Another Clueless Professor
For all his education and high professional standing, Juan Cole can’t seem to figure out the obvious and basic difference between guerrillas, who practice irregular warfare against soldiers and are protected by the Geneva Convention, and terrorists, who target civilians and are not so protected. Here are some bits of yesterday’s news roundup on Cole’s nothing-but-bad-news blog:
Guerrillas fired 10 mortar rounds into a bustling market in central Mosul on Thursday, killing 3 and wounding 52. Then they fired more rounds later on, killing 2 and wounding 7.
Guerrillas in Baghdad killed 3 barbers on Tuesday, it was announced early Thursday. Salafi radicals consider it a crime to shave a Muslim man, who they think should wear a beard in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad.
Since the words are neither indented nor in quotation marks, they appear to be Cole’s own paraphrase of his sources. As such, they are either grossly ignorant or deeply dishonest, especially one particular word. Guerrillas? When you’re firing mortars at a market full of unarmed civilians, or murdering unarmed barbers, you are a not a guerrilla, or even an unlawful combatant, but a common murderer. And when you do it to terrorize the general population, as is quite obviously the case here, you are a terrorist. Why can’t Cole use that word?
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Cole is a cretin and a bully.
I can understand why we can’t all agree on a universal definition of terrorism. But I can’t understand why we can’t agree on a minimum definition of terrorism. Attacks primarily directed at civilian targets, conducted by non-regular combatants (no uniform, no chain of command, etc.) are terrorism, period. (Attacks primarily directed at civilian targets by regular combatants are a different species of atrocity).
Comment by Crank — Friday: July 15, 2005 @ 10:22 AM GMT-0500
BLOG: Quick Links 7/15/05
*Go vote in Mac Thomason’s tournament to determine the most annoying ESPN on-air personality! *Charlie Cook thinks it’s the Democrats who need to worry about party unity on judges, not Republicans. And check out The National Journal’s daily Blogomet…
Trackback by Baseball Crank — Friday: July 15, 2005 @ 12:13 PM GMT-0500
Because Cole is pondscum
Comment by RW — Saturday: July 16, 2005 @ 7:23 PM GMT-0500
“Cole is a cretin and a bully.” But then, many humanities profs are.
Comment by pst314 — Thursday: August 11, 2005 @ 10:56 PM GMT-0500