RantingProfs - STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Two and a half years after September 11th, Reuters is sticking to its policy of not using the word "terrorist." And so in this article about the American spring offensive in Afghanistan, bin Laden himself is a "militant" and in the dead tree version there is even reference to "guerrillas," a particularly egregious choice. Because while I can make a strong argument that the word "militant" makes an argument by ducking an argument, guerrilla is a word with a precise meaning, unlike the more amorphous "militant."
They aren't just taking sides in a debate here. They're assuming very specific technical facts that are most definitely not in evidence. And all to take being politically correct to the most absurd logical extreme imagineable. But, hey, they are sticking to their guns. So give them credit for something. Just not much.
Update: Where exactly are the guerrillas in Spain? Yet Reuters actually uses that word to refer to the Madrid attack ("worst ever guerrilla attack" blah blah blah) despite the fact that no one knows at this point who is responsible.
Think about that. Now, you could make an argument I suppose, a bad argument, but an argument just the same, that ETA was a guerrilla group. But the very fact that this word is used before they know whether ETA was even responsible demonstrates the utter intellectual vacuity of this position, that they would use a word that could maybe, possibly, perhaps, be stretched to include ETA because it is a secular movement that sees itself as fighting a war of independence to simultaneously cover the completely nihilistic al Queda, which wants only to ratchet up the body count. |
