L.A. Times Bans 'Resistance Fighters' in Iraq News

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031106/ts_nm/iraq_usa_media_dc&cid=564&ncid=1473

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as "resistance fighters," saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.

The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms "insurgents" or "guerrillas."

McCoy told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints. The memo first surfaced on the Web site L.A. Observed (www.laobserved.com)

"(Times Managing Editor) Dean Baquet and I both individually had the same reaction when we saw the term used in the newspaper," McCoy said. "Both of us felt the phrase evoked a certain feeling, that there was a certain romanticism or heroism to the resistance."

more

[neuvocat]

1. More like "Freedom Fighters"

just like you would have "Fire Fighters"-always fighting (against) freedom.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

2. Doubt that

Wrong war or not, I don't believe for one second that if these "insurgents" prevailed that they'd be going out of their way to ensure anyone's "freedom."

[Scurrilous]

4. The Iraqis want freedom from foreign occupation..

..and they're willing to fight for it. I can see where the term 'freedom fighter' might apply to their efforts.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

9. Right

Like a serial murderer wants his own freedom. You can stick up for those guys if you want, not me. I hope we're successful now that were there and that few Americans and Iraqis die.

[Scurrilous]

17. Hey...

..we're arguing semantics here, don't go getting all apples and oranges on me.

[atreides1]

19. Okay

So if another country launched an attack against the US, and then occupied it, would that mean that resistance fighters here in the US would be the same as serial murderers, or would they be fighting an
unwanted Army on its soil.

You can't have it both ways. Either the Iraqis who are fighting are
resistance fighters, or Americans who would be doing the same thing would be considered, at least by you, to be serial murderers.

As for your hope that few Iraqis and Americans die, guess what, it's too late for that.

American/British over 300 dead, 1800-1900 wounded, 4500 evacuated from
Iraq for various physical and psychlogical reasons

Iraqi civilians killed at least 15,000

So what is your definition of a few?

[MartinAmbroseForan]

23. A few?

The numbers you cite are still far lower than the deaths attributed to the U.N. approved sanctions.

Comparing an invasion of the U.S. with a temporary incursion into Iraq is folly. An invasion is entering a country for the purpose of conquest or plunder. We aren't there for conquest or plunder. You may have a different opinion. I just gave you mine.

At this point in time I openly and loudly support the Americans and pray for a quick and merciful victory.

You are welcome to do otherwise.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

28. Using the sanctions isn't proof of anything

This has only gone on a few months. Besides, included in those deaths people attribute to the sanctions were acts of war such as the deliberate poisoning of their water supply.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

32. Give me a source

from the UN of course

[pluralist23]

41. blahblahblah

Sadly the Iraqis, if indeed they are Iraqis, can be categorized as resistance fighters in that they are resisting the efforts of an occupying military force to dictate the future of their country.
The Iraqis never once asked the US to invade. The country is predominantly Shi'i and the Shi'i philosophy has very little in common with the Western ideal of how a government should be run. The US is trying to superimpose their standards and ideals of government upon a nation of people who for the most part have very little respect for these standards and ideals. The US is far too arrogant and ignorant to accept these facts and as a result the Iraqi people must use the only method of fighting at their disposal when faced with superior force, asymetrical warfare.
They are resistance fighters and Melissa McCoy is buckling to passive political pressure by censoring the journalists in this way.

[drewb]

42. Not for conquest or plunder????

How's the weather on planet Mars???

:crazy:

[bitchkitty]

48. We aren't there for conquest or plunder...

Then why are we there? It seems to me that bombing a place flat would be considered conquest, and handing over the oil to Halliburton smacks of plunder to me.

edit - spelling

[atreides1]

53. How Many Dead Is Too Many For You?

How many more will have to die for your quick and merciful victory.

And for your information I wore a uniform, and fought in Desert Storm. And I support the troops, my question for you is will you support the troops when its over. Have you written your representatives regarding the budget cuts to the VA? It would seem to me that your support is selective. Support the troops but screw the Veterans. Just an opinion.

Not it it for conquest or plunder, what planet are you on? If I remember Dick Cheney said it would only take six months once we ca-ptured Baghdad. Now the administration is saying 5 - 10 years.

