I agree that “words mean things.” This is true when the Afghani Mujahedeen were called “freedom fighters” throughout the Reagan years. Life under the Taliban and with the likes of Osamasure gives the moniker of “freedom” a novel meaning, don’t you think.

Well, first off, did VOA call them “freedom fighters?” Seems to me that you’re making the leap from “resistance fighters” to “freedom fighters.”

And then, what are the definitions of “terrorist” and “resistance fighter?”

The Encarta Dictionary says a terrorist is “somebody who uses violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, to intimidate, often for political purposes.” I don’t think that works particularly well, because you could apply the “violence or threat of violence” to any nation that has a military force. Websters has “terrorism” as “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion” which comes closer, I believe.

When you look at the situation in Israel, when someone walks into a crowded pizza parlor and blows himself to bits, killing and maiming civilian men, women and children, you have clear acts of terrorism. But in Iraq, when the attacks are targeting our military, is that the same thing? Although the major military action is over, we are still at war. The “resistance” is using guerilla tactics, but it is war. I don’t think that calling the people attacking our troops “resistance fighters” is out of line. They’re resisting the US forces trying to restore stability in Iraq. They’re also the bad guys. They’re also quite likely illegal combatants—I’d be surprised if any of them are wearing uniforms, for example. But is an illegal combatant automatically a terrorist?

On the other hand, the attacks against the UN and that hotel were acts of terrorism.

And those attackes were, in all likelihood, perpetrated by the same people who are attacking our military.

“Resistance fighters” has a connotation, a cultural meaning, that you’re not likely to find in the dictionary. That cultural meaning, as I already described, indicates heroic citizens such as the French Resistance in World War II fighting the Nazi occupiers. It has no place in official US news outlets as a reference to anyone killing our troops. Its use demonstrates poorly thought-out communication principles. We should not describe our enemies as resistance fighters and terrorists in the same article—it demonstrates confusion on our part. It’s just good communication principle to maintain consistency in labelling, and to keep certain labels off the table.

As for the mujihadeen, I’m getting pretty tired of subject-changers referring to 20 year old wars as evidence that the US is bad or that this war is just like the last one or whatever canard the left wants to toss up. We supported them against the USSR. They were mostly citizens resisting an external totalitarian threat. That most of them would eventually morph into the Taliban was not foreseen at the time. The Reagan admin was not omniscient, and could not see the future. Calling the mujihadeen “resistance fighters” made sense at the time, given our admittedly scant knowledge of their post-war intentions and the nature of their war against the USSR. What should the Reagan admin have called them?

We are not an external totalitarian threat. And Iraqi terrorists are not “resistance fighters.”

I’m not convinced that the cultural connotation you mention is as widespread as you think it is, and we’re probably not going to settle that here. Be that as it may, in my opinion it comes down to using the right words to describe actions and the actors. “Terrorist” and “terrorism” have meanings that are already in danger of being lost because the words are being misapplied, much as “fascist” is now a catch-all insult used by the intellectually lazy against anyone they disagree with.

If you insist on calling all attacks against troops in a war zone “terrorism,” without making any distinctions between types of attacks, you’re misapplying the word.

So they’re terrorists when they attack the UN with a bomb, but not terrorists when they attack US forces with a bomb. Most of the attacks against the US troops have been with mines or pre-positioned car bombs—there has been very little face-to-face fighting going on. When there is face-to-face fighting, it usually occurs either when our guys see the bombers fleeing and engage them or when our troops raid hideouts. But whether they’re attacking the UN, the Red Cross or the US 4th ID, it’s the same people, attacking in the same manner, for the same goal, most of the time. So do we define them by their target, or by their tactics and intentions?

I’m not being snarky—just asking the question: How should we define these guys? Our own government calling our own enemies “resistance fighters” just strikes me as dumb. We might as well call them the rebel alliance, dress them up in Jedi outfits and put President Bush in a big black plastic mask. Ok, that’s a stretch, though not by much if you read Democrats.com most days. I’m surprised they didn’t adopt “resistance fighter” to describe themselves a long time ago. But wait—they did use it in referring to Chirac’s intransigence in the UN. He became the “French resistance,” and they celebrated him on Fourth of July this year.

