November 4, 2003

Insurgents or terrorists?

The US compound in Baghdad has been attacked

It looks like mortar rounds have been fired into the Coalition Provisional Authority Headquarters. By my count, at least 40 people have died, and several hundred have been injured since the start of Ramadan. Most of the killed and wounded have been Iraqi civilians. Yet the article linked above says this:

Insurgents have increasingly been targeting diplomatic and humanitarian facilities, mainly with vehicle bombs and homicide attackers. The Oct. 14 explosion outside the Turkish Embassy killed a bystander.

Attacking US forces makes them insurgents; attacking Iraqi civilians makes them terrorists.

The stepped up attacks, with their major civilian casualties brings up another point. Back during the invasion, when one US missile went astray, killing non-combatants, the Bush Administration was condemned for failing to protect the innocent Iraqis. Those same folks are now noticeably silent when the innocent Iraqis are beng killed by "insurgents."

Go figure.

Posted by Rich at November 4, 2003 12:42 PM | TrackBack