The watchword for the day is “death squads“. The Bush government is using this to identify any armed combatants against the United States military. This is to imply that any armed opposition are murderers and predators. The implication also being that these are not the Iraqi people even though the Iraqi people reject the US invasion. I’ve heard this at least five times today. I have yet to see any Iraqi on television reporting the tactics the US ascribes to the Iraqi forces.
boy, that sure is some pure ingsoc doublespeak they’re serving up there. “death squads” are something we train at the college of the americas to “disappear” people in central america, or to overthrow popular governments/support totalitarian ones in central africa–they are literally paramilitary state-sponsored terrorist execution squads designed to quell internal dissent and prevent popular uprisings. maybe there are such things in iraq–maybe the republican guards count as one. but, i believe the united states armed forces are, technically, what one would call a form of EXTERNAL dissent. so armed resistance to them would be anything BUT death squads. but maybe i’m splitting hairs.