Is the comparison of Iraqi insurgents with American's during the Revolutionary War a "fair" comparison?

Question

Have American's become the "Redcoats?"

Answer 1

In some sense, yes. But let's outline the main differences:

America has just recently invaded Iraq, and is literally imposing its own governmental doctrine onto the Iraqi people. Something which the Iraqis have no idea what to do with.

Let me offer this comparison: If Iraq sent an army to invade the U.S., and decided to impose its Muslim regime style of government, how would the Americans react? Probably with violence brought upon by fear of not knowing where this type of government is going to lead them.

Remember, fear and ignorance is what breeds violence.

Now, the Iraqi insurgents are reacting against the U.S. Forces mainly because of fear - they fear that their religion will be lost, their cultural and ideological values replaced by more American, capitalist, material values.

They fear that they will lose control of their country and that the U.S. will rob them of valuable assets (oil), and thus destroy any economic future they might have. (I don't know if that's what the government intends, but that's another story altogether.)

They can not achieve this through peaceful protest (that didn't work in the first place - nobody listened.) They can not achieve this through mediation, because the government in place in Iraq now is essentially managed by American liaisons.

So they have taken up arms to send a message out there: "Destruction of their way of life will not be tolerated." And they will attack anything that they see as a threat to their way of life, or their future as an independent economy. In essence, they are scared witless and do not know any other way of retaliating that hasn't been tried yet.

In this sense, they are not like the American Revolutionaries. The early Americans fought because they were retaliating against a tyrannic force that took away their rights shamelessly through taxation, intimidation, and invasion of privacy.

Iraqi insurgents fight mainly as a knee-jerk reaction to what they see as a potential threat of suppression of their culture and religious beliefs.

Answer 2

You can make some kind of comparison, however,in the case of the Colonies and Britain, it was more like the sons driving the father out of their house and back to his own.

Americans are not related to Iraqis. Thomas Jefferson thought the revolutionary spirit would spread across the world. That is nominally what is happening in Iraq, but they do not understand these concepts and American ideas of self-rule go against the teaching of Mohammad.

It would be more correct to compare the Iraqi insurgents to the French Revolution. Remember the French invented the guillotine for beheading activities to purge their population after the overthrow of the king?
Do you remember what pulled the French out of their purging? Actually, who? Napoleon!

Answer 3

It's not a very good one. American's during the Revolution didn't wantonly murder other Americans (even if the were Torries) and dump them in the street. The Bristish committed the bulk of the atrocities during the Revolution. Also many insurgents aren't Iraqi and you could only make that comparison if many Revolutionaries were Canadian.

Answer 4

in·sur·gent (n-sûrjnt) KEY

ADJECTIVE:

Rising in revolt against established authority, especially a government.
Rebelling against the leadership of a political party.

First of all, the Iraqi "insurgents" are NOT insurgents. They are remnants of Saddam's "elite" death squads, the military who abandoned their tanks (but not other weapons), and Ba'ath Party holdouts. They have been augmented with foreign terrorists who have come to Iraq to kill Americans. When they found out that killing Americans is difficult and risky, they went back to killing unarmed Iraqis, only targeting Americans as "targets of opportunity". They don't LIKE it when we convert their weapons caches back into schools and hospitals.

The American Revolution was an insurgency. The rebels did not terrorize their own populace, though they took a dim view of Tory spies. Loyalists went about their business relatively unimpeded.

No, the people we are fighting in Iraq are not insurgents, they are thugs, and characterizing their motives and actions as benign is disgraceful.

Answer 5

That comparison is ridiculous.

1) The revolutionary war was a fight for independence from an growingly oppressive mother country.

2) Iraq is a war between a liberating army trying to set up a nation for self-rule by defeating a global movement of religious fascists.

In both cases the American cause is the same.

You cannot use moral relativism selectively. If you want to embrace relativism then everything is justified. Everything.

-Aztec276

Answer 6

No, not until the "insurgents" stand up a government, put on uniforms and conform to the rules of war.

Until then they're nothing more than the "night riders" who formed up in the south after the Civil War.

Answer 7

No it is a very ignorant comparison, we were fighting for our independence, the iraq already is soverign and independent, the insurgent's in Iraq are fighting to just to kill, though some claimed they where fighting our occupation they fight Iraqi regulars now. By the way for the moron who answered earlier for the majority of the Revolution we had a recognized government 1777-1781 by most european powers, and the majority of the time we fought using standard european linear tactics, STUDY HISTORY BEFORE YOU GIVE STUPID *** ANSWERS.

Answer 8

Somehow. There're some similarities, like insurgency against a foreign power, guerrilla warfare, etc...

But I don't think that there are any similarities in the causes of the uprising, nor the values fought for, nor the "fairness" of the cause. Don't think Washington wanted to implement a islamofascist regime...

Answer 9

Not quite the motives are vastly different. In Iraq it's all about tribal scores needing to be settled. The revolution was about taxes and fair representation not about killing one religious sect or another. I think this would be more apparent to you if you read Lawrence of Arabia's time with the Arab's and there tribal infighting. He goes into great detail of his experience with them I think it would clarify things for you.

Answer 10

You are not an American, or you missed your history classes.
Maybe you're not that far in school yet. You'll study all that in the 6th grade.
Study the Revolutionary War, and events leading up to it.