By the way when is your country going to send troops, or perhaps you might want to come to the US and enlist, so that you can be part of the quick and merciful end to this "incursion".

As I have stated, I hope that support applies to all American soldiers, both past and present, but somehow I doubt it.

So the US is not interested in conquest, but isn't one of the results of conquest the changing of the form of government to suit the conqueror. We just have to look at Germany and Japan for evidence, as far as plunder, there was a report that $4 billion dollars of Iraqi oil money hasn't been kept track of.

Maybe you can provide us with information about what happened to the money, and why the Iraqis should create the type of government that we are telling them to create, instead of one that they want.

[blindpig]

54. conquest or plunder?

You've got to be kidding. Oil has nothing to do with it? We invaded to save ourselves from WMD's?Wanna buy a bridge in Booklyn?

[PsychoDad]

38. Successful at what?

Just what are "we" trying to be successful at? Pillaging the country and stealing the oil for american interests?

What is our goal?
When will we know if we have attained it?

There is no goal beyond occupation and plunder... If there is another goal, please share it.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

39. I disagree

The goal is to bring about a stable, democratic Iraq without U.S troops or any other troops present.

Like Bosnia.

[PsychoDad]

40. How shall we acheive those goals...

When the majority of the country will support a government counter to the wishes of the U.S.

Remember the Shia? This very large majority has been fairly quiet. Our fight has for the most part with the so called "saddam loyalists", The Baath party and the sunni minority. Once the Shia shake out their own political structure and decide to act, they will in all probablity move for a Islamic Republic, not a government beholding to the U.S. This goes counter to the goals of this administration.

And, unlike Bosnia we do not have a coalition of neighboring countries willing to assist and invest in the rebuilding of Iraq. Perhaps if we were to withdraw while emplacing an arab coalition to govern the country while in transition, we could withdraw from this quagmire. But that also goes counter to the goals of this administration.

This is very differnt from Bosnia.

[Scott Lee]

7. That's an Iraqi dilemma, not ours...

And in no way does it negate the reality that those fighting to oust US troops are indeed RESISTANCE fighters.

And no, I don't give a shit if that fact gives Ms. Thang, from the LA Times, the runs.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

10. Really?

You are assigning motives to them that you have no way of knowing are true or not.

[leesa]

13. They are fighting against invaders who attacked them and murdered

their citizens without ANY provocation. The US conducted an illegal and immoral invasion of a disarmed country. Not only were we cowards to do so, we were ethically and legally wrong. These people are defending their country. When they kick the US out, they will find their freedom.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

20. Defending their country?

Or defending their right to place their "boots on the neck" of that country?

[RapidCreek]

34. Sort of like the IRA and Sinn Fein

defended the right to place their boots on the neck of those bogtrotting Taigs squatting on the Queens property, right? Ok I understand where you're comming from now. >sarcasm off.

RC

[MartinAmbroseForan]

22. Murdered?

Quite a legal conclusion you have come to there.

[rustydog]

16. We prevailed and have done NOTHING

for Iraqi "freedom" What we have done is seize their oil producing capability and allowed the country to fall into chaos.


We illegally invaded the soverign nation of Iraq, murdered tens of thousands of Iraqi military and civilian population and the first move we made after entering the country was to seize the oil fields and conveniently forget all about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction that posed such an imminent danger to America and Americans.

The Iraqi "insurgents"are every bit a freedom-fighter as colonial American minutemen.

[MartinAmbroseForan]

21. Interesting

Now just where were the British rape rooms and torture cells?

[Old and In the Way]

31. Our friends in Ubekistan torture people by boiling them alive

but, I guess they don't have the world's #2 oil reserves.....

BTW, the British were quite capable of torture. Do you remember the Hessians that they employed during the Revolutionary War? I'm sure the English newspapers were labeling the colonists everything but "freedom fighters", too.

I'll bet you were a real big supporter of the VietNam War....the only that killed 50,000 Americans and 1.5MM+ Vietnamese. And what did that war accomplish?

[MartinAmbroseForan]

33. Well, if the post-war era is any guide

Several million Cambodians and other Southeast Asians lived a few years longer.

