Marighella's revenge in Iraq.

In his Mini-Manual for Urban Guerrillas, Brazilian Marxist Carlos Marighella prescribed a strategic formula for insurgents seeking to seize total power. Marighella's manual has been a standard text for terrorists since the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba.

"First the urban guerrilla must use revolutionary violence to identify with popular causes and so win a popular base," wrote Marighella. "Then, the government has no alternative except to intensify repression. The police roundups, house searches, arrests of innocent people make life in the city unbearable. The general sentiment is that the government is unjust, incapable of solving problems, and resorts purely and simply to the physical liquidation of its opponents. The political situation is transformed into a military situation in which the militarists appear more and more responsible for errors and violence." The eventual result is the complete collapse of order and the seizure of power by the most violent, power-hungry revolutionary faction.

As recent news reports from Iraq illustrate, the terrorist attacks and the U.S. response fit Marighella's blueprint perfectly.

"As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire," reported the December 6 New York Times. "In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in." Residents of the village of Abu Hishma, which has been "encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops," must display an English-language ID card at a military checkpoint.

"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," explained Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, battalion commander of U.S. troops deployed at Abu Hishma. A couple weeks later Sassaman led an assault in the city of Samarra that appeared to follow the stone formula.

"Using sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives, and armored vehicles, U.S. forces smashed down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards ... to attack the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein," related a December 18 AP dispatch. "Loud blasts mixed with the sound of women and children screaming inside the houses. An explosion at the gate of one compound shattered windows, cutting a 1-year-old baby."

"Samarra has been a little bit of a thorn in our side," commented Col. Sassaman. "It hasn't come along as quickly as the other cities in the building of Iraq. This operation is designed to bring them up to speed." Somewhere, Carlos Marighella is nodding in grim approval.