I think it's a fatuous interpretation of her point to say she's equating those fighting the coalition in Iraq to the American revolutionaries. What she is saying, I believe, is more along the lines that an insurgency is only possible with the support of the people. That is, I don't believe the Iraqi farmers that are hiding weapons for the insurgents think, "I'm a terrorist!" Rather, they probably see themselves as supporting a cause that, at very least, does not merit resistance--especially when one can earn a year's income by doing the contrary. Does the fact that some people in Iraq admire the insurgents as heroes--or that most at least tolerate them as necessary--make the insurgents any more righteous? Of course not. But it doesn't exactly make our military's job any easier, either, even if we Americans can clearly label them as 'terrorists.'

...And yes, the American Revolution was an insurgency, by almost any definition of the word--at least at its onset. In fact, our use of snipers and other guerrilla tactics were just as barbaric a violation of the rules of war to the British as the insurgents' terror tactics are to us. That is to say, our freedom fighters were another nation's insurgency, it's true.

I just hope you're not so accustomed to over-simplifying other's ideas that you misinterpret my point as an avocation of the insurgents in Iraq. Rather, I hope that you recognize that in a counter-insurgency, above any other type of war, failure to understand where your enemy is coming from will only result in failure.

Okay...then should we ask, umm...well, should we ask "poonhound"?