Talk:Iraqi insurgency

93% of Iraqi insurgents are locals?

NPR (National Public Radio) reported 06/17/06 a poll result that 93% of the insurgents are local Iraquis. Any source for this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.231.234.129 (talk • contribs) 19:50, June 17, 2006 (UTC)

How the hell would anybody be able to know this to such a degree of certainty like "93%"? Do insurgents register to the government or contact NPR and tell them what country they come from? I can see how maybe NPR would do a study to "estimate" this, but how do they estimate it to a number like "93%"? I can see maybe 90 or 95%, but 93? Sounds like BS.68.164.3.7 (talk) 03:33, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Change the title!

Calling this an insurgency gived the enemies of the Coalition and the legitimate Iraqi government a legitimacy they do not deserve and betrays the article's heavy liberal bias.

Eakahn

Like it or not, these people qualify as insurgents - the campaign they are waging, while often using terrorism to achieve its goals, still manages to be a resistance effort to a foreign prescence in their country and to foreign influence and meddling into what they view as their own affairs. They either qualify as rebel groups - a term which, for some reason, the media doesn't like using, perhaps because of the immediate heroic association we automatically give to the word 'rebel' - or as combatants sowing instability and attempting to overthrow the current government. Insurgents they are, rebels they are, terrorists they are - but only insurgency covers the necessary ground well enough to describe them properly.

--Kulindar 16:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Equating foreign terrorists, who attack Iraqi civilians as well as the Coalition forces, with a legitimate insurgency is exactly the kind of bias I'm talking about. --Eakahn 19:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of its merits and shortcomings, it is remarkable that the term "insurgency" was recommended by the spokeman of the White House, broadcasted on Fox News and spread all over the media from there. Rama 19:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

When Rama? Me thinks that you are taking stuff outta context. The "insurgency" now is far more terroristic than say early 2004. JIMO. JDR 20:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

LOL... This is ludicrous. The term "insurgency" was voted on as I recall after a long debate whereby it was characterized as the more illegitimate alternative to "resistance," which was characterized as legitimate opposition to occupying forces. Now we have someone claiming that "insurgency" gives them more legitimacy? Preposterous. I suppose you feel they should just be called "the evildoers" or something? Also if you would actually read the article you'd see that the so-called "foreign fighters" are a small minority of the insurgency, which is made up much more of Sunni Iraqis than foreigners. But in either case, "insurgency" hardly confers legitimacy. And it would be downright idiotic to imagine that the insurgency is something other than a response to the invasion and perceived occupation of Iraq, no matter which side of the political fence you might be sitting on.--csloat 11:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Surely the term 'insurgency' is the most neutral and encyclopaedic one? It also goes with the established military term 'counter-insurgency' of course. 'Resistance' is POV as it implies a certain legitimacy. On the other hand, though the insurgents often use terror, and particularly brutal terror at that, they are not all purely terrorists so 'terrorists' would also be POV. By using the term 'insurgency' we are not implying that we approve or disapprove of the insurgency. Let the insurgents' acts speak for themselves in the article. Booshank (talk) 22:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The term "insurgency" connotes illegitimacy where as resistance is defined as "the opposition offered by one thing, force, etc., to another." by dictionary.com so resistance is more neutral — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guive37 (talk • contribs) 02:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"Private contractors"

I am highly frustrated by the insistence to call hired mercenaries "defense contractors." When other nations hire private corporations to manage defense and kill people, they're called "mercenaries." When America hires private corporations to manage defense and kill people, they're called "defense contractors." Can anyone please offer a valid reason why my edits to "mercenaries" are unacceptable? —Czarangelus

Because you're wrong. They aren't hired to kill people, they are hired to do what the article said—private security for VIPs and important locations. Now, they may kill someone in the process of defending something, but they are not seeking out and destroying the bad guys like the military is, or like mercenaries do. —Kenyon (t·c) 00:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The word disingenuous seems to apply here. It could be argued that the Hessian mercenaries were "protecting VIPs and important locations" during the Revolutionary War. I for one don't think the Wikipedia should be ground zero for the administration's endless doublespeak. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.253.112.127 (talk • contribs) 20:41, February 26, 2006 (UTC)

I agree. "Contractors" is a POV term. Can anyone come up with something between that and "mercenaries"? Guinnog 19:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

How about "Cannon Fodder" or "Casualty Count Reduction Sacrifices", "People from poor countries dying in a war to control oil and oil pipelines to stabilise a flagging US economy", what about "Econo-Cannon Fodder" ;-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.64.149.172 (talk • contribs) 22:44, March 25, 2007 (UTC)

