You accuse war critics of having a circle-jerk, and then you offer a citation from the most ridiculously insular major-market broadsheet in the country? The one whose op-ed page makes Ann Coulter look like Michael Kinsley? It is to laugh.
Rumsfeld is already raping our troops.
You have to love the semantic games this administration plays. To be fair, about every administration has done similar things in various circumstances (Clinton’s definition of “sexual relations” comes to mind).
What bugs me about Bush and co. is that they’re playing such games with our national security. I like how the emphasis has somehow shifted from talking about weapons of mass destruction to a weapons program. But anyone who expresses skepticism is labeled as a “historical revisionist.”
Getting back on topic: no matter how Rumsfeld spins it, these insurgents (this seems to be the accepted term) are guerrillas, pure and simple. And what many people don’t recognize, and Rumsfeld refuses to acknowledge, is that it doesn’t take a huge percentage of a population to sway the direction of a guerrilla war.
Following our Secretary of Defense’s lead, consider the analogy of revolutionary America. Leading up to and subsequent to the War of Independence, most American colonists didn’t really care about independence. Some preferred to stay under British rule, and some resisted it, but most really didn’t care so long as they had peace and their livelihoods were not threatened. It took a small but powerfully-motivated minority of colonists to take the initiative of staging a revolution against the British.
The administration and the Pentagon have been downplaying the significance of the guerrilla attacks in Iraq. Like the NY Post editorial, they argue that these attacks are few and isolated, and they even compare them to murder statistics to show that the level of daily violence is worse in D.C. than it is in all of Iraq. The NY Post editorial, of course, did go one better in claiming that in their national significance, all of the guerrilla attacks roughly correspond to Laci Peterson’s murder.
Sure–if Scott Peterson could be multiplied into several bands of angry Iraqis, and if “Laci Peterson” was any U.S. soldier or convoy that can be attacked–then that analogy works. Which is to say, what a fucking ridiculous analogy. The daily acts of violence and crime that one sees in D.C. (or in Modesto, CA) are not all oriented toward an occupying foreign power! Daily attacks on the U.S. military surely need to be considered a very significant problem–one soldier dying each day in guerrilla uprisings is not an acceptable statistic, and it pisses me off to no end that the Bush and his cronies, with all their lip service about supporting our military, seem to think it is.
Here’s the problem that I see: although these limited, isolated attacks probably are not supported by a majority of Iraqis, they don’t have to be. Just like the American colonists, an openly vocal and active minority can radically change the atmosphere to such an extent that it makes it impossible for us to maintain a presence there. All it takes is something like the Boston Massacre, where a whole FIVE people were killed, to set things off.
And just today, we have an explosion at a mosque in Fallujah that killed 10 Iraqis. So far, it looks like it was an accident, and that American soldiers weren’t involved in it. But many people in Fallujah seem to believe Americans were behind it. If they think so, what will stop feelings of anti-American resentment from spreading?
The worse part is, it seems like that resentment is indeed spreading across Iraq. Rumsfeld tried to dismiss the guerrillas as operating in five different groups–to him, that suggested they weren’t organized by one ideology. Another way to interpret that is how widescale anti-American sentiment is growing. Besides the old Baathist loyalists, from whom you’d expect that kind of thing, now we have uprisings in southern Iraq, in Shia strongholds.
And every day, another soldier killed. That doesn’t bother Rumsfeld or Bush. But it bothers me.
And one more thing: from that NY Post editorial:
With this level of condescending, patronizing arrogance, is it any wonder that many people throughout the world believe in the Ugly American stereotype?
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/2135.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/07/01/porch.collapse.ap/index.html
13=23. got it!
That’s so appalling it isn’t even funny.
Homebrew — “It’s easy. If the U.S. Government supports you, then you’re a guerrila (remember the Contras, Afghanistan in the 80s?). If you’re fighting against it, you’re a terrorist.”
Congratulations, Homebrew, you almost had a rational thought. Think about the real guerillas in history. Vietnam,Afghanistan and the Contras all had something in common that seperated them from the dozens of wannabees all over the World. They all had major nations that kept them supplied. They all had terrain to their advantage. (Nobody’s dug the warlords out of the mountains of Afghanistan in a couple of thousand years.) Rumsfield doesn’t see this in Iraq and neither do I.
From reading your posts, Read_Neck, I’m guessing that you can’t see or understand fucking anything. Rumsfeld might be a bit better, but then again…
didn’t that used to be called a French fighter?
didn’t that used to be called a French fighter?
Perhaps you would be willing to share with the dunderheads in this thread your oh-so-wise opinion as to exactly how the term “guerrilla” should be defined, and exactly who does and does not qualify.
Do you, for example, agree with the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, which simply says:
No mention there of needing “major nations to keep them supplied” or having “terrain to their advantage.”