"In 1969 the United States carpet-bombed suspected communist base camps in Cambodia, killing thousands of civilians and dragging the country unwillingly into the US-Vietnam conflict. American and South Vietnamese troops invaded the country in 1970 to eradicate Vietnamese communist forces but were unsuccessful; they did manage, however, to push Cambodia's leftist guerillas (the Khmer Rouge) further into the country's interior. Savage fighting soon engulfed the entire country, with Phnom Penh falling to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975."

"During their rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge slaughtered two or three million inhabitants -- over one-fourth of Cambodia's total population! I request that the United Nations investigate the extent of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, and put the leaders on trial for crimes against humanity. Those convicted should then be either executed or sentenced to long prison terms."

[0rganism]

43. Do you know WHO finally overthrew the Khmer Rouge? Surprise answer!

Wait for it....

The VIETNAMESE! Yes, those same communists we spent so much money to eradicate from their native country ended up having to uncover the mess that American attacks on Cambodian infrastructure created.

By the time Americans pulled out of Vietnam, Cambodia and other parts of Southeast Asia in the mid-70s, we didn't give a rat's ass if the Khmer Rouge were killing by the thousands or the tens of thousands or the millions. It was too expensive, too politically charged, too unsafe, too ugly, too insane. Not all the rubber trees in the world could have kept us involved. Real enemies with real weapons and real determination make occupying a country into living hell.

Much easier to pick on the non-targets, like Grenada, or the bombs-only targets like Libya. Gives you that same sweet taste of power and vengeance, but none of those extra calories that come with actually doing something responsible.

Kosovo was a mess. Clinton, and even Clark, still catch shit over the intervention in Kosovo because NATO actually tried to do something. Afghanistan is a mess. Of course, it was such a freaking mess before that any net loss would be hard to measure -- the Afghan people actually considered the Taliban to be an improvement, that's how fucked up the place was twenty years ago. Iraq, though, is a different order of mess. It's an expensive mess. It's a modernized mess. It's a complicated delicate mess. Hussein's totalitarian regime was a relatively stable balancing force within the mess, with predictable motives and methods. We removed that regime.

Now we are left with an unbalanced mess like we haven't seen in 30 years. I doubt that our friends in the departments of state and defense are capable of fixing it.

[RapidCreek]

36. Ask Lord Widgery.

Glenfada Park
Ballykinler
Magilligan
Girdwood Barracks
Undisclosed locations following hellicopter rides.

Ooooh....you don't mean in Ireland...you mean in Iraq? Well give me a couple of years. I'm sure I'll be able to come up with some stuff after the smoke clears. In the mean time have a look at this ....Granted the torture wasn't carried out in a room or cell....then again they really didn't have access to any at the time nor I suppose would they have needed it if they'd been smart enough not to take photographs.

RC

[saigon68]

46. They are the RESISTANCE

Like the Frenchin WW 2

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Good. Because Bush was warned they would FACE a guerilla war

and chose to ignore those warnings. Frankly, I think guerilla drives the point home better.

[Democat]

5. The White House told them not to use it

The White House controls the U.S. media.

[saigon68]

50. The U.S. media is 5 huge corporations

To keep their profits up, they need to keep the sheep in line. These sheep buy pepsi, viagra , preparation H, and denture adhesive. They need to be pacified by football and other sports.

Please don't upset them.

[alcuno]

6. I actually agree with this.

Aren't they just Iraqi nationalists?

[Scott Lee]

8. Don't "nationalists" usually RESIST invaders?

n/t

[i have issues]

12. "Ragheads" maybe?

Sarcasm off. Jebezus, I've been kinda pleased with the reporting in the LA Times of late...but just WHAT is the proper term for Iraqi's fighting an illegal and unprovoked attack and occupation? Semantics makes me nuts sometimes....,

[IndianaGreen]

24. And Americans are the colonials

and I supposed we can't refer to the occupation as "occupation" but as "liberation."

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the
manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words,
you can control the people who must use the words."

(Philip K. Dick)

[thebigidea]

45. great PKD quote

[rocktivity]

11. But WW II resistance fighters were rightfully defending themselves

from having been pre-emptively and illegally attacked...oops. Maybe the real problem isn't that calling them "resistance" fighters romanticizes them, it LEGITIMIZES them!


rocknation

[midwest_lurker]

14. replacement terms . . .