Just like the "insurgent" vs "rebel" debate, I don't really think there is any non-POV term. "Contractor" is biased in favor of private combatants and "mercenary" is biased against private combatants. It seems to me to be one of those situations where you're either for or against with no middle ground. Spartan198 (talk) 07:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Categories

User:K4zem several times removed Category:Terrorism from the article. I think it is undeniable that many insurgents used terrorism tactics and so the category is warranted, I also don't understand that the Category:Revolutions doing here. A revolution is a rebellion that have won, but the Iraqi insurgents so far have not. abakharev 21:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have also removed that category. For the same reasons I removed the terrorist reference in the opening paragraph. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" CanadianPhaedrus 22:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Following this logic we should delete the whole category Category:Terrorism. I think the term Terrorism is reasonably well-defined (although there is a huge shadow area). Taking and killing hostages among civilian populations and journalists supportive to the insurgents, deliberate bombing of mosques during the religious services can not be qualified only as terrorism, independently of our POV regarding the goals of the insurgents. abakharev 01:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well "another man's freedom fighter" wouldn't be fighting for other people's freedom by blowing up the infrastructure and electric grid those people depend on, thus making their lives even worse. A freedom fighter wouldn't be launching improvised attacks that consistently end up killing WAY more civilians (i.e., the ppl they're supposedly fighting for) than Coalition troops. Besides, what are they fighting for anyway? To destroy the democratic government (the first democratic government in Arab history) that was set up BY the coalition forces?68.164.3.7 (talk) 03:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I have not heard anything about the bombing of mosques during the insurgency. Doing so would seem counter-productive since the insurgents seem to be largely Sunni muslims and muslims for foreign nations.

Then you should put down the GameBoy and read a newspaper. Shiite Mosques HAVE been bombed by Sunnis.68.164.3.7 (talk) 03:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Taking of prisoners is taking prisoner's of persons of Western origin. Im sure in the eyes of the Iraqi insurgent it is not terrorism since it is foriegn persons in their country who they have captured.

The point is: what may seem like the most henious of crimes to us may be considered a patriotic action in the eyes of an insurgent Iraqi. The bombing of an election line-up may seem like a terrorist hindrance to a democratic process... but to an Iraqi who views the "government" as only a puppet establishment of the occupying powers it is an act of resistance.

An act of resistance to who? The CIVILIANS who are in the election line??? The civilians they purport to be fighting for??? "Sorry, sir, but in order to fight for your rights, I have to kill you and your family." Makes sense I suppose.68.164.3.7 (talk) 03:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The differing views on the motives and goals of the invasion of Iraq from critics in the Western world are reason enough to omit the "terrorism" statement.... even before factoring in the views of the fighting Iraqi insurgent.

CanadianPhaedrus 07:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)CanadianPhaedrus

I move to remove all refernces to terrorism in Wikipedia then, since terrorism doesn't exist. 143.88.130.155 18:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, don't be that way, if you were living in a hated dictatorship that had been overthrown by a foreign government, and that foreign government was occupying your country with troops, and had just set the stage for the first democratic election in your country's history, wouldn't you want to fight back against that evil by blowing up as much of your country's infrastructure as possible? Wouldn't you want to take out your town's power plant? Wouldn't you want to kill the people waiting in line to vote, thus helping to save them from becoming tools of the occupation? Wouldn't you want to launch random attacks in the town market to kill as many civilians as possible--surely that would teach the occupiers to leave! Wouldn't you do everything you could to overthrow that government and go back to the wonderful dictatorship you had just had?68.164.3.7 (talk) 03:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

This conversation is missing the point on both sides. "Terrorist" should not be used as a subjective label judging the morality of an action, but as a simple categorization of an act of violence towards noncombatants with the intent of inspiring compliance through fear. A terrorist is an insurgent who employs terrorism to further their goals. So the question is not whether a reasonable person would commit an act of terrorism under whatever circumstances are not part of the argument. The use of suicide bombers by the Iraqi Insurgency is a terrorist action, intended to instill fear and disorder into the populace. Calling them "terrorists" is a simple fact; the American revolutionaries that attacked loyalists during the American Revolution would also be defined as terrorists. It is a simple fact that the Iraqi Insurgency uses terrorist attacks, hence, they are terrorists. There is nothing to debate here. --98.161.35.38 (talk) 01:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

salafi branch of wahabi islam

This sounds neat and well organized. In practice it is not that clear. Salafi is a loose term designating all kinds radical sunnis. Wahhabi on the other hand is pretty definite, as the "state religion" of saudi arabia. --Vindheim (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this issue needs clarification in the article. The Sunni Islamist section is rather confusing. Are all Sunni Islamists Salafis? That is what the article currently says, but in a rather confusing way. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

