Call them scenes from an insurgency. A man answers a knock at the door and is riddled with bullets. A platoon of soldiers storm a farm and torture the head of the household for information. Several guerrillas stop at another farm; when they get food and supplies, they reveal themselves to be soldiers in disguise, and arrest the inhabitants. Some troops stop a civilian on the road and ask his allegiance; when he says it’s to the government, they reveal themselves to be insurgents in disguise, and murder him.
These are all examples from the guerrilla conflict in Missouri during the Civil War. It’s hard to miss the resemblance between these scenes and those in Iraq today. I don’t believe in drawing simple lessons or parallels from the past, but as I try to explain Missouri’s guerrilla conflict and the resulting postwar banditry, I have to acknowledge the resonances with the Iraq war and fight against Islamic terrorism. Does a better understanding of what happened a century and a half ago help us understand what is happening today? Well, we can only hope. The questions we must ask, if not the answers, are certainly much the same.
