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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (118498)	11/4/2003 2:05:04 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<if the terrorists are patriots, I guess the Iraqi police and army are the oppressing occupation force?> A patriot is anyone who fights to expel foreign soldiers from their nation. A quisling is anyone who helps a foreign army maintain its occupation. Some patriots in some nations are Jeffersonian democrats. Most are Authoritarians of one flavor or another (Communists, fascists, Baathists, etc.). Others are Islamists (who define the tribe they fight for, by religion, not race or language). They are all patriots, if, like the Minutemen in 1775, they are willing to face bullets to make the Redcoats go home. Since 1898, the U.S. Army has been, in many poor nations all over the world, doing what the Redcoats did at Lexington and Concord. We are the hated foreigners, in country after country. We have become our enemy, and gotten on the wrong side of history. We do this, not as an occasional mistake, but as a habit. The basic motivation, for those who daily are killing our soldiers in Iraq, is patriotism. As long as we continue to believe the self-serving fantasy, that the Opposition is "Baathist remnants" or "Al Queda dead-enders" or "imported Jihadists", we will continue to be surprised and confused at events. We will continue to flail about, making false assumptions, being unprepared, following failing policies. Yes, any person or organization who helps maintain U.S. control in Iraq, will be targetted by the Iraqi patriots. The UN, the Red Cross, the Polish soldiers in Iraq, are the equivalent of the German mercenary soldiers that King George brought to Virginia. Do you know what the Sons of Liberty (led by a future U.S. President) did to Americans who collaborated with the British? First they threatened them. Then they burned their houses. Then they killed them. And in the process, often most of the Quisling's family ended up dead as well. This is exactly what the Iraqi patriots are now doing, assassinating members of the Governing-not Council.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (118498)	11/4/2003 2:30:33 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The US has an army of occupation in Iraq. It is not surprising that the terms applied to people fighting the US military occupation of Iraq are terms you do not want to hear -- it is hard to understand how we could be in the position of defending an illegitimate invasion. But nothing said on this thread changes the reality -- we are fighting a guerilla war in Iraq against people determined to act in opposition to our army of occupation. It is not a matter of liking these people or not liking these people. It is not a matter of whose side you are on. It is simply a matter of fact -- we invaded their country and some of them are fighting back. The fact that there was no legitimacy to the invasion leaves us isolated and unable to rally the support we need to end what we have started.