Mariner
Active Member
I've complained on this message board many times about Bush & Co.'s overly general use of the word "terrorists" and the phrase "war on terrorism."
I've argued that we should be careful to distinguish Al Qaeda terrorists who committed 9/11 from Palestinian terrorists who have their own goals, from the insurgents in Iraq, who form over 100 different groups with different aims, from Sunni groups angry that we took away their power to Shi'ite groups who hate being occupied even by their liberators.
Given that terrorists come in different stripes, some might potentially be our allies, as today's New York Times reports (this is an excerpt from the complete article--see the link for the whole thing). Imagine, our sworn enemies are about to become our friends! This is as it should be in war, but makes clear why Bush's overly general way of seeing things is inappropriate.
An overly general way of seeing things tends to distort perceptions about what's going on (e.g. when people say, "They all want to kill us," that's not true. Some of them simply want us out of Iraq. Some only want a Palestinian state. And others--such as Al Qaeda--really do want to kill us.) It was this type of overly general thinking which led Bush to believe the war was over in 3/03--he'd liberated "the Iraqi people," after all. He forgot to notice that there were three big groups of Iraqi people, and lots of little ones within them, not all of whom were so grateful for U.S. intervention and occupation. More importantly, I believe that the overly general way of seeing things feeds into an "us versus them" mentality which damages our ability to see our enemies' motivations accurately, and tends to make us angry with all Muslims rather than with specific terrorist groups for their own specific reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/i.../12insurgent.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
Local Insurgents Tell of Clashes With Al Qaeda's Forces in Iraq
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DEXTER FILKINS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.
In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.
Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.
"Al Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."
The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.
The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.
American and Iraqi officials believe that the conflicts present them with one of the biggest opportunities since the insurgency burst upon Iraq nearly three years ago. They have begun talking with local insurgents, hoping to enlist them to cooperate against Al Qaeda, said Western diplomats, Iraqi officials and an insurgent leader.
It is impossible to say just how far the split extends within the insurgency, which remains a lethal force with a shared goal of driving the Americans out of Iraq. Indeed, the best the Americans can hope for may be a grudging passivity from the Iraqi insurgents when the Americans zero in on Al Qaeda's forces.
But the split within the insurgency is coinciding with Sunni Arabs' new desire to participate in Iraq's political process, and a growing resentment of the militants. Iraqis are increasingly saying that they regard Al Qaeda as a foreign-led force, whose extreme religious goals and desires for sectarian war against Iraq's Shiite majority override Iraqi tribal and nationalist traditions.
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Mariner
I've argued that we should be careful to distinguish Al Qaeda terrorists who committed 9/11 from Palestinian terrorists who have their own goals, from the insurgents in Iraq, who form over 100 different groups with different aims, from Sunni groups angry that we took away their power to Shi'ite groups who hate being occupied even by their liberators.
Given that terrorists come in different stripes, some might potentially be our allies, as today's New York Times reports (this is an excerpt from the complete article--see the link for the whole thing). Imagine, our sworn enemies are about to become our friends! This is as it should be in war, but makes clear why Bush's overly general way of seeing things is inappropriate.
An overly general way of seeing things tends to distort perceptions about what's going on (e.g. when people say, "They all want to kill us," that's not true. Some of them simply want us out of Iraq. Some only want a Palestinian state. And others--such as Al Qaeda--really do want to kill us.) It was this type of overly general thinking which led Bush to believe the war was over in 3/03--he'd liberated "the Iraqi people," after all. He forgot to notice that there were three big groups of Iraqi people, and lots of little ones within them, not all of whom were so grateful for U.S. intervention and occupation. More importantly, I believe that the overly general way of seeing things feeds into an "us versus them" mentality which damages our ability to see our enemies' motivations accurately, and tends to make us angry with all Muslims rather than with specific terrorist groups for their own specific reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/i.../12insurgent.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
Local Insurgents Tell of Clashes With Al Qaeda's Forces in Iraq
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DEXTER FILKINS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.
In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.
Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.
"Al Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."
The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.
The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.
American and Iraqi officials believe that the conflicts present them with one of the biggest opportunities since the insurgency burst upon Iraq nearly three years ago. They have begun talking with local insurgents, hoping to enlist them to cooperate against Al Qaeda, said Western diplomats, Iraqi officials and an insurgent leader.
It is impossible to say just how far the split extends within the insurgency, which remains a lethal force with a shared goal of driving the Americans out of Iraq. Indeed, the best the Americans can hope for may be a grudging passivity from the Iraqi insurgents when the Americans zero in on Al Qaeda's forces.
But the split within the insurgency is coinciding with Sunni Arabs' new desire to participate in Iraq's political process, and a growing resentment of the militants. Iraqis are increasingly saying that they regard Al Qaeda as a foreign-led force, whose extreme religious goals and desires for sectarian war against Iraq's Shiite majority override Iraqi tribal and nationalist traditions.
* * *
Mariner
