tagged w/ Velupillai Prabhakaran
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An opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal serves up Sri Lanka as an example of the importance of getting the Afghanistan surge strategy right. The editorial concludes that with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a designated terrorist organization, Sri Lanka "is closer to resolving its problems than at any time since the Tigers started fighting in 1983. Sri Lanka isn't exactly analogous to Afghanistan. But the island does demonstrate the benefits of defeating terrorists on the battlefield."
The one benefit – “the green shoot” -- the WSJ highlights is that Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who called early elections to capitalize on his popularity after defeating the Tigers after 26-years of fighting, is now facing a surprise challenge in a race that he must have assumed was already in the bag. The challenge comes from none other than General Sarath Fonseka, the military commander who also takes much credit for winning the war. The two candidates will likely split the vote among the country's Sinhalese majority, which means they will have to reach out to Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, many of whom were on the shit end of Sri Lanka's military “surge”.
We examined the end of Sri Lanka's war in the Vanguard piece "Notes from a War on Terror", including the argument that some security analysts have made that the country provides a case study in how to defeat an insurgency. The Journal is right that "Sri Lanka isn't exactly analogous to Afghanistan". But the differences are perhaps more important than any similarities.
First, Sri Lanka is an island. The Tamil Tigers didn't have a Pakistan to retreat to. Unlike Bin Laden, Mullah Omar or other key Taliban commanders, who are apparently able to slip across an international border, the elusive and charismatic leader of the Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, eventually ran out of real estate. In a scene that a US administration has thus far only been able to dream about, Prabakharan’s body was displayed on national television after he was reportedly killed in a last ditch battle.
Second, the Tamil Tigers didn't have heroin. When the US and Europe began enforcing anti-terror finance laws after 9/11, the Tigers found much of their funding cut off. With access to 90-percent of the world's heroin supply, the Taliban probably aren’t too concerned with having their assets frozen by some bank.
Third, and most important, the Sri Lankan military didn't care about winning hearts and minds. While no one would argue that there aren’t benefits to “defeating terrorists on the battlefield”, the Journal glosses over how the war in Sri Lanka was prosecuted. While "hearts and minds" is central to US counter-insurgency strategy, I never once heard the words uttered while reporting in Sri Lanka. In fact, the Sri Lankan military seemed to employ the opposite strategy, showing not only wanton disregard for Tamil hearts and minds, but also lives and limbs.
With the defeat of a brutal terror organization like the Tamil Tigers its easy to say the end justified the means. But if we’re looking for examples on how to "get it right" in Afghanistan, you can probably forget about Sri Lanka. I don’t think the US or citizens of our NATO allies could ever stomach the brutal and draconian measures that Sri Lanka resorted to in the final weeks and months of the Sri Lankan surge.
And for those few who think that winning “hearts and minds” isn’t important, just ask President Rajapaksa and General Fonseka who’s presidential ambitions now ultimately depend on it.
An opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal serves up Sri Lanka as an example... more
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Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to Sri Lanka to see how the Tamil Tigers, one of the world's most lethal and influential terrorist organizations, were finally defeated.Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to Sri Lanka to see how the Tamil... more
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