LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as "resistance fighters," saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.

The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms "insurgents" or "guerrillas."

McCoy on Wednesday said that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints. The memo first surfaced on the Web site L.A. Observed (www.laobserved.com)

"(Times Managing Editor) Dean Baquet and I both individually had the same reaction when we saw the term used in the newspaper," McCoy said. "Both of us felt the phrase evoked a certain feeling, that there was a certain romanticism or heroism to the resistance."

McCoy said she considered "resistance fighters" an accurate description of Iraqis battling American troops, but it also evoked World War II -- specifically the French Resistance or Jews who fought against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.

"Really, it was something that just stopped us when we saw it, and it was really about the way most Americans have come to view the words," McCoy said. McCoy said she was confident that the Times reporters who used the term had no intention of romanticizing the Iraqis who have killed more than 100 U.S. soldiers since Washington declared major combat over in May, and that the paper's Baghdad bureau had no objection to the policy change.

The policy change reflects the highly politicized atmosphere surrounding the war in Iraq, which has brought charges of biased reporting from all sides of the political spectrum.

But David Hoffman, foreign editor of the Washington Post, said his paper had used the phrase "resistance fighters" to describe Iraqi forces and had no objection to the term.

"They are resisting an American occupation so it's not inaccurate," Hoffman said. "We try to be as precise as possible and distinguish whether they are former Baath party, Fedayeen, outsiders, insiders. But that's not always possible."

On Tuesday, the day after McCoy issued her memo, the paper used it in an editorial, which criticized the Bush administration for a lack of humility and candor over Iraq.

Maybe they should stop referring to the IDF and instead use accurate terms like assassination squads, occupation forces, colonial occupation troops, hit men, or, simply, terrorists.

You're talking about memebers of my family that drive ambulances and save Palestinian lives in your fucked up generalizations. My cousin is an IDF memeber who cleans up body parts from bloody bombings, Jewish and Arab. I wish it was you who had to go to work one day and found yourself suddenly intermingled with bus parts bloody on the street. You've never been there I'm sure, and you're probably too pussy to do anything but sit on this computer and bitch.

I just found the first reason to use the ignore button even though I don't believe in it. You have gone too far calling people I know who are in this army names like that. Do you even realise that these are real people, with lives, hopes, dreams, and jobs?

No, you see the only people who deserve a good life there as Palestinians right?

Maybe not every IDF soldier is perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more humane than the fucking Arab bastards who raped Jessica Lynch while she was unconscious and kill Arabs and Jews in Israel every bombing.

Wake up asshole. You are just being one sided and that is stupid. That seems to be a pattern here involving your ignorance of what it takes to protect yourself from terrorism. I'd like to put you on an Israeli bus someday and see how you lick my other cousins boots for being there with a gun to get you to your destination safely fucker. I'd like to see you kiss the feet of the three soldier women I met who went to Rabin Square this past weekend among 100,000 for a peace march.

And I'd also like to see you be a woman IDF soldier and be butt raped by Arabs in the Gaza strip when captured. How bout we change the name Palestinian to inbred, violent, terrorist, women hating, rapist, fuckers who kill their own people for trying to make peace. What was that racist? Geez, I was just trying to be like Meyer.

better get some tips from hex on remaining anon...

funny..mymicz

you mention peace marches in Rabin square

and killing ones own people BECAUSE they act for

peace (you spoke of Palestinians)

Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir

an Israeli

STOP THE HATE

does anyone notice that mymicz is starting to sounf like fresca?

you're a fuckin' idiot who believes and propagates ridiculous propaganda like the Jessica Lynch lies which she herself has denied. She is alive BECAUSE of sympathetic iraqi's, not because of some mythic rescue by the US Army. The rape story was added in as iceing on the cake by the same woman that fabricated the "babys killed in incubators by iraqi soldiers" story back in '91.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,956255,00.html

Regarding IDF, they routinely murder innocent civilians, enforce a warsaw style ghetto on palestinians, and bomb innocent people from Apache helicopters. In return, palestinians use the ugly suicide bombings against it's occupiers killing more innocent people. Give the palestinians guns, helicopters and tanks, then they wouldn't have to resort to the deadly and indiscriminate suicide bombings, but could face the IDF on its own terms.

He suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder - or is that Multiple Handle Disorder?

ain't that right Warren?

the right wing suffers from PTSD in the form of Warrenophobia.

IMC suffers from rightwingahphobia, with delusions of Fresca.......

Reuters, whose official policy is that Osama bin Laden is "another man's freedom fighter," reports that "the Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as 'resistance fighters,' saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism":

The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms "insurgents" or "guerrillas."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=45&u=/nm/20031106/ts_nm/iraq_usa_media_dc

The ban on the term "resistance fighters" doesn't apply throughout the paper, though: "On Tuesday, the day after McCoy issued her memo, the paper used it in an editorial, which criticized the Bush administration for a lack of humility and candor over Iraq."

The LA Times is such a liberal rag. The paper is about on par with National Enquirer.

Too bad, it used to be a decent paper and now it's no better than the NY Times -- a formerly great newspaper that has become nothing more than a delivery vehicle for the political agenda of it's publisher and editorial board.

Shame on them. There shouldn't have ever been a need to issue a memo like this. The reporters there shouldn't have used terminology like "Resistance Fighters" in the first place. The should have had a boss who would cut that stuff immediately and redress them for it.

