insurgents

(TFC Op-Ed) Washington, DC – The airwaves are full of pundits screaming about violence against police officers. These are the same pundits that disregarded the warnings of experts in the field of insurgency when the Ferguson riots broke out and chose to dismiss the rioters as “thugs.” They continued to cheerlead for more police militarization even after the first officers were shot in targeted killings.

As the dramatic events in the Ukraine are unfolding the topic of what President Yanukovich can, or can not do, regularly comes up and I think that this is a good time to go back to basics and look at what a government — any government, regardless of its political orientation — can and even must do when confronted with an urban armed insurrection.