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Low intensity conflict, more than war, will often present the United States and its armed forces with difficult ethical and moral challenges. The type of aggression encountered in [low intensity conflict] is not as blatant as that in war. Subversion, sabotage, assassination and guerrilla operations encountered in another country may pose a threat to US interests, but the threat to national survival may be neither imminent nor obvious...
A note - persons coming to Awareness of The War will occasionally do the simple thing, and go ask the first person that they see if that person sees the same things as does the person coming to Awareness. Since the insurgents are actively looking for persons coming to Awareness, they will make their best efforts to assure the person coming to Awareness that all is well - and that in fact, the person coming to Awareness should see a psychiatrist - and if the situation has gone to the point where an uninvolved person can notice enough peculiarities to begin moving to Awareness, rest assured that it is nearly certain that all psychiatrists or counselors in that area have been either co-opted or replaced by insurgents. In any case, confessionals, and doctors' and psychiatrists' offices will be primary targets for placement of covert surveillance devices, as "priveleged information" such as might be revealed in those quarters can be used for purposes of blackmail and maight be expected to provide potentially useful intelligence.
For more information on insurgencies, please see the US Army Training Field Manual Low-Intensity Conflict, Chapter Two. [ also available here ]
The War is characterized by a very adept and large-scale slow insurgency and insurgency is characterized by:
Take a look at an example of a very standard and rather straightforward (as such things go) Insurgency Plan.
This particularly addresses strategic placement and tactical advantage.
Any insurgent knows that it is absolutely essential to maintain a state of perfect camoflage. In modern America, this requires a job, a domicile, and credentials. As insurgents continue their relentless drive towards infiltration of all neighborhoods and particularly the residential neighborhoods favored by the intelligentsia and essential personnel of Federal, State and Local governments, they simply acquire jobs through the usual channels, where possible, and take up residence. It is quite possible that anyone noticing peculiarities in one new resident's cover may seek another neighbor for consultation, of validation of perceptions. The earliest-placed insurgents can be expected to gravitate towards positions as neighborhood gossips or organizers of "grass-roots" level organizations, which serve as excellent covers for infiltratror's "cells".
Neighborhood gossips are in ideal position to not only gather information but
to disseminate information - to other members of their own organizational
"cells", to new arrivals within the organization or movement, or to promote
releases of information which are designed to mobilize local systems against
potential opposition.
Releases of false or misleading information can be used to activate local
systems against potential adversaries. In areas where the insurgents have
acquired sufficient representation to have been noticed by potential local
opponents, campaigns of slander and libel can be used to intimidate potential
opponents of the insurgency, or better still, to cause local intelligence
force, police forces, or neighborhood-watch forces to target upon the potential
opposition, thus hamstringing the potential opposition.
Insurgents can often be spotted in this way - "look who's talking". When you
see people who have no obvious connection suddenly all spouting the same line
or defamatory story, you can generally presume that this is a Party Line and
that these persons all spouting the same party line can be presumed to be
members of the same insurgency "cell" or chain of command. Beware, as members
of the insurgency, they will not be in the least afraid to perjure themselves
in any situation where maintenance of a consistent story can help them attain
their goals.
Techniques of discreditation include, but are not limited to:
Note that most leaks of defamatory discreditations will be to whichever
sub-group in the local loyal-citizens community is perceived by the
insurgents to be most dangerous to the insurgency, but least qualifies to
test the truth of the allegations. In other words, they will allege mental
disorders or drug abuse to the police community (who by law cannot inquire
of mental-health organizations as to the status of suspects), they will
allege criminality to the religious community, or will allege complicity in
police operations to local criminals.
Compromises or potential threats to the insurgency can thus be rather easily
eliminated or themselves rendered ineffectual.
Insurgencies, when fearful of discovery or as a simple tactical given, will
often decide on the identities of potential leaks in the system, and will test
those leaks by selective disinformational techniques.
Also, insurgencies will inevitably attempt to introduce disinformative
"red-herrings" and "stalking-horses", or "information-bombs" into the databases
and knowledge-bases of local loyal-citizens'-groups, local police, and State
and Federal law-enforcement agencies. Information-bombs are generally groupings
of data which will cause misleading inversions when run through truth-tables in
logical or investigatory systems. The whole idea is to create chaos in the
informational resources of the higher levels of potential opposition.