Right. LIke they had at the official Nazi papers in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. He can tell the staff to refer to the IDF as "the good guys" and to the Arabs as "grasshoppers" (as one Israeli politician put it).

You mean reproach? Maybe you need some English lessons from some recent immigrant who has taken an English as a Second Language class.

Maybe the LAT will go all the way and name the resistance fighters with a non-English name. They'd be more threatening that way.

Of course they are "Resistance fighters".

They are resisting evolution.

They are resisting the 21st Century.

They are resisting the efforts to curtail their oppression of those weaker then them.

They are resisting their self-appointed power to hate and villify Jews and ALL non-muslims.

They sre definetly resisting.

000, have you been over there? Have you been to Gaza? Have you seen the aftermath of a bus or pizzaria explosion? Have you seen children shredded by nail-wrapped explosives, not because of what they've done, but because of what they are -- Jews?

Have you? No?

Then you're getting all your information from the media. Not firsthand like mymicz. And the media you believe is incredibly anti-Israel. "If it villifies Israel, it MUST be true!" Right? Hence the link to Al Guardian, as if it were a credible source.

Admit it...you fell for the "5,000 dead in Jenin" lie, didn't you? Because you WANTED to believe it.

And did you believe the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" hoax? (You DO know that was a hoax, right?)

So, I think we've pretty much established that you don't know what yer talkin' about, and mymicz does.

"does anyone notice that mymicz is starting to sounf like fresca?

Now that's rich.

First of all, you assholes, mymicz is on your side about virtually everything except this.

Second of all, as much as I'm flattered to be compared to her, she's much, much less cynical than I and much more compassionate.

Thirdly, she's probably the ONLY regular on this whole board, on either side, who has any first hand knowledge of all this.

You fools just shot yourself in the foot on this one.

It's so painfully obvious that you can't even conceive that someone who agrees with you on almost everything (it seems, at least) might not toe the uniform, "Israel is guilty for everything" line you all spew.

This is such a glowing example of how lockstepped you all are concerning your hatred of Jews and Israel.

That you actually support 100% non-political murderers such as hamas is enough to label you all scumbags or morons.

Either one.

You pick.

I am growing less and less compasionate daily, because some people are just too blind.

It's not about the IDF, or the PLO, although I can say both Sharon and Arafat should die.

It's about some assholes who make guns and bombs and money, lots of money.

Meanwhile a few stupid religious fanatics on either side go crazy cause they lost a loved one and make it about religion too.

The problem is, masses begin to wonder if this religion thing is real and then the warlords make more money, because stupid masses buy in.

Rabin's death was by far the saddest day in all the Middle East. It was comparable only to the assasination of the Kennedy brothers.

Once again someone who wanted to make money from war won.

When we make armies or people or religions our enemy, we let these profiteers win.

The IDF is comprised of every person in Israel.

Some are techno geeks, some are cooks, some are teachers, some abstain from war, and take punishments, like Netanyahu's nephew.

Some are handless, like my uncle who lost a hand in 73', some use their hands for good, like my cousins, one who drives the ambulance and delivers Palestinian, Ethiopian, Israeli, and Chinese babies, and the other who guards a daily bus route hoping not to be blown up.

Many ask to be stationed away from the border, because it is so dangerous.

80% of Israelis do not believe in settlements.

The remainder lives on them.

The portion of the 80% who support the wall itself, have probably all been touched by someone who was wounded ( they say Jews are only seperated by 3 degrees.).

Much the same way I can say the Palestinians who work in Israel do not condone suicide bombings, save the 20% who are fanatics or who have lost someone.

Does anyone here understand grief?

It is a cyclical process that demands retribution for all but the most faithful in Love.

It is the Hatfields and the McCoys with an instigating weapons salesman to fan the flames.

Everyone started it, everyone helps it along with each breath of hate.

Meyer is as guilty, for making me so mad to lose sympathy for the other side.

Because his generalizations indicate he has no grasp of the financial incentive of a neutral evil party, nor of the broad and sweeping way in which both sides have failed to adress the problems and propoganda of mutual hatred. It serves no purpose on Indymedia to target one group and say they are the cause, they should be stopped or killed or defunded.

There is no one group to target.

Defund the Israelis and 5 million Jews go into the water dead.

Where will human rights stand then?

Defund the Palestinians as terrorists and perhaps they will meet a similar fate in the dessert.

No good.

These two sides will push each other until the border becomes a wall higher than the sky.

It's not much use to talk about it.

The only thing we can do, that is more elavated than Meyer's name calling and generalizations, is to form alliances, like on survivor.

If G-d, or anarchy or cosmic force really meant it when they said, "love your neighbor,"

then only those among the Jews and Palestinians who have learned to do so in the face of adversity will survive by law.

Thank whoever Meyer don't live by me.

I wrote a story of a Palestinian woman who gave me water once in Jerusalem.

For those of you who have read Heinlen, she is now my water sister.

Make peace where you can, bit by bit.

Don't judge a people by a select few or even majority

( we Americans would sure be a bunch of rednecks) .

He that saves one life, it is as if he saves all.

My family is full of IDF soldiers who save lives.

I cannot imagine what it is to live in Israel.

Or the West Bank or Gaza.

To know that someone wants to kill you. Not for what you've done, but for what you are.

To dread the sound of sirens, and wonder where your family is when you hear them.

I don't have any unique or original solutions to the problem.

All I can do is pray that God blesses you all, and that His will be done.