‘Killed Suspected Terrorists’ – An Oxymoron?

October 13, 2007

In press releases by the Multinational-Forces in Iraq a regular line is:

Coalition forces killed X terrorists and detained Y suspected terrorists …

I searched and have yet to find one recent and original MNF-I press release that includes a ‘killed suspected terrorist’.^* There are only ‘killed terrorists’ and ‘suspected terrorists detained’.

But looking around I stumbled across this:

MANDATORY STYLE GUIDANCE FOR MNF-I PRESS RELEASES

MULTINATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ
BAGHDAD, Iraq

by order of Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner
Deputy Chief Of Staff, Strategic Effects, Multinational Force-Iraq

[…]

Chapter 3: Kinetic MNF-I action

a. Designation of Matters and Non-MNF-I Persons

Matters found/damaged/destroyed

Weapon: arms cache

Electronics: bomb-making materials

Ammunition: IED
Metal object: EFP
Residential building: terrorist safe house, booby-trapped house
Non-residential building: terrorist training facility
Vehicle: car bomb

Non-MNF-I Person(s)

Collaborator(s): Concerned citizen(s)

Bystander(s) and potential media witness(es): terrorist facilitator(s)

Detainee(s): suspected terrorist(s)

Killed person(s):

Under age 14: terrorist sympathizer

Female over age 14: terrorist supporter

Male over age 14: terrorist

Male over age 30: senior terrorist

Male over age 40: senior terrorist leader

More then one of the above: terrorist cell

More than three of the above: terrorist group

Without identification paper(s): add ‘secret’ to designation

Unrecognizable remains: add ‘foreign’ to designation. (see also Chapter 3c: Condemning Foreign Interference in Iraq -> Sunni areas: ‘helped by Syria’; Shia areas: ‘from Iran’)

—
^* Three brownie points for the MoA reader with the first find

Posted by b on October 13, 2007 at 17:43 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Which explains exactly why official military press offices are so useless. What purpose do they serve?
Bravo Bernhard! Wish I knew how to sniff out that site.
Had a brief exposure to a local military press officer. He hadn’t a clue about how even to tailor his remarks to his particular, non-military audience, and left sour notes of mandatory bravado lingering in the air.

Posted by: small coke | Oct 13 2007 21:36 utc | 1

Ha! No wonder they get so many senior terrorist and seniorterrorist leaders, its an age category! I’d hate be a really old person in Iraq and labeled ultimate omnipotent supreme commander. What a joke.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 13 2007 21:54 utc | 2

Um .. This is satire from Bernhard.
It is pretty good satire, in light of the fact that what once would have been immediately obvious as off-the-wall satire, now does appear almost believable.

Posted by: DM | Oct 13 2007 22:16 utc | 3

It is really good. I was a bit unsure on grounds of “would they really be this stupid/obvious/just-don’t-care-who-knows-it to put this on the web?” but when I read the cathegories of killed terrorists I knew. The official document that guides these press briefings I would bet has more doublespeak.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Oct 14 2007 0:02 utc | 4

We’ll know how sarirical it is if b. disappears without warning. “The rendition of B.” When he tells em that he guessed the media codes, that no one leaked em, they’ll throw away the key figuring that much prescience is just too dangerous.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 14 2007 1:25 utc | 5

Debs #5–
Very good.
This is so deja vu. The draft dodgers of Vietnam are now re-doing it, from the safety of their high-level commands, applying an update of the same old principle:
–If it is Vietnamese, and if it is dead, it is Vietcong.–
This principle had two key effects: 1) The US was able to point to enemy combat casualties to show that the US was winning, and 2) the world was amazed at how many toddlers and outright babies were in the crack Vietcong combat units.

Posted by: Gaianne | Oct 14 2007 3:29 utc | 6

Posted by: Gaianne | Oct 14 2007 3:29 utc | 7

Posted by: Gaianne | Oct 14 2007 3:29 utc | 8

Maybe by posting the following, I’ll get a seat beside b, on the rendition flight and we can go down together, it would be an honor; of course, we wont know this because of the masks over our heads, but here’s the code, I’ll just start humming this:
Uncle Sam Goddamn.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 14 2007 6:06 utc | 9

Hey folks – the above is NOT SATIRE.
I’ll believe there is NO such STYLE GUIDANCE when you point me to a recent MNF-I release that talks about a “killed suspected terrorist”.
I failed to find one.

Posted by: b | Oct 14 2007 17:09 utc | 10

Economist:

In Qaem, some claim the Albu Mahal turned against al-Qaeda partly because it had helped a weaker tribe tip the balance of power in the area. Others say that Abu Risha was a devious former highway robber who simply found a new source of income by teaming up with the Americans. In many areas where a tribal awakening is proclaimed, rows have erupted over who is a clan’s true representative and who a “fake sheikh”.
More ominously, the Americans are accused of organising forces which may later turn their guns against the Iraqi government. Several Shia leaders worry that the Americans are too naive to distinguish between sincere foes of al-Qaeda and others who have co-operated with it in the past and may do so again. And al-Qaeda may have infiltrated some of the new outfits. It is rumoured, for instance, that Abu Risha was betrayed by one of his bodyguards.
In northern Iraq’s Nineveh province around Mosul, Kurdish leaders are particularly worried by reports that the Americans may arm the Shammar, a Sunni tribe that controls a remote stretch of the border with Syria. Some American troops have misgivings, too, about arming people who may have killed their comrades. An American soldier’s blog records a telling conversation with a 1920 Revolution fighter. “Do you want to kill me?” asked the soldier. “Yes,” replied the former insurgent, without emotion. “But not today.”

Posted by: b | Oct 14 2007 18:10 utc | 11

Satire can’t even keep up with the regular news.
Fortune in fat
“A Norwegian businessman is looking to earn money on the fat of the land, and create fuel in the USA. Lauri Venøy wants to use the product created from liposuction to develop bio-diesel. Bio-diesel can be produced from plant oils and/or animal fat, and the Norwegian sees the scheme as a renewable energy source, newspaper Dagens Nærinsgliv reports.
More than sixty percent of Americans are overweight and the Norwegian’s firm in Miami, Florida is in the process of signing an agreement with US hospital giant Jackson Memorial. This deal would give Venøy & Co. around 11,500 liters of human fat a week from liposuction operations, which is enough to produce about 10,000 liters of bio-diesel.
Aften Posten
Israel asks U.S. foreign aid be paid in EUROS
“In the spirit of Yom Kippur, the United States will not hold Israel to any agreements obligating them to accept Dollars as payment for their foreign aid. We will translate our obligations into Euros or whatever currency that best fits Israel’s needs” Secretary Rice said in the Friday, Sept 21 announcement.”
wake up from yr slumber
Exteme levels of snow and spin mean that ppl can no longer tell the difference between spoofs, jokes, satire, and lies that are floated, well, sincerely, and should be paid attention to!

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 15 2007 18:00 utc | 12

Abu Risha was not killed because of The Database, the english translation for al-Qaeda. He was killed by the resistance because he was a traitor.

Posted by: Malooga | Oct 16 2007 10:26 utc | 13

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