Grim's Hall

The Old Model Army:

The Belmont Club has been worrying about the anonymity of the terrorists and ethnic cleansers in southern Thailand. The Thai Army has admitted for years that it has no real knowledge about who is behind the increasingly powerful insurgency, or the murders growing in frequency as well as number. Wretchard speaks especially here but also here to the problem. He then says, "But the anonymity that the International Herald Tribune describes is only partial. Much is known about some of those who are causing the trouble. The International Crisis Group has listed out the known insurgent groups."

Yes, and there are several. Some of them -- most notably PULO, the Pattani United Liberation Organization -- even claim to speak for the insurgency. But why would you believe that they do, besides that they say so? The truth is, most of the statements supposedly from the organization are from retired leaders of an older insurgency, now living in Europe.

Wretchard wonders what the "goal" of the insurgency is. Let me suggest a model. I can't prove it, any more than anyone else can. But see if it doesn't make some pieces click into place.

In southern Arizona in the 1880s, there was a band of American outlaws. They lived mostly out of the saddle, and made their living originally in raiding the Mexican settlements in Sonora. The cross-border crime and violence got so bad that the Mexican government constructed three new forts on the border, and used its army to close that border to traffic that wasn't of verified legality. (This story, in addition to being background to the model I'm about to offer, is of some interest to another current debate).

Once the border was effectively closed, the outlaws turned to crime within the United States, both rustling and stage-coach robbing among other adventures. From Texas to San Francisco, the frontier wondered at their exploits and demanded action to stop them. The threat to the Wells, Fargo shipments, in particular, was almost existential to the southern Arizona silver mines. Wells, Fargo was the only service in the area willing to insure transported goods against theft. If they stopped carrying the silver, there would be little point in mining it.

As a result, a lot of attention was focused on this band, which was widely called "the Cowboys." The famous Earp brothers, Deputy US Marshals, were only some of those involved in trying to understand and to stop them.

I will here quote from Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend, p. 111.

More complicated, however, was that no one really quite understood whether or not the cowboys were organized or knew who served as their real leaders. At various times, Old Man Clanton, George Turner, Ike Clanton, John Ringo, and Curley Bill [Brocious] were all identified as the leaders. Wells, Fargo officials said in March of 1882 that the cowboys were a gang of about seventy-five under the leadership of Ike Clanton. At about the same time, Virgil Earp told the Examiner that there had been about two hundred cowboys, but fifty had been killed, and they were under Ringo's leadership. Thornotn, the Galeyville hotel manager and friend of Curley Bill, probably had the bset understanding of the group when he said: "The cowboys have no chief, nor do they run in gangs, as is generally supposed. Curly Bill... has no gang, and since his last partner shot him... Bill don't take well to partners. No, sir, the 'cowboys' don't herd together in droves, but come and go about their own personal business wherever they desire to go."

I've been watching Southern Thailand for several years and in some detail, and I wonder if that isn't the model. I wonder if it isn't "terrorist groups" or even gangs, but a loose collection of like-minded people, two or three of whom get together once in a while and kill some Buddhists. Or ten or twenty of whom get together once and again and rob someplace, while laying ambush for the police on likely pursuit routes.

That last is a degree of sophistication that suggests organization. But it doesn't take much organization. I've just suggested it to you, and if you decided to set up an insurgency, you'd probably remember that I suggested it. That doesn't mean we're organized together; and if you once did it that way and it was reported in the press, a third person thinking the same way would say, "Right, that worked well. I should do that when I rob the train."

Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group has pointed to some evidence of Bangladeshi folks in some of the bigger acts; a few such would be all it takes to start passing the ideas among a community of young outlaws. A few people passing hints, making contact where they can, would be all it took.

That would account for the anonymity, and also for the difficulty that intelligence services have had in penetrating the insurgent groups. A setup like this would be less easy to penetrate than the old cellular system employed by the PIRA and others.

So, what if this is right? What if you've got a loose group of young Muslims who, instead of rustling or robbing stages, have decided to murder a Buddhist here and there when they have a chance? Is that more, or less worrisome than an organized insurgency? Why?

It suggests a goal, by the way: ethnic cleansing. Any greater goal would require more organization than they appear to feel necessary; and there is no obvious financial motive. It appears to be a simple desire to rid their own personal world of non-Muslims.

Think about that for a bit, and see if it doesn't fit. It may open some doors in understanding the conflict.