The Jordanian-based news and entertainment portal Albawaba insists on calling insurgents in Iraq "resistance fighters." Unbelievable! Don’t they realize that those same "resistance fighters" just crossed the border to inflict the carnage in Amman? Or is Albawaba still following the flawed logic that when insurgents come to Jordan they are terrorists but when they are on the other side of the border they are "Resistance Fighters"?!? Here is an excerpt from this masterpiece:
US sources reported that 37 Iraqi resistance fighters were killed in an early morning military offensive on Monday. The attack, according to military spokesmen, occurred near the Iraqi-Syrian border, which has seen in recent weeks a surge in fighting as US troops attempt to thwart the passage of resistance fighters into Iraq from Syria’s ill-guarded border.
I wonder what the editors at Albawaba will make of this. Apparently, some new reports indicate that one of the terrorists — one of those Albawaba proudly labels "resistance fighters" — was released from US custody in Falluja only to make his way to Jordan to unleash this attack.
Resistence, terrorists, insuregents, freedom fighters…you name it. They all suck !
Thanks Natasha.
I think there is something wrong with the way most Palestinians and Jordanians think.
They have been and continue to fully support Saddam and Zarqawi, even though we all know about the heinous crimes of these two murderers and their followers.
Now I think it is time for all Palestinians and Jordanians to reconsider their demagogic way of thinking, especially after the terrorist attacks that took place in Amman a few days ago, where innocent people lost their lives for no cause at all.
Zarqawi, Qa’ida and their gangsters are criminals and murderers because they kill innocent people in Iraq, Jordan and elsewhere. In fact these guys should not be thought of but as thugs and saboteurs who only deserve to be crushed once and for all.
Americans are much more humane than those terrorists and their supporters. And, btw, the majority of Iraqis do not want to see American troops withdraw from Iraq before they completely clean Iraq from the scourge of Zarqawi and other terrorist groups, whether Salafi or Baathist.
Natasha;
Believe me I am very proud of you, because this is the first time I encounter someone who originally belongs to Jordan and yet has got such a great human and moral spirit.
I hope that all Jordanian writers and journalists will do the same and call things what they really are, instead of blindly justifying the carnage in Iraq and irresponsibly dancing with the ugly monsters who kill innocent people every day.
Ladies and gentlemen, take it easy, i am entitled to an opinion for God’s sake not everyone has to agree with the definitions that you have set for all people. If there were no shades of gray in the middle east conflicts as most of you are suggesting then I, along with 90% of the arab population, should be labeled as terrorists. Do not fall in to these traps.
I disagree that they have become almost indistingushable. I argued here several months ago that the veil of war has made many things unclear and now that veil is becoming thinner and thinner and we are begining to see the lines of contrast.
Assume the follwing…
If alqueda came to Palestine in the name of “fighting for palestine” (as it might do so in the near future) and suddenly it started launching attacks against Palestinian Christians and Jordanians. Would we call them terrorists? Yes. Now would we call all the Palestinians who have been resisting in the past half century terrorists? By your definitions yes. Simply because we do not care to spend time in analyzing a war and being able to differentiate between what is resistance and what is a terrorism. We do not want to spend the time to say this is legal and this is illegal, legit and illigit. Instead we take one giant brush and paint everyone the same color.
But the difference would be obvious, at least to some one familiar with the conflict, for one good reason…the fact that this conflict has stretched out for over half a century and we can see things a lot clearer than in a war condensed over the past 2 years or so. So I can pretty much grab any jordanian off the street and ask him what he thinks of a shiaa car bomb and he’ll say its an alqueda act (which is true because they usually say so themselves) and ask him about american soldiers getting hit in such and such town and he’ll say its the iraqi resistance. similarily if the above scenerio occured we’d be able to differentiate between an attack by the palestinian resistance and one by alqueda. so there’s no need for “HELLO my name is” name tags. and in case we ever confuse the two, well alqueda and zarqawi are always happy to release statements on video and the internet to describe who did it and “why” they did it.
Now Natasha you give me things and ask me to enlighten you and then you say its not worth arguing with me. I dont get that? Im not here to enlighten anyone, why the supercilious attitude when it comes to opposing opinions?
you said:
“In Falluja, relatives of the alleged bombers quietly celebrated the Amman blasts, calling the attackers martyrs.”
