Western media and 'T word'

If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and blows itself up in the midst of a crowded London train station causing mass casualties, it is likely a terrorist.

But if that same "duck" blows itself up on a crowded street in Netanya, it is a "militant" carrying out an "attack." At least according to the U.S. and British media, who still make a distinction between what happens here, and what has recently happened in London.

It seems that the news media have finally unwrapped the word terrorist from its hermetically sealed cocoon and let it spread its wings in their newspapers and websites in the wake of last Thursday's suicide terror attacks in London.

"The Times " of London Online Style Guide has this entry: “Remember, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

So, I guess British Islamic militants who blow themselves up are the Times' kind of terrorists. Here's a part of their latest story on the incident: "Four friends from northern England have changed the face of terrorism by carrying out the suicide bombings that brought carnage to London last week….Three of the men lived in Leeds and the immediate fear is that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes."

London's "Independent " newspaper, notorious for its slanted coverage about Israel, posted this headline on its website Wednesday: "The police's nightmare: home-grown terrorists."

The BBC , usually known for its reserve, has a heading on its website: "What happened: How the key incidents unfolded on London's day of terror."

Despite what seemed clear to us in Israel within the first few minutes of hearing what was happening in London, those news agencies had to be dragged kicking and screaming, as it were, into acknowledging that the four coordinated attacks last Thursday were in fact something other than a "power surge." An air of disbelief hung over those news organizations' early reports.

Nonetheless, by mid-week, with the attackers widely believed to be British citizens of Pakistani descent, the terms "terror" and "terrorist" were popping up in unusual places on those sites.

Even the U.S. media have gotten into the act. USA Today , in a dispatch from London, said: "In a breakthrough in their investigation, police arrested a man Tuesday in connection with last week's terrorist bombings."

The New York Times led its website with this headline on Wednesday: "4 From Britain Carried Out Terror Blasts, Police Say."

Not so in their coverage of the latest suicide bombing in Israel, which has left at least four Israelis dead as of Wednesday.

"The Guardian " reported that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas "will be urged by the Israelis to show that he is cracking down on militants."

The BBC said: "Tuesday's attack in the Israeli town of Netanya was claimed by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad."

USA Today wrote: "A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three women and injured at least 30 other people in the coastal city of Netanya on Tuesday evening in an attack that ended five months of relative calm in the region. In response, Israeli forces raided the Palestinian town of Tulkarm early Wednesday, killing one police officer who fired on troops hunting down Islamic Jihad militants believed responsible for the bombing…"

The New York Times also did its best not to use the T-word: "A Palestinian suicide bomber set off his explosives Tuesday evening at a busy intersection outside a shopping mall here, killing himself and two women and wounding more than 50 people, the Israeli police said."

Fellas, try this definition of terrorism from "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition," on for size: "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

It seems pretty simple to me: If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and employs the unlawful use of force or violence against people with the intention of intimidating societies, it is a terrorist, whether it is quacking in London, New York, Madrid or Netanya.

"Fellas, try this definition of terrorism from "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition," on for size: "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." "

“Unlawful” huh? Who makes the laws, especially when terrorism crosses national borders? So were the founding fathers “terrorist” by that definition? French resistance? US backed Nicaraguan Contras?

Virtually any military act falls under that definition of terrorist since they all violate someone’s “laws”. This gives validity to the claim that one man’s terrorist is another man’s revolutionary.

In my mind the distinction is that terrorist "target civilian" people or property, and insurgents, guerillas, revolutionaries, insurgents, militants etc... target military and government people and property.

For all the this administration has accomplished in this War on Terror, how the hell does one prosecute a war on something without defining it first! How the hell does someone pry supporters away from our enemy if they can’t be certain that we’ll include in our next application of the vague definition of enemy?

Both sides can claim civilian casualties, brutality and illegality in propaganda, but no one can support widespread targeting of civilians by coalition forces. We can’t claim the moral high ground if we can’t define it, and that requires a specific delineator between our efforts and those of our enemy. That distinction can’t be legality because there's no world law. It can’t be brutality on civilians because for every headless civilian we can show they can show a blown up civilian. But we aren’t targeting civilians, and people willing to see the difference in our intentions can see the difference.

We need to make that difference the focal point of what separates us from terrorist, the foundation of what makes us good and Islamist evil and give every human life on the planet a clear opportunity to decide what side they want to live or die on.

What it really amounts to is immoral Machiavellian thinking. The BBC is saying if the cause can be deemed just then blowing up innocent children and civilians is not a bad thing. They, unlike conservatives, refuse to call evil what is evil. Killing civilians for the sake of invoking terror is evil.

Once someone commits terrorism I don't give a flying you know what if their cause was just or not. I don't care. I don't want to know. They attacked and killed civilians. End of story. They are dogs. They are evil.

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