Crazy Elf said:
But they do declare war, but with no formal government to do it with very few people take it seriously. Al Qaeda declare war quite often, and AQI are much the same, as well as the insurgent groups in Iraq. Also, they hit military targets as well as civilian ones, much like any military organisation. I think the only real difference is that the targeting of civilians is much more common.
Would it be fair to say that the frequency of civilian targeting is more the issue?
No, they haven't officially declared war on the US. Their exact words every time are:
"We will purge the world of the West and all its evils."
That's not an official declaration of war. That's a obscure threat. They aren't identifying a direct target, for one. The West is pretty ambiguous.
"We call upon our brothers in Islam to resist the West."
Also very ambiguous. They can add at anytime that they were actually supporting the insurgency, but they want the insurgents and freedom fighters to become part of their organization (thus under their control). The insurgency mostly resists that, and that's why it's presently a strange situation that the US/UN forces get tips from well-known insurgents where the terrorists are hiding out.
Terrorism is ambiguous and random. The only goal is to hope that your message is heard and the people cower before you so you can walk in and take over without warfare.
Not at all, it's just asymmetrical warfare. They'd be utterly foolish to directly target a fortified military group when they can achieve the same results by hitting softer targets. Remember that chaos in Iraq only puts more pressure on the US to move out, which is the ultimate goal. Suicide bombing and hitting softer targets means, strangely enough, that you lose fewer people in the long run and maximise your kill rate. Mathematically it works out.
Except it's not the Iraqi insurgency doing it. It's the extremists doing it to the citizens they hope to control through fear and intimidation. Not get rid of us, but gain control of the entire mind, body and soul of the population through brutality. Again, you are grouping the people who set off roadside bombs when military targets dive by(insurgents) with the terrorists (random marketplace bombings). There's a difference. And the method of fighting either group is different. Large military forces are not the answer to terrorism, for example. Swift, small raids with pointed objectives based on intelligence is. Demoralizing enemy troops through persistence works on insurgents, but not very well at all on terrorists. Those are examples.
As for declarations of war, the US hasn't made a formal declaration of war since 1942. Does that make every military action that they've taken part in since terrorism?
Let's take Afghanistan as our first example. The US issued through the UN an intent to invade and destroy the Taliban regime that was aiding Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization. This isn't the 1940's and 50's anymore - nations don't point-blank say, "We declare war on so and so." The method has changed, and we make our intent to attack known to the world community through avenues such as the UN.
On that same note, once we move into Afghanistan, any attack by insurgents on US or UN soldiers is a counter-attack by a party at war. They don't have to declare their intent to attack us - they are already under attack and can fight back. It's implied.
Iraq is a stickier situation because the US waited until the day of the invasion to issue their intent to invade and destroy Saddam's regime. The UN is still pretty pissed of the method of deception used by the previous administration to go ahead without informing the world community. Not like the world community didn't know that the US was going to do it with or without their consent, but there was no time to examine the evidence and protest.
The insurgents in Iraq haven't declared the invasion over. The US hasn't officially declared their invasion over. So the insurgents continue to resist the occupying forces, and the occupying forces shoot/bomb back.
Too often we group terrorists with insurgents or soldiers that are taking part in an invasion. Insurgents don't target civilians intentionally, and neither do the invaders. Because of the terrorists, it's hard to define who is and isn't the enemy. But terrorists still operate under a different MO than the insurgents, and the insurgents are not terrorists. They target soldiers and try to avoid civilians as much as - say - the US or the UK soldiers do.
Think of it this way - terrorists are a lot like the old mafia and gangs. They use unannounced force, unsanctioned/illegal intimidation and target loved ones to gain power over people so they can control them mind, body and soul through fear.
Now, I think the better question is to ask, "Do contracted mercenaries (by the US or UN) terrorize Iraqi citizens?" I'd say almost without a doubt that there have been instances where they have. "Do explicit extremist groups terrorize civilians?" Yes they do. "Have stupid soldiers on both sides of the fight done incredibly dumb things that verge on the edge of terrorism?" Yes. The problem is that we have various problems with trying to classify them as terrorists, because they use the legal systems and money/influence to deflect it. The answer to those problems is to legally combat that at every step and issue proper reparations/consequences to prevent future abuse.
Now, I think that torturing people is a form of terrorism, and that we are guilty of that for sure. How we go about preventing that from happening is what we should be worried about instead of pointing fingers about past events. Fighting amongst ourselves about who did what (we know who did what, but what can we do about it from any sort of standpoint? We did take action by disapproving and voting in a new administration) and why and where is irrelevant at this point - we must take action and prevent future abuse now.
I think you and I are on the same page, but I'm not sure what solution you have for fighting terrorism vs insurgents. Treating them all the same and saying, "Just turn the Middle East into a parking lot," is not a viable or suitable answer. We're not about genocide here. The terrorists might be, but we should be above that. Not taking the time to target and remove terrorists is also not the answer, as to ignore it only makes it WORSE. I agree that we need better methods of taking care of them, and what we were doing was not working.
