The Yugo-Forders, otherwise known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq”

“Huhhh?” you may be saying at this moment. Let me explain.

As Blue Girl posted below, mainstream media such as The New York Times seems too willing to conflate Al Qaeda in Iraq with a whole panoply of groups and splinter movements of Sunni and nominally Sunni terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, running from basically secular unreconstructed Baathists to and through various Falafists, whether called AQI or not.

In a political e-mail group on Yahoo, in response to one of Bush’s “there has to be a pony here somewhere” true believers, I started calling AQI “Yugo-Forders.”

I said, “You can slap a Ford badge on a Yugo; that doesn’t make it a Ford.”

I’m surprised he hasn’t come back with the “franchisee” counterargument, i.e., saying that a franchise 7-11 is just like a corporately owned store. I’ll shoot it down if he does, because the Yugo-Forders simply declared themselves to be “Al Qaeda in Iraq,” and that’s not the way 7-11 works. It would have nothing to gain by adopting every convenience store that calls itself 7-11 as being an actual 7-11.

If my metaphor sounds a bit clunky, try another one. But, we need to counter the incredulity, gullibility and BushCo stenography of the MSM with an alternative.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.