"insurgents" or "guerrillas" (the suggested replacements) is better than using the misleading or incorrect term "terrorists", wouldn't folks around here agree with that?

[Dhalgren]

52. Yes, just as it would be better than calling them Baptists.

To say that because "guerrilla" or "insugent" is more accurate than "terrorist", is not to say they are more accurate than anything else. "Resistance fighter" is much more accurate a term than "terrorist", and is at least as accurate as "guerrilla" or "insurgent".

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. Bullshit. They got a memo from the regime

just a suggestion, not an order. just a suggestion.

[Pert_UK]

18. It's SO much nicer to be shot by an insurgent, rather than the resistance

:eyes:

Perhaps if the Bush administration worried more about the actual minefields rather than semantic ones, we'd be doing a bit better all round.

It's the Blair principle - it doesn't matter how well we're doing, providing that there are convincing ways of making it sound OK.

P.

[Cat Atomic]

25. Well, Reagan called his Nicaraguan terrorists "Freedom Fighters", so

I don't really see the problem here.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

26. I guess they'll change "dead" to "taking a nap" so as to avoid giving

Americans the idea that all is not going just peachy in iraq.

[saigon68]

47. TAKING A DIRT NAP

That's the ticket

[Voltaire99]

27. Sadly inevitable

The war's being lost. Losing a war makes intellectual honesty next to impossible for any society, and especially any commercial media.

The LA Times - one of the two or three major American newspapers worth reading - is trying to head off villification and economic punishment.

WW II mythologizing has been running at full blast in recent years, led as much by Hollywood and the cottage industry of "Greatest Generation" propaganda as it has by the vast profits in WW II-themed video games (which out-earn many major films). A precondition of the Iraq invasion was a heavy dosing of the American public with such romantic and idealized images. The Times dreads being accused of impiety.

We'll be seeing more of this as the occupation worsens. Despite the LA Times' managing editor bragging on CSPAN the other day about how much better today's papers are over their counterparts of thirty years ago, I don't expect the cravenness to look much different than when Herbert Marcuse diagnosed it in reporting on the Vietnam War.

[IndianaGreen]

49. Don't you know that the USA won the WWII all by ourselves?

This is why American troops were the first to liberate concentration camps inmates and take over Berlin. Oooops, those were Soviets who did that!



Soviet troops raise their banner over the Reichstag.

[peterh]

29. For the most part…I’m taking issue with this….

I don’t think it’s any secret that the WH wants to convey the message that the hostilities are being manufactured by foreign sympathizers, hence insurgents. Which also plays into the desired image that true Iraqis (Baathist excluded) truly want freedom and democracy. If you remember last week after a car bombing, it was reported that a Syrian National was captured at the scene and who woulda thunk, the critter was carrying his passport with him and the first words out of his mouth were….you guessed it…I’m a Syrian National…all this while lying on the ground wounded.

Now, I think we kinda have the insurgents defined, what about the guerrillas? Ahhhh, enter the dreaded, evil, Saddam loyalist….the Baathist party member. There’s an image here that is also trying to be conveyed….unorganized, isolated, unsophisticated, hit and run tactics. I believe a general used most of those terms a few days ago. In essence, guerrilla warfare.

Now from that perspective, I don’t have a real problem with the terms. My problem is, I don’t believe that perspective is in fact…the reality of the situation. I believe there are both Baathists and non acting and fighting as an underground resistance to the occupation of their country. While the term unsophisticated may certainly apply, recent events hardly suggests unorganized.

As others have alluded to, resistance certainly carries a totally different image with it. One the WH would not like conveyed to the sheeple….though I’m not sure if they’re capable of deciphering it. The WH was not comfortable and resisted the term occupation in the early going before finally admitting to the UN that we were indeed an occupying power and thus were subject to certain rules as that power. I don’t think it has really sunk in to the sheeple what it really means to be an occupying power and because of that, the term/image of resistance could be very troubling to the WH.

I don’t believe for a moment that Dean Baquet and Melissa McCoy had mental revelation simultaneously….I do believe there were hundreds of editors (print, audio, video) that received a curious memo….simultaneously.

