Surely they are the equivilent to a resistance force?
They are objecting to the continued occupation of their country. Admittedly, if they laid down their arms the elections could go ahead much more smoothly. But, to brand them all as terrorists, when they are clearly not, is wrong IMHO. They are clearly demonstrating as Insurgents and that is what they are.
They are rising in revolt against established authority. This is the dictionary definition. This is what they are doing.
IIRC, a large segment of their group is composed of non-Iraqi forces, brought in to the country by al Quaida. Personally I prefer the term "insurrectionists"
Well...you have segments of Al Queda, segments of Al Zarqawi loyalists and segments of Islamic extremists..
They are executing their own people inside Fallujah and blowing up innocent women and children, Iraqi soldiers and policemen all aver the area..They are beheading innocents.
You can call them minutemen like Michael Moore does..I'll call them TERRORISTS..That is what Allawi called them,too.
Like Al Sadr did...3 times?
Nonsense. Excuse me for poppimg your politically correct bubble, but these same "resistors" have used women and children as shields and suicide bombers to further their mission. Many of them aren't even Iraqi's but Pali's, Iranians, etc. brought in for the sole purpose of killing coalition members, the Iraqi's be damned.
They are ruthless terrorists. And any other word is not only a gross mischaracterization and underestimation, it's downright foolish.
Prairie
I would call them rebels or insurgents if they cared about Iraq and this was a "patriotic" thing to them. Clearly, it is not. This is all about killing Americans. They are terrorists.
Why should they be branded terrorists?
Surely they are the equivilent to a resistance force?
They are objecting to the continued occupation of their country.
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Aren't these people are from Syria, Iran and so on. How can they be fighting for their country?
Kidnapping and beheading civilians and stringing them up on bridges; surely, this fits in with your dictionary definition of insurgent.
They are terrorists not "insurgents." They are not objecting to the occupation of their country, because its not their country. First, most of the terrorists we are fighting now are not from Iraq - we killed quite of few of the local terrorists over the past year. Second, the country belongs to Iraq not the Muslim terrorists seeking to obtain control. Third, it is Iraq troops, under the control of the Iraq goverment that are attacking the terrorists - with the assistance of other countries. Thus, your main premise implying they are defending their country from foreign invasion is false and misleading.
Led by a Jordanian (actually, Palestinian) terrorist aligned with Osama Bin Laden?
Forces made up of as much as 30% foreigners?
I don't think they are either insurgents or resistance. I think you need to rethink your support for giving them some sort of noble appellation.
Im sure that the innocent civilians and new police cadets (i.e. established authority) that are targets of their car bombs will be relieved by your more accurate classification of them as insurgents"
By that simplistic definition, Timothy McVeigh was and insurgent too. Language doesn't change reality, but only attempts to describe it.
I accept that we cannot automatically disqualify non-iraqi's fighting the coalition forces as resistance fighters. We should ask, "what are their aims?" and "what are their methods?". It's looking at these two questions that lead me to believe that they don't qualify as "legitimate resistance". Their aims vary from re-establishing the Baathist dictatorship to enforcing Sharia Law or to killing as many infidel as possible (in Iraq and BEYOND) but any sort of "liberation" of the people figures extremely low on their lists (if at all). On the contray, their methods have intentionally taken the lives of thousands of Iraqi's - the same Iraqi's you would argue they were trying to liberate from occupation.
Let's imagine still (being absurdly generous) that some of those in Fallujah are genuinely trying to liberate their fellow Iraqi's and have their best interests at heart. The question I'd ask you here is why would such "noble resistance fighters" tolerate the presence of those that have murdered so many of their people? How can Al Zaqawi and those like him operate amongst them, in their own backyard? I can't answer that question, can you?
Zarqawi is not Iraqi... Many of the insurgents are from other countries in the area...
I got an idea!
Why'nt you go on down there and see for yourself?