NEWS: Insurgents Demoted to Terrorists in Dallas

POLITICS: Insurgents Demoted to Terrorists in Dallas

The editorial board at the Dallas Morning News has finally decided to stop calling people who massacre civilians “insurgents.” Good for them.

How about calling them Iraqis?

Haven't you heard? The majority of them aren't Iraqi.

Because not all of them are Iraqis.

Actually I believe most of them are believed to be Iraqi. Anyways, who cares who they are?

The majority of the insurgency comes from Afghanistan and Iran.

In addition as long as we are retracting euphemisms we should take another into consideration. A large part of the U.S. military presence in Iraq is formed by "contractors". How about we just call them what they are, mercenaries?

Then we can look forward to amazingly intriguing headlines such as "Iranian terrorists kill 5 U.S. funded mercenaries in roadside bombing."

A much more accurate depiction of what is actually happening in the middle east.

[Edited on Jul 18, 2005 8:23AM]

Or we could just call them Monsters or Demons or any number of similar titles to avoid the fact that these people, regardless of what they've done, are still human beings.

We dropped two atomic bombs on non-military targets during the second World War. Does that make us terrorists? Absolutely.

I think we need to change the nature of this discussion, though, especially if we hope to make any progress in this War we currently find ourselves mired in. Dehumanizing the enemy is certainly not the answer, at least not in my personal view.

Terrorist, insurgent, enemy combatants, blah blah blah. It's all beside the point.

Not to get all linquistic on you Michael, but they can, in fact, be both.

The term insurgent refers to persons actively in revolt against an established political order. "Insurgent" doesn't imply or grant any "legitimacy" to a rebellion, nor does the fact you or anyone doesn't see a group as legitimate because you disagree with their tactics or goals make them any less of an insurgency. It makes them insurgents who tactics and/or goals you disagree with.

"Terrorist" on the other hand implies someone who uses particular kinds of tactics. They may be insurgents, state security forces, foreign occupying armies or other actors whose goals might be anything from overthowing an existing political order, to change but not overthrow the existing order, to maintaining an existing political order against insurgent forces.

Although those who target civilains in such attacks are as far as I am concerned terrorists, I don't appreaciate a news organization coming to that conclusion for me. I see it as unprofessional and somewhat sensational, a trend that seems to be growing in the news world.

It has nothing to do with political bias when a news organization refuses to refer to people as terrorists. Terrorist is a loaded word. Even when the subjects can easily be identified as terrorists, its not the job of information sources to tell me they are terrorists just like its not their job to tell me that they are assholes or evil.

I believe organizations suchs as the BBC and CBC have the right policy in refering to people by acurate terms. An insurgent and a terrorist are not mutually exclusive. I think I can make the judgement call when this is the case.

Most are Iraqi Sunnis

The insurgency seems to remain largely Iraqi and Sunni dominated. Some 35 Sunni Arab groups have made some kind of public announcement or claimed responsibility for terrorist or insurgent attacks – although many may be little more than cells and some may be efforts to shift the blame for attacks or make the insurgent movement seem larger than it is. An overwhelming majority of those captured or killed have been Iraqi Sunnis, as well as something like 90-95% of those detained.

How about just plain "wackos"?

Let's call a spade a spade: the bombers are idiots who choose to blow up themselves and anyone they can take with them in the name of a non-existent god and a non-existent paradise so they can be cheered on by other idiots with the same beliefs.


[Edited on Jul 18, 2005 11:07AM]

I agree that most of the attacks in Iraq against US soldiers, as of now, are probably conducted by foreign terrorists. (This also makes me wonder what kind of terrorist threat Iraq posed to us before March 19, 2003 if all the terrorists there now are foreign.)

But to say that every last Arab there that doesn't sing our praises is a terrorist, that just seems to me to be wishful thinking. Achmed the 70 year old Goat Herder, who shot off a few rounds at an M1A Abrams Tank with an old Russian made AK-47, he might just be angry that things in his country aren't going well. The Americans are damn easy targets, for him, both logistically as well as morally.