[Enjolras]

37. Saddam loyalists, yes. Foreign terrorists? Welllll .....

While it's certainly true that the administration wishes to promulgate the idea that these ever increasing attacks are carried out by Saddam loyalists, I don't think it's in their interests to spread the information, however true, that foreign terrorists are responsible for them. On the contrary, this is potentially an even more troubling scenario, because it hints the possibility of a far broader regional conflict.

This is exactly how the Taliban was born. Muslim extremists from many middle eastern countries, probably including Iraq, flocked to Afghanistan to take part in the great jihad against the evil, secular Soviets, for the glorification of Allah. The irony is that the U.S., under the Ray-gun administration, fanned the flames of that jihad in order to embarass and discredit the "Evil Empire", for the glorification of world capitalism. we created a monster to do our bidding, turned our backs on it after it did, and it bit us in the ass. Predictable.

Iraq is the new Afghanistan, and we are the new "Evil Empire". :evilfrown:

[Devils Advocate NZ]

44. Nah, you've got it wrong. An insurgent is...

Main Entry: 1in·sur·gent
Pronunciation: -j&nt
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin insurgent-, insurgens, present participle of insurgere to rise up, from in- + surgere to rise -- more at SURGE
Date: 1765
1 : a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent
2 : one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party

A guerrilla is:

Main Entry: 1guer·ril·la
Variant(s): or gue·ril·la /g&-'ri-l&, ge-, g(y)i-/
Function: noun
Etymology: Spanish guerrilla, from diminutive of guerra war, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German werra strife -- more at WAR
Date: 1809
: a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage

Finally, here is the definition of resistance:

Main Entry: re·sis·tance
Pronunciation: ri-'zis-t&n(t)s
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 a : an act or instance of resisting : OPPOSITION b : a means of resisting
2 : the ability to resist; especially : the inherent capacity of a living being to resist untoward circumstances (as disease, malnutrition, or toxic agents)
3 : an opposing or retarding force
4 a : the opposition offered by a body or substance to the passage through it of a steady electric current b : a source of resistance
5 often capitalized : an underground organization of a conquered or nearly conquered country engaging in sabotage and secret operations against occupation forces and collaborators

Now do you see why they want to use the term "insurgent" or "guerrilla" instead of "resistance fighter"?

A "guerrilla" is a person engaging in irregular warfare, and the term is nuetral in so far as it conveys no message other than the methods used. "Insurgent" however does not refer to the methods used, but the motives of the person involved, in this case "rebellion against civil authority or established government". In other words if those fighting the US in Iraq are insurgents, then the US is the established government and civil authority of Iraq.

Now look at "resistance fighter" and you see why they don't like it. It refers to members of a "conquered or nearly conquered" country fighting against "occupation forces and collaborators".

The Bush cabal is trying to define what is going on in Iraq as a rebellion aganist the legitimate government of Iraq (ie the CPA) rather than the legitimate government of Iraq (ie Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq) resisting "occupation forces" (ie US troops) and "collaborators" (ie the CPA).

The former definition proclaims the US and CPA as being the side of good, whereas the latter calls the US and CPA the side of evil.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

30. Aren't Many Of These "Regular" Army Without Uniforms?

There has never been a surrender. There has never been an agreement for armistice or cease fire. There has never been an official laying down of arms by any government with which the United States was at war in Iraq. Much of the regular army simply took off their uniforms and has continued to fight. I would assume that much of the chain of command is still in place and that we are still facing regular military in Iraq.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

35. I prefer the term that our courageous Commander-in-Chief used...

Evil-Doers.

Yeah...that's the ticket!

[farmbo]

51. In related news, FOX News will call them:"Scum-sucking,Freedom-hating...

...Sub-human,Dead-enders" in their Iraq- related reports.

[Barrett808]

55. Doubleplus good ducktalk!

Ignorance is strength.

[David__77]

56. "Guerrillas" is acceptable. BUT...

"Occupation" and "resistance" are proper words in many contexts. The US is occupying Iraq; Iraq is not a sovereign nation right now. Many Iraqis are resisting the occupation through various methods. Not all resistance is military, some is economic and political. Unions are organizing and people are building new political structures in that country.