Mini-Manual.

This is coolbert:

Comments on the "Mini-Manual for the Urban Guerrilla".

[my comments in bold.]

"The urban guerrilla's weapons are inferior to the enemy's, but from the moral point of view, the urban guerrilla has an undeniable superiority. This moral superiority is what sustains the urban guerrilla."

"The moral is to the physical as three is to one - - Napoleon". Marighella is thinking along the same lines as the Emperor!! Logical minds can come to the same conclusion.

"The urban guerrilla must possess initiative, mobility and flexibility, as well as versatility and a command of any situation. Initiative especially is an indispensable quality . . . the urban guerrilla cannot let himself . . . wait for instructions. His duty is to act . . It is better to err acting than to do nothing for fear of making a mistake. Without initiative, there is no urban guerrilla warfare."

General Giap spoke of always keeping the initiative. Make the enemy react to you, NOT you to him. A good plan now is better than the perfect plan tomorrow!! Where have we heard that before??!!

"other members of the group must be armed with .38 revolvers, our standard weapon. The .32 is also useful for those who want to participate. But the .38 is preferable"

You DO NOT NEED sophisticated weapons and heavy artillery to carry out the urban guerrilla campaign. Small arms, particularly the revolver are most essential. Easy to carry and conceal, and deadly at close range.

"The methods of obtaining the necessary materials and munitions will be to buy them or to take them by force in expropriation actions specially planned and carried out."

"The urban guerrilla must rob banks and armories, and seize explosives and ammunition wherever he finds them."

To create the degree of havoc and confusion that the urban guerrilla desires, conventional explosives bombs are not always so desirable. A better effect can be achieved with INCENDIARY DEVICES.

Explosives can be obtained by:

* Stealing. From the military, from mining concerns, or quarry operations.

* Manufacture from common household products [Mac Gyver style]. An ammonium-nitrate fuel oil [ANFO] bomb falls into this category!!??

* Scavenge. Hamas currently uses explosive ingredients taken from land mines found in the Sinai Desert. Abandoned land mines are found, unearthed, defused, the explosive ingredients being removed and reused.

[there was a very interesting book published in the early 1970’s called “Mr. Death: The Life of a CIA Assassination Expert--By His Son”. About a man knowledgeable and proficient in explosives. Was apprenticed at an early age to an Italian fireworks manufacturer. Mr. Death was self-taught but an EXPERT in the area of explosives. He allegedly was also a consultant to the CIA. As related in the book, as part of a CIA experiment, filtered water through raw earth, further distilling the water to produce explosive chemical ingredients to produce a BOMB. Albeit, this can be done, but only by the processing of an enormous amount of earth, BUT IS INDICATIVE OF WHAT CAN BE DONE, IF THE WILL IS THERE!!]

"In unconventional warfare, in which urban guerrilla warfare is included, combat is at short range and often very close."

Fifty percent [50 %] of all gunfights with handguns occur at a range of six feet or less!!!

"the urban guerrillas must be organized into small groups. A team of no more than four or five is called a firing group."

Small groups of guerrillas, not numbering more than a half dozen make up a firing group, the attack team. The persons that actually carry out the combat activities.

"there is no such thing as a firing group without its own initiative. For this reason, it is essential to avoid any rigidity in the guerrilla organization, in order to permit the greatest possible initiative on the part of the firing group."

"Urban guerrillas . . . are not an army but small armed groups, intentionally fragmented."

Each firing group acts according to it's own initiative and does not wait for orders from a higher authority before acting.

"The tactics of the urban guerrilla . . . It is an aggressive tactic, or, in other words, it has an offensive character"

"Make the enemy bleed, make him keep his head down, make him wonder where YOU are coming from!!" - - Patton

"Being familiar with the avenues, streets, alleys, ins and outs, the corners of the urban centers, its paths and shortcuts, its empty lots, its underground passages, its pipes and sewer systems, the urban guerrilla safely crosses through the irregular and difficult terrain unfamiliar to the police"

"It is an impossible problem for the police, in the labyrinthine terrain of the urban guerrilla, to catch someone they cannot see, to repress someone they cannot catch, and to close in on someone they cannot find."

The urban "jungle" is even a MORE difficult environment for counter-insurgency forces to operate in than is the actual rural jungle!!

I would think that the teeming slums, the favelas of Brazil, would be a hiding place for the urban guerrilla that would be impossible for the counter-insurgency forces to police.

"The enemy can also be thrown off with false information"

"All war is based on deception!!" - - Sun Tzu.

"The most popular mission is the bank assault. In Brazil, the urban guerrillas have begun a type of organized assault on the banks as a guerrilla operation. Today, this type of assault is widely used, and has served as a sort of preliminary test for the urban guerrilla in his training in the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare."

