When do the wounded stop being insurgents and become citizens?
Insurgents have to be from outside the country – people aren’t insurgents of their own country. So whilst the American media claims that all the fighters in Iraq have mysteriously materialised from Afghanistan or Iran, all the Iraqis who disliked the US invasion prior to their ‘success’ have apparently disappeared.
The international press doesn’t call the opposition fighters ‘insurgents’, so why is this a US led move? What’s been pushing the American media to discuss the war with these terms? Is it follow the leader reporting, where consumers are so familiar with the Fox-News version of the English language that the press don’t want to use correct language and confuse the readers?
OR, are they being told to use the language? It’s unlikely, but pressure on editors, endless repetition by official voices and interview language slowly has an effect.
SF Chronicle: U.S. Marines tend to a wounded insurgent
Popularity: 1% [?]
Insurgency is just like uprising, or rebellion. It’s a bit of a false friend word, because it makes you think there’s been a surge-in, right? All it means is an insurrection.