A Terrorist is a Terrorist – Except When He’s Not?
By Anthony | December 7th, 2005 | 10:32 pmDavid Boyd says that a terrorist is a terrorist. But what about an Iraqi who doesn’t want the U.S. in his country, and is targeting U.S. troops? Is he a terrorist as well?
According to a report by the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), between September 2003 and October 2004 there were an estimated 4303 insurgent attacks in Iraq. Of these, about 78% of them were against military targets, such as coalition forces or the Kurdish army. I’m fairly certain that attacks against military forces don’t count as terrorist attacks under many definitions of terrorism.
Furthermore, there’s another another report from the CSIS which says:
By all reports, the insurgency remains largely homegrown. US experts and top level Iraqi officials estimated in November 2005 that at least 90% of the fighters were Iraqi and the total might be closer to 94% to 96%.
These two facts lead me to question whether there is actually any significant battle against actual terrorists in Iraq. Are we primarily fighting against the same sort of people who want to come over here and kill us at all costs, or are we fighting with Iraqi citizens who don’t like how we’ve handled things in Iraq and just want to see us gone?
I’m certainly not saying that there are no terrorists at all in Iraq at this point, or that it’s not terrible when our troops are attacked. There are, and it is. But I do think it’s fair to question whether the battle currently raging there is really a significant engagement of our real enemies.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:49 pm
Sir have you personally been in Iraq, or spoken directly to anyone who has been? I have spoken with a soldier who has been in Iraq for three tours of duty and his reports are entirely different than those of the media. It is true that at first the Iraqi people disliked and distrusted the Americans because they had after all been brain washed for decades. But as the population has been exposed to our troops and seen for themselves who we Americans are, and learned to trust what we are offering them they want very much to live in a country free of dictators and tyranny. I was personally against the war and felt that Isreal would take out any real threat in the Middle East as they always have. But, we are there now and we have an obligation to stay until the people can defend their country against other meddlers and run their own government. If you break it, you buy it. We broke a functioning social order, not a good one but FUNCTIONING nonetheless, and now we have the obligation to stay until it is repaired.
December 9th, 2005 at 12:47 am
Hi Brenda,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I have not been to Iraq, and I admit that I haven’t directly spoken to anyone who has been there. That’s why I do try to qualify my statements and cite sources where possible. I attempted to present the above as questions rather than trying to pass it off as me knowing exactly the way things are there.
I am sure there are a significant number of Iraqis who have come to trust us and think well of what we are doing there. However, they aren’t the ones I was talking about, as they are not the ones who are attacking our troops. My questions related only to the motives and tactics of the Iraqis who are fighting against our troops, and those people obviously do not think kindly of our presence there.
As for whether we should stay or go, I actually tend to agree with you that we should stay there, for much the same reason. However I don’t feel confident that the Bush administration is actually doing the best job that could be done there, and I’m far from certain that our invasion will be a net positive for our country or the world. I hope I’m wrong.
Despite the fact that I feel we should stay, I still think it’s fair to question the President’s claims that the bulk of the people we are fighting there are actually terrorists of the same cloth as those who attacked us on September 11. To effectively engage those who fight against us, we need an honest assessment of who those people are.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
[…] On the one hand, as I wrote last year, many of those we are fighting against in Iraq seem to be Iraqis themselves, and they may not necessarily fit the usual definition of “terrorist”. […]