"The bank robberies carried out by the Brazilian urban guerrillas hurt big businesses and others, the foreign companies which insure and re-insure the banking capital, the imperialist companies, the federal and state governments"

Bank robbery serves several purposes.

It DOES help finance the urban guerrilla movement. NOT that a whole lot of excessive financing is needed to begin with. This type of insurgency can be done on the cheap. But money IS needed and can be used to further the “movement” in a variety of ways.

The actual ACT of robbing a bank also acts as a FILTER MECHANISM. ONLY those persons dedicated to the point of committing an act of violence and being themselves exposed to danger as well are WORTHY of being effective urban guerrillas. Participants have proven to themselves and OTHERS of their guerrilla band that they HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!!

There is also an unwritten, unspoken, but tacitly understood agreement that the bank robbery constitutes a coercive measure. A point from which members of the guerrilla fighting group cannot go back. You cannot say anymore, “this is too much for me, I am outta here!!” NOT possible. The other members of the fighting group have something on you that could be USED AGAINST YOU IF NECESSARY!!

"students used excellent street tactics against police troops, such as marching down streets against traffic and using slingshots and marbles against mounted police. Other street tactics consist of constructing barricades; pulling up paving blocks and hurling them at the police; throwing bottles, bricks, paperweights and other projectiles at the police from the top of office and apartment buildings"

Wild in the streets stuff. Called a RIOT!! Civilians are mobilized by the guerrillas in "spontaneous" demonstrations.

"The strike is a model of action employed by the urban guerrilla in work centers and schools to damage the enemy by stopping work and study activities."

Islamic students [in Kra] cease going to government [Thai run] schools and attend only madrassas!!??

Capture and imprisonment does not mean the end of the struggle for the urban guerrilla. COMBAT CONTINUES, FROM WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE PRISON, EVEN WHEN LOCKED UP.

"For the guerrilla, his experience is deepened by prison, and struggle continues even in the dungeons where he is held."

Urban guerrillas are expected to organize and comport themselves in a fashion where they become the “ruling authority” within the prison itself. This does happen. Use numbers, organization, and a willingness to use violence WITHIN PRISON to intimidate other convicts and staff!! The ultimate goal being of course a MASS ESCAPE.

[the Tupamaros even went so far as to tunnel INTO PRISON. Organized and successfully liberated about one hundred of the imprisoned comrades.]

[the Shining Path insurgents in Peru actually “took over” an entire prison wing and “ran” that wing as if they were staff. NO, THEY HAD BECOME STAFF!! De facto, but still real. Morning formation, salute the commie flag, sing the Internationale, defy all legitimate prison authority. This disobedience was finally crushed, by the use of a lot of force, and with many dead. RESISTANCE, HOWEVER, HAD CONTINUED, EVEN WHILE IN PRISON!!]

"Sabotage is a highly destructive type of attack using very few persons—and sometimes requiring only one—to accomplish the desired result."

A lot can be done with limited means and personnel and even equipment. Fragility of the modern society lends itself to sabotage of a selective but well-thought-out nature.

"The terrorist act, apart from the apparent ease with which it can be carried out, is no different from other guerrilla acts and actions whose success depends on planning and determination. It is an action which the urban guerrilla must execute with the greatest calmness and determination."

Ease - no different - calmness - - determination. Terrorist. Attacking civilians with intent and object to kill or maim as many possible!!

"Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never relinquish."

"The purpose of terror is to create terror!!" - - V.I. Lenin.

"A consistent propaganda by letters sent to specific addresses, explaining the meaning of the urban guerrilla's armed actions, produces considerable results and is one method of influencing certain segments of the population."

Wars have an essential political nature to them. This is NOT nihilism. Explaining the goals and methods of the guerrilla by propaganda is AN ESSENTIAL part of the urban guerrilla campaign.

"The war of nerves or psychological warfare is an aggressive technique, based on the direct or indirect use of mass media and rumors in order to demoralize the government."

"The objective of the war of nerves is to mislead, spreading lies among the authorities in which everyone can participate, thus creating an atmosphere of nervousness, discredit, insecurity, uncertainty and concern on the part of the government."

This is also a form of deception!!

"Under no circumstances should the wounded guerrilla be abandoned at the site of the battle or left in the enemy's hands."

As a means of fooling American intelligence, the enemy in Vietnam would police the battlefield and carry away all their dead, when possible. NOT JUST FOR PROPER BURIAL, BUT TO DECEIVE THE ENEMY AS WELL!!

"The arrested guerrilla must reveal nothing to the police that will jeopardize the organization"

This is where the hostile interrogation comes into play!!

"The seventh sin of the urban guerrilla is to fail to plan things, and to act spontaneously."

The jihadi of the Al Qaeda mold is noted for being [1] very hateful and [2] very plan -ful!!!

Carlos Marighella is alive and well in Kra? You decide!

coolbert.