I actually posted this in mahjoob.com early yesterday when it was published. I’ve read so many reports like this since the war started and then these people object and the newspaper retracts the story. Heck you talked on an on about the alghad “fiasco” and huge “controversy” because a man in the paper wrote a jordanian bomber’s family had celebrated his act on a funeral. when the guy had died weeks before and was burried in samara, and his family never had any celebrations. America showed footage of palestinians celebrating an attack after 911 when it was 11 year old footage from them celebrating saddam during the gulf war.
Also we are equating the relatives of these 4 people with the whole people of Fallujah (1/3 of which are still in camps in baghdad and other cities since last years american atrocities, im sure youve seen the video of what they did there by now). so this is a huge generalization on part of the language and the reader’s false perceptions even though the wording says “relatives of” and not all of fallujah.
As for the word “occupation”
how many american soldiers are still on iraqi soil? how many iraqis see them as an occupying force regardless of elections or constitutions or trials.
how many palestinians see Israel as an occupying force even though they have elections and even though they are technically a “soverign” people not under israeli “rule”.
ask around.
to everyone else…
if you want to debate these things i’m absolutly cool with it. you can email me as well for longer discussions. but please please, i beg of you, i implore you, do not reply to me with a list of questions like “do you support the killing of shiaa or car bombing their mosques or beheadings or killing iraqis” these are really really foolish questions and ive made my opinion very clear on how much disdain i hold for these acts that alqueda commits. because i not only hate it for its inhumane mannerisms and ideology that everyone else hates it for, but i hate it for defiling my religion, and i hate it more because it has managed to convince the ignorant of the world that this is the religion.
looking at the ‘Top 25 Topics’ to the left, I can see ‘CNN’ being the forth most weighted term, that does shed a light on your mentality *wink*
The resistance and the terrorists in Iraq have become almost indistinguishable. That is the problem. These al-Queda types tend to take over valid struggles and make them into bastions of hatred and illegitimate violence. Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, all places that have valid grounds for resistance, but all struggles that have been co-opted, to one extent or another, by al-Queda and their like.
Nas,
No I do not see your point and do not see the difference between what you perceive as resistance fighters and what you perceive as al qaeda….
So did the resistance fighters disrupt the elections and cut off the electricity or was that alqaeda? Did the resistance fighters kill the drivers and the contractors or was that alqaeda? Do you they actually wander around with name tags?
An by the way the term occupation is no longer valid after the US handed over the authority to the Iraqis. I know you do not see this but this at least how the United Nationas perceive it.
I’m not gonna argue with you more as it is endless as you have your point and I have mine but I have a story for you from the Washington Post.
“In Falluja, relatives of the alleged bombers quietly celebrated the Amman blasts, calling the attackers martyrs.”
Were those the resistance or Al-qaeda? Please enlighten me. Keep cheering for the resistance in Iraq!
Natasha and Amal, I agree.
Nas, don’t know if you remember that I am the one who used to argue about how many Iraqis were FOR the war and quite angry at neighbors who were happy to sit by content to enjoy cheap petrol and occasionally shake their heads at Saddam’s latest atrocities. Wondering why the infidel was willing to go for it but brothers weren’t.
Now most aren’t so sure, and it’s not only because of the obvious, stupid mistakes of the American government in handling the matter. It’s also because they expected their neighbors to at least help and come along side the process of rebuilding. Instead, they unleashed a flood of secondary destroyers. Simplistic, maybe, but more than a kernal of truth to it.
I wonder what it would look like if people laid down their perceived right of revenge and trusted God to do the avenging while they went about the business of rebuilding. He promises to execute His wrath on the oppresser, and just because it didn’t happen in our time frame doesn’t mean He doesn’t. There is no sweetness in vengence, its’ bitterness destroys the soul and is destined to be repeated.
well ,,
i see it in a different way , i guess this channel is new , and ta2reeban nobody knows it .
So i think there going the way ( 5alef tu3raf) , when they say ‘resistant fighters ‘ to terrorists , they really know what they’re doin , more people will ask , what is this channel like ?? and it will become popular .
This is a classic promoting strategy , once used by ‘al Mustakilla channel ‘ when they had this programm about ‘sunna and shi3a’.
Its just a game every channel plays , so dnt make ur self sick with too much thinking , cheap channels always have a start like that ..
Greetings from Germany
Thanks, Chris, for pointing out the NY Times article. But I think Natasha’s argument is very, very valid. I cannot understand how Nas seems to think there are shades of grey in killing an Iraqi police officer, bus driver or a child taking candy from a soldier. Is this resistance?
always imagine yourself in the situation u r criticizing the others for and figure out what will u do , most of the time u will find an excuse for what they are doing !