Denial and Euphemism about Terrorism

It’s hard to imagine how the press can report anything accurately when it goes to such great pains to paper over the facts.

In Mumbai, Islamic terrorists gunned down civilians randomly except for the instances in which they specifically targeted Jews. But the media avoid calling them terrorists, omit Islam as a factor, stretch for ways to blame the event on the United States, and wonder why such a thing could happen after Obama’s election. This last sentiment demonstrates that some reporters must really believe terrorism began with George Bush and will end with the expiration of his term.

Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman chronicle some of the euphemisms and focus on the efforts to paint the torture and murder of Jews at Chabad as happenstance.

Contrary to these fantasies, the all-too-obvious truth is now being confirmed:

* The Times of India reported that some of the terrorists, claiming to be Malaysian students, rented nearby space in order to scout out Chabad.

* The Indian doctor who conducted the post-mortems related in a shaken voice that: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th [the first day of the attacks] itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed.”

* The only captured terrorist, Ajmal Kamal, confessed under interrogation that his fellow murderers were specifically ordered to target the Jews killed at Chabad.

A couple of days ago I noted the story of the photographer who said he wished he had a gun instead of a camera. Cooper and Brackman conclude with this:

One cameraman who saw armed police refusing to open fire on the Mumbai terrorists lamented that he didn’t have a gun instead of a camera. Yet what the world desperately needs today is not armed media, but reporters brave enough to tell the truth.

That’s a good point, although I would not have used the cameraman as a point of contrast. We need a lot of things, including reporters brave enough to tell the truth. But lack of bravery does not seem to be the real cause of this euphemistic and selective reporting. Rather, it is hubris that compels the media to attempt to shape events, to act as gatekeepers of facts and arbiters of the truth. In that role, they seem curiously intent on acting in ways designed to mollify the public and keep them from devising effective means of protect themselves from the scourge of Islamic terrorism.