Talk:Al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia

The translation makes all the difference in the world. Using the preposition "in" ("in Iraq") implies a connection between an external Al-Qaeda (notably the one that planned the attack on the US on 9/11) and alleges its operation inside Iraq. (More on prepositions is here.) Using "in" also creates an ambiguity, especially when spoken: is the speaker referring to Osama bin Laden's group, moved to operate within Iraq, or to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's indigenous Iraqi group? It can be impossible to tell -- which may reflect the intention of certain speakers.

Early translations clearly used "Al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia", and many leading news sources still do (including Bloomberg, New York Times, International Herald Tribune). E.g.:

"A new terrorist group inside Iraq has named itself -- conveniently for Bush's purposes -- al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia. But they had nothing to do with 9/11 since they didn't exist at the time."

"The Mujahedeen Shura, an umbrella group that claims Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia as a member, said in a statement posted on the Internet that the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had slaughtered the two Americans."

"A former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia who was killed last summer, Mr. Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia along with Mr. Zarqawi in the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat"

"Military intelligence officials said that Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia's leaders wanted to expand their attacks to other countries."

The choice of language here is crucial. DBrnstn 03:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * My redirecting the article just has to do with Wikipedia's policies; I have no idea what the appropriate title for this article should be. If you want to change the title of an article, what you need to do is discuss it on the article's talk page (Talk:Al-Qaeda in Iraq, no one is looking at this page) and then, if you can get everyone to agree with you, move the article to a new title using the "move" tab at the top of the article (next to "history").  Creating duplicate articles like this leads to all sorts of problems that you can probably imagine.  I hope this is clear.--P4k 03:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)