity.

It was an insurrection against a properly functioning federal government.

The Supremacy clause cannot be ignored.

Creeper
You got it right, perhaps, regarding choice of words (insurgency etc), but the real point of this is whether Kerry is helping or hurting the effort to settle the issues in Iraq peacefully. I think a reasonable interpretation is that the Baathist/sunni will take this episode as encourgement.

"supremacy clause cannot be ignored"

That's why the South wanted to lawfully leave the Union. Doesn't go to the issue of whether they were "capable" of being a separate nation. OJ says they weren't a nation. Well obviously they were prevented from becoming one, so his statement is technically correct.

I'd rather discuss Kerry's treason.

If "helping or hurting the effort to settle the issues in Iraq peacefully" is an indicator of treason, where does poor post-war planning come into the picture?

Or is it only the act of pointing out that poor post-war planning occurred that counts as treason?

Even if I accept your quibble, Creeper, I will happily change my reference to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 or Shays Rebellion which were greeted with overwhelming military force by Gen. George Washington. Marching the colonial army into the Berkshires and the Alleghenies and burning everything that even looks rebellious seems like the application of conventional military power to me.

I would also suggest that the British response to the 14 and the 45 looks a lot like conventional military power as well. Not a whole lot of negotiating and compromise with the Jacobites was there?

Did he meet with the enemy like in Paris? Just wondering.

Bart,

I accept all those examples - it was just the civil war in particular that seemed a bit off to me as a fair comparison.

I think that, while military force can put down an insurgency in some cases, in some it can not, particularly if the "winning of hearts and minds" is an issue, and since trying to spread democracy in the Middle East is our current main objective, winning hearts and minds can not be ignored. Let alone trying to contain 'collateral damage' - the killing of the innocent.

Kerry was right to cite the example of the troubles in Northern Ireland though, where carefully negotiating with the insurgents led to a great move toward peace in the region. It was clear that an ongoing confrontation on military terms was going nowhere.

creeper:

To the contrary, the IRA had to give in once the USSR fell and, at the same time, the danger of an unprotected Western flank ceased to be a British strategic concern. The latter is why we were able to give South Africa to the blacks and set up a Palestinian state as well.

Orrin,

The political background is of course interesting, but the fact remains that no progress toward peace would have been possible without intense negotiation with terrorists or their representatives; a purely military solution would not have made any progress.

What the process also achieved was to give the Northern Irish people a viable political alternative to ongoing armed resistance. Terrorist acts in consequence met with lessened public acceptance. The same logic holds in Iraq; if the Sunni people see that they are fairly represented in a future Iraq (though due to demographics they will need to abdicate their heretofore leading role), then they will have much less acceptance for terrorist acts committed ostensibly on their behalf. The insurgency will be reduced to the die-hard extremists, and even they will disappear after a while, as they did in Northern Ireland.

But how to get there from here, that is the question...

BTW, did you have a link that actually demonstrates your claim that Kerry was pro-IRA?

creeper:

It's over when they come to the table. Negotiations are a hindrance not a help.

The IRA declared a unilateral cease fire in August 1994. I remember the day succinctly because it was announced while I was waiting in the airport to fly to Germany for junior year abroad, and by the time I got to Germany as I was walking to my dorm some drunk Irishman passed me with a bottle of whiskey in his hands and screaming, "God bless Gerry Adams and God bless the IRA."

It was after this declaration that Adams met with Clinton. I've always read that Teddy Kennedy intervened for it, so I assume that the junior Senator from MA simply followed his lead. Although criticized at the time, it probably helped to cement that pro-peace faction of the IRA as they were able to point to some achievement against their critics in the pro-war camp.

The Good Friday Agreement was in 1998 and the culmination of Gerry Adam's strategy; a strategy that was started during the Hunger Strike in 1981 or so I believe.

I'm sure the collapse of the USSR had some effect, but the IRA had huge arms stockpiled by that point. And both the ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement stem from Adam's belief in the eighties that the IRA's aims were best achieved by peace.

