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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Terror and the English Language: Making use of a chief weapon. |
| 2005-03-07 |
| This is my first post, hope it is as informative for you as it was for me and makes as much sense! 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....Language can lull Americans to sleep in this new war, or it can keep us on the offense and our enemies off balance. Here are a few ways language can keep Americans alert to the danger Islamic terrorism poses to this country: September 11 was an attack, not just a string of coincidental strokes and heart failures that eliminated thousands of victims at once. Recall some of the words that soon followed the September 11 atrocity. Kinko's, for instance, placed in its copy shops some very colorful posters with the Stars and Stripes emblazoned across the lower 48 states. That graphic included this regrettable caption: "The Kinko's family extends our condolences and sympathies to all Americans who have been affected by the circumstances in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania." Circumstances? That word describes an electrical blackout, not terrorist bloodshed. Similarly, September 11 was tragic, but far more, too. "The September 11 tragedy" misses the point: Tornadoes cause tragedies, but they are not malicious, as America's enemies were that day, and still are. Victims of terrorism do not "die," nor are they "lost." They are killed, murdered, and slaughtered. Likewise, many say that people "died" in the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon. No, people "die" in hospitals, often surrounded by their loved ones while doctors and nurses offer them aid and comfort. The innocent people at the World Trade Center, the Defense Department, and that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were killed in a carefully choreographed act of mass murder. Specify the number of human beings who terrorists destroy. — "3,000" killed on 9-11 sounds like 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... ...Terrorists do not simply "threaten" us, nor does homeland security merely shield Americans from "future attacks." These things are true, but it is more persuasive to acknowledge what these people have done and hope to do once more: Wipe us out... ...Quote Islamo-fascist leaders to remind people of their true intentions... ...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-Qaeda-tied leader of Indonesia's radical Jemaah Islamiyah, replied, "My message to the families is: Please convert to Islam as soon as possible."... ...Is this a war on terror, per se? A war on terrorism? Or is it really a war on Islamo-fascism? It's really the latter, and Americans should say so. Daniel Pipes of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum 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 the TrueSpeak Institute in Washington, D.C. He has thought long and hard about terror and the English language. He recently informed me, to my horror, that more than three years into the war on Islamo-fascism, the State Department and the CIA have not produced 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."... |
| Posted by:Feher Majom |