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TERRORISM

                                             December 4, 2006


Daniel Okrent boldly announced that
he thinks that the New York Times has         New York Times, March 6, 2005
been too timid about using the word           "The War of the Words:
"terrorist" in, say, talking about a          A Dispatch From the Front Lines"
PLO bombing that kills a bunch of
civilians.

  This completely missed the real
  problem with the common use of
  the word.  Terrorists are people            Or pick a more literal 
  who target innocent, civilian               definition, if you like:
  populations, correct?  So that              "Shock and Awe" -- 
  means you should use the word               doesn't that sound like 
  to describe Israel's assault                an attempt at inducing 
  on Lebanon, right?                          terror?

     Are you not allowed to
     call them terrorists
     because:

         o  They're killing *lots* of civilians
            and terrorists are pipsqueaks who
            only kill by the dozens.

         o  They're doing it with US
            weapons.

         o  They claim they're not targeting
            civilians.

            (Somewhere or other in                      THE_TRUE_FISK
            the thousand Lebanese
            dead, there may be a
            few members of Hezbollah.)

                                                                    
                       "Yet the fact that Hezbollah fighters        
                       mingled with the civilian population in      
                       some places does not mean that all attacks   
                       on civilians were justified. If that were    
                       the case, it might also be argued that       
                       attacks on Israeli cafés and buses are
                       justified because Israeli soldiers           
                       patronize cafés and ride buses. Such a 
                       stance would clearly be monstrous."

                                          -- Aryeh Neier
                                             
                                             http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19500



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