News Speak
Sam Aurelius Milam III
Martha
Raddatz, a correspondent for ABC News, might say what she wants in private,
but as a journalist she should know better than to distort the meanings
of words in a news report. Nevertheless, on Washington Week in Review
on October 13, 2000, she did exactly that. Near the beginning of
her report, she lamented that the people killed during the attack on the
USS Cole, during the October 12 bombing, were just "kids". Maybe
she was just speaking rhetorically, but it didn't sound like it to me,
and the fact is that those weren't kids. They were adults, above
the "legal" age, responsible for their own decisions, and (presumably)
voluntary members of the Navy. Regret for their deaths is to be expected,
but to lament those deaths as the deaths of "kids" doesn't do them, their
colleagues, or the U.S. Navy any good. It just twists the meaning
of the word into a parody of itself. After all the weeping and wailing
about tobacco companies selling to "kids", gun companies arming "kids",
and movie companies marketing to "kids", a journalist ought to be more
careful than that.
Actually,
the misuse of the word kids by a journalist is mild next to a far
worse case of distortion of the language that has became evident during
the reporting of the same bombing incident. That is, the bombing
of the USS Cole has been routinely characterized as an act of terrorism.
It seems that the U.S. government has redefined terrorism as being any
successful act of aggression committed against U.S. "interests".
Substantially similar behavior by U.S. forces has been redefined as counterterrorism,
peacekeeping, retaliatory or preemptive strikes, law enforcement, and so
forth. In other words, the government's definition isn't based on
the nature of the act, but on the source and target of the act. I
would expect such disingenuous rubbish from the likes of President Clinton
or Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. However, I would expect
far better than that from Gwen Ifill, Jim Lehrer, Martha Raddatz, or Peter
Jennings. It's disappointing that they and all of their media colleagues
have meekly fallen in line with the government's jargon of deception.
Now,
let's get this straight. Terrorism is an armed attack on unarmed,
noncombatant civilians — theirs or ours. The same attack against
a military target isn't terrorism. It's combat. It's part and
parcel of military life and activities, especially regarding armed vessels
at sea. Military people don't get the luxury of claiming to be victims
of terrorism. All military facilities are, by definition, potential
targets. People manning them are expected to be prepared and alert.
The fundamental job of the military includes the use or threat of death
and destruction, and the risk of receiving the same goes with the territory.
People who won't accept that risk shouldn't be in the military. To
call the attack upon the USS Cole terrorism distorts the meaning of the
word into a mockery of itself, and can only indicate an intention to mislead
and brainwash the American People.
In
fact, the U.S. government has been committing acts of terrorism since its
inception. Examples abound. One recent instance of terrorism
by the U.S. government occurred on August 20, 1998, when the U.S. military
launched an unannounced cruise missile attack against the Shifa pharmaceutical
plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The facility was an unarmed, civilian facility.
It's as if China had launched cruise missiles at Wal-Mart. It was
an act of terrorism. It is entirely consistent with other acts of
terrorism that have, for years, routinely been committed by the U.S. government.
For that government to call any successful attack upon its own interests
an act of terrorism is an indication its incredible hypocrisy. The
U.S. government is the most powerful terrorist organization in the known
history of the world.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
frontiersman@ida.net |
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November 2000
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