Posted on 12/17/2004 11:21:13 PM PST by kattracks
THE LONG, twilight struggle against Islamo-fascism requires civilization to deploy numerous weapons against this implacable foe. As usual, these will include intelligence, covert operations, and high-tech armaments. But another vital tool is language. How Americans and our allies speak and write about this conflict will influence when and how victory will come.Here are five ways language can underscore the dangers of Islamic terrorism:
Victims of terrorism do not “die,” nor are they “lost.” People “die” in hospitals, often surrounded by their loved ones while doctors and nurses offer them aid and comfort. In contrast, innocent people were killed on September 11 at the World Trade Center, the Defense Department, and that field in Shanksville, Penn. in a carefully choreographed act of mass murder.
- Specify the number of human beings who terrorists destroy.
“3,000” killed on 9-11 is an amorphous blob. The actual number — 2,977 — forces people to regard these individuals as men and women with faces, stories, and loved ones who miss them very much.
The precise figures are 2,749 killed at the World Trade Center, 184 at the Pentagon, and 44 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Likewise, the Bali disco bombings killed 202 people, mainly Australians. The Madrid train bombings killed 191 men, women, and children. Somehow, a total of 191 people killed by al-Qaida’s Spanish franchisees seems more ominous and concrete than a smoothly rounded “200.”
- Quote Islamo-fascist leaders to remind people of their true intentions. Prominent Americans can explain how deadly militant Islam is and how seriously we should consider this toxic ideology. Far more impressive, however, is to let these extremists do the talking.
As Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri said in their 1998 declaration of war on the United States: “The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”
As the late Iranian dictator, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, stated in 1980: “Our struggle is not about land or water. . . It is about bringing, by force if necessary, the whole of mankind onto the right path.”
Khomeini, ever the comedian, said this in 1986: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.”
Asked what he would say to the loved ones of the 202 people killed in the October 2002 Bali nightclub explosions, Abu Bakar Bashir, the al-Qaida-tied leader of Indonesia’s radical Jemaah Islamiyah, replied, “My message to the families is, please convert to Islam as soon as possible.”
- Daniel Pipes of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (www.meforum.org) believes terror is a tactic, not an enemy. Calling today’s conflict “a ‘War on Terror’ is like America in 1941, after Pearl Harbor, declaring a ‘War on Surprise Attacks.’ We really are engaged in a war on radical Islam.”
- Jim Guirard runs Washington, D.C.’s TrueSpeak Institute. He has thought long and hard about terror and the English language. He says that more than three years into the War on Islamo-fascism, the State Department and the CIA still lack a glossary of the Arabic-language words that Middle Eastern Islamo-fascists use, as well as the antonyms for those words. Such a “Thesaurus of Terrorism” would help Civilization turn this war’s words upside down.
Why, for instance, do we inadvertently praise our enemies by agreeing that they fight a jihad or “holy war?” Instead, we correctly should describe them as soldiers in a hirabah or “unholy war.”
Guirard has many astute and valuable recommendations in this area. U.S. officials promptly should implement his common-sense proposals.
Civilization can and must win this showdown against these sadistic cavemen. We can and will crush them — through espionage, high-tech force, statecraft, and public diplomacy. We can and will vanquish them at home through eternal vigilance.
A key weapon should be something readily available to everyone who reads these words: The English language.
New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia. This is adapted from a speech at a December 2 Heritage Foundation seminar titled “What’s in a Name? The Debate Over Words in the War on Terrorism.”
Well said.
But then Pipes said it, so thats normal.
~ and ~
Ummmm, no; no it's not. I won't go into *what it is*, as I'd probably get in trouble... aw, what the heck:
Islam, The Cult of Murder™.
Islam, The Cult of Terror™.
Islam, The Cult of Boy-Buggering™.
Islam, The Cult of Women-Chattelling™.
Islam, The Cult of Horror™.
Islam, The Cult of Rape™.
Islam, The Cult of Ritual Killing™.
Islam, The Cult of Beheading™.
Islam, The Cult of Deviants™.
Islam, The Cult of Hate™.
Islam, The Cult of Lies™.
Islam, The Cult of Female Mutilation™.
Islam, The Cult of Death™.
Islam, The Cult of Christian & Jew Killing™.
Islam, The Cult of Infidel Murder™.
Islam, The Cult of The Mentally-Ill™.
Islam, the Cult of Evil™.
Islam, the Cult of Poverty™.
Islam, the Cult of Illiteracy™.
Islam, the Religion of Peace™, and THEY'LL KILL YOU TO PROVE IT!
Two things came immediately to mind as I read this well thought out piece. The killers who strap bombs to themselves are not suicide bombers. They are homicide bombers. Suicide is an individual, some would say selfish act. Homicide, while selfish in the least, involves the death of unsuspecting innocents. 9/11 was not a "tragedy" as is often voiced by those commenting on it, it was an attack on the US.
Yep. "Suicide Bomber" is just plain wrong. They should allow the families of the victims to sue the bomber's family (or supporting organization, or mosque, or imam, or Palestine itself) for damages.
Islam = Death
ping
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