And your definition of what constitutes a “real” guerrilla is ridiculously narrow. If a “major nation” is required to be a guerrilla, how do you explain groups like the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas in Peru, or the FARC in Colombia, or various guerrilla groups in Central American countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, or the FALINTIL resistance in East Timor? Many of these groups actively fought/fight against their nations, not in support of them. And i’m not sure what your definition of “major nation” is, but i don’t think that too many Central American countries would qualify in most people’s books. And have you seen the size of East Timor?
The “terrain to their advantage” argument also demonstrates ignorance of what it means to engage in guerrilla warfare. The key advantage to guerrilla warfare is stated right there in the OED definition–the fact that it is carried out in an irregular fashion by small groups of soldiers. Some guerrila groups do in fact operate in areas where the terrain affords them certain advantages, but these advantages accrue not because of the terrain itself, but because the guerrilla group is hard to detect and has good mobility–characteristics of a small, irregular force that can move on a moment’s notice and is not constrained by a normal army hierarchy.
Funny as this is, the sad thing about it is that it seems to be true for GWB and his Kings of Semantics.
I wonder when this thing will stop growing more surreal each and every day. Just last week, someone linked to a poll that showed 33% (or thereabouts) of Americans thought that Iraq was undoubtedly linked to Al Queda, and that Iraq undoubtedly posessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, a somewhat smaller percentage stated that they thought the US had already exposed those WMD’s. Not that they believed this might be the case. No. That they took it to be factually true.
That’s propaganda for you.
BTW, the quote stating the US has “the finest media in the world, representing the broadest spectrum of opinions. Our media is feisty, but also self-critical and self-correcting” cracked me up, too. While this is certainly true to a large extent when the written media are concerned, it completely misses the mark with regard to the main news broadcasting companies. And given the results of the mentioned poll, it’s pretty obvious which of the two media has a bigger influence on the American populace.
Aren’t their terrorist who’re supplied by major nations?
Aren’t there terrorist who have terrain to their advantage?
It’s all happened before.
Anyone remember Nixon’s press secretary and his remark, “This is the operative statement. All previous statements are inoperative?”
(Translated: I am telling the truth NOW. Believe it. All previous statements are to be forgotten immediately, particularly the ones that contradict this one.)
…and of course, Nixon himself, with his famous remark, “When the President does it… it is not illegal.”
It was crap then, of course, and it’s crap now.
Oh, and as to the porch collapse: I certainly don’t mean to belittle the people killed in that tragic accident, but I’m pretty sure that neither Bush nor Rumsfeld sent them there and told them to occupy that porch until further orders…
The administration wants us to believe that this war is nothing like Vietnam. In fact, it’s not a war at all. “Major Hostilities,” whatever those are, are officially over. Bush said so. We win, everyone go to hell who don’t agree.
The fact that American soldiers are being shot at on a daily basis is apparently meaningless. “Just a few malcontents, former Saddam people, and some foreigners. We’ll have 'em cleaned out in no time.”
Makes me wonder if the Israelis said the same thing when they took the West Bank.
Rumsfeld forgot to list the group of people who just don’t like having their country occupied.
Is a Dessert Sidewinder a kind of snake you eat with whipped cream?
Damn,mhendo,get a new dictionary. UnuMondo’s was much better. That definition sounds like your garden variety bandit. War is expensive and did you ever wonder what happens to a “small body of men” when they get caught out in the open. They get smaller quick.
Desmostylus – I’ve played the game on both sides of the ball. How about you,dumbass.
Is it just me or does that make no sense without further explanation.
Sorry, Read, but the OED is accepted as THE authority on our language. That is the generally accepted definition of guerilla. Tactically, of course a small force needs to use the terrain to its best advantage. So does a large force. But outside support? Not needed, especially in the early stages. Iraq had enough guns and ammunition floating around before the war to keep these guys armed for some time. Food can be bought, stolen, or supplied by sympathetic (or even unsympathetic, if at gunpoint) locals. Small bands of local people can fade into the population and an outside force will be hard pressed to tell who is friendly and who is not.
Sorry, but this is shaping up to be a CLASSIC guerilla war.
Firstly, if you can find me a better dictionary than the complete 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary, i’d be happy to have it.
As far as i could tell, UnuMondo simply pointed out the Spanish origins of the word. He made no reference to any dictionary whatsoever. And his definition was in no way inconsistent with my argument. It certainly made no reference to your two made-up criteria–the “major nation” and “terrain to their advantage.” I notice also that you have yet to address whether your definition of guerrilla conflicts with the OP’s.
You also completely fail to address the arguments i made in my post, which only leads me to conclude that you pulled your own definitions out of your ass, even though the presence of your head in that same orifice suggests that there isn’t much spare room up there.
Your reference to being “caught in the open” is a complete non sequitur, as far as i can tell. I you would connect your dribblings into a coherent argument, maybe we could continue this debate. So far, you’ve offered nothing of substance.
Maybe it’s like “batting for the other team” too?
I dunno. He doesn’t seem like any of our gay guys’ type.
The quote from Rumsfeld (in part):
Gee, you mean like the U.S. and U.K. troops? I think he’s nailed it. 