But getting back to the subject, I think it makes sense to adopt a clear and consistent label or set of labels and apply them. We should weed out misleading or confusing labels. That’s just good basic public communications principle. “Resistance fighter” is ambiguous—they are usually but not always seen as the good guys. The evidence for its ambiguous nature is the very discussion we are having, and that the LA Times has already had. They dropped the term when referring to whoever it is that is attacking us in Iraq. “Terrorist” is clear and unambiguous—they are always bad guys. That term seems applicable to people who set off bombs intended to kill our troops as well as our civilians or the UN’s bureaucrats, when you take into account that these attackers don’t wear uniforms, don’t represent a nation-state, don’t fight directly and don’t care if civilians get killed in the process.

If we were getting a clear picture of what’s going on in Iraq from our media (and that’s a whole nother rant), then it might be a lot easier to decide what the best word is. But we’re not. What I hear on the top-of-the-hour newscasts is “X American soldiers were killed today” with just about no fricking context. Newspapers aren’t much better. If you don’t dig in, you’re not going to get a clear picture of who the enemy is (or perhaps that should be “who the enemies are”), and who’s doing what. You’ve got the Baathist holdouts, but then there are all the nutjobs coming in from Syria, etc. Are they all banding together, or are they freelancing and picking off targets of opportunity? Do our intelligence guys even have a good handle on this?

I’m not trying to be snarky either. I’m just asking if “terrorist” is the term we want to slap on these guys globally. I’m much more concerned that we get to the point where we can call them “dead.” But I brought it up because our opponents are all to keen to apply the “terrorist” label to us, just as the Palestinians are eager to call the IDFs actions “terrorism.” (That whole moral equivalence thing, y’know.)

I was thinking about the example of our covert operations in the run-up to the major shooting. I don’t know what all these guys were up to, but it likely involved a lot of sneaking around in disguise or under cover. I bet the were blowing stuff up, too. And I hope they inspired fear in our enemies. But I’m not going to let anyone slap the “terrorist” label on them.

I don’t know. Maybe “terrorist” is the right word. But I want to be sure we’re using it for the right reasons. “All wisdom is rooted in learning to call things by the right name.” — Kung-fu Tze

Bryan is exactly right.

But what should we call them? How about “facists”? Some of them are Islamofacists, and the rest are Baathist fascists. Too bad the left has destroyed the meaning of this word. Here, it fits.

Here’s another reason, and one you won’t hear in the press. I got it second-hand.

A friend of mine’s son is a tank officer in the 4th ID, serving in Baquba. His group has engaged these shadowy terror fighters on a few occassions. The engagements invariably follow bombings of some kind. In one case, his group had caught one of these fedayeen scum and was interrogating him in a building that the 4th had taken over to use as HQ. The captured fedayeen’s buddies found out where he was, and rather than even try and rescue him they just fired off an RPG at the building, shattering an exterior wall and wounding several US soldiers (including my friend’s son—he suffered a broken nose and some cuts and bruises). Some US troops saw where the RPG came from and gave chase to the triggermen, eventually killing about half of them before the rest got away. These fedayeen typically run around in small groups of 8 or less, drop off a bomb or fire off a rocket and then run. Our guys respond and capture or kill as many as possible while also tending to the wounded, including Iraqi civilians. Wounding civilians seems to be part of the plan—it slows down our pursuit and sends jitters through the Iraqi community.

What we get from the press is entirely one-sided—we hear about the attack and US casualties, but rarely hear about the battle or pursuit that follows the attack. That makes it seem more like a traditional war than what it is—an ongoing fight against a terrorist army which aims to drive us out via a war of attrition coupled with political consequences for each US soldier killed. The press, wittingly or not, serves as a kind of Sin Fein for the fedayeen/al Qaeda terrorist army by playing up the political dimension of US casualties without providing relevant context.

What about (maniacal) Islamic militants?

Thats all they are, afterall.

Or I almost forgot, a term I started using on Sunday after the Chinook went down killing 16 brave American soldiers.

United Militia of Terrorists (UMT)

Although I think the word “Islamic” really needs to be in their, since that is their primary source of inspiration. UMIT maybe?

I use “Caliphascist” myself, because not only is the ideology a derivative of fascism but the Caliphate is a key image for both the religious and secular hard cases.