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Grenier writes that he began his study with the goal of tracing the historical roots of the use of unlimited war by the United States, war whose purpose is to destroy the will of the enemy people or their capacity to resist, employing any means necessary but mainly by attacking civilians and their support systems, such as food supply. Today called “special operations” or “low-intensity conflict,” that kind of warfare was first used against Indigenous communities by colonial militias in Virginia and Massachusetts. These irregular forces, made up of settlers, sought to disrupt every aspect of resistance as well as to obtain intelligence through scouting and taking prisoners. They did so by destroying Indigenous villages and fields and intimidating and slaughtering enemy noncombatant populations.
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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3))