Know Your Factions

One of the reasons why the American people seem to lack a clear understanding of what's going on in Iraq is the misuse of accurate terminology for the factions fighting in Iraq by the Republicans and by the mainstream media. Any non-American, non-Iraqi Military fighters are labeled al-Qaida in Iraq. Much of the problem is laziness, and the rest of the problem is a more nefarious, intentional shell game meant to divert Americans from the truth.

Two of the main offenders are President Bush and John McCain. These two continually mistake al-Qaida, who are Sunnis, with Shi'ites from Iran and other Shi'ite factions in Iraq, and then expect everyone to believe that these are innocent mistakes.

Steven Benen at The Carpetbagger Report takes a look at the mysterious phenomenon in a post called, "Intellectual laziness and the 'al-Qaeda Shorthand'".