In CNN's latest article on the Beslan slaughter (Footage shows school siege drama), they at least use the word "terrorists," but you will not find "Islam" or "Muslim" or "Islamist" or anything of the kind -- even though the "Chechen rebels" want their own muslim state ruled by Islamic laws.
Daniel Pipes examines why the "masked gunmen" who murdered over 150 children are not being prominently identified by the media as Islamic terrorists: They're Terrorists -- Not Activists.
Politically-correct news organizations undermine their credibility with such subterfuges [as using euphemisms for terrorist]. How can one trust what one reads, hears, or sees when the self-evident fact of terrorism is being semi-denied? Worse, the multiple euphemisms for terrorist obstruct a clear understanding of the violent threats confronting the civilized world. It is bad enough that only one of five articles discussing the Beslan atrocity mentions its Islamist origins; worse is the miasma of words that insulates the public from the evil of terrorism.
And The Wall Street Journal examines why so many continue to look for causes of terrorism other than Islamist ideology: The Children of Beslan.
In the face of such horror, who can offer up any shred of justification? Yet that is precisely what has happened in the wake of every terrorist event the world has seen in recent years. By such lights, terrorism is viewed as a political act, intended to draw sympathetic attention to a cause -- in this case the brutal Russian occupation of Chechnya.Post-9/11, there were those who "explained" the attacks by blaming U.S. policy in the Mideast as behind the "desperation" of the hijackers. After the Madrid bombings, half the Spanish electorate effectively blamed their nation's participation in the war in Iraq by voting out the government that supported the U.S. In the wake of every suicide bombing in Israel, that country's policy on Palestinians is deemed responsible in many quarters, especially in Europe. Post-Beslan, who is prepared to blame the children?
UPDATE I -- September 9: This cartoon appears in today's edition of Investor's Business Daily.
UPDATE II: Jeff Jacoby writes: Where is the Muslim outrage?. (Via Little Green Footballs)
They are still burying the victims of the latest atrocity committed by evildoers professing Islam -- the slaughter of hundreds of children, teachers, and parents in an elementary school in Beslan, Russia. And from Muslims the world over, as usual, has come mostly silence. There have been no public demonstrations by Muslims anxious to make it clear how outraged and sickened they are that anyone could commit such unspeakable deeds as an act of Islamic faith. There has been no anguished outcry by Islam's leading imams and sheiks. Prominent Muslim organizations in the West have not called press conferences to express their disgust and anger. Once again the world has witnessed a savage episode of Islamist terror, and once again it strains to hear a convincing rejection of the terrorists from those who should care most about Islam's reputation.
Jacoby lists one very noteworthy exception. Read the whole thing.
Posted by Forkum at September 7, 2004 09:53 PM
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