Marshall would have been the first to say that technology and the Revolution in Military Affairs had very little application to certain kinds of conflict, such as a counter-insurgency fight against some indigenous guerrilla force.
In her cell were piles of books from supporters: a biography of the indigenous guerrilla Lucio Cabañas ("My idol"), a history of Catholic nuns, a book on the Zapatistas, Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist".
It's a claim that has been refuted by dozens of historians, military figures, and eyewitnesses including Australian explorer Ernest Giles, who documented several skirmishes with Indigenous guerrilla outfits during his travels.
He said the turning point was when Pakistanis and Afghans who had been trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, which were run by Osama bin Laden, effectively took over what had been an indigenous Kashmiri guerrilla army.
Ríos Montt headed a military government that began with a coup in March 1982 – and ended with another 17 months later – at the height of a civil war in which the army severely weakened a leftwing insurgency by carrying out massacres of the civilian population in the Mayan indigenous heartland where the guerrillas were based.
History shows that when indigenous forces engage in protracted guerrilla warfare against foreign occupying militaries, their chances of prevailing over the long term increase markedly, if for no other reason than that they have more immediately at stake and will therefore suffer more in pursuit of their objectives.
Defense lawyers impugn Mayan witnesses, challenging the veracity of their testimonies, linking them to guerrillas — arguing that the indigenous victims were really subversives and that the army was merely trying to defend Guatemala against an insurgent threat.
During the campaign the 9th Division was assisted by indigenous fighters who were waging a guerrilla war against Japanese forces with the support of Australian special forces such as Z Special Unit.
In 1970s-1980s Guatemala, partly for which former military President Efrain Rios Montt was on trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, the U.S.-devised "National Security Doctrine" guided Guatemalan army objectives to achieve "annihilation of the internal enemy" -- identified as armed guerrilla groups and their indigenous (Maya) support base.
At this, the reporter pulled out the official Defense Department definition of "guerrilla war" ("I knew I should have looked it up!" Rumsfeld said. "I could die that I didn't look it up!"): " 'Military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces.' This seems to fit a lot of what's going on in Iraq".
