The editors of the Dalles Morning News made a brave and historic decision: No longer will they refer to the terrorists in Iraq as "insurgents". Let's hope this becomes a trend.
Here an exerpt from the Friday, July 15 editorial entitled
Call Them What They Are: Those who murder Iraqi civilians are terrorists:
Today, this editorial board resolves to sacrifice another word – "insurgent" – on the altar of precise language. No longer will we refer to suicide bombers or anyone else in Iraq who targets and kills children and other innocent civilians as "insurgents."
The notion that these murderers in any way are nobly rising up against a sitting government in a principled fight for freedom has become, on its face, absurd. If they ever held a moral high ground, they sacrificed it weeks ago, when they turned their focus from U.S. troops to Iraqi men, women and now children going about their daily lives.
Read it all.
In reply, I sent the following letter to the editor:
As an American abroad, I applaud your decision to relegate the word "insurgent" to the dustbin. We live in a time when we can truly be proud to be Americans – when the brave men and women of our Armed Forces are the ones spreading freedom throughout the world. Those who kill the innocent to prevent the march of freedom cannot be called insurgents or militants. Whether in Iraq, Israel, the UK or elsewhere, they must be recognized for who they are.
Hat tip:
LGF.
UPDATE July 19:
The letter was chosen for publication with the headline "Our military spreads freedom". It is available on the
Dalles Morning News site (probably only available for one week, registration unfortunately required).
I have some linguistics posts to make.