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15 US Insurgents

I wish more were elaborated on the 15 insurgents claimed to be of "US Nationality" in the article's listing. It's worth noting even in perhaps a separate article that more terrorists hail from the Coalition's own backyard than, say, Iran (a state known to sponsor terrorism). 76.67.111.164 (talk) 14:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Update needed

I think that the article needs to be updated. Most of the information in the article is based on the 2007 figures. For past one year edits to this article have been largely symbolic [1] and all the maps are based on 2007 or earlier numbers. If you look at the edit history,[2] you’ll see that since December 2008 the amount of edits per month has sharply declined.

I think a lot has changed since then in Iraq and information in this article is not relevant any more. Map Iraqcontrol.JPG is particularly irrelevant.

Although, discussion is not about the neutrality of the article, I still have to note that the article as a whole reads like "brave freedom fighters are defeating American occupants and there is nothing that can be done about it".--Inavel (talk) 14:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

You're quite right, but that doesn't mean the current information needs to be deleted.

For example, I just changed the caption on that map from "as of January 2007" to "in January 2007".

Yes, some of the tone does seem over the top. A lot of critics of the war did effectively support the insurgency to one extent or another. They should never be forgotten.

Back in the early days of WWII, during the Hitler-Stalin pact, a lot of "peace" activists acted similarly. Most of them turned into hawks the day the Nazis invaded Russia, and the stuff they used to say was swept under the rug. That's not going to happen this time.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 15:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Conflict still ongoing?

I have tried to keep up-to-date conflicts at Portal:Current_events/Sidebar. But I have been uncertain about Iraqi insurgency. Is it still ongoing or has it ended? --Kslotte (talk) 13:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Flag issue

What insaine guy thinks that the flag listed supposed to be A Baath party flag. This is The flag Of Palestine not some political party. Better correct that plz. BTW the term Terrorist isent equal to been arab or having dark hair or being a muslim. Its a human or more spreadding terror and fear and not least death and destruction. Who ever succed to accoplich that is a terrorist. So who is terrorist? Am i confusing anyone? just bursting bubbles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.191.196.206 (talk) 21:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry to burst your ignorance, but it seems you are completely unfamiliar with the history of the flag of the Arab Revolt and the pan-Arab colors. The flag of PLO and Ba'athists is the actually taken from the flag of the Arab Revolt, and is identical to the second flag of the Kingdom of Hejaz. The flag of Jordan is same, added with a Hashemite star, while the flag of the Western Sahara Republic is added with another Islamic symbol. Slightly different versions of the pan-Arab flag are also adopted by Kuwait, Sudan and the UAE.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:55, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Split

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Merge, no opposition presented.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

---

The proposal is to split the Iraqi insurgency article into 3 distinct periods, supported by sources, which will also contribute for more convenient navigation: 1. Insurgency after the invasion until civil war (2003-2006); 2. Insurgency since the end of civil war phase until US withdrawal (2008-December 2011); 3. Insurgency after US withdrawal (December 2011 and on). The final segregation of the Iraq War into phases to be the following:

1. 2003 Invasion of Iraq phase (March-April 2003)

2. Iraqi insurgency (May 2003-February 2006)

3. Civil War in Iraq (February 2006-May 2008)

4. Iraqi insurgency (June 2008-December 2011)

5. Iraqi insurgency (post US withdrawal) (December 2011-present)

Please vote Split or Oppose.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:55, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Split. The current article is a long mess. Actually, I come across here trying to find something about insurgency after US withdrawal, but disappointed about the current situation. A split could potentially improve this. --Ahyangyi (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Splitting the article

The decision was to split, though the job is a bit complicated. The simpliest part [[Iraqi insurgency (post US withdrawal) was created, other editors are welcome to propose better organization of the following:

2003 Invasion of Iraq phase (March-April 2003)

Iraqi insurgency (May 2003-February 2006)

Civil War in Iraq (February 2006-May 2008)

Iraqi insurgency (June 2008-December 2011)

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq

Iraqi insurgency (post U.S. withdrawal)

Any ideas for other arragement of articles is appreciated.Greyshark09 (talk) 22:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

war

yesterday i was assigned a project about the war that is going on today and all i know is that it has something to do with iraq but who else why, when,where — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.98.238.5 (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)