The Word "Terrorist"

A lot of people have expressed dismay at the reluctance in parts of the media to us the word "terrorist."

However, it has struck me that in some contexts, it makes perfect sense to avoid using that word and to use words such as "extremist" or "militant" instead.

The thing is, terrorism is, first and foremost, a tactic. Identifying someone as a terrorist identifies the general type of tactics they are willing to use, and definitely indicates something about their morality or lack thereof, but it doesn't indicate much about what they are fighting for or what group they belong to. Nor does it offer specific information on the tactics that would be useful in noticing and catching such persons, the way that "bomber," "sniper," or "suicide bomber" does.

Also, I feel that we need to look at what we are fighting in broader terms than just "terrorism." If we are fighting Islamic extremism, we are fighting against all kinds of Islamic extremism that might hurt us, not just terrorism. Or put another way, terrorism is the tactic of our enemy, not his goal. We seek not just to reduce Islamic terrorism, but to reduce any threat they may pose.

In some ways, many on the neoconservative side are so concerned with using terms to remind us of the evil of the enemy that they make it more difficult to accurately identify the enemy or to see what it is we should be fighting.

This is also a problem with the term "homicide bomber." In an attempt to remind us that the enemy is murdering innocents, the term used to identify the tactic loses important information or else misreporesents it. That is, either "homicide bomber" refers exclusively to people who blow themselves up in order to kill others, in which case blowing other people up without blowing one's self up is not "homicide bombing," in which case the term "homicide" is essentially used to mean "suicide," or else we refer to all bombings that kill people as "homicide bombings," in which case the term we use doesn't include the important tactical information as to whether the bomb was set off remotely or as to whether we are dealing with people who are willing to die to kill us. Some people argue that we shouldn't care whether or not the terrorist blows themselves up, and should either mention it far down in articles describing the attack or not at all, because our concern should be for the victims and not the terrorist. But that is ridiculous. We want to know how the people were killed. We want to know the tactics that the enemy uses.

Propaganda for the purpose of demonizing the enemy is a fine thing in war, and can be used effecctively. But it should not be used at the expense of clarity.

That is all.