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Rumsfeld: Don't Call Them 'Insurgents'
AP (via Yahoo) ^ | 11/29/05

Posted on 11/29/2005 1:23:43 PM PST by Mr. Mojo

More than 2 1/2 years into the Iraq war, Donald H. Rumsfeld has decided the enemy are not insurgents.

"This is a group of people who don't merit the word `insurgency,' I think," Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference. He said the thought had come to him suddenly over the Thanksgiving weekend.

"It was an epiphany."

Rumsfeld's comments drew chuckles but had a serious side.

"I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and has a legitimate gripe," he said. "These people don't have a legitimate gripe." Still, he acknowledged that his point may not be supported by the standard definition of `insurgent.' He promised to look it up.

Webster's New World College Dictionary defines the term "insurgent" as "rising up against established authority."

Even Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stood beside Rumsfeld at the news conference, found it impossible to describe the fighting in Iraq without twice using the term `insurgent.'

After the word slipped out the first time, Pace looked sheepishly at Rumsfeld and quipped apologetically, "I have to use the word `insurgent' because I can't think of a better word right now."

Without missing a beat, Rumsfeld replied with a wide grin: "Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. How's that?"


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dod; insurgents; iraq; oif; rumsfeld; terrorists
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1 posted on 11/29/2005 1:23:44 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: Mr. Mojo

"Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. How's that?" - Sounds Good.


2 posted on 11/29/2005 1:25:55 PM PST by b4its2late (If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?)
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To: Mr. Mojo

how about: terrorists


3 posted on 11/29/2005 1:26:55 PM PST by samtheman
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To: Mr. Mojo

Rebels?

How about criminals?

Thugs? Oh, that would be too literal.

Ganstas?


4 posted on 11/29/2005 1:27:17 PM PST by Only1choice____Freedom (I alone, am the chosen one. Because I alone, did the choosing.)
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To: b4its2late

Call them what they are, terrorists and thugs.


5 posted on 11/29/2005 1:27:27 PM PST by CaptRon (Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead)
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To: b4its2late

No - just MURDERERS will do...


6 posted on 11/29/2005 1:27:29 PM PST by vimto (Life isn't a dry run)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Come on Rummy you can think of a better word than enemies,too.


7 posted on 11/29/2005 1:27:48 PM PST by BARLF
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: Mr. Mojo

Couldn't get past the first line. Those "objective" journalists of the AP start out with a sarcastic pot shot, cute.


9 posted on 11/29/2005 1:28:14 PM PST by scottinoc
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To: Mr. Mojo

They blow up school children and random roadside bystanders. They behead prisoners.

They are and always will be war criminals.

10 posted on 11/29/2005 1:28:26 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Am I just misremembering or didn't we used to call them just "enemies?"


11 posted on 11/29/2005 1:29:12 PM PST by B Knotts
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anti-iraq forces


12 posted on 11/29/2005 1:29:20 PM PST by 4rcane
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To: Mr. Mojo
Better late than never, Mr. Rumsfeld. LOL.

If you had read FreeRepublic on a regular basis, you'd find that I had made this exact point at least a year ago!

13 posted on 11/29/2005 1:29:27 PM PST by Alberta's Child (What it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet.)
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To: Mr. Mojo
"Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. How's that?"



14 posted on 11/29/2005 1:31:27 PM PST by G.Mason (When peace stands for surrender, fear, loss of dignity and freedom, it is no longer peace ...)
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To: Mr. Mojo

He's right, of course. Nice of AP to put such a nice editorial slant on a news story, though.


15 posted on 11/29/2005 1:31:34 PM PST by atomicpossum (Replies should be as pedantic as possible. I love that so much.)
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the media changed it to insurgents because the previous words used for them were not neutral and too pro-american, so in their effort to pick a neutral word, they pick one thats is sympathetic to the enemy


16 posted on 11/29/2005 1:31:40 PM PST by 4rcane
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To: Dukes Tears
403-3 US House completly defeated of your Anti American Cut and Run dogma. Sorry but you have ALL READY LOST the arguement in 2002 and 2004. I see you Hate America Always Leftists are going to cling to it again in 2006.

Yet again I will explain Iraq to you Newbie.

Counter Insurgency is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter". The other thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the cost, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.

Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasions of Italy was in 1943.

Here in a nutshell, is the MILTIARY reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).

There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the MILITARY reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.

Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners.

So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 you crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.

17 posted on 11/29/2005 1:31:58 PM PST by MNJohnnie (Sen John McCain is not only wrong, he is dangerous to your Rights)
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To: Mr. Mojo
"This is a group of people who don't merit the word `insurgency,'

Everybody and their dog has been saying this for 2 years here at FR.

Good luck, Rummy, this is the same press that refers to terrorists as "activists", "fundamentalists", "rebels", or "militants" if they really want to get tough. This is the same press that says that all Palestinians live in "refugee camps".

18 posted on 11/29/2005 1:32:07 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity ("Sharpei diem - Seize the wrinkled dog.")
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To: Mr. Mojo
"I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and has a legitimate gripe," he said. "These people don't have a legitimate gripe."

Also the fact that most of them are not even Iraqi helps prove that they aren't "insurgents".

19 posted on 11/29/2005 1:32:10 PM PST by BostonianRightist ("Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ~ Senator Goldwater)
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To: Mr. Mojo

"Terorist"...that's a better word.


20 posted on 11/29/2005 1:32:37 PM PST by mak5
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