The media insist on labelling those who American and Iraqi forces are battling in Fallujah as "insurgents." This improper use of language legitimizes what is a repulsive collection of Islamists and facists united in their determination to deprive the Iraqi people of representative government and fundamental freedoms. Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division properly characterized the terrorists in Fallujah in the Washington Post today, "In almost every single mosque in Fallujah, we've found an arms cache. We've found IED factories. . . . We've also seen the use of schools for the storage of weapons. This is the enemy that we fight. It doesn't respect the religious mosques or the children's schools."
The Post article also described a hostage discovered shackled to a wall by his wrists and ankles in a house that marines were searching in Fallujah. "The man, who identified himself as a taxi driver from nearby Abu Ghraib, said he had been kidnapped by men who refused to give him food or water and beat him with electrical cords during 10 days of captivity. ... Speaking to the marines, the freed hostage said that, "when his captors fled, he told them he would die without food or water. They responded: "We brought you here to die.""
Using schools and mosques as staging points? Kidnapping common people for no apparent reason? These sound more like the actions of Islamists and Baathists than insurgents. Would that the media understood the difference.