Counter insurgency lessons from Pan's Labyrinth?

So I watched Pan's Labyrinth last night for the first time and I began the movie knowing virtually nothing about it other than it was some kind of fantasy story directed by Guillermo del Toro. Color me surprised when I found myself not only enjoying the film, but discovering some interesting lessons in conducting an insurgency and fighting one.

The movie takes place at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1944 with a company of pro-fascist/Franco soldiers hunting down a band of communist guerrillas. I'll do my best to avoid ruining the movie but there are some spoilers so if you plan on seeing the film you might just want to stop reading.

The company is led by a sadistic captain whose actions and cruelty lead not only to his downfall, but the complete destruction of his company. However, a few of his decisions and tactics would be successful to combat an insurgency if combined with less violent techniques.

Do's:

- CPT Vidal used horses for the movements of his small patrols. The terrain around his headquarters was wooded mountains and using armored vehicles would have been useless since they would have been restricted to the few roads in the area. Now it is entirely likely that all he had at his disposal were horses since this was 1944 Spain just after a civil war, but the use of horses was still a wise one.

-The use of small patrols. Instead of using the entire company for large (and generally pointless) "clearance operations", CPT Vidal sent his men out in groups of 10-15 soldiers when investigating signs of the guerrilla band.

- Use of ration cards to control access to food/supplies. The company commander had all of the local village's food and supplies located in the barn at the headquarters building. The villagers had a ration card per family and had to go to the company HQ to get their food for the week. This helped (or should have helped, but we'll get to that later) limit the amount of food and supplies the villagers could supply to the insurgents. When the villagers were getting their food, a soldier from the company would then distribute propaganda to the locals (get your message to the people!). While this measure may seem overly controlling, the British did have success with this sort of tactic in Malaysia...although the British did it better by sealing off the villages.

Dont's:

- pretty much everything else CPT Vidal did. I'll start with the placement of the company HQ. It was a farmhouse near where the guerrilla band was hiding and operating. He should have placed it in the village instead (I'm assuming there was a village, you never see one in the movie) so he could better control the population and prevent the insurgents from having access to the village. If the insurgents can't get into the village, they can't get food, supplies, or new recruits and will eventually wither away. By placing the HQ in the farmhouse, CPT Vidal was only prolonging the fight. He may believe he is taking the fight to the enemy, but he is only going to cause more casualties to his soldiers and may not gain success agains the insurgent band who more than likely will just move to a different location.

- near the beginning of the movie CPT Vidal's soldiers bring him 2 men they suspect of being guerrillas. They claim to be only farmers and were out hunting rabbits. They have some communist propaganda on them so CPT Vidal kills them both. Rabbits are then discovered in the farmers' bag and CPT Vidal chides the sergent for not doing a proper search. By killing these two suspects CPT Vidal gives the locals a reason to hate him (or even more reasons) which plays right into the hand of the local guerrilla forces.

- killing wounded insurgents. Dead men can't give information so by killing a wounded insurgent you eliminate any ability to question him, either right there on the spot or later when he recovers. It also highlights your cruelty which once again enables insurgent propaganda.

- torturing prisoners. One occasion where CPT Vidal's soldiers did capture an insurgent CPT Vidal personnally tortured the prisoner in order to gain information. Torture does not help your cause, will likely lead to false information, and further alienates the population against you. But CPT Vidal was a fascist, so he likely didn't give a damn.

- over extending your forces. When the insurgents conducted an attack against a train CPT Vidal for some reason sent nearly his entire company to investigate the incident. The attack was a diversion and once most of the troops were away, the insurgents attacked the headquarters building and with the help of an inside informant, captured most of the food and supplies located at the HQ. CPT Vidal should have sent a smaller force to the train who could then call for reinforcements if needed.

The communist guerrillas in the movie conducted themselves brilliantly (it helps to have a script writer). They had informants at the farmhouse who could get them news, mail, and some supplies; they avoided attacking a large force; used diversions to distract the fascist forces before conducting a raid; ambushed smaller fascist elements which eventually enabled the destruction of CPT Vidal's company.

My favorite line in the movie:

CPT Vidal: "Tell my son the time that his father died. Tell him..."
Mercedes: "No. He won't even know your name."

Damn good movie, but I was distracted for part of it as I pondered which side of that war I would have taken...communist or fascist. Both are equally horrible in my opinion. Eventually determined I would go with the communists because perhaps you can encourage a socialist democracy/republic be created. I could live with that.