In fact, the 2 organizations are acold much akin than is mostly recognized. Inspired by the illustration of the large Indian activistic Mohandas Gandhi, the civilian rights question borrowed galore of the characteristics of a subject organization. It paid adjacent attraction to recruiting, organization, grooming and discipline, each hallmarks of an effectual army.
The occupation with U.S. subject strategy has been analyzable by the information that some our subject and civilian leaders person not been honorable with themselves oregon the nationalist astir our wars. We invaded Iraq connected the mendacious premise that it possessed biologic oregon atomic weapons. We went into Afghanistan without a wide thought of what we intended to bash aft ridding it of al Qaeda members, oregon however we were going to bash it. The results person been devastatingly clear.
By contrast, the civilian rights movement’s leaders were particularly adept astatine strategy. Indeed, it is present that the Pentagon could larn immoderate important lessons. Martin Luther King Jr. and his closest advisers — Andrew Young, James Bevel, Diane Nash and James Lawson, among others — devoted immense amounts of clip and vigor to formulating their strategy. Their knowing of it was somewhat different, and I think, deeper, than the mode the American subject thinks astir it. U.S. warfare colleges thatch that strategy is simply a comparatively straightforward substance of figuring retired what you privation to do, past deciding however to bash it, and what resources to give to the effort.
The cardinal figures of the civilian rights question treated strategy arsenic a harder, much cardinal question. For them, it began with the astir basal and hard of questions: Who are we? In Nashville successful 1960, the reply that Nash, past a young assemblage student, formulated was: First, we are radical who are nary longer consenting to unrecorded nether segregation. Thus, strategy began with however 1 thought astir one’s self. Actions — that is, tactics — past flowed from that conception. In different words, we are radical who would alternatively dice than unrecorded nether subjugation. This penetration led to a bid of bonzer actions — the Nashville sit-ins of 1960, the enactment of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee a twelvemonth later, and soon thereafter, the Freedom Rides that enactment the civilian rights question connected the beforehand pages of newspapers crossed the state and so astir the world. Kennedy medication officials warned Nash and others that they could get killed; she responded that they afloat understood that fact, an reply that astounded the officials. They already had decided that they would alternatively dice than taxable to segregation immoderate longer.
Most of all, the movement’s leaders excelled astatine holding to their strategical goals, of not being distracted by lesser issues oregon half-hearted compromises, a perennial contented for the military. They wanted to beryllium treated arsenic American citizens adjacent earlier the law, and particularly to person the close to vote. They wanted to unrecorded successful bid and justness — and their non-violent tactics would bespeak that.
They besides were rigorously honest, believing that lone by determining the facts of the substance could 1 discern the mode forward. After the ceremonial for immoderate of the 4 girls killed successful the Birmingham religion bombing successful September 1963, civilian rights question leaders went to the cemetery for the burial, leaving down a restless assemblage bristling with vigor that wanted to march oregon bash something. Nash wrote a scathing memo to King and others, chiding them for leaving and for blowing an accidental to crook antagonistic vigor into thing positive. “You tin archer radical not to combat only if you connection them a mode by which justness tin beryllium served without violence. … This vigor could person been channeled, into a constructive, disciplined psyche unit aimed astatine creatively utilizing this vigor to execute a factual gain.” From specified interior truth-telling, large organizations learn, accommodate and change.
The U.S. subject utilized to recognize the request for specified candor and to request it of its leaders. But successful Iraq and Afghanistan, its commanders excessively often failed to discern the facts connected the crushed oregon to convey them to their civilian overseers. Instead, they served for a yearlong rotation without genuinely grappling with the scope of the challenge, past came location and went connected to different things.
In addition, the question excelled astatine utilizing operations to nonstop a message. It mostly did not signifier demonstrations for the involvement of marching. Rather, it utilized actions successful the streets to convey a thought oregon stress a point. In Selma, Ala., Black radical who tried to registry to ballot were turned distant arsenic unqualified arsenic illiterate. Thus, the town’s Black teachers, who intelligibly were educated, marched. By contrast, the U.S. subject successful Afghanistan and Iraq tended to motorboat a ngo and past aboriginal effort to determine what to accidental astir it.
The U.S. subject besides has done poorly astatine the extremity crippled of wars. General Tommy R. Franks, who presided implicit the beginnings of some wars successful Iraq and Afghanistan, believed that what happened aft the enemy’s superior was taken was idiosyncratic else’s interest — erstwhile successful information that was erstwhile the existent wars began.
The civilian rights movement, connected the different hand, began each run with the ending successful mind. As 1 of their songs enactment it, they kept their eyes connected the prize. The extremity ever was “reconciliation” — not expecting to clasp the enemy, but simply to find a peaceable mode forward. After an statement was reached successful Birmingham, Ala., to desegregate downtown luncheon counters, they worked with the owners of those establishments to marque the alteration easier, calling up to inquire astir what would beryllium a bully clip to nonstop successful Black customers. The question was efficaciously grooming its erstwhile opponents successful however to unrecorded with integration.
Finally, the members of the civilian rights question were successful it for the agelong term. Yes, immoderate radical burned out, oregon had to spell location to gain a living. But the question arsenic a full understood that changing a nine is simply a agelong and hard struggle, with setbacks and unexpected turns. Martin Luther King Jr. and those astir him did not bash one-year tours and past “rotate” home. He was engaged much oregon little continuously from 1955 until helium was assassinated successful Memphis, Tenn., successful 1968. One tin lone privation that the leaders of the U.S. subject had taken Iraq and Afghanistan arsenic seriously.
English (US)