Sunni Insurgents & Shiite Death Squads?

Posted on January 6, 2007
Filed Under Iraq, WTFish?, Islam |

From an AP article on Yahoo:

By STEVEN R. HURST and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers 2 hours, 5 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops will begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assault on militants in the capital this weekend as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads, key advisers to the prime minister said Friday.

Why are the Sunnis refered to as insurgents while the Shiites are refered to as death squads? Isn’t that clearly biased reporting? I meany hey, it’s not like there is any real difference between the brutality of al-Qaeda and the brutality of Sadrists now is there? I’m guessing QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA is a Sunni who has a very “favorable” view of Shiites.

Comments

11 Responses to “Sunni Insurgents & Shiite Death Squads?”

  1. Andrew Brehm on January 6th, 2007 2:28 pm

    I think a “death squad” is a militia that is nominally on the government’s side.

    This doesn’t mean that they support the government. In the case of Iraq the Shia terrorists probably want a _more_ Shiites rule, while the Sunni terrorists want a _less_ Shiite rule.

    Thus, in a way, the Sunni terrorists would be insurgents, while the Shia terrorists are death squads.

    On the other hand I would rather see the press promote the idea of a secular Iraqi government and refer to anybody who defies the government as an insurgent, or better yet, a terrorist.

  2. Roman Kalik on January 6th, 2007 4:28 pm

    Well, if one has a very superficial view of what is going on in Iraq, then one can say that Sunnis are fighting the ‘occupiers’ and the ‘puppet government’, which of course makes them morally superior to the Shi’a who just like killing Sunnis.

    Bias is fun, right Drima? ;)
    I said on a forum once that both the Sunni and Shi’a terrorists are so busy killing the other sects’ civilians, that American and Iraqi troops are likely to be the safest people in Iraq, with the possible exception of gun-runners.

  3. tsedek on January 6th, 2007 6:22 pm

    does it matter?

  4. Craig on January 6th, 2007 6:25 pm

    Drima, there is a difference.

    A difference in purpose, tactics and ideology. One is not better than the other, but they are clearly different concepts.

  5. Drima on January 6th, 2007 7:07 pm

    I don’t know… to me it seems quite different. An insurgent is basically a rebel which in some ways can actually mean something good. The SPLM were rebels. America wouldn’t be America if it didn’t rebel. But “death squads” just sounds plain evil.

  6. Craig on January 6th, 2007 10:08 pm

    Death Squads are evil, Drima. Death Squads traditionally work for the government, or are in some way associated with the government. Their purpose is extra-judicial killings and/or disappearances. They literally snatch people off the streets or out of their homes and make them go away, forever. Often along with all of the person’s friends and relatives, for good measure.

    What’s going on in Iraq seems to be taking things to a whole new level, though. Death Squads aren’t supposed to target people randomly. That’s counter-productive. The Shia seem to have extended the “Death Squad” concept into sectarian cleansing.

    There’s no getting around calling Al Qaeda and the Baathists in Iraq “insurgents” instead of terrorists. That’s become the accepted term, even though there is very little they do that resembles a legitimate insurgency. They are terrorists. But we aren’t allowed to call them that.

    I think both groups are equally bad. But they aren’t the same.

  7. Roman Kalik on January 6th, 2007 11:44 pm

    The problem here is that the English language ran out of simple one or two-word labels that are easy to use. The ME is just too complicated for those anyway. ‘terrorist’ may be the most suitable one-word label, but it’s still overtly simplistic.

    Such labeling works in news, it works in politics, but it fails in intelligent debate. That’s because the former two don’t require the active usage of the brain, and in fact rely on shallow interpetation of reality.

  8. Andrew Brehm on January 7th, 2007 12:49 am

    I have always wondered…

    If some foreigner came to Ireland and started blowing up Catholic churches in protest against the Irish democracy…

    Would he be an “insurgent” (like Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who come from Jordan and blow up Shia mosques) or a “terrorist”?

  9. Drima on January 7th, 2007 5:34 am

    Craig, thanks for the “technical aspects” you explained.

    Roman, you do have a point.

    Andrew, I wonder the same thing too.

    But like I said, the word “insurgent” seems like a much lighter term when compared to “death squads”.

    Oh well…

  10. Andrew Brehm on January 7th, 2007 5:50 pm

    “the word “insurgent” seems like a much lighter term when compared to “death squads”.”

    Of course it does.

    But we are talking about a war between America and Iraq here. So obviously the Iraqis who are against America are insurgents, while those (the majority) who are happy about the invasion (but not the “insurgency”) are “death squads”.

    If there was a more positive term for the second group the whole might not look like a huge mistake and immoral grab for land and oil.

  11. alistiar on February 15th, 2007 9:54 pm

    actually i want to know about this guy QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA because he has just written an article reporting that Iran’s involvement in IOraq is practically proved. What will come of this I wonder?

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