Malaya as a model for Iraq

[The New Republic: April 19th, 2006]

Today, as the Bush administration searches for a counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, several military thinkers are pointing to the British operations in Malaya as a model. Episodes like the Batang Kali massacre seem to have been forgotten. Instead, contemporary analysts argue that Great Britain effectively suppressed communist insurgents and won civilian support through a large-scale, "hearts-and-minds campaign."
[...]
To seize civilian control, the British created a police state and invoked draconian powers ranging from movement-restriction and collective punishments to detention without trial.
[...]
Nearly the entire Chinese population of 400,000 to 500,000 were forced from their homes and were resettled into some 400 heavily guarded barbed-wire villages. They were deprived of all civil rights, and they endured great physical and emotional abuse.
[...]
In some ways, the U.S. military in Iraq is already following the British counterinsurgency model in Malaya. Although stateside leaders and strategists continue to pay lip service to the hearts-and-minds approach, the reality is that commanders on the ground, much like their counterparts in the former British empire, are skeptical. As Iraq ground commander General Thomas Metz stated bluntly, "[I] don't think we will put much energy into trying the old saying, 'Win the hearts and minds.' I don't look at it as one of the metrics of success."

This brings to mind the American "pacification" of Philippines and the British concentration camps in the Boer war at the beginning of the 20th century.

These three cases demonstrate that it is possible for armed forces to eliminate an insurgency. They also show that the occupying force has to resort to methods as savage as that of the insurgents. Although it's possible to do this in Iraq, it's very improbable that the current occupying powers have the political will to go through with this. With journalists and soldiers reporting on the situation in the country, the occupation is becoming more unpopular back home in US.

The only successful example of hearts and minds approach that I can think of, is the Marshall plan after the Second World War. Of course there was another reason for this approach then, USA did not want western Europe to fall to Soviet Union. US needed strong allies and took measures to create them.

It seems strange that US would not pursue a similar approach in Iraq, instead of investing money on expensive military gadgets, and writing blank checks to dodgy contractors. It seems that the current US administration is still confused in it's relationship with Iraq. Perhaps if US were to invest in Iraq, the way it invested in Western Germany after 1945, it would find itself with a powerful secular ally. However, all this talk of gradual troops withdrawal, is a further indicator that it's not interested in being an important player in the local politics.

I suppose things were much more simple in Malaya and Philippines.