Are Insurgent Snipers Terrorists?

What's Really Going on in Iraq
by Joan Vennochi

Sometimes truth is also propaganda. When that happens, should we be watching it on CNN?

That's the issue surrounding a video -- broadcast on CNN -- which shows insurgent snipers in Iraq targeting US military personnel. The tape, which the network obtained through contact with an insurgent leader, was aired on "Anderson Cooper 360." Throughout the broadcast, the label "insurgent video" is clear, so viewers know the source of the images.

Disturbing they are. The tape shows 10 separate sniper attacks. The randomness of assault is especially horrifying. The dead are not necessarily engaged in "battle." The first victim is casually moving around in a public area with Iraqis. The network went to black at the moment of actual impact.

This video, shot by the enemy, does advance the enemy agenda. So, it is indeed propaganda, as some viewers complained. And to the extent the video and any fallout from the controversy draws viewers to Cooper's show, it is propaganda for CNN, too.

But CNN was right to broadcast this material, even if insurgents supplied it.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a strong critic of President Bush's Iraq war policy, believes Americans should see more truth, not less: "Snipers are a reality. People being blown up is a reality." Yet, in this war, Kerry argues, "People see almost nothing at all. We see only the aftermath of explosions and bombs. As painful as the images of war are, it's important to understand what soldiers go through."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1022-21.htm

would be.

...and if they kill civilians, then I think it's an open question whether they are "terrorists" from an Iraqi perspective.

they are still showing this tape on Pipeline. I was amazed.

Iraqi Insurgent Snipers but in my view they are legit targets of the Insurgency since they are an Illegal Occupation Force.

...so I think the answer to the OP question is "no."

Calling combat footage "propaganda" is propaganda.

Gunning down soldiers whose only crime is being there? Generally despite not wanting to be there? Or being there through some misplaced belief that our leaders aren't using them?

If the snipers popped some neocon policymaker touring Iraq, then it might be debatable whether that was terrorism or a legitimate act of war (like when we blew Zarqawi up.) Shooting random soldiers, most of whom could probably sit down and have a chat about sports with them if we were at peace? That's terrorism, pure and simple.

it is not an act of terrorism to kill Occupying Forces in one's own country.Whether those troops want to be there or not is not the question. Terrorism is an act against non-combat civilians. US Troops and US Mercs are legit targets of the Insurgency because they are pat of an Illegal Occupying
force of a Sovereign Territory.

A soldier who wants to be home with his/her family and is stuck in that sandy hellhole isn't there willingly. The policymakers sent him there. It'd be the same thing as if an engineer was told "Go work reconstruction for our company in Iraq, or we'll fire your butt and blacklist your name."

And let's not legitimize the insurgents. They execute innocent civilians on a daily basis, for fuck's sake.