Iraq executes 'terrorists' for murder and rape

The Bush regime has been so successful at devaluing language that even ordinary, though violent, criminal acts can be described now as "terrorism."

Iraq has executed 27 people it describes as "terrorists" for the crimes of rape and murder.

Reuters reports:

The convicts came from a number of Iraq's 18 provinces, the government said in a brief statement issued late on Wednesday.

"The death penalty was carried out on 27 terrorists in Baghdad, they were executed after the criminals were convicted in Iraqi courts for carrying out acts of murder and rape," it said.

Certainly, the Iraqi government should punish rapists and murderers. But, only in the broadest possible sense can a rapist or a murderer be described as a terrorist, as the word was once commonly understoond.

In the post-9/11 world it is obvious that common understandings cannot be taken for granted. In the post-9/11 world, anybody who opposes the Bush administration, or its surrogates, is a traitor. Or a fascist. Or a communist. Or a terrorist.

Nouri al Maliki has learned well from his padrone. If every violent criminal is a terrorist, then there will always be a justification for emergency powers to fight terrorism. It's called job security.

The conceit of the Bush administration's foreign policy has been the claim that the goal was to export American democracy to the unenlightened people of the world. What we have exported to Iraq does not resemble democracy as it is commonly understood. However, it does bear a remarkable likeness to American democracy as George W. Bush seems to understand it.