There are more sides to this story than a many-sided geometric shape ...

Well anyway, I agree with several points. It's certainly true that the killing of innocents has gone on for quite some time, even by the US. I also agree that everything is a matter of perspective, and that people's reasons for things may be "right" to them...but I still don't think killing innocent people is good at all.

Also, whether someone is Shiite or Suuni or whatever, it makes little difference to me if they are a citizen of Iraq...in which case I'd consider them an Iraqi, period. However, I stopped paying attention to the whole Iraq affair long ago, so I wasn't awair that people from other countries were doing terrorist activities in Iraq.

So if that's the case...why the hell are they doing it? Can't they stick to their own country? Now they go and bomb other people's enemies.

All in all, they're idiots to me, in the end. There are so many better ways to handle problems than by their methods, for sure.

Well that's one way to discount one of the largest religions in the world, in an utterly distasteful and insensitive way.

I'm sure everyone agrees killing civilians is wrong. Especially children. The suicide bombers who go up against military targets aren't cowardly however. They are merely fighting by any means necessary, and in the only way they can.

Well, it is a linguistic - or semantic - argument. And, yes, they can be both. I have no problem with them being both.

yah! you beat me to it, but hey I ain't complaining.

where as a person dropping a bomb from a plane that just might, ever so unlikely kill ever so slightly more civilians than the suicide bomber would be a what then???

and oh yeah don't fire the "it was a war comment", because as far as they could be concerned maybe it still is, and I agree with
jackalnoir, that is just plain derogratory, question do you believe in god, or are you an athetist? Some athetists would believes in a god you'd have to be an raving lunatic, and some who believe in a single god, assume those who believe in more than one are possessed or evil. Its all a matter of perspective

Lets stick with "enemy combatant" - we don't want the Red Cross looking this way...

and finally just to get this off my chest,
demoted????
okay so insurgent is a higher form than terrorist,

insurgents, terrorists and partisans oh my!
what's the highest thing in this new great chain of being, a crusader maybe? a republican? a democratic freedom fighter?


I hate rating systems, and whilst I respect that everyone has the right to an opinion, doesn't get a little tiring screaming about the same thing, in the same way. and by the way just to point out what I think is the obvious, if Sadam Hussain had not been removed (not that I'm saying he shouldn't have been or should have been its a moot point because he has been) the religious extremists wouldn't be in the country because of what he would do to them.
Enough

If I want propaganda I will watch fox, that's why I don't.

eep, that was a vomit session wasn't it...

unfortunately maybe it does to them, that was one of the prime reasons, Iraq (formerly suuni-military-dictatorship) and Iran (shiite-theocracy) did not get along, and where Iran is now involving itself in the Iraq issue, probably one of the few things Iraq and Iran did agree on was they did not like the West, in particular the U.S (due to past history) interefering in the affairs of what they felt was a middle east issue.

Do you think a Syrian jihadi who deliberately targets and massacres Iraqi children isn't a terrorist?

What the USA is doing in Iraq is horrific. The fact that "CHRISTIANS" are perpetrating war crimes in Iraq is no less shocking than the New York City, Madrid & London attacks.

[Edited on Jul 18, 2005 by photoline]

When the Israelis bombed the Hotel King David, they were called freedom fighters and made into heros.

Funny how things work.

lets check our definitions, terrorist, defining someone who uses violence to bring an issue to public attention. lets see quite possibly, that was not something I disputing, because I haven't read about that, and I don't trust fox, if I read about it from another source possibly I would, but besides that point, yes a person using violent dissident action would be considered a terrorist regardless of who they targeted, children or otherwise.

As a comparison what kind of act was it to cut Iraqis off from vital medicines and supplies for ten years resulting in numerous infant deaths, or birth issues if merely for lack of vital medicines?

There was supposedly a Madeline Albright comment in relation to this isse but I leave it out because it could have just been leftist propaganda, in some ways I really hope it was.