I don't believe the IRA has any real lesson for the insurgency in Iraq.

"Negotiations are a hindrance not a help."

That's quite a generalization there. Northern Ireland would not be in its current peaceful state without negotiations. I would characterize that as a help, not a hindrance.

That's precisely correct--it would be further along had the surrender of the IRA been accepted and Sinn Fein been ignored.

Chris:

The lesson is exact and applies to all insurgencies. Their goals can't be won without outside help, internal support, and collaboration from their opponents. The notion that a Sunni insurgency can prevail when they're just 20% of the population is lunatic. Even if they beat the 80% into submission we'd just take them out once they tried to assume power.

Orrin,

if the surrender of the IRA had been accepted and none of the political goals of Sinn Fein been paid attention to, the IRA would simply regroup, with a much more violent Northern Ireland than what we are looking at today.

It is only because a viable political track existed that splinter groups like the Real IRA could find no traction.

creeper,

That all depends on whether so many Americans had continued to play the Saudi role in financing an "insurgency" that they didn't see, without caring about the awful effects on the people there.

creeper:

It was over. That's why they surrendered. Negotiating with Adams has been a disaster, just as was dealing with Arafat.

"It was over. That's why they surrendered."

How could you ignore that this happened after years of careful negotiation?

When the IRA realized that their military campaign was not having the desired effect, they turned to a political solution - in the early 1990's. Years of negotiation later (including the Good Friday Agreement), the IRA surrendered in 2001.

Immediately after the USSR fell. Negotiation is always surrender for one side.

That's right, over ten years after the USSR fell. Also after years of negotiation and the establishment of a viable political track.

Did you edit your post just now? When I last looked at it, it read just "After the USSR fell." which was what I was responding to.

No, the IRA did not surrender immediately after the USSR fell. Over ten years of careful negotiations lay in between.

I'll leave you to it - if you want to insist that negotiation is always surrender (another astounding generalization), then I'm truly glad you don't hold any higher political office.

And I take it you can't dig up any link to support your claim that John Kerry is pro-IRA.

Negotiations are an afterword. It ended when they sat down.

This John Kerry?

http://www.upmj.co.uk/McGuinness_radio.php4

Are you seriously suggesting that John Kerry talking to Martin McGuinness (with no record of what views Kerry expressed) is proof that Kerry is pro-IRA?

I guess Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Bertie Ahern and Senator Mitchell are all pro-IRA as well then.

Since I very much doubt that that is true, I opt for the most likely explanation: you can't find proof that Kerry is pro-IRA.

the Viet Cong...the Sandinistas...Martin McGuiness...he's always got time for our enemies.

I suppose the Warsaw ghetto uprising of WWII was put down after years of careful negotiation by the Nazis? And, of course, US experience with native americans in the 19th century should have taught us that only negotiations can end those insurgancies?

Perhaps Kerry should go back to nuance, to avoid saying anything unequivocably stupid.

Mike,

"I suppose the Warsaw ghetto uprising of WWII was put down after years of careful negotiation by the Nazis? And, of course, US experience with native americans in the 19th century should have taught us that only negotiations can end those insurgancies?"

I'm not sure who you're responding to, but if it was me, what you're saying meshes just fine with my stance on the issue as I expressed it earlier:

"I think that, while military force can put down an insurgency in some cases, in some it can not, particularly if the "winning of hearts and minds" is an issue, and since trying to spread democracy in the Middle East is our current main objective, winning hearts and minds can not be ignored. Let alone trying to contain 'collateral damage' - the killing of the innocent."

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/345

Isn't it more likely that the IRA threw in the towel because Ireland proper had become so prosperous by that time, that Ireland proper wanted nothing to do with the North any longer.

Prosperity followed.

Correct. The IRA putting its emphasis on the political approach preceded the Republic of Ireland's move to prosperity (which was caused almost entirely by benefits arising from its EU membership). The IRA actually surrendered at a time when Ireland was booming economically.