Comments on: No more “insurgents,” please

By: charlotte

charlotte — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:40:50 +0000

On PBS tonight, our favorite prof Juan Cole called those we are still fighting in Iraq “rejectionists”. I suppose he didn’t coin this term with their rejection of civilized behavior and even of life in mind. He may not even be referring to their rejection of democracy per se, only to the fact they are rejecting us, our intervention, and the attempts to set up a government they don’t control.

My vote is not to stay with a one word term wrt Iraq because nothing seems to capture the dual nature of these really evil people, and the corrupt secular interests should have equal billing to the hideous religious ones. So, I’d go with a mouthful for everyone to have to fully digest, such as “jihadist and Baathist terrorists”. Or maybe an even bigger mouthful, “Islamofascist and Baathist terrorists”.

What to call their acolytes, minions, enablers and brainwashed lackeys? Well, some might term them the “the leftist press”…

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:29:13 +0000

Targets?

Oh, I like that!

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:16:26 +0000

How about “targets?”

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:57:48 +0000

All right, I am settling on ìjihadisî. This tells us all we need to know: the fanatical devotion to the cause, the perpetual. holy war with the Other (otherwise known as Unbelievers), and the religious roots, even if some of them evolved away from the strictly theological background.

By: Knucklehead

Knucklehead — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:52:03 +0000

I don’t care if we call them terrorists or murdering scum. I personally like Islamomurderer but that lets the secularists or otherly religioned among them off the hook. The message – whether to Salafist, Wahabi, Mindinao Mufti, Basque Catholic, or Garden Variety Marxist – needs to be the pointed end of the Iraqi Catherine quoted via the NYT, “We will kill you.”

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 14:14:53 +0000

Since we keep getting told the islamofascists don’t represent all of Islam, how about just “cultists”… or barbarians…

By: David Thomson

David Thomson — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 09:23:34 +0000

ìIslamo-fascist is betterî

No, it is not. The Fascism of Mussolini, Franco, and even Hitler did not require suicide for the cause. Risking oneís life was demanded—but not outright suicide. We are dealing first, last, and foremost with nihilism! Death and destruction are ends to themselves. This world is essentially meaningless. The followers of Allah are to hurry up and die so that they can enter an afterlife of never ending pleasures.

By: Dean Esmay

Dean Esmay — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:40:54 +0000

Reactionaries? Not a bad choice, although I’ve been reserving that for the so-called “liberal” anti-war people, who aren’t liberal in any sense of the word but rather are simply anti-humanist, anti-progressive reactionaries. I prefer the plain old label “terrorist” for the remaining Saddamite and extreme theocrat lunatics. But calling them all reactionary elements–the violent and the non-violent reactionaries, let’s say–does have a certain charm doesn’t it?

By: UpNights

UpNights — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 04:58:00 +0000

Why not just call them anti-democracy forces?

Isn’t that neutrally descriptive, nonjudgmental enough for the MSM? It also emphasises their lack of a positive agenda.

IIRC, Salafis are Muslims who observe a strict form of Islam that they believe is the pure form of the religion that was observed by Muhammed and his companions. IIRC, al-Wahhab was an 18th Century Salafist who allied with the Saudi tribe and established their delightful religious-political-legal principles. Thus, Salafism is the worldwide movement and Wahhabism is the Saudi version.

IIRC, Ba’athism is a secular movement (actually started by a Lebanese Christian), which is basically pan-Arab fascism. After the first Gulf War, Saddam tried to acquire Islamist legitimacy and support by building huge mosques, having a Koran written with his own blood, and adding “Allahu Akhbar” to the flag in his own handwriting. Whatever their spiritual affiliation or sincerity, I think that Ba’athists and secular Palestinian groups (such as Fatah), as well as Salafists (such as Hamas and al-Qaeda) and Shi’a Islamists (such as the Iranian mullahs and their Hezbollah protegees) all believe in jihad – conquest by Muslims (whether to reinstate the Caliphate or to glorify a particular egomaniac) and defeat of the infidels (whether that means anyone non-Salafi, or just non-Muslim, or the US, and always the Jews). So, Jihadist is also an applicable term.

By: John Moore ( Useful Fools )

John Moore ( Useful Fools ) — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 04:00:36 +0000

Although we make a distinction between the secular Baathists and the rest, it is my understanding that many of the Sunni’s fighting for the Baathists have absorbed enough of the Wahhabi or Salafist or whatever ideas that they believe they are fighting a religious war.

The high level Baathists, who are probably sitting safely in Damascus (they think… it’s close to Tomahawk time), are pure Fascists, but they are using religion (as Saddam did after 1990) to fire up support and create suicide troops.

Does anyone know if Saddam allowed the Wahhabi’s in a while back? I think he did, perhaps to take advantage of their ability to create suicidal psychopaths.

Islamofascist probably is the best term.

As far as a war of civilizations… we are in it. There is fighting from the Phillipines to the middle east through the Sahel desert. Wahhabis are moving into South America.

But like any modern war, it ain’t that simple. The bad guys are a slice of a large society – but a big enough piece to terrorize the rest into going along.

This election will put a big dent in their plans. Taking out Syria will also.