I’ve noticed that the US military has taken to referring to insurgents as “criminals” rather than terrorists or jihadis.
For some reason this reminds me of the Commie governments calling all opponents bandits and criminals, and I find it vaguely disturbing.
While there is no doubt much overlap, I’m sure there are purely criminal mafia-type gangs running around Iraq and tangling with our forces. Lumping these in with the religiously and/or politically motivated types seems to me to obscure an important distinction.
We’re fighting believers in a particular ideology, not just criminals out for loot and power.
Nuance. We don't want to alienate our global muslim bro's, despite the fact that their money keeps funding the "criminals" we keep killing who make every effort to kill us first. It's the only kindler, gentler thing to do.
The idea seems to be that calling them jihadis may evoke religiously based sympathy or loyalty to them among the populace. I doubt it makes much difference what we call them-- the people know who and what they are and will respond accordingly-- but we paid some functionary in the State Department a fat salary to think this up, so there it is--your tax dollars at work.
Sadr’s Mahdi Army tugs are criminals
al Qaeda are terrorists Jihadi Islam-O-Fascists.
Actually, I believe it was the Iraqi government officials and army that started the use of the term “criminals”.